Putting an End to Child Voting

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Robert Ringer

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While everyone is caught up in nonexistent Russian collusion, high-level government leaks to the media, and palace intrigue, I thought it would be a good time give you some relief and focus on something longer term but much more substantive — the need to repeal the 26th Amendment, which gives 18 year old children the right to vote.  (No, they shouldn’t be fighting in wars, either.)

In researching this, I reviewed an interesting article on the University of Rochester Medical Center’s website titled “Understanding the Teen Brain.”  The piece pointed to recent research which found that the rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed, and won’t be fully developed, until at least age 25.

Scientists have long known that adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational compartment, which is the area that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences.  Teens, however, process information with the amygdala, which is the emotional part of the brain.

Thus, when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they often can’t explain later what they were thinking.  That’s because they weren’t thinking at all; they were feeling.  It’s a result of their frontal lobes not being fully developed, because the frontal lobes control decision-making, rational thinking, judgment, and the ability to plan ahead and resist impulses.

As I read this, my mind harkened back to 1968 and Bobby Kennedy’s presidential run against an incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, for the Democratic nomination.  Kennedy was a corrupt and dangerous man who, like all Kennedys, lived his life by one set of rules while insisting that others live by rules that he deemed to be right for them.

It’s scary to think what would have happened to America had Kennedy not been assassinated.  I believe he would have been a shoo-in to become president (especially considering the fact that incumbent Lyndon Johnson decided not to run again), and probably would have succeeded in transforming the U.S. into a full-fledged socialist country decades before Barack Obama came on the scene with his fundamental-change plans.

Kennedy was considered a champion of that greatest of all political scams, “social justice,”  a catchall euphemism for the idea that any thugs powerful or clever enough to gain control of the government have the moral authority to decide what is unjust, which persons have been treated unjustly, and who should be forced to help those whom they believe to be victims of any such injustice.

Of course, rational adults realize that in reality there is no such thing as social justice in the absolute sense of the term.  That’s why such an abstract concept can only be implemented by force, which in turn requires the jackboot of iron-fisted leaders with such melancholy names as Zedong, Stalin, Castro, and Minh.

While RFK, like Obama, attracted left-wing radicals from many sectors of society, the group I most identify with him is young adults.  The kids who voted for BHO in 2008 and 2012 are two generations removed from Bobby Kennedy’s adoring, youthful supporters, but, like their predecessors, they, too, got caught up in the save-the-planet, anti-business, spread-the-wealth hysteria.

Voters in the 18 to 29 age group voted in favor of Obama by a whopping 66-31 percentage spread.  And since they comprised 20 percent of the number of people who voted, they were able to put a totally unqualified social-justice guy into the White House, with no comprehension whatsoever that his policies were a threat to their own futures.

Thus, Obama’s ascendancy to the power throne was made possible by millions of young adults whose brains were not even physiologically capable of making rational decisions!  And the kiddies darn near did the same for Hillary by giving her 55% of their vote.  Very scary stuff.

Voting for people to govern other human beings is, at best, a questionable and corrupt process — a process that is all about lies, mudslinging, deceitfulness, pandering, and, yes, bribery.  But if we must elect officials to govern us, I would at least like to see as much of the irrationality expunged by having the 26th Amendment repealed.

In fact, I would like to see an amendment that would require voters to be at least 30 years of age.   It seems to me that even though research indicates that the brain is fully developed by age 25, the newly formed adult brain should be given a reasonable period of time to experience enough life to be in a position to shed itself of the bad habits it has developed over a period of 25 years.

This is particularly true if a young adult has made the mistake of going to college and subjecting himself to large doses of misinformation about history, economics, and the original intent of the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

Of course, there are exceptions to all this.  Some people actually are mature enough to vote at 18, while others are not mature enough to vote at 40.  Life is imperfect, so you have to make arbitrary judgments about a lot of things.

But the one thing I can say with certainty is that 30 is a whole lot better than 18 when it comes to knowledge, wisdom, common sense, and, above all, rational thinking.  And if 30 isn’t possible, I’d settle for age 25 over age 18.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but once Trump gets the economy exploding, gets the leaks under control, and gets Mueller the Malicious One out of the way, I’d like to see him send the left into hysterics by proposing a repeal of the 26th Amendment and revoking the voting rights of impressionable kids who are still emotionally attached to tree-hugging, global-warming fantasies, transgender politics, and the many marvelous benefits of socialism.

As Voltaire warned, “Men will stop committing atrocities when men stop believing absurdities.”  And for the most part, because their brains are not fully developed, young people tend to believe many more absurdities than adults with fully developed brains.

Perhaps all this is nothing more than wishful thinking on my part, but, then, stranger things have happened … like, for example,  Donald Trump becoming president of the United States.

Robert Ringer

Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.