Being under 18 shouldn't make you a slave

Appeal to authority.

This, folks, is what we call "projection".

As an actual Illuminati Primus I think I can honestly make that claim.

How do they know?

They need it like trees need Dutch Elm disease.

Any effort to make someone learn something is in actuality destructive to real learning.

 

Is my name Ragnar Redbeard?

 

An arbitrator in a legal dispute, on the basis of presumption of competence.

Who made all the judgments of all the things you assume to be true, and on what basis?

You said "poor and uneducated workers are more likely to be exploited." If the fact that child workers may be "exploited" justifies banning children from working, shouldn't the fact that poor workers may be exploited justify banning the poor from working? That's the logical trajectory of these ideas.

Sloppy thinking = sloppy language.

Appealing to "experts." Another refuge of the terminally narrow. Again, children who work work for the same reason grown-ups do: because they need money. If they don't need money, a law is irrelevant. If they do, you're cruelly stripping them of their source of income. You don't need an "expert" to tell you that.

I want everyone to be dictator over his own person and property. Nice try evading the fact that you just openly admitted that you don't think logic matters.

Yes, you did. You said, "forcing kids to eat their peas is a violation of the Geneva convention!!??" implying that it would be absurd to oppose forcing a "kid" (someone under the arbitrary age of 1 to eat peas, i.e. force-feeding him.

You simply like to rant, don't you, without thinking of the meaning, rationale, internal coherence, or logical implications of what you're saying? Sloppy thinking = sloppy language.

A leftist who supports deregulating laws prohibiting child labor? Sloppy thinking = sloppy language.

Listened to how the ancient Egyptians pulled corpses brains through their noses with hooks? I really think bagging groceries would have been more productive.

I understand that to you, the word "education" doesn't actually mean acquiring knowledge and skills necessary to be self-sufficient but rather having a piece of paper for sitting at a desk hearing (I won't say "learning" or "listening") about ancient Egyptians' hooks. Some of us define it differently.

 

You do sprout a lot of garbage, can I ask a question? Do you ever think before you write, just the "Look at each individual case", wow, if every kid under 15 say who wants to work had to go before an arbitrator any fiscal benefits you may achieve but employing a child would be swallowed up by the enormous cost.

Other garbage, that the industrial revolution ended child labour, hey it still goes on in some countries. Sweat shops manned by children were common in industrialised countries. Capitalists really do not care if children are used, forests are destroyed, rivers dried up or polluted, it is after all "The Bottom Line" that counts.

NOT

 

No, they wouldn't need to go before an arbitrator unlessthere was a legal dispute. This is already how it's done for everyone over 17. There's a presumption of competence but if it can been shown they're not competent for some disputed contract or other matter, that influences the legal decision. In the case of children, most of these matters would be dealt with by the parents for so long as the child lives under their roofs. It would never go to court unless someone was disputing the arrangement, parent, child, employer, or outside party.

Those countries are poorer than our own, decades behind. They did not experience the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago. For the umpteenth time, children (and adults) who work in "sweatshops" do so because THEY NEED THE MONEY. How cruel/ignorant are you people to steal food money from the hands of impoverished children? Oh, yes, let's just let them go without food; that's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more "compassionate."

And this is just the same old market-hating drivel we've all heard a gazillion times.

 

Then it must hold water, eh what? Of course it does lol, because only a fool cannot see that it is true.

 

And if a person is incompetent, they are ignorant of the protections that raising a legal dispute would allow them to avail of.

To argue as you do, that incompetents could simply avail themselves of the protections of the courts, and that solves the problem of contracting with minors, suggests very strongly that you do not understand the legal definition of incompetence.

 

No substantive argument, I guess.

 

It's suggests you don't understand it, since, for the umpteenth time, what I'm suggesting is precisely how its already done for everyone OVER 18, millions of whom are mentally incompetent. If this is your opinion, why aren't you railing against how the judicial system deals with those millions of mentally disabled adults?

Normally, of course, such people have relatives who are the ones who go to court to have the individual placed under their legal guardianship. And young people normally have parents whom they are financially dependent upon and whose property they live on, who would be involved in virtually any legal dispute regarding them. If young people went to court on their own over their competence, it would most likely be to lobby for emancipation from their parents, in cases where the parents were forcibly trying to keep control over them when they didn't want or need it.

 

well we agree on ONE thing: sloppy thinking equals sloppy writing.

you "Openly admit" that all you learned in all the years you were at school is that the ancient Egyptians used hooks to pull the brains out of corpses in the process of mummification.

I am not sure how you learned to read and write (I know you can write, the reading part? eh..) but whatever...

you spout total nonsense about stuff you admit you don't know then excuse it with "everyone should just decide facts on their own, everyone's opinion is equally valid"

so: historical fact tells us that sweatshops came into existance because of the Industrial Revolution and that human nature is to exploit those that are weaker. Scientific fact tells us that the human brain does not develop fully until the midtwenties, so children are physically unable to evaluate risks and make life choices...

and all you have on YOUR side of the argument are insults, wild exagerations, and your own personal opinion.

 

for the umpteenth time, there is proven, observable differences in adults and children. you admit that there are already systems in place for the rare occassion a child needs to be 'emancipated'.

the vast majority of adults are fine on their own..the vast majority of kids are not.

 

*sigh*

good grief...are there NO adults on this forum at all?

sure it is...I mean look at yourself, if no one had taught you to read and write, we wouldn't have to read this drivel...ok, you've convinced me!

 

well since you don't offer anything other than one liners and mockery, who knows what your viewpoint is?

I mean, I know in your mind, it's probably like "way cool" and like "totally rad" and such but it doesn't tell me anything about your point of view.

 

Having an adult declared incompetent and having a legal guardian assigned is a lengthy, expensive court process. By declaring everyone presumed competent, you would be forcing millions of parents to go through that process (and, since incompetence is usually a permanent finding, forcing them to go through it twice when the child grows up). Forcing them to do this, merely to establish what everyone already knows - a kid cannot contract equally with an adult.

You are complaining that the occasional emancipation proceeding is unreasonable, yet by presuming competence in children you force millions more legal proceedings. It makes no sense. Do you have any idea how many mental competence (in NY they're called "Article 81") proceedings are held annually, versus how many children there are in the United States? It's not even close.

And, once more, you presume that a young person would have someone looking out for them. How long would an unconscionable cell phone contract go on for, for example, before the parent discovered it and took action? Courts are not a perfect remedy, either. Much would be lost to unscrupulous actors who simply get away with it.

All of these problems for what? What is the benefit of your preposterous, unwieldy, unnecessarily litigious solution? As you helpfully point out, most children have parents or others who provide for them. They don't need the ability to contract in most cases. And, if they do, there is emancipation.

You seek to create a system which would cause huge problems for millions of families, huge additional legal costs, and potential criminal implications (negating the age of consent in sexual cases, for example), in response to a problem that exists only in the minds of precocious teenagers who think they know everything.

 

I'm not sure how you think everyone learned to read and write before the government started building "free" schools in the mid-19th century.

Child labor in harsh conditions was around long, long before the Industrial Revolution, back until the beginning of time, in fact. It only ended when the economy grew enough to end it, which was thanks to the Industrial Revolution. It didn't happen overnight, of course, but the only reason the government could even get away with banning child labor after the IR was because of all the economic growth that had occurred during it. The Industrial Revolution wasn't the cause of hard labor; it was the cure.

There go you again, with your collectivist group analysis. You haven't even defined "children" versus "adults" yet. If we assume it's everyone over 18 versus everyone under 18, are you arguing that every single person in the the world who is 18 years and 1 day old is more mentally competent than every single person in the world who is 17 years and 365 days old?

Again, that is the logical implication of your argument, which is the same as saying that, since there are observable general differences between women and men, that justifies treating them differently in a legal context. When of course, it does not. General differences between groups should not be relevant to how the unique individual is treated under law.

 

Anyone who still thinks young people are using slang terms like "totally rad" (assuming they ever did) must be a real old duffer.

 

Do you think lots of 3 years old are going to be running out to take out bank loans? Do you think any bank owner will risk giving a 3 year old a loan? Do you think if this does somehow happen and the child's mom stops him, the child's going to sue her for emancipation in court? Do you think the bank owner will risk suing her rather on the basis of the 3 year old's competence rather than give her her money back. Do you think if this does somehow go to court, it would take up any more court time than a criminal case over a bank giving a 3 year old a loan in real life?

It's unreasonable not because it takes up too much court time but because its unfair. It's as unfair to assume all 17 year olds are incompetent as it is to assume all 97 year olds are.

You're just arguing the logistics, but as I keep telling you, you won't have a court case for everyone under 18. You would only have one when there is a dispute with one party claiming the individual is competent and the other one arguing that the individual is incompetent. In the vast majority of cases, there would be no dispute, so no court case. The parents would just raise the child until the child was self-sufficient. Then the child would exercise his own rights without interference from the parents.

Also, there would be no more court cases or criminal prosecutions based on someone doing something despite not having reached some age number or another. You'd get rid of all those cases. So essentially you'd just be replacing one set of court cases for another, based on a fairer standard.

I do, in most cases, as do you. Otherwise, you wouldn't say that parents should be presumed to have the competency to have parental rights over their children. Who do you think would be paying the cell phone bill. If the child is financially dependent on the parents, the parents are paying all the bills. If the child has an independent source of income great enough to purchase a cell phone, well, then the child who self-sufficient enough to have such an income is likely competent enough to purchase a cell phone.

You wouldn't make this argument, would you, if we were about to pass a law declaring all 97+ year olds incompetent because it's more convenient? The 97+ year olds would complain, of course, but so what? Those senile old coots always think they know everything.

 

Since you haven't yet proved all minors are as incompetent as you say they are, that isn't a valid argument.

 

To me it doesn't. May just be because of my profession.. but to me it appears to be the typical pedophile whining that he can't legally have sex with children.. under the guise of advocating for children's rights.

Transparent as glass quite frankly.

 

Everyone who is one day old is a child and is less mentally competent than an adult. We tolerate, account for, and forgive childish behavior for 18 years after that point. By the time folks approach 18 we assume they have matured and entirely remove the societal training wheels when they cross that line. If individuals find a need for removing those training wheels sooner, there is a process. If other individuals have managed to mature so slowly that they hit the generous limit of 18 years unprepared to act as adults -- tough. The age of maturity isn't when the transformation to adulthood occurs, it's just when society runs out of patience in waiting for the transformation to happen.

 

There's a vast gulf between 1 day old and 17 years, 364 days old. People mature at different rates; maturity is a spectrum of grey, not an on/off switch that's flicked on the stroke of midnight on your 18th birthday.

The process should be the same that it if for 98 year olds. If there's a legal dispute and someone claims the the 98 year old is mentally incompetent and it's relevant to the dispute, the court analyzes the 98 year old (typically using a psychologist) and makes a judgment. There is absolutely no reason on this Earth why it should be any different for a 17 year old or even for a 1 day old. It's just much more easy to show that 1 day olds are mentally incompetent, at least every one I've met.

 

Maybe you're profession (whatever that is) is skewing your perspective to assume that everyone advocating for children's rights wants to have sex with children.

 

Which is why we offer a tremendously generous period of 18 years by which we require people to have matured. The stroke of midnight isn't the moment when we expect you to mature, it's the limit by which we require you to mature.

The difference is the 98 year old exhausted his grace period by 80 years. He's now an adult and finding an adult mentally incompetent is quite different. It's the difference between acknowledging that someone has developed into something they never were before and acknowledging the loss of something that has existed for at least 80 years. Everyone goes through the former process, only a few of us face the latter. That latter process bears much graver consequence justifying the more demanding and expensive measures involved.

 

... and maybe he's right. Interesting that you didn't assert one or the other.

 

I don't think everyone is.. I just think the people here do.. yourself included btw. People who are truly advocating for childrens rights are advocating for children to be protected from adults who want to have sex with them or exploit them... not arguing that children should be able to legally have sex with adults if they want to or who would prefer that children be able to legally choose to live outside of the protection of parents.. where predators will have easier access to them and not have to worry about the parents in the grooming process,.