Under the plan, designed to combat voter apathy, parents would be entitled to cast the additional ballot on their child’s behalf until they reached 18; they would be legally bound to explain political affairs to their offspring and to accept their voting wishes.I don’t know. Is it good to link voting rights to reproductive success in this way? D’ya think?
Antje Vollmer, a prominent Green politician who is backing the bill, says:
This is no joke because there are millions of little people living in our society today who often have more informed political views than adults, but who are currently being discriminated against simply on account of their age.”I think what Vollmer is really saying is that German children are more likely to be sympathetic to environmental issues and therefore more susceptible to Green Party propaganda. Fourteen million extra votes would be up for grabs.
The idea that it’s wrong to discriminate against children because of their age is an argument one of the boys will sometimes make over the dinner table. It’s a childish question and it has a simple answer. I tell the boys it’s my job, as their father, to discriminate against them because of their age. That’s what parenting is all about.
What's being proposed in Germany looks to me like a national denial of that responsibility.
