Has Niebel changed his campaign slogan to "fifteen and ready" yet?
Posted on 01/04/2013 5:36:17 PM PST by nickcarraway
A German minister is calling for children to be given the vote, it was reported on Thursday. He said that excluding the country's 13 million under-18s was "absurd", triggering a backlash from other politicians. Dirk Niebel, Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), "We must give children a voice - in elections as well."
The current age limit on voting in Germany is 18 which, he said, was "completely inappropriate" although he was not specific about when he wanted children to be given suffrage.
On a practical level, the Free Democrat (FDP) politician said that parents could take responsibility for overseeing their child's vote or even using on their behalf. This would give families a louder political voice and force politicians to take children and families more into consideration.
He argued that denying the vote to Germany's 17 million over-65s would be absurd, yet excluding children, a sixth of the country's population, was accepted without question.
Niebel's idea provoked constitutional objections from his colleagues.
Ingrid Fischbach from the Christian Democratic Union, the governing coalition partner alongisde the FDP told the WAZ that “no one can argue against the idea's charm” but that in reality “voting is a private matter and one that constitutionally cannot be exercised by a third party.”
She added that it would be hard to check whether parents were actually ticking the box their child had chosen.
Thomas Krüger, president of Germany's children's union, said that although he would be in favour of dropping the voting age to 16, and eventually 14, he disagreed with allowing parents a proxy vote for their child.
But support came from Paula Honkanen-Schoberth of Germany's national child protection association who said children should have voting rights as soon as they were born.
She said that children were often under-estimated and studies showed that they demonstrated interest in political issues from as early as the third grade.
I wouldn’t give children the vote.
What I would do is teach high school juniors about running elections then as a senior year project, put them at the polls to register voters and run the polls.
Seniors would be picked at random and will not work in the district they go to school in.
Just eliminated half the cheating and the kids learn about civics. Remember it is for the children.
You don’t see where this is headed? Age of majority will be dropped to 14 , maybe 12. You know what that means......
I am in favor of letting parents who are financially responsible for their minor children exercise the vote on their behalf.
Mr. Duggar, here are your 14 ballots, oh 15 is it?
Has Niebel changed his campaign slogan to "fifteen and ready" yet?
Topped only by the original "Death Race 2000" a few years later.
Let the kids vote!
And legalize abortions up to the fetus reaching 18 years of age. /S
Seriously, my dog has more sense than most teenagers.
Half the people in this country under 35 are juveniles, so I’d say we are doing pretty well already.
We already give overgrown American children the vote—from 18 until they’re finally off their parents’ health insurance at 27.
Raise the voting age back to 21!!
Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius
Raise our voting age to 25 and watch things improve.
While we’re at it, lower the drinking age to 16 but raise the driving age to 21.
Gee, by the way the last election turned out, I thought they already HAD the vote. They were stupid, not ignorant. (sarc) As the old saying goes, "Ignorant is temporary, stupid is forever".
I see where it is going and I do not approve.
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