… because Science™!!1! says they have mushy brains …
Here’s an excerpt from the tentative transcript, which matches my recollection of the comments; Commissioner Yaki is questioning Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:
And it seems to me that there are ways that you can create a very apprehensive coordinate [possible transcription error -EV] of sexual harassment on a campus, but you [Greg Lukianoff -EV] probably would not find any prohibition by a university on that type of conduct to pass muster. Would that be correct? …
What about a slave auction at a fraternity engagement or a day where another group decides that they’re going to celebrate Latino culture by making everyone dress as janitors and mop floors or a situation involving women, have them as a ritual parade around in skimpy clothing and turn in some show or something.
[…]
It thus appears to me that Commissioner Yaki is coming out in support of speech codes that ban speech and symbolic expression that is perceived as conveying a racist or sexist message — despite past court decisions striking down such restrictions, including specifically in the context of racially and sexually offensive fraternity activities. […]
But that is a familiar argument; it was a follow-up question of Commissioner Yaki’s that particularly struck me:
COMMISSIONER YAKI: But it has nothing to do with policies [likely a mistranscription of “politics” -EV]. It has to do with science, and it has to do with the fact that more and more the vast majority, in fact I think overall in bodies of science is that young people, not just K through 12 but also between the ages of 16 to 20, 21 is where the brain is still in a stage of development. […]
Certain factors in how the juvenile or adolescent or young adult brain processes information is vastly different from the way that we adults do.
So when we sit back and talk about what is right or wrong in terms of First Amendment jurisprudence from a reasonable person’s standpoint, we are really not looking into the same referential viewpoint of these people, of an adolescent or young adult, including those in universities. […]
And because of that, and because of the unique nature of a university campus setting, I think that there are very good and compelling reasons why broader policies and prohibitions on conduct in activities and in some instances speech are acceptable on a college campus level that might not be acceptable say in an adult work environment or in an adult situation.
So, Commissioner Yaki, if young adults cannot be trusted with Free Speech, why are we allowing them to vote?
Before asking anything of substance from C’mish Yaki regarding the mushiness of other’s brains and rights, looks to me as though Volokh is offering a demonstration (despite the intervening transcription problems) of one in Yaki who has no handle on the criteria or grounds which would distinguish his own grasp of his own mind as qualifiedly rational. But maybe that’s just an idiosyncratic view of Volokh’s point, I dunno.
– Common Dar. If you set the voting age to 24 80% of the Democratic party would cease to exist.
I’ll sign that petition — as long as I don’t have to let any of them live with me.
It’s true that our adult brains don’t complete their development until the mid-20s.
That has zero bearing on whether the Bill of Rights applies.
If you set the voting age to 24 80% of the Democratic party would cease to exist.
Limit it to people who pay income tax and the other 20% vanishes as well.
Also, speaking of Climate Change and Biometeorology — and I know we were — Thunder Levin speaks out on the dangers of bicoastal sharknados.
I think anyone still living at home, and on his/her parent’s insurance policies shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you don’t have any skin in the game, you don’t get to call the plays, even as part of a collective coaching. Nothing teaches a brand-new adult that smaller government is better than realizing how much of their labor goes into the paying of Danegeld, and how that raise actually causes them to make less because of higher tax brackets. Or getting laid off because someone living a thousand miles away decided to raise the minimum wage (never realizing that the REAL minimum wage is $0), and the owner had to make cuts to keep his profit margin.
I’ll sign that petition — as long as I don’t have to let any of them live with me.
– Unfortunately it seems to work in reverse. The more you limit their actions the greater chance they’ll squat in your basement.
They’ll have to make room among the hobo parts.
They do have mush brains.
Huh, I think we should lower the drinking age to 18.
Voting? I’m more comfortable lowering eligibility to 16 than raising it to 22.
Forcing insurance companies to infantilize 26 year olds under their parents plans? Insane.
Public servants (so called) say things like this and worse every day.
And no one says “boo”.
Actually, I would be totally comfortable, as someone said up thread, to base eligibility to vote on a net tax payment.
Martin Armstrong..
Mmmm…. pi!
When all these college administrators and professors were in the “mushy brain” years in college they were the foot soldiers, the cannon fodder, of the Left as it worked to take control of those institutions. That “mushy brain” has an innate rebelliousness that is there naturally so that they will part ways with parental control and assume independent lives.
Now that these self same people are the ones in charge of those institutions that rebelliousness is a problem for them as it strikes out at their attempt to re-program human nature into their new model of human that fits the utopia to come.
Unfortunately there is a cussedness to the real nature of humans which always yearns for freedom even as it also yearns to find a place in the society that it is growing up in. These forces, from nature or from God, are part of human nature and they wish to suppress what is unhelpful now to the cause of the Left, just as they wished back then to enhance the forces that were helpful to gaining power.
This, as in all things Left, is not about the particular “cause” or “policy” but always about gaining, maintaining, and increasing their power over humans and the world.
If it is true that a 21-year old isn’t mature enough, then the public education system has failed in its duty to educate him in the realities of life – and yes, he clearly cannot be trusted with the responsibility of voting.
The organization of brain activity is changeable almost throughout one’s life; it’s no great leap from what Yaki says here to deciding all rights need to be curtailed — because relearning can be called “a stage of development.”
OT, Rubio revealed. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/08/03/rubio-interrogated-why-have-you-flipped-on-immigration/
“When I got involved in the issue [illegal immigration- john] I knew how difficult it was politically,” Rubio replied. “But I ran for office to make a difference … I don’t know what it means politically for me or anybody else, but that’s not my job. I didn’t get elected to maintain good poll numbers nationally. I got elected to address and solve problems.”
No asshole, you got elected to represent your constituents. You don’t know what it means politically for me or anybody else? You need a job cleaning porta-potties, not in the senate.
“We’re not debating what to do, we’re debating how to do it,” Rubio said. “I’m just telling you, we will never have the votes necessary to pass, in one bill, all of those things. It just won’t happen. So our choices are, we can either continue to beat our head against the wall and try a process for which we’ll never have support, or we can try another way we can make progress on.”
Ah, PROGRESS! Spoken like a true progressive. Can’t do what YOU want by the will of the people, so you will figure out how to slip it past them.
This my friends, is the pointy end of our problem. Two parties, no representation.
Right up until the person has decided, “Yep, that’s all I will ever need to learn”. Yaki and his crowd hopes that point occurs while they are still incapable of long-term cost/benefit analysis, and before they learned the concept of “delayed gratification”.
They are more likely to still be liberal, and get locked into that mindset to the point where if the choices were Hitler vs Martin Luther King, Jr, they would still pull the lever marked ‘D’. (And, yes, MLK, Jr was a Republican. http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2013/01/martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-republican/ )
I’ve long advocated a system where in order to vote for a particular office, you had to match the age of candidacy for that office.
i.e. Have to be at least 25 to vote for congresscritters, at least 30 to vote for Senators, and 35 to vote for Presidents.
Don’t forget the residency requirements — seven years for voting for House members, nine years for the Senate, and must be a natural-born citizen to vote for President. ;)
How about just having to show a frigging ID to vote? Even that tiny step is too much for our “betters.”
“If you can’t serve in the office, you can’t vote for it.”
So, Commissioner Yaki, if young adults cannot be trusted with Free Speech, why are we allowing them to vote?
Right on the money.
And why are we having them serve in the armed forces.
A 19 year old with a block of C4, fuse cord, blasting cap, and crimpers can be a frightening thing.
As I know from luckily non-injurious experience…