Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 445: Too young to vote?

Transcript

Episode 445: Too young to vote? · Words & Numbers

• 0:00
  Hi, I'm James and I'm Anthony and this.
• 0:02
  Is words and numbers this week on words and numbers trees.
• 0:11
  Don't know why. You'll find out soon enough.
• 0:14
  The Smithsonian Bureau of Labor Statistics and and God help me
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  voting all this and more coming up on words and numbers.
• 0:24
  Words and Numbers is a civil original podcast.
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  Learn more at civil.com. That's civl.com.
• 0:35
  So, Aunt, dare I ask, this is where you say dare dare?
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  Oh, you can ask. All right, what's new and
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  exciting in your world this week?
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  My new and exciting thing comes from the Journal of Forest and
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  Ecology Management. You've been a long time
• 0:54
  subscriber as I understand it. They are.
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  The article is talking about the growth of aspens Aspen trees in
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  Yellowstone. It says for the first time in
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  over 80 years, aspens are growing tall and broad in the
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  northern reaches of Yellowstone Park.
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  And the point of the article is what the aspens have to thank
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  for this is the introduction of wolves, or I should say the
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  reintroduction of wolves. And what was happening is the
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  elk which were which were browsers were eating the young,
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  you know, do you get the tender leaves off of the young trees
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  and few of them were grow were managing to grow tall.
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  And so the the wolves come along being reintroduced to eat the
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  elk. And now the elk are leaving the
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  Aspen alone while because there are fewer of them and so you get
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  more Aspen. This is the point of the
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  article. And this reminded me of an of an
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  article that I'd read some years ago that goes a step further.
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  And it must not have been Aspen trees with some other kind of
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  tree, but I believe it was in Yellowstone where they said the
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  reinstruction of the wolves, the wolves were eating the elk.
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  The elk were therefore not eating the trees.
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  The trees were growing tall and in so doing altering the course
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  of the rivers that are there. And all of that is, you know,
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  it's very interesting, I'm sure to to people who are into the
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  ecology business. I find it very interesting as an
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  economist because this is it seems to me that while people
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  are both very protective of environmental things and
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  interactions and surprised at conclusions like this, that the
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  wolves can affect the elk, which affects the trees, which affects
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  the rivers. To an economist, this is all
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  economics one O 1 and it's why we lose our minds every time
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  someone says, well we need a regulation to do X or we should
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  tax Y. It's like walking into
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  Yellowstone and just saying let's take away this particular
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  species of something and expecting there to be no
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  reverberation. Well, now, if I'm understanding
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  you correctly, we have to get rid of the wolves and
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  reintroduce the elk. I'm probably not getting, I'm
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  probably not understanding you correctly, but I will remind you
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  that last week I talked about getting rid of all the
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  mosquitoes in the entire world. Yeah, and I got nervous in that
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  conversation. We didn't pursue it, but yeah,
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  that really bothered me that what's going to happen.
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  I hate mosquitoes. Yeah, well, what's going to
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  happen is we're going to all of a sudden discover what unseen
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  thing it was that we needed the mosquitoes for.
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  Right. James pressed the button and
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  then there were no mosquitoes and dot dot dot the flash chain
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  collapsed and, and. And in fairness, it could work
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  that way because it often works that way.
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  Not, not always, but often. It doesn't.
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  I think Americans, well, people the world over got a taste of
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  that with COVID in the lockdowns.
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  And at the time, economists were losing their minds saying you
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  can't shut down a third of the economy and expect life to go
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  on, much less expect you to just be able to flip, flip a switch
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  and turn it back on again. And many of us, myself included
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  at the time, said, look, you're, you're introducing a problem
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  that's going to reverberate for at least a decade.
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  And indeed, maybe, maybe 2, maybe 2, right?
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  Yeah. And I will remind people,
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  because it often comes up, we were very much against the
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  lockdowns and we were, yeah, marginally in favor of putting
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  on masks, but just to shut everybody up.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  This was this was our perspective on COVID and you and
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  I each had it and Oh my God was it that we each had the first
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  strain and it was like death. Yeah, yeah.
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  And, and I, I want to be careful here.
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  It's not to say we're not being COVID deniers.
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  And it wasn't that we were, we should do nothing.
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  It was just we were claiming that there were going to be huge
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  ramifications that people aren't appreciating.
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  You try. To shut down an economy, and
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  sooner or later you're going to shut down an economy.
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  Right, right. Right.
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  I mean, it doesn't take a a genius to to work through the
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  steps of what's going to happen thereafter.
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  And I I would make the case that we still haven't really come
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  back from it, but that dovetails nicely into something I wanted
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  to talk about today. Aunt, the jobs report has been
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  revised. Yes.
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  Do do you keep an eye on this some 800?
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  And actually. That some 818,000 jobs have been
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  removed from the jobs that had been added 818,000 and it
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  functionally we're looking at what April, May, June I believe
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  it is. Yeah.
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  I, I think there's a month lag in the day.
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  They don't don't hold me to that, but I think it's a one
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  month lag and we need to add 180,000 jobs to keep up with
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  well functionally birth rates, population and we are well below
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  that now for the last three months, each of the last three
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  months. So we've got a problem.
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  And you know, people like us have been saying, I don't know,
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  man, something in this economy is going to have to give because
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  we're not seeing something. And I think we've just seen
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  something. And true to form, our commander
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  in chief and big toe Donald Trump, rather than saying wow,
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  that's alarming, let's convene some economists and think this
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  through, fired the woman at the head of the Bureau of Labor
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  Statistics. Talking about shooting the
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  messenger. Saying, and I quote, no one can
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  be that wrong. I I beg to differ and I've got
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  some examples, but we're going to let that part of it slide for
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  now and. Yeah, and I think James and I
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  were were we were talking about this earlier and I think you're
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  right, we need to do an episode on this specifically.
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  But it, it turns out that the 800,000 if indeed and, and
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  you're saying something that rings true with me, but I have
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  to go back and check it if indeed that's 800,000 for the
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  quarter, that's roughly 200 + 270,000 turn 50,000, something
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  like that per month. That's that's on the high side
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  of adjustments, but it's not out of, I shouldn't say out of the
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  ordinary is a little bit out of the ordinary, but it's, it's not
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  unprecedented. I believe it was the first time
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  that the delta was this big since 2008 or 2009, which kind
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  of makes sense, doesn't? It right, right.
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  Yeah. The the thing that bothers me a
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  little bit more than that is the last time I did this comparison,
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  which I believe was early 2024, I was comparing the initial jobs
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  numbers to the revised jobs numbers and was surprised that
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  there was a stretch of is is doing this.
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  Off top of my head, there was a stretch of, I believe 11 months
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  where the revision was in the same direction.
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  It was down each time. In other words, they were
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  consistently overestimating jobs on their first go around, which
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  you wouldn't expect, right? Because of course they're not
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  going to get the number exactly right, but you expect it to be
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  sometimes up, sometimes down. Yeah.
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  And you would expect it to average out right around a line.
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  Yeah. And it and of course their
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  behaviour, it is somehow for some reason the same as our
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  friends over at the CBO which over or underestimate everything
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  so regularly that we can predict it.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  So maybe you know by how much? We can tell you how to adjust.
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  Yeah, to get the right answer, maybe we should start taking a
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  look at at the BLS and I, I just want to point out the people who
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  will fall in line with Donald Trump saying that it's some sort
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  of cabal to make him look bad. All right, take a deep breath
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  because all government data is revised and you absolutely want
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  it to be revised because the correct answer comes later in
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  the day. You can get a pretty good
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  estimate today of what happened last month.
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  You're going to get a better estimate on it next month and a
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  better estimate on it the month after that.
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  And and we see this, we talk about this most and in crime
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  data, crime data, you have to wait like a year to to get
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  anything even approaching decent crime data.
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  This became an issue for us when we wrote our book Cooperation
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  and Coercion, right. You can't get crime data from
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  yesterday. Yeah, everybody.
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  Everybody has to report it and then it has to be vetted
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  etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, I think that's the thing.
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  We're people are used to being able to go to Google and ask
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  Google how many jobs were created last month and Google
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  gives you an answer When you're the people who are collecting
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  the data, you can't do that. It doesn't exist.
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  You have to actually go out and count these things and that
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  takes time. It, there's all kinds of human
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  error involved in the reporting mechanism and all that has to
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  get straightened out. So it's not at all surprising
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  that numbers get revised. What is surprising is when the
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  revisions are particularly large.
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  I Again, this is not unprecedented, but it is large
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  and what's more disturbing to me is when the revision is always
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  in the same direction. Yeah.
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  So we'll wait and see, as we always do, but we will get back
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  to this, and I suspect we should do an entire episode on
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  government numbers and revisions broadly.
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  Yeah, I think so. That would be a good episode,
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  so. People can see how that works
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  and and and how much it can drift in certain cases.
• 11:02
  It's really quite profound every now and again, not often, but
• 11:06
  every now and again. Get words and numbers on
• 11:09
  civil.com and on Civil's TV and mobile apps.
• 11:14
  Regular episodes are free. Sign up for an annual membership
• 11:18
  to support our show and for access to member exclusive
• 11:21
  content. This, of course, aunt, brings us
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  to the foolishness of the week. Do you have a a prognostication?
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  Are you going to talk about the guy that paid his bill in
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  pennies? No, there's always a guy like
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  that, and frankly, I'm a guy like that.
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  One of our listeners sent a a candidate for foolishness of the
• 11:41
  week of some guy that got a $20,000 fine and paid it in
• 11:46
  pennies. And there's a picture of this
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  huge pile of pennies. We should do the math and figure
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  out like, how long would take you to count that, wrap it, how
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  much it weighs. I mean, we're probably talking
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  about literally tons of metal here.
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  To to hell with that. We should go buy that guy a
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  beer. He's my hero.
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  For crying out loud, no. This week's winner, and it's a
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  strange one. It's the Smithsonian
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  Institution. It's Smithsonian Institute.
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  Can you believe it? Can you believe this?
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  The Smithsonian? You got to be kidding me.
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  Well, Trump is implicated, which should start to make things a
• 12:26
  little more understandable. Apparently they had an exhibit
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  about the presidents who have been impeached.
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  Oh no. They don't have that exhibit 2,
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  right? That they don't have that
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  exhibit anymore. They're, they're gonna have it
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  again in the future, the little sign says.
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  And by in the future, they mean when Donald Trump's term is
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  over. OK, now I I want.
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  No, no, it's, it's worse than it seems.
• 12:54
  It's worse than it seems because the exhibit now notes what's
• 13:00
  left of the exhibit that quote, only three presidents have
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  seriously faced impeachment or have seriously faced removal.
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  Is the example. OK?
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  OK, so Andrew Johnson was impeached.
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  He's got to be 1. Right.
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  Bill Clinton was impeached. He's got to be another.
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  Now what does that leave us with?
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  Well, there's only one president who's not only been impeached,
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  been impeached twice. You raise an interesting point,
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  and an eye, for what it's worth, would throw Nixon on that heap.
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  He would have been removed if he didn't resign.
• 13:37
  Well, he wasn't. He was never impeached.
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  No, but he would have been impeached and removed had he not
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  resigned and he knew it which is why he resigned.
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  So he seriously faced removal I think is a fair thing.
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  So the Smithsonian is wrong. 4 have seriously faced removal 1
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  twice. Or perhaps it's the case that
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  they think Donald Trump was impeached but did not seriously
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  face removal. But what it really is is Donald
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  Trump got on the phone and said what the Hell's wrong with you
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  people? And they fired a, a person who
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  was, you know, one of the directors, and then they just
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  took it all down and put it away.
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  See. But that that that doesn't make
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  sense to me. Were I?
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  That's why it's the foolishness of the weak.
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  But were I in his position, Very few presidents have have been
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  impeached. He's the only one that's been
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  impeached twice. And not only was he impeached
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  twice, he survived both times. I mean he got like.
• 14:38
  A A mark of bring it on. And got re elected and and got.
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  Re elected on top of it. Were I him, I might brag about
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  it. Yeah, exactly.
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  It might be the winning bet for him.
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  Most people couldn't get away with that.
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  He probably could, yeah. Anyway, we'll.
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  We'll leave that to fester until whatever happens.
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  I'm not now. I just want to underline here
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  because we're going to get a heat mail from both sides.
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  I'm not saying that he's done something that is worthy of
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  bragging by am saying if I were in his position that had
• 15:10
  happened to me, I probably would brag about it.
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  I'd. Brag about it every day of the
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  week. Come on, you're you're always
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  well. On the other hand, now there's
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  no other hand. We'd both be bragging about it.
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  You tried to impeach me. You couldn't get it done.
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  Then you tried again. You couldn't get it done.
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  And. Then I got re elected.
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  Up yours that that's right. So anyway, Speaking of
• 15:34
  elections, that actually is a very lovely Segway into our our
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  our main event for the week, because a headline kind of
• 15:44
  caught my eye. It's one of those headlines that
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  you could have missed, right, that I almost always do miss,
• 15:50
  but for some reason my gays trained right on it.
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  And it turns out in their next election, the British are
• 15:58
  lowering their voting age to 16. To Oh, they are going to do it
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  to 16 yes, from what is it now 18. 1818 you know we've ours has
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  been 18 since what was it 1971 the 26th amendment if we
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  reserves, I think it was 71 when that passed.
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  When you mentioned this I went and pulled up a map of voting
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  age by country. I thought it's.
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  Surprising isn't. It it is 85% of the countries on
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  the planet have 18 as the voting age, 85% of them.
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  And a bunch do have 16. There, yeah, there's a handful
• 16:38
  that has 16. I think a couple that have 1716
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  is as low as it goes. But then in the other direction,
• 16:46
  there are countries, a handful that go 19 all the way up to
• 16:49
  United Arab Emirates has 25. Now that's interesting for
• 16:54
  reasons that we'll get back to later, but you and I once did an
• 16:58
  episode about the age of consent.
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  Yes, not just for sexual matters while you perverts out there,
• 17:06
  but for everything, right? So driving, voting, serving in
• 17:09
  the military, anything that requires a bright line
• 17:13
  distinction between yes and no. And we decided Once Upon a time
• 17:18
  that we were rather agnostic as to what the age should be, but
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  there should be a singular age for all of it.
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  Right. And that it was probably going
• 17:28
  to end up being driven by the military, wasn't it?
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  Because that's the, the meat grinder that requires young
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  bodies, young, strong bodies. So that's going to be, that's
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  the. Point where you're you're most
• 17:43
  in every way being an adult. Yeah, that's right.
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  And if, if there's this constant downward pressure on the part of
• 17:51
  one of the inputs, that's probably going to skew
• 17:55
  everything else. And I, I, I just want to think
• 17:57
  about it today. Let's start with voting, right?
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  And we'll probably stick only with voting.
• 18:04
  Should we be letting people vote at 16?
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  I know that our British friends have just decided yes.
• 18:09
  I can't imagine why. Yeah, I I don't know the
• 18:12
  particulars there, but here's what bothers me.
• 18:16
  It doesn't seem right that that people should be able to vote on
• 18:23
  things like taxing me if they aren't of an age that they're
• 18:29
  actually contributing to the economic system and similarly
• 18:33
  being taxed by it. Now, you could say, well, 16
• 18:36
  year old, you can get a job and all that.
• 18:38
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:39
  But we understand most 16 year olds are living under the
• 18:43
  economic protection of their parents.
• 18:45
  They aren't. You've made a very separate,
• 18:47
  very dangerous argument here. Very dangerous argument, because
• 18:50
  that same argument can can be shifted very subtly to say if
• 18:56
  you suck out more taxes than you pay in, you shouldn't be allowed
• 19:03
  to vote. I think there's a difference.
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  I think there's a difference between us who are, let's say,
• 19:12
  roughly speaking, the same economically.
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  And by that what I mean is not that we earn the same amount of
• 19:20
  money, but rather we're both, we're both financially
• 19:24
  independent of parents. We're contributing in some way,
• 19:27
  whatever way that is. And it's part of the political
• 19:31
  process that we come together and we vote.
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  And if we end up voting that I get taxed more and you get taxed
• 19:37
  less or vice versa, that's the way it comes out.
• 19:39
  I don't think it's a good thing. But, well, that's the way it's
• 19:42
  always it. It's always going to come out
• 19:44
  that way because majority rules and the majority gets more than
• 19:50
  they put in. Yeah, that's something to talk
• 19:52
  about separately the majority. But at least in in that
• 19:55
  instance, everyone who has had a say is on the same footing.
• 20:02
  I, I disagree, I think you, they're on very unequal footing
• 20:05
  and the majority who would stick it to the minority is very much
• 20:13
  incentivized to do that. And then the politicians they
• 20:16
  elect are very much incentivized to do that because we're dealing
• 20:20
  with large numbers and that's how politicians get re elected.
• 20:25
  So we'll set that off to the side, I guess, as yet another
• 20:27
  disagreement that we found two in two weeks.
• 20:31
  We usually agree on most things. Our disagreements are usually
• 20:34
  disagreements of degree, not of kind.
• 20:37
  But, but we've got a couple of disagreements of kind.
• 20:41
  But I want to get back to this idea of letting 16 year olds
• 20:44
  vote because I, I think on the merits, it's stupid, right?
• 20:49
  And let's just, let's just walk through it for very briefly. 16
• 20:56
  year olds don't really know all that much about the world, how
• 21:03
  it works, and what should happen next.
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  Use the code words and numbers. That's one word for 50% off an
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  annual subscription. OK, so let me pause for a
• 22:22
  second. You and I agree on the ends,
• 22:26
  which is 16 year old shouldn't be voting.
• 22:28
  We disagree on why the argument that you're now giving, I'm
• 22:32
  going to say, is extremely dangerous.
• 22:34
  And, and you're right to say it. You're absolutely right to say
• 22:37
  it because by my logic that I just laid out, we could probably
• 22:42
  have some sort of current events test before you walk into the
• 22:45
  voting booth. Right.
• 22:48
  And I'm kind of OK with that. I'm just saying, remember a
• 22:52
  couple of a couple of episodes ago when we talked about maybe
• 22:56
  how democracy is not the best answer to every question, that
• 23:00
  maybe there are other ways to do these sorts of things.
• 23:03
  But of all the people in our population, teenagers are
• 23:10
  dumbest, except for the elderly who have lost their the control
• 23:15
  of their minds and they tend The elderly who have lost control of
• 23:19
  their minds tend not to vote. Yeah.
• 23:23
  Now, the elderly or the old people in America vote in
• 23:25
  droves, which is why they get very favorable legislation
• 23:31
  because every politician knows that if you start talking about
• 23:34
  Social Security, them old people are coming at your heart and you
• 23:38
  won't be around next election cycle.
• 23:40
  All right, so 16 year olds are, let's just use the word
• 23:45
  ignorant, right? That that doesn't bring with it
• 23:49
  the stigma of stupid. Let let, let, let me, let me
• 23:55
  drill down on this a little bit because all of the our young
• 23:59
  listeners ears are perking up and they're starting to type
• 24:01
  hate mail. No, no young listeners of this
• 24:04
  podcast agree with us on this. I can guarantee it.
• 24:07
  Yet. I would say this is not, at
• 24:10
  least for myself. I would not be claiming that 16
• 24:13
  year olds are stupid or or they can't think logically or any of
• 24:19
  that. That's not my argument.
• 24:21
  My argument would be that they lack experience, that there are
• 24:26
  subtleties that need to be weighed, and they do not have
• 24:29
  the experience to weigh those things well.
• 24:32
  I think all of those things are true.
• 24:34
  I think they are ignorant, they are inexperienced, etcetera,
• 24:38
  etcetera, etcetera. But every single thing I can
• 24:41
  point to militates against allowing them to vote.
• 24:45
  I can't think of a single thing that would say yes, we should
• 24:50
  let this happen. Oh, I can only think of 1.
• 24:54
  Which? Is that I'm a politician who
• 24:57
  appeals to young voters. Yeah, but about that, I did some
• 25:02
  digging and I'm only looking at federal elections, right.
• 25:06
  So there's not as many. I didn't drill down to to look
• 25:10
  at House members or anything like that.
• 25:12
  And I frankly don't know if I could, but I couldn't find a
• 25:15
  single federal election that was swung by 18 to 21 year old
• 25:20
  voters. Really.
• 25:22
  Not even during Vietnam. You got to remember, back then
• 25:28
  elections weren't particularly close.
• 25:30
  Right. I guess so, yeah.
• 25:33
  And you know, I could have pointed to one had Al Gore won
• 25:36
  Florida and Bush V Gore. You know, had Al Gore won
• 25:41
  Florida, we could have easily made the case that young people
• 25:45
  pushed him over the edge, right, 'cause young people
• 25:48
  overwhelmingly vote Democratic. But here's the thing, young
• 25:51
  people overwhelmingly don't vote at all.
• 25:55
  You're looking at like 30%. They vote like 3040% tops.
• 25:59
  Really I didn't which has no idea which.
• 26:02
  Which is well beneath what the average is.
• 26:05
  The average is about 55 or so, 55% sixty.
• 26:09
  So all right, now I'm really not getting it.
• 26:15
  And let me make it even worse for you and, and we'll get back
• 26:17
  to the United Arab Emirates. Now it it is very clear that the
• 26:23
  human brain, the frontal cortex, doesn't really mature until the
• 26:29
  mid 20s. Now it's going to be different
• 26:31
  for everybody and the brain continues to develop for an
• 26:35
  entire lifetime. So there's not a day where you
• 26:39
  say, OK, your brain is fully developed, but the vast majority
• 26:44
  of your development happens up to the age of 25, give or take.
• 26:51
  Maybe the maybe the Emirates at age 25 have the exact right
• 26:54
  answer. Don't you want people whose
• 26:58
  logic and emotional capabilities are most fully developed?
• 27:02
  Yeah, but then you've got the counter argument of what about
• 27:07
  all the people who are, let's say, 18 to 24 years old who are
• 27:11
  being affected by the laws that you're.
• 27:14
  Passing no that that's. Exactly right.
• 27:17
  That's exactly right. And This is why Once Upon a
• 27:19
  time, you and I tried to find a universal age, right?
• 27:24
  Because and if you run the universal age to 25, the
• 27:28
  military is not going to work anymore.
• 27:30
  So you probably can't run it to 25, even though I think
• 27:35
  everybody at their most honest moment would say, well, that's
• 27:39
  the one that makes the most sense.
• 27:42
  Because, you know, look, no matter what age we pick, it's
• 27:44
  going to be arbitrary. There will always be people
• 27:48
  underneath the line who are more well qualified than a lot of
• 27:51
  people who are above the line. Right.
• 27:55
  Right. And we've all met 14 year olds
• 27:57
  thinking, wow, did you come out of the womb at 47?
• 28:00
  How did this happen? And we've met 47 year olds who,
• 28:04
  who we know if they got in real trouble, really belong in
• 28:06
  juvenile court. So, OK, there's no way to
• 28:09
  satisfy every, everything here, right?
• 28:11
  Something is always going to stick out like a sore thumb.
• 28:16
  Words and Numbers is a Civil original podcast.
• 28:20
  We work with Civil to advance their mission of upgrading
• 28:23
  civilization by exploring ideas that promote civic equality and
• 28:28
  cooperation. We believe the most pressing
• 28:31
  issues humans face, war, poverty, debt, tribalism, arise
• 28:36
  from coercive institutions that bring out the worst in us.
• 28:40
  We at Civil look to voluntary solutions to these and other
• 28:44
  problems. We invite you to explore Civil's
• 28:48
  new platform at civil.com. That's civl.com.
• 28:54
  Now I, I want to revisit something that I had proposed
• 28:58
  some time ago, kind of just tongue in cheek.
• 29:01
  But every time we have a conversation like this, I come
• 29:03
  back to it. Which is why can't each
• 29:08
  individual choose for him or herself?
• 29:11
  So in other words, what I envision is a system of laws
• 29:16
  that treat each person as either an adult or a minor.
• 29:22
  And if you are treated as an adult and you break the law, the
• 29:26
  full weight of the law comes down on you.
• 29:29
  If you're a minor and you break the law, there's something like
• 29:32
  we do this, you know, as now you're the judicial, the the
• 29:35
  juvenile system deals with you. And when you become an adult,
• 29:39
  your record is sealed or whatever it is.
• 29:41
  There's these various protections you have effectively
• 29:44
  get do overs. But on the flip side, if you're
• 29:48
  a minor, you can't enter into contracts, you can't own a
• 29:51
  house, you can't vote. All sorts of things you can't do
• 29:54
  that you can do. Oh, and among them is vote that
• 29:57
  you can do as an adult. And so in this system, I picture
• 30:01
  each individual being able to say, sign a legal document at
• 30:04
  some point. And it's a one shot deal.
• 30:06
  You sign it, you're done. You say, I hereby profess that I
• 30:09
  am now an adult. And you might have some people
• 30:13
  declaring yourselves adults at 15, others may never.
• 30:17
  You see the problem here? The problem with this is
• 30:19
  obvious, right? People can claim they're an
• 30:21
  adult and be no such thing you get and they don't have the
• 30:24
  capacity to make that choice. Ah, that's see, that's the
• 30:28
  problem now, yeah. At what point?
• 30:30
  At what point are you old enough to decide that you're old enough
• 30:33
  to be an adult? Right, that you're old enough
• 30:35
  and that decision probably shouldn't rest with you.
• 30:39
  Yeah, yeah. Right.
• 30:41
  And I, I think we need a universal bright line standard
• 30:44
  and I think everybody, every country realizes you need a
• 30:47
  universal bright line standard and the Brits are going to 16.
• 30:53
  OK, I guess now it's, it's, it's worth mentioning that voting at
• 31:00
  the individual level doesn't matter at all.
• 31:03
  Your vote will literally never turn an election.
• 31:05
  It will literally never happen. And given that it's a waste of
• 31:10
  your time to go vote now. Voting is a performative act.
• 31:15
  And as such, it allows you to be a part of something larger than
• 31:20
  yourself and to participate in that thing.
• 31:23
  And on, on that note, it makes a lot of sense to vote, right?
• 31:29
  And so, you know, adding all these young people in probably
• 31:34
  not going to change any of the outcomes, but maybe, just maybe
• 31:39
  it'll have young people buying in to whatever system the
• 31:44
  politicians want them to buy into.
• 31:46
  And you can think of that as a good thing, or as I do, a rather
• 31:50
  pernicious thing. But I get it right.
• 31:53
  There's a a point to be made on the other side of our argument
• 31:57
  with voting as a perform event. If you don't have any more to
• 31:59
  add, I want to skip to the So what because I have a bunch of
• 32:03
  things to say. So what?
• 32:05
  I guess you've got things written down, so you might as
• 32:07
  well go ahead. I do see I have cards.
• 32:10
  So here's here's the So what I had a conversation with somebody
• 32:17
  recently that was related to this.
• 32:21
  I came away thinking and it was about voting and I came away
• 32:25
  thinking this person shouldn't be voting at all because the
• 32:28
  person didn't even under understand, and this is an adult
• 32:31
  didn't understand how our system worked in in the discussion was
• 32:34
  of the United States as a democracy versus a Republic.
• 32:41
  And the person oddly said in in one sentence, you know, the
• 32:46
  United States is a democracy because we have representatives.
• 32:50
  No, sweet Lord, you know it's a Republic because we have
• 32:53
  representatives. Pumpkin, no, that's not.
• 32:57
  That is incorrect. And just for, for, for those who
• 33:01
  are hazy on the details in a democracy, correct me if I'm
• 33:05
  wrong, James, in a democracy, the voters vote directly for or
• 33:09
  against the laws. You know, Republic.
• 33:12
  In a Republic, they vote for representatives.
• 33:14
  The representatives then vote for or against the laws.
• 33:18
  Yep. And the representatives are a
• 33:20
  mediating body. They look at, they look at the
• 33:23
  electorate and say what is it that you want?
• 33:26
  What is it that would be best? What is it that I will be voting
• 33:29
  for? I mean, obviously that's in an
• 33:31
  ideal set of circumstances. And in light of all of that, I
• 33:37
  come back to your earlier statement that look, there are
• 33:42
  some people who are voting, that she some adults voting who
• 33:46
  shouldn't be voting, to which I say, yeah, maybe we need, we've
• 33:52
  tried this and it failed. Spectacularly.
• 33:55
  And I have an idea in my head, and I bet we have the same idea.
• 34:01
  Go ahead. Well, I was going to start off
• 34:04
  with what if we had a test? Yes, basic civics and, and, and
• 34:09
  you know, we already have that test and we give it to
• 34:12
  immigrants, right? If, if an immigrant needs to
• 34:16
  pass a basic test to become a full citizen, then everybody
• 34:23
  should pass that basic test to become a full citizen.
• 34:26
  That doesn't mean you're a non person.
• 34:30
  It just means you're going to have to take that test again
• 34:32
  next year if you can't pass it this year.
• 34:35
  Right if you don't. It's not like you'd be rounded
• 34:37
  up and put in prison or sent to a a Labour colony.
• 34:41
  I don't know. Your life will go on as it
• 34:43
  always did, but if you if you think you're going to vote, pass
• 34:47
  the damn test. Yeah, if you, if you don't
• 34:50
  understand how the how the system, the political system
• 34:54
  works, you shouldn't be participating in it because your
• 34:57
  voice can have an impact on on others.
• 34:59
  I mean, it's the same reason why we say, look, you can't drive a
• 35:02
  car unless you pass the test because your actions can have an
• 35:05
  effect on others. We're not saying you're not.
• 35:07
  Allowed to drive consequence. Pass the test, figure out how it
• 35:10
  works. That you must.
• 35:12
  You must know how this goes before we let you do it.
• 35:15
  And now we can't. In a self governing Republic,
• 35:19
  voting is important enough to put some restrictions on it.
• 35:24
  And you know, we always argue about whether you should have to
• 35:26
  present ID to vote. Of course you should have to
• 35:30
  present ID to vote. The easiest way to root out any
• 35:35
  fraud is to demand a legitimate ID before people walk in.
• 35:40
  Right? So anybody who makes the
• 35:41
  argument oh, it's somehow wrong or misguided to require ID, that
• 35:45
  person is looking to pull the wool over your eyes, no
• 35:49
  question. Particular, particularly since
• 35:51
  you need ID to do just about anything else in.
• 35:54
  Life, anything that that's right, that's right.
• 35:57
  Now, we tried for nefarious purposes shortly after the Civil
• 36:04
  War, a test. And of course, the purpose, the
• 36:07
  ostensible purpose was well, show that you understand civics.
• 36:10
  The actual purpose was to disenfranchise certain people.
• 36:15
  I told you that I took that test.
• 36:16
  Yes, I had a professor in Graduate School.
• 36:19
  School. You saying something?
• 36:20
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:21
  In Graduate School, a room full of roughly 20 PhD candidates was
• 36:26
  given the test that was handed to black people in the wake of
• 36:29
  the Civil War. I think three of us passed.
• 36:32
  Yeah, PhD students. Well, keep.
• 36:35
  Keep in mind too, that the person who handed us the test
• 36:39
  didn't tell us. Fill this out as if it were
• 36:42
  1880. Yeah.
• 36:44
  So there were things that were different.
• 36:46
  I am proud to say I passed the test.
• 36:49
  I didn't pass it by as healthy a margin as I would have liked,
• 36:53
  but it was hard. We wouldn't ask immigrants to
• 36:57
  things that were on that. It was difficult.
• 36:59
  And there were a host of different ones, right?
• 37:01
  So each, each locale could have its own test.
• 37:04
  They they shared in nature, but there weren't all exactly the
• 37:07
  same. But here we are in this
• 37:10
  situation where on the one hand, we want people to have a say in
• 37:16
  their government, in the other hand, we don't want people
• 37:20
  voting who don't know what they're doing because they're
• 37:22
  going to have an impact on the rest of us.
• 37:25
  And there is a solution to this. In fact, the founders knew very
• 37:28
  well what the solution was. And we have it in front of us.
• 37:32
  We just don't use it. And that is a constitutional
• 37:35
  Republic, that is? You.
• 37:38
  The masses let the masses do their voting in the Republic way
• 37:43
  that we do it, but there are certain things that they may not
• 37:48
  do unless you get a super majority of them.
• 37:52
  No, I'd I'd rather see us go back to the original format.
• 37:55
  Actually, with take away the direct election of senators,
• 37:59
  that's proven to be a disaster. Right.
• 38:02
  Yeah, there's all kinds of but, but at the very least, if if the
• 38:06
  federal government were restricted to the things that
• 38:09
  under the Constitution it's allowed to do, most of the
• 38:13
  debates that we have at a national level would disappear.
• 38:16
  Yeah, non starters. Wouldn't be messing with this
• 38:19
  stuff, yeah. Absolute non starters.
• 38:21
  I I think I can climb aboard with everything you had written
• 38:24
  on your cart. So I think we've we've done well
• 38:28
  with So what today? Yeah, it's a lovely, lovely
• 38:31
  card. 3 by 5. Anyway, I guess that's about it.
• 38:38
  I will remind everybody to to be nice to one another.
• 38:41
  I know that's a tall order, but you know, look out the window.
• 38:46
  It's it's time. Set an example, for crying out
• 38:48
  loud. Be nice to each other.
• 38:50
  And and seeing as how there are probably still a couple of
• 38:55
  people still here, I have a story.
• 38:57
  You want to hear a story? I think you might have.
• 39:00
  I think you might have heard this one before.
• 39:02
  And ever since I stopped doing smoking stories about all these
• 39:05
  stories that need to come out and I don't have a place to do
• 39:07
  it so. I'll say because you're, you're
• 39:09
  not going to plug it. Let me plug it for you.
• 39:11
  James has a YouTube channel with smoking stories.
• 39:15
  I don't know how many you have there.
• 39:16
  Yeah. But pretty they're pretty
• 39:18
  entertaining. Quite entertaining, yeah.
• 39:20
  Pretty entertaining, but but here's one that's going to piss
• 39:22
  everybody off, and rightfully so.
• 39:26
  Many of you know, but many more of you don't, that I made my
• 39:30
  living prior to becoming an egghead in mental institutions
• 39:34
  and group homes, and I was working at a group home aunt in
• 39:38
  1992. I was a young man at the time,
• 39:42
  and I was working in a group home filled with geriatric
• 39:47
  people. Should I mention the name of the
• 39:50
  institution for whom I worked? They're probably going to be
• 39:54
  angry if they do so. It was the Hartford Association
• 39:57
  of Retarded Citizens in Hartford, CT.
• 40:01
  I'm sure they've changed the name by now, right?
• 40:04
  It includes that word that we're not supposed to use anymore.
• 40:07
  But that was the name of the place I worked.
• 40:10
  And in my group home with six geriatrics, only two of them
• 40:16
  were verbal. So when four people couldn't
• 40:19
  talk at all and the the second banana.
• 40:23
  Declared that, well, given that it's an election year, they need
• 40:28
  to vote. And I said, really, people who
• 40:32
  can't talk should vote. I mean, these people had severe
• 40:36
  limitations. You wouldn't let them cross the
• 40:39
  street on their own. You'd never let that happen.
• 40:42
  If you let one cross the street on your own, you would be
• 40:45
  arrested for neglect. That was literally true.
• 40:49
  And I thought, well, it's not like any of them can read.
• 40:53
  Probably just let this go and it won't be an issue.
• 40:57
  But no, no, no, no, no. This clown called the League of
• 41:01
  Women Voters who came to the group home with their little
• 41:06
  stack of ballots and they proceeded to put them in front
• 41:11
  of the people and wait for them to point or literally drool on a
• 41:15
  name on the ballot. And all those ballots counted.
• 41:18
  Really. Really.
• 41:21
  And because I was there, I know how they voted.
• 41:25
  Shockingly, 4 voted for Clinton and two for Perot.
• 41:29
  George Bush not picking up a lot of support from the group Home
• 41:33
  League of Women. Voters.
• 41:34
  League of Women Voters means left.
• 41:36
  I I suspect. But being the smart ass I am, I
• 41:40
  let this pass. And as soon as it was over, I
• 41:43
  said, well, I now understand that you were right all along
• 41:48
  that a constitutional right to vote and we have to facilitate
• 41:51
  every constitutional right. So now I want to go out and buy
• 41:56
  them all handguns and somehow, for some, for some reason, that
• 42:02
  constitutional right was not nearly as important to the the
• 42:06
  nice people in charge. So when you think your one vote
• 42:11
  makes a difference, you have to overcome all this nonsense.
• 42:14
  And trust me, this nonsense happens everywhere.
• 42:17
  Have a great weekend. See you next week, James.