Perspective:
Age Restrictions: Protecting whom? And what?
Let me be clear.
Government-imposed restrictions based on age, while perhaps more benevolent in their aim, stand on no higher moral ground than those based on ethnicity, religion, race, or gender.
The primary reason that such laws are tolerated is because the public believes that such laws exist for the "good" of the '"children" (the fact that some of these "children" are more mature than their parents is another subject for another day.)
But what "good" can come from laws which deny millions of people their freedom based upon nothing more than the particular order of the numbers on their birth certificate? This is where the fundamental issue of morality comes into play. Exactly how moral is it for the government to deny individuals their rights based on date of birth? Especially when its entirely possible to protect those who truly need protection without resorting to the fundamentally-flawed legal tool of age restrictions anyhow! (More on that later)
And exactly what is the standard of the "good" here anyhow? Are we talking about the good from the perspective of a consistent and rational respect for the rights of the individual, or are we talking about the "good" from the perspective of a wanna-be politico who's trying to score brownie points by putting everyone below age X under house arrest during the time his parents made sure he was home, lest he get a whoopin'?
The fact is that the only real standard of good here is that of freedom and equality under the law. To say that ALL individuals should be guaranteed the basic rights of all human beings, including youth, and to further say that youth should not be denied the rights of adults on the basis of age, but should at least have a fair, impartial hearing on the matter, is the message of ASFAR.
A common argument from the more reasonable defenders of age-based restrictions, who perhaps oppose curfews and other such nonsense, is that without certain ones, like minimum driving age laws, minimum drinking age laws, minimum gambling age laws,or age of consent (for sex) laws, young people would hurt themselves or be abused by evil adult predators.
Obviously, as a defender of youth rights, I would not advocate a position that I know would end up with youth having their rights violated. That would be contradictory. So, allow me to take these two examples and show how one can be completely consistent with the principle that government-imposed age based restrictions are wrong, while ensuring that the rights of youth are not violated.
The first thing regarding "no minimum driving age" that people opposed to or uncertain about ASFAR bring up is "So what, you want five-year olds to drive?" The answer is no. I don't want any group of individuals to drive per se, based solely on their age. I want those capable of getting a license to drive. Its that simple. If the imaginary five-year old in question did one day pass the license test and drive, I would certainly be surprised, but if he can pass the tests and get a license, on what basis can he be denied the ability to drive? Of course, barring a considerable evolution in the human species that causes the growth stage of children to be considerably sped up, its unlikely you'll see any 5-year olds on the road anyways, given that their feet can't even reach the pedals..
In regards to drinking, we see that the minimum drinking age forces many establishments to deny entry to anyone under the age of 21, even though many times the youth entering the establishment simply want to spend time with their at or above age-21 friends.
Furthermore, pushing drinking underground causes young individuals who might otherwise drink moderately and openly, to binge when they have the opportunity. And it solves nothing that a non-age based approach couldn't handle. For instance, why not abolish the drinking age, and simply base an unemancipated minor's legal ability to drink on reality. If an unemancipated young person can consume alcohol with no imminent risk to their health, then why in the heck should they be legally barred from doing so? There are undoubtedly young people under 21 who can handle their drinks better than those over the magic age. Now of course, if a parent knowingly let an unemancipated young person drink himself to the hospital, the parent would be responsible, just as they would be responsible if they let that same young person play in traffic while they watched. But, following the analogy, any drinking age is tantamount to arresting parents for letting their children cross the street. And doing this for 20-year old "children" borders on the insane.
Regarding gambling laws, the simple truth here is this: if a young person doesn't have any money, he can't gamble. If a parent gives the young person money for a specific purpose (say, buying lunch at school) there's a very low probability he's going to take the $5 and run off to Las Vegas. And if the young person works and has earned the money on their own, they should be able to do as they please with it. Even gamble. Even buy glow-in-the-dark sneakers. You earn it, you spend it. Isn't that the American Way?
And here we are, at the powder-keg Age of
Consent issue. Let me be clear. I think that ANYONE who rapes an
individual of ANY AGE should be put away for a VERY,
VERY long time. This does not affect my
opposition to getting rid of the age of consent. There are so
many different alternatives available than deciding based on age
whether a sexual relationship was rape or not.
Its possible to do case-by-case reviews (which we already pay for
anyways, since every accused criminal is innocent until proven
guilty. Thus, we might as well do it the right way, no?).
Another theory is the right to sex based on legal emancipation,
assuming of course that the criteria for emancipation was
objective as opposed to age based. I have my own problems with
this, given that it would not be as effective in the area of
stopping improper criminal charges from being filed as would
case-by-case review, but such a position would undoubtedly be an
improvement over the current "you're under X, you're over Y,
you had sex, go straight to jail, do not pass Go" system.
The fact is that with ANY issue that can be brought up, there is an objective, impartial, AGE-RESTRICTION FREE alternative to current law.
Another question that comes up often is "Why? Why write all these things, go through all this effort, and put all this energy into abolishing, say, the driving age, when you freely admit that those whose rights you're 'defending' probably won't even excercise them anyways?"
Allow me to ask you this hypothetical: if no women voted, would that be justification for a law denying women suffrage? Would you fight such a law, EVEN IF no women would make use of the right you'd be fighting for?
The matter here, my dear readers, is PRINCIPLE. P-R-I-N-C-I-P-L-E. Once you get the funny idea into your head that something is wrong, immoral, and unjust, you will fight it until the day upon which you take your last breath. I know I will. I hope you'll join me.