Teenagers are capable of being valuable contributors to civil society. They should be granted greater freedom and responsibility. Lowering the voting age while trapping them in compulsory schooling gives teenagers neither freedom nor responsibility.
Tag: teenager
The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers, Part 2
DeLauro’s bill betrays a fundamental puritanism, which underlies all prohibitionism: since nicotine is a substance that provides pleasure and some people therefore use it habitually, it must be stamped out and its consumers, producers, and merchants demonized.
Cassowary
On the way to work this morning, I saw a cassowary. Right or wrong, I saw a cassowary (two of them, in fact). Let me be quick to point out that casuarius casuarius does not occur by Darwinian nature in the Bluegrass of Kentucky. But it does occur by the workings of the law of unforeseen consequences, and this too is a part of nature.
Against Veneration
I have close friends who venerate Adam Smith, John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, John Maynard Keynes, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig von Mises, Paul Samuelson, Deirdre McCloskey, Elinor Ostrom, Hannah Arendt, Alexis de Tocqueville, David Hume, Murray Rothbard, Paul Krugman, or Thomas Jefferson. This veneration of the Great Names mystifies me on two levels.
Makes for Very Poor Relationships
I think one huge problem adults have with interacting with kids (teenagers especially) nowadays is that they try to make their relationship some idealized thing. They like to be active in the kids lives, show interest in them, have a certain degree of closeness, and actualize their investment into the relationship they have wanted. Often, the kids don’t want this.
On Being a Part of City Life
I had to get a job before I started to realize the beauty of a city skyline, or even a busy interstate. The high office buildings, the businesses, the traffic, the construction, the people rushing off to do things – I’m a part of that flow now. I know what these places and things and activities are like. I know (some of) what it takes to create value in the world.
The Students Being Promoted in the Media
These kids opinions are being marketed as if they are knowledgeable and representative of reality. They aren’t. They represent themselves. However, the reason we are hearing them is because their opinions are opinions that people in the media desire for you to hear. The narrative wasn’t created due to the shooting (like is being inferred). The students were chosen for the narrative.
Unschooling and Writing
The reality is that sentence-diagramming and copying someone else’s writing template don’t create better writers. They create students who may meet contrived curriculum benchmarks and pass standardized tests. They create students who can play the game. With unschooling, there is no game to play. There is no manufactured curriculum or assessment. There is simply life.
Anti-Gun Laws Good for Criminals
Anti-gun laws make criminals safer. “Gun free zones” are gun free only until some evil loser decides to go on a killing spree and chooses a target where he knows he’ll be free to kill. When that happens there are suddenly too few guns; the only guns present being in the wrong hands. This is mandated by law. It makes the killer’s cruel task easier and deadlier, and doesn’t boost the safety of the kids or teachers.
Walk Out and Don’t Go Back
Today, students across America will join in a national school walkout day to memorialize the 17 people tragically killed in the recent Parkland, Florida school shooting and to advocate for stricter gun control laws. But what if they don’t go back?