The Guardian – Children Should Vote
27 November 2021
The demolition of the “argument” presented by the author of this article in The Guardian won’t take long. It seems that David Runciman (the aforementioned author) thinks there is a problem with the Holy Grail of socio-economic and political mechanisms, that being the all-hallowed “Democracy”, the system by which allegedly the public votes in their representatives who will champion their cause in Parliament, each of us essentially having a seat at the table of power by proxy of these pure and noble conduits of public feeling.
The title of the article is “Votes for children! Why we should lower the voting age to six” and should come as no surprise from a self-declared politically Left-leaning socialist rag like The Guardian. The kinds of Governments that utilise the methods and tools generally associated with what people know as Left-wing politics such as collectivist ideology, the notion of public ownership via “nationalising” industry and so on, have long understood that capturing the minds of the young is vital to sustaining their centralised system of power and control. So it is not remotely unexpected that the self-identifying Left would espouse targeting children as young as six with political propaganda and subsuming them at such an early age into the world of politics, which as every adult with even a slim grip on reality knows is utterly corrupt and full of lies, liars and self-serving parasites. The extent to which that is acknowledged is generally mediated by the levels of allegiance to one party or another, or none at all, e.g. “oh yes, the other side is corrupt, but my party isn’t”, or if you happen to not have a favourite flavour of social and economic cancer, “they are all corrupt”.
David Runciman starts the article with a bold statement asserting how things should be with all the confidence of an arrogant dictator as you can see…
There is no good reason to exclude children from the right to vote. Indeed, I believe there is a strong case for lowering the voting age to six, effectively extending the franchise to any child in full-time education. When I have made this case, as I have done in recent years in a variety of different forums, I am always struck by the reaction I get. It is incredulity. What possible reason could there be to do something so seemingly reckless and foolhardy? Most audiences recognise that our democracy is growing fractious, frustrated and frustrating. Our political divisions are wide and our institutions seem ill-equipped to handle them. But nothing surely could justify allowing children to join in. Wouldn’t it simply make everything worse?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/16/reconstruction-after-covid-votes-for-children-age-six-david-runciman
It would not. In fact, it might make things better. But to understand why, we first need to understand the nature of the problems our democracy faces, and in particular, the generational divide that has become an increasingly important factor in politics over recent decades.
“There is no good reason to exclude children from the right to vote”? Really David? This is a statement so wrapped up in the authors own delusional arrogance it is hard to fathom, and yet he later in that paragraph seems astonished at the reaction he usually gets. It’s akin to a person being shocked by the reactions of others when they announce that they have two heads. Obviously it is so absurd the reaction is “incredulity”, but only the truly delusional would double down on their stance of having two heads when everyone else reacts in such a way, and additionally but no less importantly, all the evidence points to the reality which is they don’t have two heads.
This guy is clearly so utterly fixated with getting his team in to power that all he cares about is finding the means to achieve it. This is what happens when you have a goal, and then form opinions that influence everything else that are intended to achieve that goal, at any cost.
Yes, the system of “Democracy” is broken, but allowing the sick and twisted political machine access to sell their lies to children is one of the most abhorrent ideas ever. David Runciman wants you to believe it “might make things better”, and he’s arrived at this conclusion because of the single politically biased lens he views the world through that has led him to evaluate the current system and think “You know what? What we need is to take the very worst people in our society, those that lie, cheat and steal for a living and have a strong desire to control other people and meddle in everyone’s lives to benefit themselves and their corporate mates, and unleash them on our children”.
Who knows if people like Runciman will get his way? It’s not a new idea. The so-called intellectual Bertrand Russell wrote in his 1953 book “The Impact of Science on Society” that:
What went wrong formerly was that people had read in books that man is a rational animal, and framed their arguments on this hypothesis. We now know that limelight and a brass band do more to persuade than can be done by the most elegant train of syllogisms.
Page 34 – https://ia902909.us.archive.org/0/items/ImpactOfScienceOnSociety1953/1953%20-%20Impact%20of%20Science%20on%20Society%20-%20Bertrand%20Russell.pdf
It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. This subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.
Some Bertrand Russell fans would like to tell you that this was a warning, like Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World. For some clarity on this, Russell was a devout eugenicist who preached the overpopulation lie. In the same book he also states…
What is the inevitable result if the increase of population is not checked? There must be a very general lowering of the standard of life in what are now prosperous countries. With that lowering there must go a great diminution in the demand for industrial products. Detroit will have to give up making private cars, and confine itself to lorries. Such things as books, pianos, watches will become the rare luxuries of a few exceptionally powerful men-notably those who control the army and the police. In the end there will be a uniformity of misery, and the Malthusian law will reign unchecked.
Page 106 – https://ia902909.us.archive.org/0/items/ImpactOfScienceOnSociety1953/1953%20-%20Impact%20of%20Science%20on%20Society%20-%20Bertrand%20Russell.pdf
The reference to the “Malthusian law” tells you everything you need to know, but just in case there is any doubt as to the kind of person Russell was and where his allegiances lie, he continues on the topic of dealing with the notion of population issues…
The nations which at present increase rapidly should be encouraged to adopt the methods by which, in the West, the increase of population has been checked. Educational propaganda, with government help, could achieve this result in a generation. There are, however, two powerful forces opposed to such a policy: one is religion, the other is nationalism. I think it is the duty of all who are capable of facing facts to realize, and to proclaim, that opposition to the spread of birth control, if successful, must inflict upon mankind the most appalling depth of misery and degradation, and that within another fifty years or so.
Page 107 – https://ia902909.us.archive.org/0/items/ImpactOfScienceOnSociety1953/1953%20-%20Impact%20of%20Science%20on%20Society%20-%20Bertrand%20Russell.pdf
I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others, which, one must suppose, opponents of birth control would prefer. War, as I remarked a moment ago, has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. There would be nothing in this to offend the consciences of the devout or to restrain the ambitions of nationalists. The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of that? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people’s.
This appalling set of ideas coming from an esteemed author like Russell has some familiar aspects when you look at the world today. Granted his suggestion that “bacteriological war” as a solution to overpopulation is only a secondary possibility should “Educational propaganda with Government help” prove ineffective or is resisted in some way, but we see this general aiming of propaganda at children to satisfy the delusions of those eugenicists and would-be rulers of the world, the “high-minded” as Russell calls them.
Of course there is something wrong with Democracy as a system for governing a nation. Because you can’t really opt out of any outcomes, even if you don’t wish to participate, you have the rules and taxes forced on you anyway. The usual fallacy used to defend Democracy as a solution to national or indeed international Government, is the example of being a member of a sports club where you’d pay a membership fee (in this nonsense example that is supposed to be analogous to taxes) and you’d also expect a vote on club matters, and the only way to decide when the vote is split, is to go with the option that has the most votes. The main problem with that analogy is that it is a false equivalence. If I decided the club had democratically voted something I didn’t want and I felt strongly enough, I could leave and join another club, or even set up my own if there were no other appropriate ones locally. The idea of a set of Laws governing every aspect of our lives voted on democratically at a national level where you can’t just go somewhere else or set up your own system is bad enough, but mostly the opinions of the public are not even considered when it comes to decisions on Laws. We get zero say at any point of the process. It is a nonsense and the only reason the public largely allows it to continue, or participates in the charade is because the Government took over the education of children like Bertrand Russell suggested and has made them believe snow is black.
The idea that getting children further tangled in the political system, and allowing filthy lying corrupt thieves and control freaks to target children with their political campaigns, all paid for by the parents who are already paying for the indoctrination of their children by the State is almost too obscene for words.
The irony that a news outlet that calls itself The Guardian, a word often used to describe one entrusted with the protection of children would argue for and even outright demand such a disgraceful thing as targeting children with political propaganda should inform you as to how far things have fallen, and that there is no bar too low for these people.