For decades, a disturbing trend has been afoot. Instead of treating teenagers mostly like adults and then giving them their full rights at age 18, people have been taking the rights of young adults away, citing a variety of excuses, many of them politically motivated. Alcohol, smoking, tobacco, and buying a handgun are all off-limits until 21, with people pushing for even higher age restrictions for some of these and others.
But despite this rampant and unchecked age discrimination for adult citizens, society still expects young men to register for the draft and entrusts young men and women with something as important as voting (some, of course, want to lower that one).
For decades, a disturbing trend has been afoot. Instead of treating teenagers mostly like adults and then giving them their full rights at age 18, people have been taking the rights of young adults away, citing a variety of excuses, many of them politically motivated. Alcohol, smoking, tobacco, and buying a handgun are all off-limits until 21, with people pushing for even higher age restrictions for some of these and others.
But despite this rampant and unchecked age discrimination for adult citizens, society still expects young men to register for the draft and entrusts young men and women with something as important as voting (some, of course, want to lower that one).
