On balance, people over 65 should not be able to vote in the United States political system

MENTAL CAPACITYI would like to note that in my opponent's response he A) Did not retaliate to my statement that most of the mental declines exhibited were not related to voting ability, and B) He did not respond to the fact that the statement, "there are declines in mental domains such as processing speed, reasoning, memory and executive functions, some of which is underpinned by a decline in a general cognitive factor." is listed under a section that is titled 'Areas of Agreement and Controversy', and that the statement is not specified as either an area of agreement or controversy. Not only does this make the statement suspect, it also casts some doubt upon the validity of the page as a whole. What kind of info page doesn't specify what statements are agreed upon or debated? The other response from my opponent is:"If ability to reason and solve problems is slowed, as con admits, the quality of conclusions can in fact be diminished. This is largely due to the possibility of being unable to reach a conclusion."This idea makes sense at first, until you examine the fact that people have plenty of time to make voting decisions. Nobody is ever sat down in a voting booth, given information, given a time constraint, and told to make a decision. Even if someone's reasoning capacity is slowed, and they occasionally abandon their thoughts, they have plenty of time to revisit them and work through it. Especially senior citizens, who, on average, will have retired by 64[1], and thus will have much more time than anyone else to think about political issues. POLITICAL KNOWLEDGEThe information is found when you click on 'take a peek', and view the opening summary, wherein it is stated that, "the analysis finds that seniors learned much more than non-seniors about candidate positions on an emerging Social Security issue that was heavily emphasized in the 2000 campaign, but not when the same issue was more familiar and largely ignored by the candidates and press in the 2004 campaign. Yet, even without additional learning or campaign emphasis, seniors still knew more than non-seniors in the later contest."[linked in prev. round]And as you can see below, seniors are the second most knowledgeable voters[2](mis-read the info presented earlier, that's my bad), with those soon to join them coming in first place. Seniors have the second highest 'high' rank, 3rd highest 'middle' rank, and 2nd lowest 'low' rank, whereas 30-49 ranks 3rd, 1st, and 2nd highest, respectively. Obviously, the 18-29 age group, which my opponent has already proved is largely comprised of individuals with undeveloped minds, is also the least knowledgeable of all of them, by far, which, again, raises the question of whether or not my opponent is going after the right people. At these point I'd like to affirm my position in respect to my BoP. Currently I've shown that most of the information my opponent has used regarding voting capabilities is not relevant, and the rest of the relevant information I have either refuted or shown as unreliable information. Taking this into consideration with the solid political knowledge possessed by seniors and incoming seniors, the fact that seniors have more free time with which to examine political issues, and that they have specific knowledge of what effects them most: Social Security; we can see that one would be wasting a group of perfectly informed voters, a group that is without any proven pertinent mental degradation.FUNCTION OF A DEMOCRACYIn this section, my opponent is basically saying in regards to my arguments about the negatives that would result if we went with his plan: we already do/have these things with minors. Note that he never says that the issues I bring up aren't issues just that they're issues already present, as if one issue being present makes it ok to allow another issue to be present. There are two things that create a distinction between seniors and minors. 1) Minors have little life experience compared to seniors, thus seniors are more knowledgeable, and better equipped to vote, 2) Other voters can more properly vote for minors, because they've been minors before. Obviously this could not be replicated with seniors.When one applies these two distinctions between seniors and minors to some of the statements my opponent offers, one can see that the analogy doesn't hold. The two groups of people simply aren't the same, and the results of taking away their voting rights wouldn't be the same either. SLIPPERY SLOPELike my opponent, I will open with a link to a page that supports me[3]. It is a very nice paper, and is enlightening on a subject that could use additional consideration. However, I will not be sidetracking my arguments into a defense of slippery slope arguments in general. The unfortunate fact of slippery slope arguments is that often they are shut down, and in a manner that suggests that even considering the validity of a slippery slope argument is absurd. It is treated as if it were equal to saying that the earth is flat. In reality, slippery slope arguments can have merit, which is the case with mine.Mine is more plausible because if my opponent was to have his way, roughly a quarter of voters would suddenly lose their right to vote. That is obviously a very large, significant portion of the voting population. If an action like that can be supported on such a large scale, it is reasonable to assume that further events such as that could take place, until our society is in a place where we'd rather not be (examples of places we'd rather not be found in my previous round). Hopefully readers can see that the significance of a quarter of the voting population outweighs the significance of repealing a law, and thus, a distinction is made between stupid slippery slope arguments, and more meritous ones such as mine, which should be taken as a serious concern, one which pushes the 'on balance' further in my support. INTERNATIONAL PUSHBACKIn countering my points, my opponent makes two of his own. First, he says that since the UN's legal document does not mention age, there will be no possibility of pushback. However, if we're looking at this on a legal level, we can see that the document says, "...without distinction of any kind, such as..." The 'such as' indicates that these are simply examples, and the 'distinction of any kind' demonstrates that the document doesn't really preclude any manners of distinction. Thus, this document doesn't prevent against pushback.My opponent's next point, and my counter to it, also pertains to the issue in the previous paragraph. My opponent links a page to us that shows the voting ages in other countries where voting occurs. In looking through the entire list (that was fun) I did not find one country that is doing what my opponent proposes America does. No country in the world prevents their seniors from voting. So for my opponent to say that other countries would be cool with us banning seniors from voting is a gross mischaracterization of the information presented. I mean, if it was perceived as a good, or at least permissible thing to do, why is it that not one country has dared to do it? BETTER ALTERNATIVEMy opponent doesn't really refute the idea presented, merely he claims it as a point for his side. First, I need to clear something up. This argument is a EVEN IF argument. Even if you disagreed with everything I'd said before that point, and you still thought poor mental capacity was grounds for losing one's vote, you would see that doing it the way my opponent wants to do it is not as effective as the alternative I'm offering, and therefore, one would not be for my opponent's idea, because it is a less effective option in comparison.So the balance swings from what my opponent suggests, to what I provide as an alternative, because the alternative is better at addressing what my opponent wants to address with his proposition.These are all things I would've specified in my previous round, if I'd had the characters, and if I'd thought there'd be confusion about it.PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTHMy opponent mis-quotes me in an attempt to garner an advantage. He quotes me as saying:"there is an alternative that is less sloppy in its solving of the problem."In reality, my sentence finished by saying, "..in its solving of the problem that my opponent has." It is a small difference, but one that I wanted to be made known. NEW ARGSMy opponent uses his fourth source to claim that memory loss among seniors makes them unfit for voting. Perusing through his source however, I have found that this is a non-issue. "The brain is capable of producing new brain cells at any age, so significant memory loss is not an inevitable result of aging.""Furthermore, many mental abilities are largely unaffected by normal aging, such as:"Your ability to do the things you"ve always done and continue to do often"The wisdom and knowledge you"ve acquired from life experience"Your innate common sense"Your ability to form reasonable arguments and judgments"[emphasis added]"In fact, we often mistake this slowing of our mental processes for true memory loss. But in most cases, if we give ourselves time, the information will come to mind."The first two speak for themselves, and in regards to the last one, I'd just like to reiterate my point that seniors do often have more free time thanks to retirement, and therefore can do as the last quote suggests. Thanks for reading. Sources: [1] http://actuary-info.blogspot.com...[2] http://www.people-press.org...[3] http://www.legalaffairs.org...