Youth Rights

Thanks for responding :) After reading what you said about education I kind of agree with you. Maybe a better system would be to not give all of the kids money, but just those who earned a significant amount (~$1,500-$2,000) through things such as mowing lawns (it sounds impossible, but it would be possible for those who are determined, I've know young kids to save up this kind of money with such jobs over time). Unfortunately, there is a certain point in which we are putting kids in a bit of a paradox by saying "In order make money in life you must get a good education.", yet also saying "In order to obtain freedom you must make money to become independent." Even if a child were the most mature person ever (that isn't the real case, but this is hypothetical), would they really have any chance to earn their own money if we have them in schools all the time because they want to have a bright future? What happens when they, the hypothetical most mature person ever, need to pay their Harvard tuition (freakishly expensive) and they have been flipping burgers which they had to flip in order to prove themselves? My point is that once they prove they can maintain some maturity we could weed out the vast majority of kids drastically reducing these costs. Also, I didn't do one of my stats correctly because I included kids aged 1-6 in my previous section which is a bit unfair because it isn't till about 7 y.o. that kids have any abstract skills such as money, so for these younger kids, babies and toddlers we wouldn't be giving any money. "Drug tests are unconstitutional to administer by a government sector without proper suspicion." "And many drugs, except weed, are out of your system in 3 days. Do some blow or mushrooms on a Friday night at a party and your clean Monday morning for that random drug test." In nearly all situations I would completely agree with you, but I believe this to be an exception. Due to the fact that the minor does not have to attempt to gain rights this would be ok. Only the minors who agreed to come in to the nearest police station on randomly selected days (maybe on one randomly selected day every two weeks determined 2 days in advance for a year or two or possibly at a higher frequency over a shorter time span [such as once every week on a random day determined 2 days in advance over the course of 1 year or 1/2 year]). I do not believe they would be unconstitutional if the minor has agreed to such testing. The thing about randomly selected testing is that you are statistically bound to get caught/ be forced to give up if the tests are given at the correct frequency over a long enough period of time. Testing Time Span: 1 year (365 days) Time the Drug is in your System: 3 Days Testing Period: Two Weeks (14 Days) # of times tested: 26-27 (usually 26) %chance of being caught each test (even if drug is taken ONLY once every two weeks): ~21% %chance of being caught at some point (even if drug is taken ONLY once every two weeks): ~77% Now most drug addicts take drugs more often than once every two weeks, so I was being very lenient. Even if this were the case they would be caught 77% of the time which would scare most of them away. If this isnt high enough increase the frequency or time span, but regardless it can be done. It is not a matter of privacy because they have the option to opt out. You make some good points about alchohol. One thing you do have to understand is that teens already have very, very easy access to alcohol. "Two out of three teens, aged 13-18, said it is easy to get alcohol from their homes without parents knowing about it." http://alcoholism.about.com... 'One third responded that it is easy to obtain alcohol from their own parents knowingly, which increases to 40 percent when it is from a friend's parent." It is true that teens tend to get alcohol from adults. You made a good point 15 year old giving alcohol, but it would not apply to kids significantly more than adults. All you need is ONE messed up adult to sell alcohol to 14 year olds for the extra twenty bucks and that is exactly what happens everyday, in fact, that is almost universally how they get it, with the exception of theft. I do see your point. I don't care too much about the alcohol thing though, its not that big of a deal and maybe it is a bit of a moot point. I'm not really too concerned with mature minors being able to drink, and you made some valid points. I do not really care about "winning" this debate :) I sort of look of this as advice or as pruning down some of my ideas and learning which of these ideas people would oppose as well as their arguments against them. The entire way people on this site vote for a winner is bs anyway because sometimes you kind of lose and sometimes you kind of win, but you never truly win, so understand that this isnt much of a "me vs. you" thing. Most people will probably read the title and vote for you without reading either of our arguments so I have no realistic chance anyway :P