People of all ages should be considered inherently equal.

Greetings and warmest regards to my opponent. Human society has come to realize, time and time again, that a person's individual aspects override their classification in terms of what they can do, how well they can do it and, by extension, whether or not they should have the right to do it. We began with landowners of a particular race and gender; we then expanded to include all races, and then both genders. The time has come for society to embrace these precedents and take a long look at inherent equivalency of age. I present the following premises in support of this position:1. Experience is qualitative as well as quantitative. It is obviously concedable that the longer one has been alive, the more experience they have. That is the defining characteristic of age, and its only universal truth (by universal truth, I simply mean there are no exceptions; this contrasts sharply with, say, the argument that physiological changes are a reliable sign of aging, since a number of conditions exist in which people experience physical changes more rapidly, more slowly, or not at all). However, simple quantity is given too great a weight in society. If Person A has spent six years studying the art of playing the piano, and Person B has never touched one in their lives, then which person should be called upon to perform in a concerto? Person A is obviously the superior choice, and this remains true if Person A is ten years old and Person B is fifty. This truth is also without exception; name any task within the purview of the human experience, and there exists a young savant whose capability exceeds that of their elders. 2. Age-based policies are inherently inaccurate. Take, for example, the concept of a mandatory retirement age. The primary purposes of such a policy are often to infuse a company with new ideas and remove someone whose capacity to perform their duties has become diminished. Used as the benchmark to accomplish these goals, age is a poor determinor; there is no guarantee that a person of any specific age is diminished in capacity, and there is certainly no guarantee that someone who is chronologically younger is automatically in possession of new ideas and insights. It is quite easy to propose a reasonable scenario in which neither fact would survive scrutiny, and thus the application of the age based policy is naught but an oppressive semantic applied for its own sake. On the other side of the spectrum, a minimum driving age makes the assumption that those who have not yet attained it are inherently incapable of accepting the rights and responsibilities associated with being a licensed driver. This, too, is not necessarily accurate; studies show that younger drivers are more accident prone, certainly, but I would assert that the more accurate representation of that dynamic would be "drivers with less than X years experience are more accident prone"; such rates among people who have attained their licenses later in life match the same curve as their younger peers. Therefore, if one presumes 3 years as the amount of experience needed to be a less dangerous driver, then if the driving age were lowered to 12 tomorrow, the 16-18 category would suddenly rank as consistent in safety with their 35-40 counterparts. This is, of course, consistent with my first premise.3. Age-based policies are often redundant and self-defeating.There is no better example of this than the minimum working age in the United States. Initially proposed in the early 20th century, the minimum age was established as a response to very real dangers faced by children in the workforce. Unsafe conditions led to horrible accidents in mines and factories, and youth were often exploited for their willingness to work for next to no salary. Recently politically empowered mothers put forth the plea that their childrens' safety was at stake, and legislation was passed to remove them from harm's way. As wonderful as that sounds, conceptually, it ignored the realities that such problems were problems for ALL Americans, not just children. Eventually this was realized, and dealt with through legislation which established a minimum wage for the worker and a minimum requirement of safety in the workplace, with mandatory inspections of all facilities and very rigid standards. These regulations accomplish everything that chlid labor laws set out to do, making them no longer necessary. Their continued existence now requires those children who want or need to work to do so discretely - which often means doing so for lower than minimum wage, in facilities which do not meet those rigid safety standards. That the restrictions are now causing the conditions they were meant to protect against is an irony that should be lost on no one.4. Age-based restrictions contribute to low self-esteem.There is an inherent attack in dismissing one's contributions solely based on their age; for youth, it means internalizing the idea that they are somehow less valid or valuable, and for elders, it means internalizing the idea that any value they had is now irrevocably gone. Both are tragic, but particularly in youth, this can lead to a lifelong pattern of belief in their own inherent inferiority, because society most certain never formally gets around to undoing such perceptions when its citizenry crosses the magic age line. Indeed, most governments arguably prefer a docile citizenry, so such perceptions serve them well. 5. A free society has an obligation to lean towards the permissive in all grey areas.There is a counterargument to be made that would frequently contain the words "more often than not". It would sound something like this: "Perhaps some seventy year olds could continue to function well in their jobs, but more often than not, they are, in fact, too diminished to be as effective." "There may be some twelve year olds who can handle alcohol responsibly, but more often than not, people under twenty-one are too irresponsible to be drinking."While I would cede these both as true statements, the simple fact remains that their corrolaries are also truisms, and therefore any blanket policy which does not take individual variance into account is needlessly oppressive. There is no minimum population at which unjustly discriminating against them for the ease of simplicity is acceptable behavior for a civilized, free society. ConclusionThese five premises strike me as adequate support for the conclusion that people of all ages should be considered inherently equal. Continuing to use age as a standard by which we permit or deny things on a massive scale is as inappropriate as using hair color, race, gender, or any other irrelevant demographic. Which is to say, not at all.