39. Legal age for adulthood should be reduced in the United States.

I will tackle my opponent's argument in chunks for clarity. I will give the beginning and ending statements of each chunk in capital letters before my responses. Please reference my opponent's Round 1 speech in order to understand all argumentation. I ACCEPT PRO'S…THIS CONTENTION Cool. 2A)MILITARY: PRO CLAIMS…THE IMPLICATIONS OF. 1. The fact that 17-year-olds must obtain permission from their legal guardians does not diminish the contradiction inherent in the legal age requirement for the U.S. military. The legal age for joining the military is 18; however, a 17-year-old can join the military with parental permission. When the government allows people below the legal age to participate, the maturity standard for the legal age is no longer present, and the legal age becomes an arbitrary, meaningless number. 2. The CON assumes that parents (or guardians) that allow their children to join the military at age 17 "have discussed with you the implications of joining the military, and that they can vouch for you knowing the full results of your actions." However, he gives no proof that this situation is real or even common. An adult could similarly authorize their child to participate in the military because they want the child to supply them with earnings, or because they don't want to support their child anymore, or because they simply don't want to be around their children. In all of these cases, the child's maturity would not be factored into the equation, and again the legal age will have failed in gauging maturity and assigning rights accordingly. Unless the CON can prove that all legal guardians do take into account their child's maturity, the legal age has failed in its task. 3. The field trip example does not apply to this scenario for a couple of reasons. First, if all students in the school system are required to get parental permission regardless of age, there is no "legal age" present in this scenario. Second, field trips to the planetarium do not require any specific level of "maturity" like the possession of alcohol or joining the military does. Because these issues are lacking in the CON's example, the analogy does not prove that the government's ducks are collinear. EMANCIPATION: "BY THE…BACK TO PRO. 4. According to Legal Services For Children (http://www.lsc-sf.org...,) emancipated children are permitted to bring their own lawsuits, sign binding contracts, keep their own earnings, get work permits without parental consent, and consent to their own medical care. There are more "rights" listed there, but these are the ones that popped out to me as requiring the highest level of maturity. Since the CON has not had a chance to respond to this argument other than deeming it vague, I will not pontificate on these rights any further until the CON has had a chance to respond to the specific rights. 5. The incoherency of state emancipation standards does not reduce the seriousness of bending the maturity standard in terms of legal age. I doubt this will be important in the round, but I make the argument now for the sake of covering all my bases. 6. The CON states "[T]here are no legal rights that are compelling enough to grant reducing the legal age compared to the detriments that this would incur." This debate is not about weighing the benefits and detriments of emancipation. The fact is, regardless of how awesome or not awesome it is to be emancipated, the existence of such a legal process undermines the maturity standard which a legal age is designed to implement. I PERSONALLY KNOW…AGE TO 16. 7. Your personal anecdote does show a detriment of emancipation, but it does not excuse the existence of the emancipation process and the rights it provides in the current legal system. Emancipation still bends the maturity level to the point of breaking it, regardless of how emancipated children feel about it and regardless of how commonly it occurs in real life. To use an analogy: if a new law was passed that made it legal to murder 110-year-olds in the United States, this law would be bad, regardless of how many 110-year-olds were murdered as a result. "IN BOTH CASES…AT THIS IDEA." 8. Again, the likelihood or commonness of early military recruitment or emancipation has no affect on their contradiction. The fact is that these options are available in the current legal system, and that contradicts the concept of "legal age." "THE IMAGINARY LINE…OUTWARD INTO SOCIETY." Please refer to arguments #2 and #7 regarding these two examples of bending the legal age. "THIS CREATES A…THIS GLARING INCONSISTENCY? 9. What makes the legal age illegitimate (unreasonable, illogical, not firmly supported) is the fact that it is designed to reflect a level of maturity (see Contention I in the first PRO speech) but fails to do so. It tells us that 18-year-olds can do certain things because anyone below that age is immature, then provides legal exceptions for those which it deemed immature to do the same things. These widely available exceptions destroy the concept of a level of maturity, because maturity is NOT factored in when the exceptions are taken advantage of. 10. The killing example does not legitimize the incoherent maturity levels of legal age. First, the "legal" situations of killing someone do not become legal based on a level of maturity. Second, the law for acceptable and unacceptable killing takes into account those exceptions (such as self-defense), whereas there is no real "excuse" for the variable maturity levels in terms of legal age. 2B) DRIVING. I AGREE…TO DROP OUT. 11. The CON argues that it would make more sense to move the driving age up to 18 or 21 instead of lowering the other rights down to 16. There are several reasons why lowering rights would be better. First, it would avoid a public backlash (if all 16- and 17-year-olds were suddenly stripped of their driver's licenses, there would be a significant outcry from that population). Second, according to Alex Koroknay-Paticz, writing in The New York Times in 2006, "Studies show that it is inexperience, not age, that causes accidents. Raising the driving age will just create inexperienced, accident-prone drivers at 18 instead of 16." As the CON stated himself, "I waited until I was 18 to drive, and even then I was not ready." Raising the age won't improve the driving situation. The other argument that the CON uses to support his side is that 16-year-olds should not be buying porn, voting, etc. The CON states that if 16-year-olds were given the rights of 18-year-olds, they would drop out of school. There is no evidence to support the likelihood of this statement, so I ask for a clarification or concession from the CON on this point. Even if there were situations where 16-year-olds would drop out of high school, if they are mature enough to drive by the maturity standard, they ought to be able to make other less life-endangering decisions as well. "IT IS AN ANTIQUATED…YOUR 3RD CONTENTION. 12. It fails because of its contradiction, which destroys the maturity criterion inherent in the concept of legal age. 3)REMOVING THE CONTRADICTIONS…BE CONTENTION 4. 13. Please extend my response to this argument. 5) I WILL EXTEND…BE CONTENTION 5. 14. Please extend my response to this argument. 6) THERE IS GOOD…OF BEING YOUNG! 15. This argument seems more like a grandfather's monologue from a Disney movie than a contention in a debate, but I'll respond to it as the latter. The resolution is not about the stealing of childhood, but the consistency and legitimacy of the law. This is threatened by the current system which employs a "legal age" that is rife with contradiction and confusion. The PRO does not want to make "young-uns" older, but to recognize and assign maturity where it rightfully lies. I eagerly await the next riposte.