Things and Stuff
Jul. 18th, 2025 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootToo many phone calls to make. The NHS keeps making all these appointments for me to have vaccinations. First it was the shingles one, which I still haven't rescheduled (because I know that the moment I phone to do that, they will remind me that I haven't had my Covid booster this year) now it's the pneumococcal. All this because I am perceived to be more at risk. The surgeon warned me that they were going to be pestering me for the next decade, but I thought that was just the yearly mammogram. Apparently there's more to it than that. I know I should be grateful and am trying to be, but injections! Pah!
Meanwhile, looks like the government is keeping its manifesto promise of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. Loud is the harrumphing. While I can see that a 16 year old may be too immature to understand the ramifications of their vote, and yes, greater understanding with age is an expectation, I wouldn't say election results bear these ideas out. It took supposedly mature individuals to vote for Brexit, Johnson, and Truss, and now many of these same supposedly mature individuals are gathering behind Nigel Farage and Reform. There's never a guarantee that a 20/40/60/80 year old will vote wisely, even given a universal value of wisdom. I think it was Jefferson who believed that an educated citizenry is necessary for the survival of a democracy. There's a need to teach people how government works as well as the responsibilities of democracy, and we just don't do it, we never did. That's where the problem lies. We're lazy and tribal and find politics dull unless someone's knickers are involved. It's only when things go wrong that we shift our butts into gear, often too late. The main weakness with this new legislation is that perhaps 16-18 is an easily propagandised age group, very vulnerable to social contagion and media influence. But hasn't everyone had similar issues? I remember times when women voted as their husbands told them to, and an old friend of mine recalled to me how as an adult back in the 70s, he was taken to his first polling booth by his dad who also told him where to put his X. Now he doesn't vote at all.
Meanwhile, looks like the government is keeping its manifesto promise of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. Loud is the harrumphing. While I can see that a 16 year old may be too immature to understand the ramifications of their vote, and yes, greater understanding with age is an expectation, I wouldn't say election results bear these ideas out. It took supposedly mature individuals to vote for Brexit, Johnson, and Truss, and now many of these same supposedly mature individuals are gathering behind Nigel Farage and Reform. There's never a guarantee that a 20/40/60/80 year old will vote wisely, even given a universal value of wisdom. I think it was Jefferson who believed that an educated citizenry is necessary for the survival of a democracy. There's a need to teach people how government works as well as the responsibilities of democracy, and we just don't do it, we never did. That's where the problem lies. We're lazy and tribal and find politics dull unless someone's knickers are involved. It's only when things go wrong that we shift our butts into gear, often too late. The main weakness with this new legislation is that perhaps 16-18 is an easily propagandised age group, very vulnerable to social contagion and media influence. But hasn't everyone had similar issues? I remember times when women voted as their husbands told them to, and an old friend of mine recalled to me how as an adult back in the 70s, he was taken to his first polling booth by his dad who also told him where to put his X. Now he doesn't vote at all.
