Children's Suffrage

Everybody should have the right to try and protect their interests.  This is the basis for both universal suffrage and pragmatarianism.  

Universal suffrage is far from universal in that it still excludes around 25% of the population from voting.  So for some time now I've been advocating children's suffrage.  It's fun to promote because every argument that adults give against kids voting can also be used against adults voting.  Therefore, either everybody votes or nobody votes.  

Here are some of the places where I have promoted universal suffrage...

• Consequentialist Arguments Against Children's Suffrage
• http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com
• Self-Ownership Survey (SOS)
• http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com
• Raise the Voting Age to 25
• http://dailycaller.com/
• The Ethics of Voting
• http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com (see Banned from BHL)
• Should the Voting Age be Lowered?
• http://www.slate.com
• Pragmatarianism and Universal Suffrage 
• http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/
• Drugs are bad mmm'kay?
• http://forums.southparkstudios.com
• Universal Suffrage, Pragmatarianism and the War On Drugs 
• http://www.ronpaulforums.com
• Universal Suffrage, Pragmatarianism and the War On Drugs 
• http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com
• Uniiversal Suffrage, Pragmatarianism and the War On Drugs
• http://www.debatepolitics.com
• Universal Suffrage 
• http://www.facebook.com/libertarians
• The Myth of the Informed Voter
•  http://www.politicalforum.com
• The Myth of the Informed Voter 
• http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/cfrm/f/2991937776
• Other People's Money 
• http://www.youthrights.org/community/forum/off-topic/

Just recently I ran across this great paper advocating children's suffrage.  The author, Leo Semashko, offers a ton of very persuasive arguments why kids should be enfranchised.  However, rather than advocating that children should be allowed to directly vote the author makes the argument that they should be allowed to vote by proxy.  This type of voting by proxy is known as Demeny Voting.  Semashko's reasoning for not allowing kids to vote is that they are incapable of articulating their interests.  

Heck, sometimes I have a hard time articulating my interests.  I'm certainly interested in the invisible hand but struggle when trying to describe the concept to some random person.  Same thing with pragmatarianism.  The point of this blog is to hopefully catch the attention of somebody that can more effectively articulate the idea of pragmatarianism.  

Again, we see that every argument against kids voting can also be used against adults voting.  We shouldn't need persuasive reasons to allow kids to vote.  We should just recognize and respect that everybody should have the right to try and protect their interests...even if their interests conflict with our own.