Why are the young people supporting the Lib Dems?

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Well, about that, i could say that there is often a negative connotation in modern and post modern societies about the past. <.< It isn't as glorified as elsewhere. Science is supposed to bring you "forward" though. <.< Matter of perspective i suppose.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to legalize weed, but that hasn't rallied young people here. Possibly because he wants to tax weed at $50 a joint to close the state budget deficit.

That says most of it.

Kids are inclined to be more "liberal," but if they don't learn their history, they only know what pop culture has fed them since they first "tuned in." I almost think nobody should have the right to vote until they reach 25 or have joined the military...whichever comes first. It's too easy to brainwash masses of kids to believe in something when they have no personal real-life experience to know how unworkable it really is.

Is it the states responsibility to create responsible adults who are capable of critical thinking? I believe the state provided me with all the tools I needed when i was tought to read and write in the english language. Everything beyond that was at a basic level of knowledge for further development or national myths and propaganda. All countries in way or anther engage in this behaviour. How many differnt versions of history are you willing to sit down and read about.

Labour went off pwning smaller countries, Conservatives are ring wing, and most people don't like that, both of them support the digital economy bill, Clegg promises an alternative. His challenge will be convincing hard supporters, who mostly vote Labour or Tory regardless of what each party does.

Thankfully for Labour and the Tories a lot of money is invested in a media that convinces the public no big change can be made, there is only a 2 party system, and most of the people shouldn't bother voting in the first place.

Why? its because they have their whole lives ahead of them and they can see the bankruptcy of the right wing parties. They see the horror that will be climate change if nothing drastic is done, they have just witnessed the GFC and the continued recession in the UK, the young also have little or no job security ahead of them, they have the continued threat of war etc etc etc. So they see a more moderate government as a chance to bring things back to the people, to reform the system.

Unfortunately they have not looked at the very nature of the system they wish to reform and realised that it is not so much the previous governments that have gotten them into this mess, rather it is the fundamental nature of capitalism itself

They see the hype and they believe it. Sieg Heil. Godwin's Law, use it.

On the flip-side it could easily be said that older people are overly nostalgic for a time that probably never really existed, much too set in their ways and have an irrational fear of new ideas change (even if it is for the better).

AFAIC, if you are old enough to be able to pay tax, you should be able to vote. I don't see why contribution in the armed forces must necessarily be more important then many other professions.

I tend to agree with that. In the UK certain leftists are campaigning to give 16 year old kids the right to vote. The only reason they're keen on that is because the teaching profession in British state schools contains an unusually high proportion of Marxist crackpots who abuse impressionable young minds with the insidious propaganda of socialism.

No one should be allowed to vote unless they have held down a job and have paid tax on their income.

ruveyn

And what about the disabled who are excluded from the workplace?

There is actually something in the Republican party known as "The Old Right", folks like Ron Paul. Ron Paul has a large following of young people with his focus on civil liberties, fiscal responsibility and sound monetary policy. Something a young person could rally for. These were the people who opposed preemptive war, interventionism, and deficit spending.

It is not that young Americans are supporting democrats because they are better, it's just many of us feel that the establishment republicans don't represent any of us, and most often Democrats are more resonant emotionally with certain issues. Gay marriage supporters, anti war, marijuana, abortion; these are currently viewed as left policies just as anti abortion and national security are right side.

Now, this doesn't mean that voting for democrats is going to make gay marriage legal or that our military spending will go down. After all, do you all remember how happy you all were when Obama with his newly gained house and Senate majority repealed the Patriot act and began our withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan? Wait...that never happened. Well at least pot is legal now....%#@$

They and children can be handled as exceptions.

People who have all their limbs in working order and functional brains need to show they can earn their keep. We don't need shiftless bums voting a nice living for themselves with the help of corrupt politicians.

ruveyn

Back to the days of poll tax...
Back to the past.
Back before sewers were built in the slums - after all, it was a problem of poor people the non-existence of sewers. They couldn't vote. Tough.
Back to the days of slavery, too, while we're at it. Enslaving the peons is perfectly all right. That shows them for being born to the wrong family.
I am disgusted at the reprehensible ideas that freely float out there on the American Right. You people are despicable.
Do you people really think things were better back in those days? Do you really think that? Would you get into a time machine and return to the early 19th century?
After the poor got the vote there was more upward mobility and opportunity than ever before because governments had to take these people into account because they could vote. This led to the rise of the middle class something that people like the American Right clearly see as a great evil that happened.
You people wouldn't know that full employment is considered to be inflationary and is considered a big no-no, so now you want to permanently disenfranchise people who are victims of government policy. I can't properly express my disgust and how much I hate what I hear out of the American Right. Truly I am ashamed to think I am of the same race as they are.

Then you need to learn your history and WHY not everyone was given the right to vote.

As "unfair" as it may seem to you, the FACT is that every civilization that gives just anyone a say in government eventually falls apart.

Those who have the most to lose from government action should have the most say in what government is allowed to do. The Founding Fathers desired voting rights to only extend to property owners. Typically, the average land owner was a white male.

It certainly was not a perfect system, but they understood that if everyone got a vote, then those who had nothing would gladly vote for someone who promised to hand out wealth from the public treasury if they would vote for them.

The idea of taking from those who have to give to those who do not was reprehensible to a free society. It punished those who were successful in their labors and rewarded those who did not make the effort to build their own success.

If you look at the expansion of voting rights, you will find an associated degradation of personal liberty because the new voters inevitably support those who promise more and bigger social programs which benefit (no surprise) those who have nothing at the expense of those who worked hard to produce their wealth.

It's easy to support the idea of an "inheritance tax" when you look at trust fund babies like Paris Hilton, but you don't stop and realize that tax will affect many families that didn't live off "generational wealth" but rather worked hard their whole life (and paid taxes) to accumulate their family's wealth only to let the government again confiscate even more of it when they pass on and leave what's left to their kids.

America is going the way of ever "great" society that came before for pretty much the same mistakes as those societies made.

It is irresponsible to allow just anyone the "right" to vote. People who have never had to make a living by the sweat of their brow, people who have never at least tried to make a business profitable, people who have never served their community or nation in a time of need, etc., why should they be given a voice? These people think they are "owed" something because that's what some politicized educator told them, but I can tell you that every educator is a hypocrite. Colleges are the foremost caste system in America. Would that educator agree to take the same pay as the person who mops the halls and takes out the trash every night? Would they take a pay cut so that person's wages could be raised to an equal level? Hell no. They think they are worth more, but a college won't stay open without the janitor doing his/her job. Kids who think Socialism/Marxism is good wouldn't want their A grade dropped to a B so the D student could move up to a C, so why should they fight for programs that would take from my hard labors to give to someone who didn't work for anything?

I don't understand these people who think things were so much better in the 19th century and before then. They think they should roll back the gains people made and restore a heavily-stratified society in which most struggled to survive and did not have opportunities at all. For the past decades, things have improved for the vast numbers of people, with things going somewhat backward the last 30 years, but even with these troubles, the continuing advancement of technology has mitigated that somewhat and we have not completely rolled back what was gained, though politicians on the Right are demanding this more and more and we cannot assume that the middle class will survive the next couple of decades.

There's this idea that those who own the country ought to run it, that owners have the only stake, that they pay more tax therefore they must decide how it's spent. They claim that for poor people it makes no difference other than it allows them to enjoy an "undeserved" standard of living. If we remove the safety net entirely people's wages will plummet and more people will be in the kinds of desperate straits that lead to debt peonage and effective slavery, and that this can span generations. We see examples of this in the Third World. That the enslavement of millions may result from efforts to disenfranchise people based on how much money they have and what they own shows that those of the lower class certainly have a stake in society and the policies implemented. The wrong policies and they might as well kill themselves.

I don't know where I said that everyone should be paid the exact same salary, and I don't see why people couldn't strive for better things in a more equal society. I just find abhorrent these ideas on the Right to disenfranchise people so that they can try to roll back the gains of the 20th century are restore a highly-stratified society where any upward mobility was a miracle and had to be done over multiple generations in most cases. It creates an uglier, and less healthy society, people fearing ruin become more stressed, with no security whatsoever. They have studied this and more equal societies are healthier societies. When most people live in fear of total ruin, that of course increases superstition and crazy religion and this perhaps explains why more Americans practice such religions than Europeans do. After all, with no help at all you must turn to a higher power.