LogFAQs > #956675400

Reigning_King posted...

Just because a law is technically on the books doesn't necessarily mean it is regularly followed or enforced. There are absolutely certain cultural groups who look at this kind of thing completely differently than most Americans would. Really as far as things like this subject goes America is more on the prudish side, some of the states having the AOC at 18 would be ridiculous to most of the world's population. Like cultural norms are different between cultures, that's pretty unavoidable.

The one and only thing I'll grant you is that AOC is a completely arbitrary number that, rather than looking at person's development, only takes age into account. At the same time, there's really no easy, practical alternative. Yes, development will vary wildly per person. However, once you get all the way down to 12, you're kinda hitting a certain baseline that seems inappropriate in pretty much every context unless they have some Benjamin Button disease or something. However, if AOC were to be followed in a logical fashion -- since it's arguing physical, mental, and emotional maturity -- you'd probably be setting it (as well the drinking and voting age) closer to 25 (and you can make some very good arguments for setting the voting age at 25 since kids reach functional adulthood at a much later age now, although there's no way you'd really be able to enforce an alcohol restriction to that age because America's love affair with booze means it'd never be practical). But if you're just looking at physical development, then sure, the world's normal standard of around 16 is likely a conservative enough benchmark 90% of the time where a liberal benchmark would be probably be set closer to 14 (or maybe even 13), but not goddamn 12.


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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.