Let me start by saying that I really respect some elders and I always get surprised about the amount of knowledge some of them can offer me. But what is the problem then. Most of us have been taught to always respect and obey our elders, but most of them aren’t so wise as we all think. You see I am a big believer that respect must be earned, but kids are being and have been for generations taught that we must listen, obey and respect our elders just cause they’re old. Now here comes the ugly truth. Most of old people are quite stupid, arrogant and ignorant and they expect people to agree with them and listen to them just because they are old. Now let me tell you that most of them didn’t live very adventurous lives, neither were they philosophers, politicians or business people. Most of them were just regular workers and didn’t spend much time educating themselves but yet they think that since they are old they suddenly possess some long hidden knowledge sooo young and spoiled should ( read must ) listen to them. Of course all of them can provide some life lessons or share an advice, but otherwise most of them don’t know that much. As I said there are golden exceptions but they often get lost in the crowd and their knowledge is forever lost unless they write a book.
Next thing that really bothers me is their right to vote. I am of the opinion that the right to vote should be taken away from you when you reach 60. I know it sounds outrageous but old people are extremely easy to manipulate by political parties and almost always stand in the way of progress. Here their “I know it all” belief comes into play once again since they think they are the most experienced, so they won’t stand for young peoples shit. if you ever argued with an old person you will know that most of them can’t think rationally since they think they know it all. The bottom line is that when you reach your 60s you should be forced to step away from influencing the young Peoples future.
Third thing is their driving. I will be perfectly fine with old people driving when they are gonna be forced to take driving lessons every 6 month so they can be totally familiar with all the new stuff that is waiting for them on the road. I have heard way too many news how old people caused accidents that killed young people just because they we’re confused or had some medical problems. At some point we must all just stand up and say that we have enough of their shit and that they must understand that there are some things they just can’t do anymore.
Please share your opinions in the comments
sleepyslaper 
Dear Sleepy,
I get where you’re coming from, but I’m not a fan of prejudice or bigotry against anyone for anything–race, gender, age, religion, blah, blah, blah.
I think you need to do some research and check out facts to back up your opinions. You’re off on some of what you state.
You have some valid points.
Age does not equal wisdom, of course.
Age does not make you a better driver, and can make you worse. I don’t disagree that, over a certain age–which age can be determined by statistics on accidents per age, and the type of accidents (such as who has those “accelerator instead of the brake pedal” variety), older drivers should have to be tested more often.
But you should know there are excellent stats that younger drivers, and more particularly, male younger drivers, as a group–not every one–drive for sh#t. And I believe there are even stats that male drivers, as a group, mind you, drive worse than women, per mile driven as shown by accidents caused, despite all assumptions to the contrary. I think this is related to speeding, illegal lefts, stop signs run, and alcohol consumption, but don’t recall. Basically, impulse-control issues.
So, if we followed your logic, should we not be taking licenses away from men–as a group?
As to voting: I don’t, personally, think age enters into it unless you want to include science again. The young brain’s forebrain which gives full impulse control doesn’t mature until–surprise!–the old former age of maturity: 21, or as late as 23 years old. Oops. So we have lowered the voting age to people who are biologically unable to fully control their impulses. At the other age end, we have voters who may be much more set in their ways, and far slower at absorbing new data and multiple inputs–and this doesn’t fit well with today’s media model of presenting the information needed to be an informed voter. Further, some older people are, of course, undetected walking cases of senility.
What to do?
I say, leave everything as is. Let the young and old vote, and depend on the bell curve to even out the mismatch. The impulse-drive left-leaning young and the stodgy right-leaning old cancel each other, and the middle remain to be the more-objective balance of the majority.
What do you think? Is your opinion the same now?
By the way, had you known many older people throughout your life, as have I from a very young age, you might feel differently, also. I have had friends in their 80s and 90s whose minds were quicker than people I’ve known in their teens and twenties. I’ve often wondered how brilliant they must have been when younger.
–O. Babe
Oh! Almost forgot! Thanks so much for the Follow on The Last Half! And–I am quite old, by the way. And I do find that my mind is less sharp and slower than previously, but that could be because of the activity of my diseases, as much as from age.
My driving? Definitely less impulsive. That’s a good thing, I think. Am I forgetting about my turn signal?
Oh, dear. Must I answer that one?
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Dear madam Outlier!
First I would like to thank you for taking your time to comment on our article. We strongly appreciate any comments, opinions and criticism regarding our content.
We are aware that young people and especially younger man are far more problematic when driving than old people for the very reasons you mentioned so in that case we are in complete agreement. You also mentioned that if we followed our logic we should take licenses away from man completely which I am sure you would agree would be kinda hard to manage and it wouldn’t really make sense for a lot of reasons. I also imagine it would be very hard to keep young people away from driving until they are more mature. After those two we come to the old people who are the problem that can indeed be solved in ways I mentioned.
About voting. You are once again for the first part completely correct since people can also be too young to vote and should not be allowed to vote till completely mature. I hope that leaves us in agreement that voting should be restricted to people between the age of 23 and 60.
After that we come to your solution which is to leave everything as it is since younger people and older people are supposed to even each other out. With that madam I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT AGREE since you did not step into the shoes of a young person. You see I know from experience that a lot of younger people are generally not very interest in politics. At that time they have to figure out a lot of very life important stuff like college, jobs , interest , life goals, meaning of life , their love affairs and SOOO much other things. All that makes the majority of 18-23 old people completely uninterested in politics and voting. On the other hand I do not know any old person who isn’t even remotely interested in politics since they already dealt with most important things in life so they have all the time in the word to focus on politics and voting. All that leaves young people who do care about politics in a big disadvantage which way to often results in old people having their way and progress is often stopped. I am sure you can see that the best possible solution here is to cancel both parties (too young and too old) out completely which leaves us just with the more objective majority.
The last thing I wanted to tell you madam is that I do know a lot of old people since I was very young. I come from very business oriented family which means I spend most of my time as a kid with my two grandmothers and a lot of their older friends all of which have offered me with some great knowledge for which I will forever respect them. I also said im my post that there are manly examples of extremely highly intelligent elders all of which I truly respect, but they aren’t the majority.
Once again madam thank you for your time and your very educational points!
I wish you much success in the future!
sincerely sleepyslaper
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Thank YOU for your thoughtful and enlightening response. No–I do not agree in a hard age cutoff for voting for older people, for there is no research to support discriminating against the many because of the few, whereas there is hard research to support the impulse of all youth younger than the brain maturation point.
Where we differ most, however, is on the age at which more and more older people start to become voting-disabled. For I see the most fading and failing in the ages above 75 and 80–folks starting to give to every random fake charity that phones, for example. You see it above 60. I have never noticed this except in the state of F#cking Florida, where people who have decided to be old apparently decide that as soon as they’ve left their 20s, and just sit and watch their arteries harden when there’s nothing good on cable.
What I have seen on the positive side, contrary to decades back, is that, where older folk of the past used to grow more conservative, religiously and politically–and research supported this–older folk now seem to me to be as likely to become more open-minded. Rather lovely, actually. I did see some of this in the past–with my Southside Chicago grandmother and aunt, who finally dropped their racism in their 80s–with my mother, who dropped her rabid Catholic anti-abortion stance sometime in her 50s–but I think I see it more now.
I am so curious about your life experiences that led you to choose 60. To me, it truly seems arbitrary, but I am sure it is based on what to you seems very logical evidence.
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Dear madam Outlier!
This is just our opinion which sole purpose is to motivate people to think in that direction. Of course the age limit could be 60,70 or even 80. Our purpose is not to get to the bottom of all subject we talk about. We just present our ideas and we let people take it from here. On the other hand we strongly encourage you to share our idea and your personal take on it with other like-minded individuals.
Thank you again for sharing your fascinating view on our subject.
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