Posted by Kromey at 2:29pm Aug 13 '13I won't address ageism in general (nor in particular) because I haven't made up my mind on it, but I have to take this one up:
In fact, even the laws within one country can change. Boomers born in 1953 got to vote when they were 18, whereas members of the Greatest Generation born in 1914 did not get to vote until they were 21. Discrimination against the Greatest Generation, in other words. When U.S. states begin following the lead of Austria, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina and lowering their voting ages to 16, people like [private] will be discriminated against and many people who are bitter over not having been able to pick the president at 16 will be jealous, and try to stop the youth rights movement. Yes, it will be discriminatory. (Uh-oh, I see this being used as an argument against lowering legal ages.)
Changing the laws to give people more freedom (or even to restrict it) is not discriminatory! (Which is not to say that it can't be wrong -- it's just not wrong for that reason.) It's exactly the opposite. Otherwise you're arguing that women's suffrage laws -- the ones that granted women the vote -- are sexist, that racial equality laws are racist, and that marriage "equality" laws are homophobic. [The caveat, of course, is that laws can indeed be discriminatory, but your example of universally expanding rights/privileges -- or even an example of universally restricting it, such as passing mandatory seatbelt or motorcycle helmet laws -- is not discriminatory.]
It's patently absurd!
This argument can only logically be applied one way: Support of the status quo. Because you are explicitly arguing that any change to the status quo (at least where rights and privileges are concerned) is inherently discriminatory on the sole basis that it grants rights/privileges to a group that previously didn't have them, and is therefore discrimination against the previous group!
The other issue with this argument is that differing laws in different countries is also not discriminatory. That a Brazilian has more or less freedom than a Brit or an American is irrelevant, because they are living in different nations and therefore subject to different laws.
I meant to reply to this a while ago - Kromey