Ann Coulter, the famous right-wing writer and commentator, is at it again. The woman, who prides herself on not pretending to be fair or balanced, has certainly enraged millions of Americans over the years with her controversial opinions. And right now, she's currently setting her sights on a target that is slightly closer to home: the 18 to 26-year-old demographic.
For those of you who haven't heard, Coulter argues in her most recent column to repeal the 26th Amendment—which set the legal voting age to 18. Normally, I can overlook such an outrageous proclamation, accepting that we all have a right to free speech. But Coulter's argument is far from well reasoned and appears to be based on so many logical fallacies that her thesis statement could just as well be, ""anyone who disagrees with me shouldn't vote"" as ""young people shouldn't vote.""
Coulter gets her facts straight on the reasoning behind the 26th Amendment, the voting age was lowered in 1971 because 18-year-olds could drink and be drafted into service. The argument supporting a lower voting age surrounded the idea that individuals asked to risk their lives in war should be given the right to vote. However, when Coulter claims, ""We no longer have a draft,"" she seems to forget that the draft didn't evaporate with the end of the Vietnam War. It's not active at the moment, but Congress could reinstate it at any time and males as young as 18 could be called to serve their country. As long as that possibility exists, anyone of legal age to serve should be able to vote.
Dragging her distaste for the recent health-care overhaul into the debate, Coulter asserts that the real age of adulthood is 26—the age until which children are no longer insured under their parents' plans. Even if we ignore the fact that plenty young adults actually insure themselves through their full-time jobs, by her logic, we shouldn't allow the millions of uninsured Americans to vote either. Apparently, if you're not wealthy enough to buy your own health insurance, Ann Coulter thinks you're not wealthy enough to vote. It must just be a coincidence that the lower-income brackets are traditional Democratic supporters.
Yet again her own agenda emerges when she says, ""Young voters are the most likely to oppose offshore drilling"" and a ""sustainable planet, or whatever hokum they have swallowed hook, line and sinker."" This ridiculous assertion veers her argument into dangerously ideological territory. It sounds to me as if she wants to deny the right to vote to anyone who's been ""brainwashed"" enough to believe in environmental responsibility, young or old. In other words, a good majority of left-of-center Americans.
""Eighteen to 26-year-olds don't have property, spouses, children, or massive tax bills."" Coulter seems to be unabashedly arguing that voting responsibility is somehow tied to these characteristics. If this is starting to sound familiar to anyone, that's probably because our country has tried this experiment once before—two centuries ago. Is Coulter seriously suggesting we return to an era when only wealthy landowners were allowed any rights?
Coulter does have a valid point when she says many young people voted for Obama as a fashion statement, and young people are less aware of the financial consequences of the government benefits they traditionally support. But the answer to this is not disenfranchising millions of Americans, it is more government and civics classes as part of the public school curriculum. Or wait, would that be part of that ""North Korean-style brainwashing"" she accuses our education system of?
Lydia Statz is a junior majoring in journalism and international studies. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
