I think what gets me about the Aaron Coleman situation is that, call me an old conservative fart all you like, but electing a 19-year-old to office at all is *already a huge risk* The fact that someone's 19 is already a huge negative, and any further negatives are disqualifying
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And the people championing this kid see it the exact opposite way I guess a kneejerk reaction to the seeming gerontocracy at the highest levels of power, with Joe Biden poised to be the oldest President ever as soon as he's elected, etc. Gen Z Will Save Us narratives
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But I mean come on this isn't rocket science Yes, I do believe a lot of people do fucked up things when they're 14, and that they shouldn't be judged by them their whole lives, and should have time to grow and change FIVE YEARS IS NOT THAT MUCH TIME TO GROW AND CHANGE
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THAT IS THE WHOLE REASON PEOPLE IN POSITIONS OF POWER SHOULD BE SOMEWHAT OLDER THAN NINETEEN
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Yeah - and I mean, I do think that it might be valuable to have people who are 19 or 20 in legislatures (as opposed to executive offices!) because they're underrepresented there, and one vote is not everything. Constituent services are a problem, though.
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Replying to @mssilverstein @arthur_affect
And as far as the shit - a lot of people grow up from 14 to 19. Probably about everybody. The crimes you do at 14 are still real, though, and more than it being too short a period of time to grow out of it, it's just not enough time to evaluate if he did or not.
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Replying to @mssilverstein
Yeah, it's not even objectively about whether it takes time to "learn" and "grow", that age confers maturity It's just about having a *track record* This guy has done very few things in life so far, and one of them was almost drive a girl to suicide
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein
If he had 20 years' worth of doing other things that weren't as bad as that, maybe even things that were actively good, then we could argue over how much that one incident from when he was 14 should stain his record But he DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Right yeah - like, when the record is short, everything in it counts for a lot more. Even if you can somehow excuse the nastiness, you're just left with a blank slate. That's not good either!
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Replying to @mssilverstein @arthur_affect
If the issue is that short record is just a kid who came in third in the race for student council secretary, got Bs in most of their classes, and planned a successful prom, that's a lot easier to support.
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Right, look, if this kid were a total nobody with nothing interesting about him who won this primary solely on the strength of taking further left positions than the incumbent, I'd be extremely iffy on electing him but I'd be like "I can see the argument for it"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein
What actively upsets me is people who see his youth as an INHERENTLY POSITIVE GOOD, and therefore see that as a reason to support him DESPITE the horrible things he's done That disturbs me a lot
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein
Ryan Grim basically said "Well if everyone's a shitty person at 13, and you think it takes 20 years to recover from a scandal like this, then we'll never have elected officials younger than 33" And I'm like "Well, if all of those things are true, then yes, I'm all for that"
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