Turning 18 years old is a huge milestone for many people. You can get a tattoo or piercing without having a parent present, you can go to casinos to blow all of your money, and more seriously, you can cast your vote on election day for candidates you think are well suited to be in our government. But according to many people, especially people who have differing views, our age group is still too young to know what the heck we’re talking about when it comes to politics. We’re often told that we don’t have real world experience, so we couldn’t possibly have a say in how someone should run our country. Our age is used as a synonym for naive and irresponsible. And while I can acknowledge the fact that I have only seen three presidents in my lifetime and have not been out of my hometown for very long, my experiences and beliefs shouldn’t be discredited simply because I’m young.
One of the main arguments I’ve heard from people who think that I’m too young to have an opinion is kind of obvious: I haven’t been alive for a long time. They say that I don’t know what our country looked like 20, 30 or even 40 years ago. I’m not aware of the countless bills that were passed, or not passed, and how these laws shape who we are today. And while I admit that I was asleep for most of my history classes in high school, I’ve still picked up a thing or two about how our country use to be. I’m not clueless just because I haven’t lived in that time period. I do my best with recalling history, but please try to sit down and educate me instead of laughing and brushing me off because of my age.
While I’m aware that it’s vital to know how our country has evolved, it’s more significant to me to figure out ways to get our country to where we should be based on how things are now. My political views are related to what’s going on in our current situation, not how Democrats or Republicans were before I was born. What’s important to me is who we currently have representing us and if my thoughts about this country align with his or her plans. I read article after article online about the current condition of the United States to try to better educate myself and always fact check the information I read. I pride myself in knowing as much as I possibly can about where we are now, and I use what I see around me to influence what I believe in. No, I haven’t been in the workforce for 40+ years, so I don’t know how the conditions have been and it would be unfair of me to act like I have encountered that. It’s also not fair of you to act like you’ve had my experiences, which are the ones that have shaped my political opinions.
Yes, there have been thousands of vital changes that have happened before I was born, but there have also been many important events that have occurred in my lifetime. I’ve watched and experienced key events that have shaped the country’s current condition. I’ve been alive for issues that are affecting many of our everyday lives, like 9/11, the legalization of same-sex marriage and having our first ever black president. These events, as well as so many others, have impacted our country in tremendous ways. How could I not have a say in things that have been instrumental in how I see the world when many of these issues hit so close to home to not only me, but many of the people around me?
It’s frustrating to be told by people two to three times my age that I don’t know what I’m talking about. To everyone who has ever said that someone is too young to have a political opinion, I have a question for you: what age do I have to hit for me to gain the milestone of having a simple opinion?