Are they adults or not?

I’m glad to see that the conviction of yet another child being tried as an adult was overturned.

I don’t know the details of the assault cases in Jena, and I don’t particularly care, but the increasingly popular practice of trying children as adults continues to be obscene.

Are sixteen-year-olds children or are they not? By trying children as adults, the state, and the people who support such ghoulish practices, are saying that some children should have none of the benefits of adulthood, but all of the liabilities.

If sixteen-year-olds are old enough to serve a life sentence, then why aren’t sixteen-year-olds old enough to vote, enter into legal contracts, and have sex with 40-year-old pervs?

We protect them from sex with old guys, and from contracts, and we prevent them from voting because we know the objective truth that sixteen year olds are children, and cannot be held fully responsible for their actions. Why the double standard?

Of course, the state has long been fine with sixteen-year-old children paying taxes. Remember your first paycheck?

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12:49 am on September 15, 2007