Worldwide conspiracy!

I've been doing some research..

What do Nicaragua, Somalia and Brazil have in common?

Apart from having huge levels of poverty, they are the only countries in the world which have the low voting age of 16.

A few more exemplar countries accompany them in also having minimum voting ages lower than 18...

Iran,
North Korea, and
Sudan
(oh, and some place called Seychelles)

Apologies if I have missed any other countries, I used all the evidence available 11/11/05


Evidently, nearly every single democratic, developed and civilised country in the world is content that eighteen or older (Japan's is 20, for example) is the sensible age to start voting.

A curse on those adult types who universally deprive us of our 'rights'!


This of course is not an argument in itself- if no idealistic people went against the flow the world would be greatly worse off, there are a few things that I myself believe in that a majority of the world doesn't. It is however revealing that there is no global sense of outrage at under 18's being ineligible to go to the polling stations. There are pockets of resistance to the conspiracy, such as in Florida, but they are invariably led by the chattering classes rather than the common yoof.

Yes, the votesat16 campaign in the UK can claim the support of the eminent organisations the British Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament, but organisations made up of the minority that is the politically active young person are hardly going to reject the opportunity to vote by a matter of principle. I digress.


The choice is clear: go against the consensus of the civilised world and be a guinea pig for spurious reasons, or focus on important matters such as -insert any higher priority-