So do you want 5 year olds driving on the highway and 8 year olds doing shots of tequila or are you ageist?
Or perhaps protecting kids isn’t really ageism at all.
Or perhaps protecting kids isn’t really ageism at all.
We can argue the merits of restricting children’s access to the internet, or certain books, or alcohol, or pornography, or whatever else. We can debate the merits of those various restrictions based on the benefits and costs to both the children and society at large.
But it is not ageism to attempt to protect children. It is not ageism even of the restriction is a bad idea. To claim it is ageism is an emotional appeal (“ageism bad!”), not a logical one.
I don’t know how you can seriously come here and accuse me of engaging in bad faith when I’ve taken the time to make my viewpoint explicit multiple times in this thread now, including directly to you.
Just because I had a hard time following your logic doesn’t mean I didn’t engage in good faith. You also seem to be arguing in a heated way with every person who responds to you.
Either way it’s probably best if we both move on
I don’t think I responded to anyone in a heated manner, though I will readily admit to being annoyed when you accused me of bad faith.
Agree we should move on.
The burden is still to demonstrate that a restriction is wrong. If that can’t be demonstrated, then labeling it ageism is a purely emotional appeal.
Calling it ageism is an emotional appeal, not a principled stance.
In the US at least there’s also no such thing legally as age discrimination against minors so far as I’m aware.
Edit:
Let me frame this differently. “Ageism” is basically by definition bad, so applying the term “ageism” to a restriction is a an attempt to label the restriction bad without establishing that on its own merits.
If you try to provide a consistent definition of “ageism” that applies to restricting access to the internet but not restricting access to alcohol, you will most certainly have to resort to phrases like “reasonable restrictions” (if not, I’m very interested in your definition), which means that there’s still a need to establish what is reasonable. Applying the label “ageism” without establishing reasonableness is then a circular argument.
In effect you are saying “that’s bad!” without accepting the burden of establishing why it’s bad, but hiding this behind a different term that carries more emotional weight. It’s a very politically effective strategy but it’s not logically sound.
* actually jMyles