The Loony Left Thinks Teens Should Have a Lot of Rights and No Responsibility

It’s tough to overcome the cognitive dissonance on the radical left. Their policy positions rarely fit together in a cohesive package that makes sense. Here is another glaring example. In Cook County, Ill., Chief Judge Timothy Evans has decided it is time to create a whole new juvenile class of citizens: those who are accused of crimes between the ages of 18 and 26.

Evans is calling for a “Young Adult Court” and gives the following justification:

This new court has become necessary and needs to be distinguished from the other two traditional courts, because the individuals in the emerging adults category have reached the chronological age of 18, the age traditionally considered to be the age of consent and adulthood and therefore no longer considered juveniles, but an age generally considered to be one when the brain is not fully developed and mature.

Emerging adults have not fully developed that part of the brain known as the pre-frontal cortex, which is that part of the brain that controls cognitive thought and planning, as well as emotional responses to stress. The pre-frontal cortex generally continues to develop until one is closer to the age of 26.

Like juveniles, who also lack a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, emerging adults are often sensation seekers who are easily led astray and frequently act without first considering the consequences of their actions.

While compassion and criminal justice need to have some intersection, making excuses for adults up to an age where they should be functional members of society is a dangerous bar to lower. If you introduce me to a 25-year-old who does not understand that stealing is wrong, or could be led into doing it, I would suggest cognitive testing. There is something wrong.

However, I am willing to consider Judge Evans’s premise if he will have conversations with people like those in the California Assembly and Representative Ayanna Pressley, who want to lower the voting age. Certainly, we don’t need children as young as 16 years old voting in federal elections if we can’t trust those in their early 20s to know right from wrong.

In Evans’s own words, these children, with even less pre-frontal cortex development, will be unable to understand the consequences of their choices and are easily led. Of course, we know this is exactly why the radical left wants them to vote. People with underdeveloped cognitive thought and planning abilities believe in ridiculous fairy tales like the Green New Deal. Still, if Evans gets his way, we should be raising the voting age from 18 to something closer to the age a child gets kicked off Obamacare.

And we really need him to talk to the geniuses at the World Economic Forum. The founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, took inspiration from the Swedish teen angry at the weather to ramp up his idea for stakeholder capitalism to usher in The Great Reset. He calls it the “Greta Thunberg Effect”:

One likely reason is the “Greta Thunberg” effect. The young Swedish climate activist has reminded us that adherence to the current economic system represents a betrayal of future generations, owing to its environmental unsustainability. Another (related) reason is that millennials and Generation Z no longer want to work for, invest in, or buy from companies that lack values beyond maximizing shareholder value.

As the parent of a few Gen Zs with 401ks, I can assure you they value a company that cares about shareholder value. They are also huge fans of cheap gas. If you have a Greta, throw her a copy of Michael Shellenberger’s Apocalypse Never so she can calm down. This is why we don’t take advice about the global economy from children too young to have a stake in it.

If we can’t trust young adults as old as 25 to regulate their behavior, we certainly can’t trust them with “reimagining” global capitalism or selecting leaders to implement policies that are economically viable and rational. The radical left really needs to make up their mind, because according to Judge Evans, when it comes to people under the age of 25, the science is settled. They can’t even reliably regulate their own behavior. They certainly shouldn’t be regulating anyone else’s.