Wednesday roundup

Justin Hohn, writing at Medium, has a great take on Parkland and its aftermath entitled "The Gun Control Problem That Isn't."

And while fully acknowledging the utterly boneheadedness of Dinesh D'Souza's tweet about high-school students engaging in activism in that aftermath, as I do in the post below, Michelle Malkin makes an essential point - namely, that ostensibly distinguished law professors should not be imparting some kind of readiness to fully participate in public discourse to hormone-driven adolescents. It's another case of putting feelings before reason.

Two adult men, occupying lofty perches as law professors, argued this week that the voting age in the U.S. should be lowered to 16 because some high school survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting who want gun control “are proving how important it is to include young people’s voices in political debate.”

That was the assertion of University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas on CNN.com. He praised some student leaders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who’ve been making the rounds on TV, shouting at President Trump, Republicans in Congress and the NRA “to demand change” — which Douglas defines obtusely as “meaningful gun control,” whatever that means.

Because these children are apparently doing a better job at broadcasting his own ineffectual political views, Douglas asserts, “we should include them more directly in our democratic process” by enfranchising them now.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe similarly tweeted, “Teens between 14 and 18 have far better BS detectors, on average, than ‘adults’ 18 and older.” On what basis does distinguished Professor Tribe make such a claim? On a foundation of pure, steaming BS.

Undaunted, gun control advocate Tribe urged: “Wouldn’t it be great if the voting age were lowered to 16? Just a pipe dream, I know, but . . . #Children’sCrusade?”

This is unadulterated silliness. It’s hashtag hokum from a pair of pandering left-wing profs exploiting a new round of Democratic youth props. I have called this rhetorical fallacy “argumentum ad filium:” If politicians appeal to the children, it’s unassailably good and true.

This is not compassion, but abdication. America is not a juvenilocracy. It is a constitutional republic. There is a reason we don’t elect high school sophomores and juniors to public office or allow them to cast ballots. There are many, many reasons, actually.

Pubescents are fueled by hormones and dopamine and pizza and Sonic shakes. They’re fickle and fragile and fierce and forgetful. They hate you. They love you. They need you. They ignore you. They know everything. They know nothing. All in the span of 10 seconds. I know. I have two of them.

That said, I do applaud this move: The NRA is going to hold town hall with the Parkland students. It will be represented by Dana Loesch. House member from Florida Ted Deutsch and Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio will also be there. I pray that this is as constructive as it has the potential for being. I pray that it gets emotion-driven students to consider a wider perspective. We shall see.

Remember the other day when, based on a Washington Examiner op-ed, I said that Idaho's alternative to the "A"CA seemed intriguing?  How did it come to such a different conclusion from that of Nicholas Horton at NRO? Will have to do some more digging on this one.

In the ongoing debate about whether Turkey is a good ally or not, let us remember the pastor and the NASA scientist the Ergodan regime has been holding in jail for well over a year.

Indiana is generally depicted as a red-as-red-can-be state, but something horrifyingly blue happened in its legislature yesterday. Recently, the state Senate had passed Senate Bill 65, which would have ensured that if kids in Indiana public schools are being fed the utter fiction that there are more than two genders, parents are going to be notified. Yesterday, the House Education Committee gutted it. Hop to, Hoosiers. Melt the phones.