Voting. A thorn in the side of many high school students in America, and even the rest of the world. It is common knowledge that the legal voting age in America is eighteen. The adults (namely anyone who is over twenty-one), think that when you are a teenager, your mind is filled with thoughts of texting, shopping, kissing, and various uncouth activities, but while it may be true for some, it isn't true for all. It is a cruel stereotype, such as: all boys like football or all girls are obsessed with fashion, and our current path is not telling them otherwise. But the joke's on them, people over thirty-five think that the voting age should be raised to thirty.
But I digress.
Many states are making noise about lowering the voting age to sixteen; including, California, Arizona, and some such as, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Alaska, California, New York, Texas and Washington, have all pushed for the change unsuccessfully in recent years. Other countries Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro already have a voting age of sixteen. America is supposed to be the leader of all of the free world, so why are we behind countries that we refuse to even trade with?

Many high school students apply for jobs and are taxed without being represented in federal or even state government, or a chance to decide how to spend that money, or even who will be the next leader of the country. Those big, smart politicians should probably spend some time in the History class of an area high school, where they will find that high school students know more about the world around them than the average adult does. They, as students are at the peak of our impressionable stage, so why not develop good habits now?
Teenagers and people born between the years 1991 and 1994 make up about 9.5% of the consumer market- not a small amount, considering the fact that most of these (if not all) are living with their parents/guardians. No other age bracket would take the denial of the right to representation lying down, but there is nothing that a teenager can do to remedy this. The Constitution of the United States of America does not say that rights are to be given to everyone EXCEPT those deemed unfit by anyone- if it did, what would stop the government from issuing IQ tests to anyone who wanted to vote, or barring mental invalids from visiting the polls?
Nothing would.
America is in a rut. Isolationism has bred into us the idea that we are the strongest, the best, and while patriotism is great, this isn't. This makes America ignorant, which could cost the whole country, our allies, eventually the whole world. There is no one better able to 'save the world' than those who do not believe anyone or anything is all powerful. Teenagers could give an infusion of new blood, of fresh, unclouded opinion to the political system that is America, just as soon as the adults realize it.