Age, Legality and the State

What does a birthday represent? In reality, all a birthday represents is how many times a person has been around the sun or an orbit. Yet, this has nothing to do with the actual age of a person. This is only a measurement by which we try to label maturity, but this is obviously flawed. In reality, people grow, learn, develop, go through puberty and heal at different speeds. It is possible that someone who has been around the sun 16 times could have the same maturity level of someone who has been around the sun 22 times and vice-versa.

The 'legal age' has nothing to do with biology; rather, it is just another easy, fast and arbitrary way for the state to gain control. In all its wisdom, the state claims that age X is the age by which smoking is allowed and age Y is the age by which people can drive... which makes little sense. Moreover, instead of putting kids into grade classes based on level or success rate, as a result of what the state does, kids are clumped into classes where everyone is learning in a way or in a speed they are not accustomed to, instead of learning in their own way at their own pace.

Murray Rothbard also touched up on this in chapter 14 of The Ethics of Liberty (can be found at mises.org). Children have a "right" to succeed from their parents if they are able to do so. Surely, understanding and being capable of succession qualifies for some sort of adulthood. Also, Rothbard tells us that child labor protection takes away the right for children to succeed as they have little choice but to stay in their households, making them vulnerable to abuse - this restriction must be lifted.

Sure, you might ask, is there a better way to measure? I am not a scientist so I can't come up with any methods for actually testing this, but I do know that the authority to draw these lines comes from no where and the lines do not make sense.

An alternative would be to end 'ageism' - just how it makes little sense to make up some sort of group consciousness for race and sex, it makes little sense to have a group consciousness of '16'. Sure, much like race and sex, there are some things we can generalize (e.g. the older you get its harder to have kids when your a woman) but there is no way we can rely on generalizations.

Giving growth an orbital measurement is flawed, and we need to judge all people based on merit and level, not capricious lines.