Rossi: It is undemocratic for people to live under a government in which their interests are not represented. So children should have the right to vote, since sometimes the interests of children are different from those of their parents.
Smith: Granted, children’s interests are not always the same as their parents’; governmental deficits incurred by their parents’ generation will later affect their own generation’s standard of living. But even if children are told about the issues affecting them, which is not generally the case, their conceptions of what can or should be done are too simple, and their time horizons are radically different from those of adults, so we cannot give them the responsibility of voting.
Summary
Rossi asserts that children should get the right to vote, since it’s undemocratic for people to live under a government that doesn’t represent their interests, and children’s interests are sometimes different from the interests of their parents. Smith acknowledges that children and parents can have different interests. But he concludes that we shouldn’t give children the right to vote, because their conception about what the government can or should do is too simple, and because their timeline for being affected by the government is very different from that timeline for adults.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
For some people, it’s acceptable that that they live under a government that doesn’t represent all of their interests.
The simplicity of one’s understanding is relevant to whether one should get the right to vote.
A
A democratic government does not infringe on the rights of any of its citizens.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything about infringing on rights and whether a democratic government can engage in such infringement.
B
Children have rights that must be respected by any political authority that rules over them.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything concerning whether children’s rights should be respected. He concludes they shouldn’t get the right to vote. It’s not clear whether this means children have other rights that should be respected.
C
News programs for children would give them enough information to enable them to vote in an informed way.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything concerning how children might be made to be knowledgeable enough to vote. Maybe children just can’t understand news programs.
D
If there are any limitations on full democracy that result from denying the vote to children, such limitations must be accepted.
Strongly supported. Smith concludes that children shouldn’t be given the right to vote. This implies that Smith believes whatever consequences are associated with children’s lack of the right to vote are worth bearing.
E
If parents do not adequately represent their children’s interests in the political sphere, those interests will be adequately represented by someone else.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t suggest that there is anyone who could adequately represent children’s interests besides parents.
For clarity, sentence two expresses the main point of the passage. In the video, I drew the "premise line" too high up making it seem like sentence two is a premise when it is not.
Greta: We should stop funding the museum, not the television programming, because, as the mayor has also pointed out, the museum reaches a much smaller audience.