Regarding Masami Ito's front-page article on Jan. 27, "Talks to start on lowering voting age": Representative democracy is an extortion racket. Lowering the voting age, like extending enfranchisement to women and poor males in the West, has resulted only in a lower quality of extortion, such as brutality from unions and appeals to emotion by collectivists.
Reason should be the standard of political discourse. It's hard to see how allowing kids to vote will make much of a difference given their lack of knowledge and entrenched cynicism, which was probably inherited from their parents. Surely it is the initiative of politicians trying to prop up electoral conviction with tired delusions. We need a meritocratic democracy.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.