The Age of Reason?

I wrote here about Hennepin County, Minnesota’s left-wing prosecutor who let off two juveniles (the older aged 17) who murdered a woman in the course of a home invasion. This was part of her stated rationale:

[County Attorney Mary] Moriarty has said she is simply “following the science,” which she says is conclusive about adolescent brain development. According to Moriarty, the human brain is not fully developed until 25 years old.

Which is why, according to Moriarty, “we need to treat kids like kids.” As opposed to treating murderers like murderers.

What I didn’t realize was that, in citing 25 years old as the age of reason, Moriarty was participating in a movement. A reader wrote: “Apparently this underdeveloped 25 year old brain idea is spreading among democrats older than 25 who also seem to be suffering from underdeveloped brains.” With a link to this story: “Maryland Democrats’ bill would block people under 25 from being charged with felony murder.”

“If this bill passes, you’re going to have kingpins, you’re going to have gangs use juveniles to do their dirty work,” Republican Del. Susan McComas told local Fox affiliate WBFF.

To be fair, that is already happening.

Advocates explain the rationale for the bill:

Proponents of the bill argue the brain is not fully developed until about the age of 25.

So this is some kind of a movement, intended to hamstring law enforcement–I hazard a guess that a large majority of the most vicious and violent crimes are committed by people under the age of 25.

We are all accustomed to liberal hypocrisy and inconsistency, but still, the mind is tempted to boggle. Does this mean that we can raise the voting age to 25? That would be great! But somehow I don’t think the libs will go along with it.

Here is a point perhaps more relevant to the news of the day: if a 15- or 16-year-old girl says she thinks she is *really* a boy, liberals demand that someone–people who pay insurance premiums, or who pay taxes–finance irreversible, genitalia-destroying and in many cases life-destroying surgery. How does this make any sense, if her brain will not be fully developed for another eight to ten years? If she (or he) is too unformed to understand that murder is inadvisable, shouldn’t we at least wait a while before declaring her (or him) infallible on the long-term consequences of genitalia-destroying surgery?

I know, expecting consistency from a liberal is like expecting a goat to do calculus. But some contradictions are so patent that one might expect even a liberal to notice.

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