@PLMMJ #256501
Can you really say that they’re not an adult?
In a legal sense, one can really say that they’re not an adult, because they’re not 18 yet. Being at least 18 is literally the legal definition of adulthood. This shouldn’t be difficult.
In some abstract or metaphorical sense, then one can never truly be sure if someone is an adult yet, regardless of age. And nobody is going to agree on what abstract or metaphorical sense should count. The law cannot tolerate anywhere near that level of ambiguity while still retaining any force or meaning, that’s why the legal definition exists in the first place!
There are people who want to create such ambiguities and go with an awful lot of things based on vibes. (They’re often the sort who are offended by the term “vibes”.) Some of these people are convinced that they have very good judgement and should be allowed to decide stuff on behalf of other people, but in reality they usually have poor judgement, and don’t consider the broader consequences of other people making such decisions while having bad judgement, regardless. Some of those people want to be able to coerce others to do things based on personal convenience rather that whether it’s a good idea, as they act as if heir own personal convenience was the highest good. (They’d also be offended if you framed it that way.) Still others are predatory; they need the ambiguity to convince themselves and/or others that they’re actually not. And in the case of people like Jim Olsen, they want to be able to coerce people who haven’t yet gained full independence into a situation where they probably never will, in order to enforce a “tradition” whether its (sometimes unwilling) participants want to be involved in it or not.
One could debate which things really need to be unambiguous for legal reasons, but I don’t think you’d find many takers for removing the legal definition of adulthood, if for no other reason than it would invalidate a huge swath of other laws, some of which most conservatives are very much in favor of.
