On that note:
From And Sow Salt on the Ruins by L. Neil Smith:
When I was a kid, about a thousand years ago, I made a terrible vow never to forget what it was like, having your life—your body, your belongings, everything about you—controlled by another human being. That, more than anything else, is probably what made me a libertarian.
I've always been deeply concerned with the rights of children. In the 70s I wrote a Childrens' Rights plank for the national Libertarian Party platform that was considered by many a chicken-hearted would-be politico to be too controversial, too radical, too embarrassing. First chance they got, they carved it out with a dull-edged knife (not being very sharp, themselves), leaving a bleeding, gaping wound in the LP's integrity.
And this was long before the more recent Portland rape of the platform.
What that plank said (you'll never believe it was party founder David F. Nolan who helped me push it through on the convention floor) was that children have all the rights—especially as laid out in the rest of the platform—possessed by anybody else, and the fact that they may have problems exercising their rights wisely, now and again, in no way separates them from adults, who often have exactly the same problem.