"The enemies are closing in on us!", I said.

"If we be quiet, they won't hear us!", whispered Olivia.

"OK, load your rifles!", said Casey.

"Ack-ack-ack-ack", we shouted, as we "shot" at Sharon and Tiffany.

"Making America safer from terrorism!", we shouted in unison.

We were in kindergarten, playing soldiers. At age 6, 9/11 was fresh in my mind and I brimmed over with patriotism. Watching the harmonious post-9/11 mood of my community, singing songs about America in kindergarten, and taking in the zeal with which Americans called for war in Afghanistan and Iraq had filled me with a very patriotic, militaristic attitude.

As I passed through elementary school and junior high, my patriotism evolved into a pro-Bush, authoritarian ideology. I just said no to drugs (and drug legalization), preacjed that homosexuality was wrong because it violated our society's norms, reminded other students they should always obey school rules, swelled at the thought of oil drilling, and called for a ban on speaking out against the president during wartime. I even had a Bush poster on my wall. When asked to summarize Millennials in ten words or less, I came up with "We came, we saw, we marched behind Bush!"

When I began high school, I was so innocent that I was still jamming to High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and the Jonas Brothers. I was fervent about Bush, Iraq, and school uniforms, but had never personally experienced true adversity. Injustices always happened to someone else. Online acquaintances kept telling me this worldview would shift as I matured, but I shrugged it off.

And yet, I swallowed all the rhetoric adults fed me about what they called life experience. I would state that I lacked the life experience to make adequate decisions, and that I should defer to the views of people over 30 because of the lack thereof. I actually said, "My opinions are less valuable" more than once. I wrote in school essays that teens didn't have the judgment to consent to or against medical procedures or choose their own religion. Whenever a classmate called the shots for lowering the voting age or age of majority to 16, I shuddered in horror.

My rose-colored worldview all came crashing down the December I was 16. Over the weekend, I had finished my report on karyotyping for bio with Mrs. "Badjab". I knew the long-term assignment was worth 100 points, so I stuffed it in my backpack at night.

Monday morning I had world history with Mr. "Klunk", who has this rule about restroom use. He won't let students be excused to go to the bathroom, because if it's the first 20 minutes, they should have gone earlier, and if it's the last 20 minutes, they can wait until intermission to go. Therefore, he wouldn't let me go to the bathroom.

When intermission finally came, I used the restroom in the C building (where Mr. Klunk's classroom is). Since intermission is only five minites long and I had spent about two and a half minutes in the restroom, I only had two minutes left to get to the F building for biology.

I weighed 108 pounds. I ambled, rushed, dashed -- all to get to biology class in time. Tardies? A no-no. My 26-pound backpack, laden with books and binders, weighed me down. Still hindered, I turned a corner. Almost collapsing under the weight of my books, I couldn't run fast enough to squeeze into the F building after having urinated. I set my backpack down and sprinted into my classroom and into my seat at the last moment before the bell rang.

After the bell rang, the teacher collected our reports. Mrs. Badjab did not collect mine, however, as it satt in my backpack outside. While instruction continued, I exited and retrieved my backpack. Mrs. Badjab wouldn't accept the report, however, and insisted it was late. After class I explained to her about how I was rushing in without my backpack to avoid a tardy, and Mrs. Erspamer wouldn't budge.

On Tuesday, I entered the vice-principal's office and explained to the vice-principal how I was without 100 points because of the restroom use and backpack-dropping. He claimed I didn't have any tardies in bio so far so I should have just accepted the tardy (you don't get detention until you get three tardies in the same class). I reparted that tardies were unacceptable. He also said I could have walked back out as soon as the bell rang and retrieved my backpack then.

I told my mother about it and on Wednesday she phoned the school. She set up an appointment with the vice- principal. Thursday my mother had the meeting with the vice-principal. She had told me that I would need those 100 points to get into college and I couldn't lighten my courseload anf therefore my backpack because it was important that I take lots of solids with thick textbooks. She also slammed Mr. Klunk's restroom use policy. The vice-principal yelled at my mother and commented that parents stick up for students even when they're in the wrong. The meeting ended with the vice-principal folding his arms in front of his chest and scowling and my mother walking out.

That incident set off a whole few months in my life wherein I was very angsty. But I also reevaluated everything I believed in. If authority figures were not always right, how could that mean Bush was always right just because he was president? Lying about WMD's was the wrong thing to do. I realized right can't win if everyone goes along with wrong just for the sake of unity. I reconsidered my views on homosexuality, drug legalization, the voting age, corporate personhood, and especially oil. I went from being an overgrown tween to being a young adult. The Bush poster came down from my wall.

When I was 17, I read about a boy my age named Jonathan Krohn. Krohn came into fame at 13 and 14, when he spoke publicly at the Republican National Convention and wrote a book about what conservatism means. But then Krohn read some philosophy and metamorphosed into a liberal. At 17, he was stating that kids as young as 14 are lacking in life experience to the point where they should not be allowed to speak in public fora. Krohn even compared adult conservative talking heads, like Bill O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich, to 13-year-olds.

Should I have been told I couldn't write about my beliefs the Jonathan Krohn way when I was 14? Even though I no longer hold that authoritarian, united-we-stand attitude, it would have been wrong to stop me from writing a letter to the editor expressing the views I held when I was younger. What about the people who are still conservative or authoritarian at 30, 40, 50, 65, 80? Certainly, there are people who have been conservative all their lives; will we wait until they're in their nineties to see that they're not going to change and allow them to express it? Suppose Jack starts out liberal at 14 then becomes a conservative at 16. And suppose Josh starts out conservative at 14 then becomes a liberal at 16. Is conservatism more mature, because Jack grew into it as he grew up? Or is liberalism more mature, because Josh grew into it as he grew up?

Even though Krohn said that kids shouldn't be allowed to speak about politics, he is still below voting age at 17, which means a lot of adults don't think he should be trusted to think in politics maturely. And doesn't his "maturity" tack also apply to his statement around maturity? (A kid saying kids don't have fully-developed views doesn't have fully-developed views, so his statements about kids not having fully-developed views shouldn't be listened to? There exists a great paradox about life experience -- that sometimes as you grow up and gain it, you realize that life experience isn't everything and the lack thereof doesn't mean that the weltanschauung of a 17-year-old or even a 14-year-old is piffle. When you undergo a life-changing experience, like a rushed trek to class under a heavy backpack that culminates in you taking down a Bush poster, it doesn't necessarily follow that you're going to become ageist.