Conditions for being allowed to vote

[Aimless]

I'm sure there is a formal term for this concept, but I don't know it. In the military service thread Tear suggested that people should have to do some sort of military or civil service in order to earn the right to vote, and I was wondering how defensible that viewpoint is.

Afaik, all of us live in countries where almost all citizens over the age of 18 are allowed to vote. Conditions generally only come up in conditions for citizenship, which may vary from country to country.

My gut feeling is that any adult who is a citizen in a country should be allowed to vote in that country, and that military or civil service should not be a requirement for citizenship as long as that person pays his taxes and abides by the laws of his society. I don't understand why those other specific forms of service would be more important for citizenship.

What are your thoughts, on the right to vote and on criteria for citizenship?

[littlelolligagged]

Military or civil service should absolutely not be required to vote. I'm pretty sure none of us want to live in police states, after all - or have leadership by military junta.

[Hazir]

To me that 'service' thing sounds like something taken from a scifi novel which itself turned the Roman-Greco concept of only citizens being allowed to serve on its head.

I think it's wrong, because it creates a unsustainable division in the populace of people who are in and those who are out. I think the starting point should be that being part of a community should give you the right to co-decide on its future. I think excluding specific people for specific reasons from that general right can be justified. Justified on the basis of the principle that no pact, formal or informal, can result in an obligation to commit suicide.

[Ominous Gamer]

This seems to be a popular idea in fiction. I think even the Starcraft universe requires military service in order to be considered a citizen.

EDIT
Or maybe it was Starship Troopers. I need to reread those now...

[Loki]

I think the only reasonable restriction on voting is having a modicum of knowledge about the the political system one votes in. Having civil/military service requirements is something that might help with state/nation-building, but not something most modern states should concern themselves with.

[Nessus]

A year's service, be it military or simply working for the state, is a serious hindrance to anyone with any kind of career ambitions, or desires for higher education. People who do not have a year's time to throw away willy-nilly, ostensibly the smarter and more critical segments of society, would have to choose between the right to vote and taking a blow to one's career path. I do not think this would be in the interests of technologically advanced, modern nations.

[Hazir]

This seems to be a popular idea in fiction. I think even the Starcraft universe requires military service in order to be considered a citizen.

EDIT
Or maybe it was Starship Troopers. I need to reread those now...

Bingo, Starship Troopers. That was the one. IA highly anti-democratic utopia.

[Steely Glint]

Voting is a right, not a privilege.

[']['ear]

Voting is a right, not a privilege.

I'm not particularly serious about this advocacy of service = vote. I'm just having the same reaction to the "idiot masses" that Heinlein did. It's not a tenable solution.

The logic is something like this: to operate a gun or a car, you need to show reasonable proficiency and responsibility, and those "rights" can be removed if you abuse the right. Right? Why is voting different? Sufficiently abused it can jeopardize our our society. Why not have to earn that right like any other?

It is all utopian pipe dreaming. If would never work with real people, who are far too messy.

Now a year of national service does appeal to me. Because the way it works now is that we essentially defend our country with the poor. It's a military equivalent of sweatshop labor, if you will, with the rich making self-serving policy decisions without ever being held responsible for the consequences. I very much like the Israeli and Swiss approach to this. Both societies are very democratic and free, and everybody participates at some level.

[RandBlade]

I'm not particularly serious about this advocacy of service = vote. I'm just having the same reaction to the "idiot masses" that Heinlein did. It's not a tenable solution.

The logic is something like this: to operate a gun or a car, you need to show reasonable proficiency and responsibility, and those "rights" can be removed if you abuse the right. Right? Why is voting different? Sufficiently abused it can jeopardize our our society. Why not have to earn that right like any other?

It is all utopian pipe dreaming. If would never work with real people, who are far too messy.

Now a year of national service does appeal to me. Because the way it works now is that we essentially defend our country with the poor. It's a military equivalent of sweatshop labor, if you will, with the rich making self-serving policy decisions without ever being held responsible for the consequences. I very much like the Israeli and Swiss approach to this. Both societies are very democratic and free, and everybody participates at some level.

Because use of a car on public roads is a priviledge not a right (you don't need a licence to use a car on private land).

Either you have democracy or any other form of government. Under a democracy we basically believe in the concept of the "wisdom of crowds." That is not always correct but its better than any alternative.

You're demonstrating real ignorance of genuine sweatshop labour too if you seriously believe the US military is even remotely comparable to the horrific conditions of genuine sweatshops

[Steely Glint]

I'm not particularly serious about this advocacy of service = vote. I'm just having the same reaction to the "idiot masses" that Heinlein did. It's not a tenable solution.

The logic is something like this: to operate a gun or a car, you need to show reasonable proficiency and responsibility, and those "rights" can be removed if you abuse the right. Right? Why is voting different? Sufficiently abused it can jeopardize our our society. Why not have to earn that right like any other?

Because people are still subject to the authority of the government, whether they "earned" the right to have a say in it or not.

[Hazir]

I'm not particularly serious about this advocacy of service = vote. I'm just having the same reaction to the "idiot masses" that Heinlein did. It's not a tenable solution.

The logic is something like this: to operate a gun or a car, you need to show reasonable proficiency and responsibility, and those "rights" can be removed if you abuse the right. Right? Why is voting different? Sufficiently abused it can jeopardize our our society. Why not have to earn that right like any other?

It is all utopian pipe dreaming. If would never work with real people, who are far too messy.

Now a year of national service does appeal to me. Because the way it works now is that we essentially defend our country with the poor. It's a military equivalent of sweatshop labor, if you will, with the rich making self-serving policy decisions without ever being held responsible for the consequences. I very much like the Israeli and Swiss approach to this. Both societies are very democratic and free, and everybody participates at some level.

The activities you try to sell off as similar are elective, being governed is not.

[']['ear]

You're demonstrating real ignorance of genuine sweatshop labour too if you seriously believe the US military is even remotely comparable to the horrific conditions of genuine sweatshops

And you generally aren't killed, maimed or driven crazy in a sweatshop.

Implicit in our system is that it is the gung ho or the poor that die for our country, and nobody else. The majority of enlisted men, those who do most of the dying, are there because it is probably the single easiest way out of poverty, particularly if you aren't fortunate enough to be exceptionally smart.

[RandBlade]

Whatever reason people choose to join the military, they choose to do so. Totally different to either slaves or those in real sweatshops who have genuinely no alternative. There are alternatives to the military.

What's your solution? Pay a fraction of the wages to the soldiers so that they're still in poverty? Ensure its only the gung ho who join because the military doesn't pay well? Clearly that's wrong.

[LittleFuzzy]

Now a year of national service does appeal to me. Because the way it works now is that we essentially defend our country with the poor

I'm curious what the source for this data is. As far as I know, the Department of Defense doesn't gather that data in its formal demographics reports and with the restrictions on members of the military taking part in independent research, I did not think anyone else had direct data on the economic background of people from before they joined. Researchers end up having to use fairly poor proxies, like that laughable Heritage report which uses median household income by zip code recruits are from *though there are uses for that sort of data, like how it indicates rural areas still account for more recruits than urban areas*

[RandBlade]

Funny, rural areas don't typically strike me as the poor and impoverished that Tear is playing to.

[Loki]

And you generally aren't killed, maimed or driven crazy in a sweatshop.

Implicit in our system is that it is the gung ho or the poor that die for our country, and nobody else. The majority of enlisted men, those who do most of the dying, are there because it is probably the single easiest way out of poverty, particularly if you aren't fortunate enough to be exceptionally smart.

You realize I already proved you wrong, right (average family income and educational level are higher for recruits)? Why do you keep on repeating this?

http://www.theworldforgotten.com/sho...ll=1#post40012

[RandBlade]

Because it's politically convenient.

OMG the rich poli's don't care about sending troops out to die as none of them served, none of their children do. Only poor black kids join the military as they have no choice otherwise they're impoverished. Stop war. Start conscription.

[Steely Glint]

You realize I already proved you wrong, right (average family income and educational level are higher for recruits)?

Why is America denying her underprivileged citizens the chance to serve their country?

[']['ear]

You realize I already proved you wrong, right (average family income and educational level are higher for recruits)? Why do you keep on repeating this?

Because it's the Heritage Foundation? Because their "report" is riddled with partisan manipulation (i.e. dissing certain people and sources while lauding others others in a clearly partisan manner)? Very unprofessional. When the people who generate "science" use the science in their publication as a political bludgeon, I tend to start worrying about the science. This judgment is orders of magnitude more relevant for social sciences, of course.

The study is very selective about their data. A classic example is using the high school diploma as a benchmark. They show that "the military has a higher high school graduation rate." Big fucking deal! That's because the military doesn't allow high school drop outs! So they choose the metric that by selection bias proves their point! And they don't bother addressing that the military does this to avoid mental deficients (a damed wise policy, BTW). The military is also much more law-abiding, because they won't accept recruits with a felony record!!11! Again, well done. How about we measure crime rate in ex-enlisted compared to age-adjusted control group who also didn't commit a crime by that age?

Jesus, and you call yourself a social scientist? I don't know whether this is a commentary on your abilities, your laziness, or your willingness to lose the truth to score your precious "points."

And do we get into the conflation of enlisted vs officers? For the point of discussion here, fatalities are disproportionate amongst enlisted personnel. So when thinking about quality of military or the demographic details of the military, how could any researcher not consider officers and enlisted separately?

How's about we compare other metrics? Say, percentage of ex-enlisted college grad vs non-military college grads to complete post-bacc work? The document you cite decries other studies for using different metrics without defending them. Frankly, the metrics chosen by the Heritage Foundation are far more dubious.

So from now on how about you don't just spam us with a link, but quote the passage that supports your point? You're being both a) lazy by making us track down the data that "supports" your point, and b) disingenuous because your links often don't even support your point you claim they do (witness the high school graduation rate).

So your "proof" is suspect on four levels:
1) I don't trust the Heritage Foundation any more than I trust tobacco company "research," which is to say about as far as I could shot put Baxter.
2) Clearly some of the HF's chosen metrics are intentionally misleading on a quick surface level. Why should I trust their others? That's like trusting Michael Moore on arguments that seem reasonable after you've learned that some of his techniques are quite reputable.
3) The HF report cites other studies that come to different conclusions. Huh, how about that? In a brief look at those, they look less suspect and more professional.

Look, we know that you're training to become a hack at one of these think tanks, but kindly don't insult my intelligence by tarting such crap up as "science" and parading it around as "proof."

And from now on give me quotes that "prove" your point, not lame-ass links. Why? Because I don't trust you. This document was the last straw, and you wasted my fucking time on it.

[Loki]

Wait, so the report has some flaws (which can't be addressed due to the lack of data), therefore it's a lie and can be disregarded. For a proxy, you can always look at deaths in Iraq: http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resour...ourceID=000671 Note that blacks make up 13% of the population, but 9.5% of the casualties. Hispanics make up 13% of the population and 11% of the casualties. If anything, minorities seem to be underrepresented in the armed forces.

Meanwhile, your views on the subject have absolutely no empirical support at all, and are probably based on a few pieces of anecdotal evidence or some very selective watching of the news. Can you please tell me why your method for choosing what to believe is more honest and rigorous than the ones I cited?

[Wraith]

<snip>

Escalating to this level of hostility is unnecessary. You could have made all the same points without the personal attacks, and in fact your post loses nothing if those are removed. Please calm down.

[LittleFuzzy]

Hey Tear, how about you ignore Loki and answer my question? I agree that Heritage report is laughable. I had thought no one had decent data on the socio-economic background for enlisted beyond things like rural vs urban, but you plainly think you do. Please share, because I can't find that info.

[Loki]

How about the combat deaths figures? Minorities made up a disproportionately small portion of combat deaths and combat injuries in both the Afghan and Iraqi wars.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf (pages 14 and 15 for the Afghan figures)

The chart on page 8 is interesting too. If combined with the one on page 6, it seems that minority deaths are overrepresented in only non-hostile incidents. It also shows we're seeing fewer military casualties now than in the 1980s.

[Steely Glint]

Because it's the Heritage Foundation?

As flawed as the Heritage Foundation report might be, it's got more credibility than just your word.

[']['ear]

Escalating to this level of hostility is unnecessary. You could have made all the same points without the personal attacks, and in fact your post loses nothing if those are removed. Please calm down.

1) You're not a mod, so opinions are reasonable, orders are not.

2) Why are you lecturing Rand for trolling? Couldn't he have made his point without the mockery and sarcasm?

Hey Tear, how about you ignore Loki and answer my question? I agree that Heritage report is laughable. I had thought no one had decent data on the socio-economic background for enlisted beyond things like rural vs urban, but you plainly think you do. Please share, because I can't find that info.

I don't know if it exists. My father certainly said it was his experience, but I understand that such anecdotes aren't helpful, and are probably out of date. Likewise with my experience, where everybody I know who went into the military didn't have the money for college.

As flawed as the Heritage Foundation report might be, it's got more credibility than just your word.

I disagree. I have no agenda here, this just being an off the cuff notion. The heritage Foundation, on the other hand, has very specific agendas.

[Hazir]

Eh, Wraith is a mod.

[Wraith]

1) You're not a mod, so opinions are reasonable, orders are not.

What Hazir said.

2) Why are you lecturing Rand for trolling? Couldn't he have made his point without the mockery and sarcasm?

Don't worry about others behavior, worry about your own. Going off on Loki because Rand said something you didn't like is definitely not acceptable.

I hope we can move past this now, but if you want to continue this, could we please take this to someplace in the Site Discussion forum to avoid further disruption of this thread?