Limited Democracy

[got tonkaed]

ha the problem is im not actually electable in that im a bit of a trainwreck....so no need for the truthers, though they will certainly have a home in my campaign...

and i still have one IOU political post.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Gah, I picked the worst time ever to start this thread, this week SUCKS in school, 3 IB papers due on Friday. So if I skip over stuff, apologies, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Can't wait till June. I hear college allows for a lot more free time.

First: once again, I am not proposing that this be implemented in the United States. This is quite contrary to the ideals expressed in the US Constitution, so it can't be implemented while the current US Constitution is effective. Note also that I am not proposing revolution... I'm just thinking about "ideal societies." Something that could possibly be practical if there's ever a time when a nation as we know it comes crashing down and needs to be replaced.

When I said that this "is a Plato's Republic," I didn't mean that it's identical to Plato's idea of philosopher kings. What I meant was that it's a hypothetical, not aimed at any currently existing state in particular. It's quite the opposite, in many ways, of Plato's philosopher kings, in fact. As has been pointed out several times in this thread, military people are definitely not the most intelligent. Unlike Plato's Republic, sovereignty is not a matter of intelligence.

My point in this preamble is this: those of you who say "the founding fathers wanted this and that"... that's not valid here. I'm not talking about American politics. As far as the current American system goes, I'm a libertarian, because i don't have faith in the competence of government to govern in my behalf, so I'd rather they govern as little as possible. But I am NOT talking about our current political system, I'm thinking about a hypothetical new one. Sort of how democracy was a hypothetical system back in the day, and people starting thinking about it.

And in my experience the army is not a place that churns out freely and critically thinking individuals.

The idea isn't really free thought... but the idea isn't indoctrination either. The idea is to narrow down the voting populace to those who: a) care about their right to vote enough to earn it, "invest" in the welfare of the country if you will and b) are willing to put the welfare of the nation before their own welfare.

For this system to work, though, military service must be very difficult, and civilian life must be very easy. That means that the system only works if civilians have the same (or actually, more) civil liberties than military personnel, and the same liberties as veterans, all except the right to vote.

Tell me, why not go the opposite way and only let the "thinkers" vote?

Because "thinkers" are equally likely to "think" wrongly as non-thinkers. Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists. I think the point where the line needs to be drawn on who gets to do the decision making shouldn't necessarily go with the smartest, but rather, those with the most demonstrated interest in the society as a whole as opposed to their own special interests.

I am aware that the latter idea of putting society before the individual is distinctly un-American, but once again I'm not considering this for the current American system. And once again, individual liberty or expression is NOT restricted.

Ambrose, I stopped reading your post after you admitted that your "idea" IS basically Plato's Philospopher Kings.

Now yer man Plato had some good ideas, BUT THIS WAS NOT ONE OF THEM.
Incredibly influential yes-and you know which movement he most influenced (via Hegel and Nietzsche)..yep, FASCISM.

You say you havent heard much of a counter argument than "its fascism"-but there is no further argument.
Plato's idea was to have the intellectual elite rule the Republic. He also proposed infanticide and eugenics as a way of getting rid of the weak.

There is a reason why Karl Popper's masterpiece "THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES" had one volume on Marx, and the other on Plato-because Plato is the enemy of democracy and equity/equality.

Don't read Plato-read Rousseau, and have some HOPE in your fellow man.

Suggs, my opinion of you is going to steadily decrease until you either post something of substance or stop posting period. Not sure you care, but I just think that if you're not going to bother to read my posts, you really shouldn't be trying to reply to them, if for no other reason than out of politeness. I think I've stated several times that this is only a "platos Republic" in that it's hypothetical. There are several key distinctions which you may have noticed if you had taken the time to read my post before you decided it wasn't worth your time.

You have an interesting brain.

Why thank you



This is all I have time for at the moment, but I'll be back.

[Neoteny]

Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists.

I think we should have a thread about this. And if we ever decide that debate forum/usergroup would be a good idea, we should definitely be elitist and call it the CC Intelligentsia.

Just in case my humor is a bit vague on this one, I'm being about 83% serious...

[OnlyAmbrose]

Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists.

I think we should have a thread about this. And if we ever decide that debate forum/usergroup would be a good idea, we should definitely be elitist and call it the CC Intelligencia.

Just in case my humor is a bit vague on this one, I'm being about 83% serious...

The ironic thing is that I spelled "intelligentsia" wrong.

[Neoteny]

Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists.

I think we should have a thread about this. And if we ever decide that debate forum/usergroup would be a good idea, we should definitely be elitist and call it the CC Intelligentsia.

Just in case my humor is a bit vague on this one, I'm being about 83% serious...

The ironic thing is that I spelled "intelligentsia" wrong.

Ha! You had me fooled...

Edits when noone is looking... psst... I'm trying to cover my trail Ambrose... ::waves obnoxiously::

[muy_thaiguy]

Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists.

I think we should have a thread about this. And if we ever decide that debate forum/usergroup would be a good idea, we should definitely be elitist and call it the CC Intelligentsia.

Just in case my humor is a bit vague on this one, I'm being about 83% serious...

I would have said "Masterdebaters."

[Neoteny]

Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligencia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists.

I think we should have a thread about this. And if we ever decide that debate forum/usergroup would be a good idea, we should definitely be elitist and call it the CC Intelligentsia.

Just in case my humor is a bit vague on this one, I'm being about 83% serious...

I would have said "Masterdebaters."

That would also have gotten the point across rather efficiently.

[Jenos Ridan]

Ambrose:
Interesting argument.
But:
Can you really describe black people voting for obama, or women voting for hillary, as selfish? If you were black, and you felt obama was going to better represent a group that you belong to, why wouldn't you vote that way? I think you are implying motives that might not exist to great swathes of people.
National service: is the army the best place to adopt a balanced world view? Won't restricting voting to veterans skew policy towards the military anyway? Does the army really churn out socially responsible citizens? Should pacifists be denied the vote because they don't hold the correct opinions? I am not a pacifist, but there is no way in hell i would join the army in peacetime because I am not a patriot. I do, however, have a strong vested interest in shaping my country's direction for the good of me, my fellow brits and the world at large. Am I a selfish voter? Socially irresponsible? Should i be disenfranchised because of my political opinions?

Sorry, i just asked a load of questions But i think your plan is dangerous. Our countries' societies are made up of wonderfully broad spectra of people and it is a basic tenet of our political systems that they are ALL represented. I DO think that political apathy is perverse and pathetic, but, hey, it's still a free country. A restriction of the right to vote - of ANY sort - is a curtailment of that freedom.

In the Heinline story, soldiers are not the only "veterans" allowed to vote; firemen, police, EMTs and other civil servants, upon a certain length of service to the nation at large, are allowed to vote. I think this is what Ambrose was referring to; the right to vote should be given to people who actually have clue #1 what they are voting for and that it should be for the best of the nation and not something stupid like "cause he/she is black/a woman" or some such.

[MeDeFe]

And in my experience the army is not a place that churns out freely and critically thinking individuals.

The idea isn't really free thought... but the idea isn't indoctrination either. The idea is to narrow down the voting populace to those who: a) care about their right to vote enough to earn it, "invest" in the welfare of the country if you will and b) are willing to put the welfare of the nation before their own welfare.

For this system to work, though, military service must be very difficult, and civilian life must be very easy. That means that the system only works if civilians have the same (or actually, more) civil liberties than military personnel, and the same liberties as veterans, all except the right to vote.

I'm beginning to see a flaw in your reasoning here, caring enough about ones right to vote in order to be willing to earn it does not imply that you also care about the well-being of your country as a whole. As I pointed out earlier, in a system where there are no negative consequences at all attached to not doing military service, serving in the military can be a fairly reliable indicator of patriotism in the sense that a person is willing to die for "his" country. But as soon as there are negative consequences this becomes secondary because you will have a lot of people looking after their own interests. Their interest in this case could be the long-term goal of influencing the politics of the country in which they live (notice the contrast between "his country" and geographical happenstance), this does not mean they want to influence them towards the good of everyone, they might just as well only want to favour what will benefit themselves.

Even a difficult military service would not be enough to change this very much, as I said, the goal of voting is long-term, and short term hardships in order to achieve it will probably appear to be worth it. And then there's the social pressure that you will never be able to eliminate.
It's voting time again and someone ask an other person if he's going, "No, I'm not allowed", "Why? Are you afraid of the military? Don't you love your country? Are you not interested in what happens to the place you live in?" And that's just what you'll get at election time. Voting would become a status symbol, it's a right that some people have and others don't. Imagine the pressure parents would put on their kids, for some reason they take great pride in what their children achieve, even if they are grown up already.
The system you're proposing would work against itself and negate the effect you want it to have, namely to let only those who would vote for the best of all vote.

Tell me, why not go the opposite way and only let the "thinkers" vote?

Because "thinkers" are equally likely to "think" wrongly as non-thinkers. Look at the variety of opinions among the "intelligentsia" of CC. There are smart conservatives, dumb conservatives, smart liberals, dumb liberals, smart atheists, dumb atheists, smarth theists, and dumb theists. I think the point where the line needs to be drawn on who gets to do the decision making shouldn't necessarily go with the smartest, but rather, those with the most demonstrated interest in the society as a whole as opposed to their own special interests.

I am aware that the latter idea of putting society before the individual is distinctly un-American, but once again I'm not considering this for the current American system. And once again, individual liberty or expression is NOT restricted.

Ambrose, thinking differently is not thinking wrongly, thinking "wrongly" is more along the lines of not being rational, not being logical, not taking more than one side of an issue into account, not being able to see the difference between a good and a bad argument, not being able to see where the other side might be coming from and why they have an opinion different from your own. As I already said in an earlier post: if you are faced with a dozen different proposals, your wish to vote for the best is not much use unless you can also analyze the proposals and decide for yourself which you think will do the most good.

If you wanted to link this to the right to vote, the state would of course have to provide free or at least affordable high-school education for everyone. But as I see it an educated population is not a bad thing for any state, whether the right to vote is linked to education or not.

[Jenos Ridan]

Speaking of education, Europe and Japan have a pretty good system for insuring that non-college bound types and those who are college bound receive the education suitable to them. More on this later.

[mandalorian2298]

you test would be great if we lived in a democracy but we don't. we live in republics where we select someone to represent us. all we need to believe is the person we are selecting will understand those things, whatever those things are. so your test should only apply to candidates and the results published.

If you have no understanding of those things, how can you determine which candidate can or can't understand those things?

[greenoaks]

you test would be great if we lived in a democracy but we don't. we live in republics where we select someone to represent us. all we need to believe is the person we are selecting will understand those things, whatever those things are. so your test should only apply to candidates and the results published.

If you have no understanding of those things, how can you determine which candidate can or can't understand those things?

it is called trust

it was proposed that voters get tested and only those who pass get to vote. bad system as large portions of the public will end up feeling disenfranchised. this can lead to civil unrest.

i suggested the candidates are tested to ensure they are capable of understanding the issues and making an informed decision, the results of their understanding published. afterall they are the ones who actually make the decisions so their ability to understand them is important.

voters can see that candidate 'a' is strong on international affairs but weak on the economy, candidate 'b' is very strong on environmental issues but hasn't a clue about anything else, etc. voters are then able to vote for candidates they believe have the ability to deal with the issues that are important to them, even though they as voters may not have the educational, work or life experiences/background to fully understand those issues themselves.

i don't know about where you live but we sometimes get people elected who were famous for something but have no idea about politics. (an ultra marathon runner comes to mind)

[mandalorian2298]

you test would be great if we lived in a democracy but we don't. we live in republics where we select someone to represent us. all we need to believe is the person we are selecting will understand those things, whatever those things are. so your test should only apply to candidates and the results published.

If you have no understanding of those things, how can you determine which candidate can or can't understand those things?

it is called trust

it was proposed that voters get tested and only those who pass get to vote. bad system as large portions of the public will end up feeling disenfranchised. this can lead to civil unrest.

i suggested the candidates are tested to ensure they are capable of understanding the issues and making an informed decision, the results of their understanding published. afterall they are the ones who actually make the decisions so their ability to understand them is important.

voters can see that candidate 'a' is strong on international affairs but weak on the economy, candidate 'b' is very strong on environmental issues but hasn't a clue about anything else, etc. voters are then able to vote for candidates they believe have the ability to deal with the issues that are important to them, even though they as voters may not have the educational, work or life experiences/background to fully understand those issues themselves.

i don't know about where you live but we sometimes get people elected who were famous for something but have no idea about politics. (an ultra marathon runner comes to mind)

And why do you think that happens? Could it possibly reflect the fact that the large percentage of the voters are apathic, uninformed and/or dumber then a glass of water?

As for your worry about the civil unrest, they are baseless. Every healthy citizen would have an opportunity to EARN the right to participate in governing of his country by voting. The only people who would feel disenfranchised would be those citizens who were too lazy to earn their right to vote (and most of them wouldn't vote anyway).

BTW, do you think that it's unjust that most citizens don't get to vote for the, say, Rector of their local University? If so, when do you think their rebelion will start?

[MeDeFe]

you test would be great if we lived in a democracy but we don't. we live in republics where we select someone to represent us. all we need to believe is the person we are selecting will understand those things, whatever those things are. so your test should only apply to candidates and the results published.

If you have no understanding of those things, how can you determine which candidate can or can't understand those things?

it is called trust

it was proposed that voters get tested and only those who pass get to vote. bad system as large portions of the public will end up feeling disenfranchised. this can lead to civil unrest.

i suggested the candidates are tested to ensure they are capable of understanding the issues and making an informed decision, the results of their understanding published. afterall they are the ones who actually make the decisions so their ability to understand them is important.

voters can see that candidate 'a' is strong on international affairs but weak on the economy, candidate 'b' is very strong on environmental issues but hasn't a clue about anything else, etc. voters are then able to vote for candidates they believe have the ability to deal with the issues that are important to them, even though they as voters may not have the educational, work or life experiences/background to fully understand those issues themselves.

i don't know about where you live but we sometimes get people elected who were famous for something but have no idea about politics. (an ultra marathon runner comes to mind)

What you're missing is that if the voters don't have a clue about how economics, or foreign policy or whatever works, they will not be able to pick a candidate that will properly represent their interests. They need not "fully understand those issues themselves" but some basic reasoning abilities and some insight into the matter are necessary for an informed decision. "Will this candidate be able to deal with the issues important to me?" is the wrong question, a better one would be "Does this candidate have a sensible plan for dealing with various issues, among them the ones that are most important to me?".

As for testing the candidates, don't they have manifestos in which the candidate or party states what they want to achieve and preferably also how they want to achieve it? I know those things are common here and you can get hold of them easily prior to every election. Why not take a look at those and decide for yourself instead of putting them through an exam and seeing who scores the highest?

[greenoaks]

in my country voting is not a right, it is an obligation. everyone must vote and this thread is about taking that power away from the people and giving it to a group of people who believe they are in a better position to decide how the people should be governed.

some have suggested based on military service, some on education. i oppose all of them. it is not my place to decide the level of understanding a voter must have with the issues of the day before their opinion on how this country of ours is governed gets counted. it is not anyones place to decide someone is too stupid or apathetic to vote.

we have another thread here where most of the people contributing are advocating the legalisation of drugs, that it is a person's right to choose and the government should stay out of it yet in this thread it seems those same people do not have the right to choose, that their government is decided for them.

[Curmudgeonx]

I believe that Suggs was correct in his cursory analysis that the OP was proposing a Plato-esque "Philospher-King". I was on the brink of posting something similar when I got to page 4 or so and saw Suggs beat me to it.

The OP is rather dismissive of Sugg's viewpoint that the OP's position was similar in its reasoning to Plato's Republic. If you want to read into the philosophy of law and government OP, you must start with the Republic, skip over the religious folks in the middle ages, the reactionary drunk with liberty Frenchmen, and get to Nozick, Rawls, Milton Friedman and Popper in the 20th century.

Remember, there is always someone out there smarter, better-looking, and/or richer than you. Be careful what you wish for naively, because you might not make the mark and be labeled one of hoi polloi.

Universal sufferage is a cornerstone of personal freedom, the others being the unlimited right to own property, right to unfettered expression, and right to assemble.

An obligation to national "service" is contrary to personal freedom. Additionally, could Stephen Hawking (theoretically) vote in the OP's scheme?

[Snorri1234]

Even a difficult military service would not be enough to change this very much, as I said, the goal of voting is long-term, and short term hardships in order to achieve it will probably appear to be worth it. And then there's the social pressure that you will never be able to eliminate.
It's voting time again and someone ask an other person if he's going, "No, I'm not allowed", "Why? Are you afraid of the military? Don't you love your country? Are you not interested in what happens to the place you live in?" And that's just what you'll get at election time. Voting would become a status symbol, it's a right that some people have and others don't. Imagine the pressure parents would put on their kids, for some reason they take great pride in what their children achieve, even if they are grown up already.

Yeah not to mention that this means someone with the right to vote will get more privileges. Why would companies hire you if you can't vote in their interest? Why would politicians even care about the people who can't vote? It's not like the military is for everyone, unless you want to make military training way softer.

[OnlyAmbrose]

I'm beginning to see a flaw in your reasoning here, caring enough about ones right to vote in order to be willing to earn it does not imply that you also care about the well-being of your country as a whole. As I pointed out earlier, in a system where there are no negative consequences at all attached to not doing military service, serving in the military can be a fairly reliable indicator of patriotism in the sense that a person is willing to die for "his" country. But as soon as there are negative consequences this becomes secondary because you will have a lot of people looking after their own interests. Their interest in this case could be the long-term goal of influencing the politics of the country in which they live (notice the contrast between "his country" and geographical happenstance), this does not mean they want to influence them towards the good of everyone, they might just as well only want to favour what will benefit themselves.

I understand your point, but not the conclusion you draw. Firstly, the loss of the right to cast one vote isn't necessarily a "negative consequence," most especially when considering the negative consequences attached to military service. People are generally not willing to risk life and limb over one vote. What's more, the system in Heinlein's novel is such that the hardships of military service (just short of Spartan-like) make the "positive consequence" of gaining the right to vote completely overwhelmed by the difficulty.

I probably didn't make my point to well when I used the phrase "earning the right to vote" several times. Mostly because the idea behind the system is that in anyone's "cost-benefit analysis" of the decision to join and/or finish two years in the military, it would be far more beneficial to oneself NOT to join the military.

So conditions are such that they are as similar as possible to the ideal conditions you described when you said: "As I pointed out earlier, in a system where there are no negative consequences at all attached to not doing military service, serving in the military can be a fairly reliable indicator of patriotism in the sense that a person is willing to die for "his" country."

Even a difficult military service would not be enough to change this very much, as I said, the goal of voting is long-term

You would be one of the few people to say that gambling your life simply for the right to cast one vote is worth it. Again, I'm starting to regret saying "earning the right to vote" now, because i warped the message I'm trying to get across.

And then there's the social pressure that you will never be able to eliminate.
It's voting time again and someone ask an other person if he's going, "No, I'm not allowed", "Why? Are you afraid of the military? Don't you love your country? Are you not interested in what happens to the place you live in?"

In the Heinlein novels, and as this system would have to emulate, military service is in fact almost discouraged by the government and the military. When the main character walks into the recruiter's office, the recruiting officer is maimed and encourages the protagonist to reconsider. After signing up, he even gets 24 hours to reconsider. And then he has the opportunity to drop out any time at basic training. There is actually intense social pressure NOT to join the military, and the logical inference is that it's encouraged by the government so as to PREVENT those who join the military out of self-interest from doing so.

Ambrose, thinking differently is not thinking wrongly, thinking "wrongly" is more along the lines of not being rational, not being logical, not taking more than one side of an issue into account, not being able to see the difference between a good and a bad argument, not being able to see where the other side might be coming from and why they have an opinion different from your own. As I already said in an earlier post: if you are faced with a dozen different proposals, your wish to vote for the best is not much use unless you can also analyze the proposals and decide for yourself which you think will do the most good.

I'll concede that point.

I believe that Suggs was correct in his cursory analysis that the OP was proposing a Plato-esque "Philospher-King". I was on the brink of posting something similar when I got to page 4 or so and saw Suggs beat me to it.

The OP is rather dismissive of Sugg's viewpoint that the OP's position was similar in its reasoning to Plato's Republic. If you want to read into the philosophy of law and government OP, you must start with the Republic, skip over the religious folks in the middle ages, the reactionary drunk with liberty Frenchmen, and get to Nozick, Rawls, Milton Friedman and Popper in the 20th century.

I think I was actually the first to draw a line between what i'm proposing and Plato's Republic, but as far as I can see, the similarities are extremely limited.

I'm "dismissive" of suggs in the sense that his post basically said: "What you're suggesting is a Plato's Republic."

To which I am inclined to say two things:

1) No it's not.

2) So what? If it is, then explain to me why that's a bad thing.

I just see his two posts in this thread as completely insubstantial. He accused my idea of being fascist and Platonic. So once again I have two things to say to that, and they are PROVE IT and SO WHAT? Meaning, how do you know? and What consequence does that have to this argument?

I've already explained why it's not similar to Plato's Republic, but I'll do so again. Firstly, there are no distinct social lines aside from the fact that some people can vote and some people can't. Beyond that, nothing is different. In fact it's not much different from America today in that you have some people who DO vote and some people who DON'T. Of course there is a distinction between those who statements, but the purpose of this thread is to discuss whether or not that distinction is beneficial. Anywho, point being: in Plato's Republic, the different classes don't associate or intermarry in general. No such social barriers exist in the proposed system.

Secondly, in Plato's Republic there are only certain people who can wield sovereignty, and those are the people who are smart. The people that have a naturally high IQ. In Heinlein's novel, EVERYONE has the right to join the military, whether they are healthy or crippled. The only restrictions are that a person must be of legal age (18) and pass a psychological test to ensure that they are rational enough to understand what they are doing. Heinlein, a former Naval officer himself, contends that there are jobs in the military for anyone. It doesn't take a young, spry youth to be a ship captain's secretary, for instance.

[MeDeFe]

I'm beginning to see a flaw in your reasoning here, caring enough about ones right to vote in order to be willing to earn it does not imply that you also care about the well-being of your country as a whole. As I pointed out earlier, in a system where there are no negative consequences at all attached to not doing military service, serving in the military can be a fairly reliable indicator of patriotism in the sense that a person is willing to die for "his" country. But as soon as there are negative consequences this becomes secondary because you will have a lot of people looking after their own interests. Their interest in this case could be the long-term goal of influencing the politics of the country in which they live (notice the contrast between "his country" and geographical happenstance), this does not mean they want to influence them towards the good of everyone, they might just as well only want to favour what will benefit themselves.

I understand your point, but not the conclusion you draw. Firstly, the loss of the right to cast one vote isn't necessarily a "negative consequence," most especially when considering the negative consequences attached to military service. People are generally not willing to risk life and limb over one vote. What's more, the system in Heinlein's novel is such that the hardships of military service (just short of Spartan-like) make the "positive consequence" of gaining the right to vote completely overwhelmed by the difficulty.

I probably didn't make my point to well when I used the phrase "earning the right to vote" several times. Mostly because the idea behind the system is that in anyone's "cost-benefit analysis" of the decision to join and/or finish two years in the military, it would be far more beneficial to oneself NOT to join the military.

So conditions are such that they are as similar as possible to the ideal conditions you described when you said: "As I pointed out earlier, in a system where there are no negative consequences at all attached to not doing military service, serving in the military can be a fairly reliable indicator of patriotism in the sense that a person is willing to die for "his" country."

Even a difficult military service would not be enough to change this very much, as I said, the goal of voting is long-term

You would be one of the few people to say that gambling your life simply for the right to cast one vote is worth it. Again, I'm starting to regret saying "earning the right to vote" now, because i warped the message I'm trying to get across.

And then there's the social pressure that you will never be able to eliminate.
It's voting time again and someone ask an other person if he's going, "No, I'm not allowed", "Why? Are you afraid of the military? Don't you love your country? Are you not interested in what happens to the place you live in?"

In the Heinlein novels, and as this system would have to emulate, military service is in fact almost discouraged by the government and the military. When the main character walks into the recruiter's office, the recruiting officer is maimed and encourages the protagonist to reconsider. After signing up, he even gets 24 hours to reconsider. And then he has the opportunity to drop out any time at basic training. There is actually intense social pressure NOT to join the military, and the logical inference is that it's encouraged by the government so as to PREVENT those who join the military out of self-interest from doing so.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think we might have somewhat different concepts of what military service entails. For me it means you get your training and you're done with it. If there's a war later at some point you'll be called in. There's no direct threat to ones life or health in the training, only in the eventuality of a war. You seem to be saying that you get your training and are sent off to a war where there's a very concrete risk of being killed or severely hurt. Correct me if I'm wrong.
As things are right now the chance of a soldier in practically any western country being sent into an actual war, not peacekeeping or reconstruction effort, is fairly low unless you're a US American. But you've said it yourself, we're not talking about the USA here.

With that in mind the scenario becomes 2 years of a training (which I call 'military service') and having to fight in the unlikely occasion that an other nation should act stupidly enough to declare war on your nation. Is that really such a bad deal?

[Guiscard]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to votw

[Iz Man]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to vote

Or perhaps the likes of those here currently residing in the ivory tower of upper academia? Say a person studying for a doctorate in history?

[Neoteny]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to vote

Or perhaps the likes of those here currently residing in the ivory tower of academia?

The ones arguing against restricting the vote?

[Iz Man]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to vote

Or perhaps the likes of those here currently residing in the ivory tower of academia?

The ones arguing against restricting the vote?

I'm just being a snoot.

[Neoteny]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to vote

Or perhaps the likes of those here currently residing in the ivory tower of academia?

The ones arguing against restricting the vote?

I'm just being a snoot.

Fair enough. :]

[Guiscard]

Can I perhaps bring up Brooksieb as a case in point as to the suitability of veterans being the only people allowed to vote

Or perhaps the likes of those here currently residing in the ivory tower of upper academia? Say a person studying for a doctorate in history?

Oh indeed. Nout so queer as folk.