WI: The right to vote dependent on serving in the army?

The upshot of this is that you'd be stripping a basic human right from huge numbers of people who could not do any kind of national service whatsoever.

Good luck explaining to someone who's, say, disabled (or a full-time carer for a disabled or elderly person) that they don't deserve the most basic of human rights.

Civil, not human right.
 
You must have read a different book than the one I've read SO many times. In the book, the model DOES work. In fact, in one retrospective view back to "History and Moral Philosophy" there's a long debate as to why they do it and they ultimately conclude that they do it because it DOES work, apparently because the franchise is limited to men and women who have been willing to sacrifice their comfort and sublimate their will to society for a period of time.

Of course main reason it works is "it's my book so I decide if it works or not"

But as others have said:
-what to do about those who are willing to serve but can't bacause of reasons beyond their control (disability....) and even those withpout useful skills
-combat vs support, somebody serving in airborne division would be as eligable to vote as somebody keeping inventory in warehouse (unless you make non combat service longer)
-you need system where non-citizens have same rights as citizens except those linked to voting. which in turn doesn't prevent problems in modern society since non citizen can run a corporation and buy politican anyway
 

jahenders

Banned
See Starship Troopers (book) -- in that model, the national service is open to ANY adult willing to do it. In one example it cites, if the only thing you can do is count the hairs on a caterpillar by touch, then that's what you'll do

The upshot of this is that you'd be stripping a basic human right from huge numbers of people who could not do any kind of national service whatsoever.

Good luck explaining to someone who's, say, disabled (or a full-time carer for a disabled or elderly person) that they don't deserve the most basic of human rights.
 

jahenders

Banned
If you read the book, it covers both #1 and #2, doesn't really address #3. I'm not saying it's a model we could implement or even that it would be desirable to do so, but the book presents a pretty solid framework, discusses it at length, and shows how it works

Of course main reason it works is "it's my book so I decide if it works or not"

But as others have said:
-what to do about those who are willing to serve but can't bacause of reasons beyond their control (disability....) and even those withpout useful skills
-combat vs support, somebody serving in airborne division would be as eligable to vote as somebody keeping inventory in warehouse (unless you make non combat service longer)
-you need system where non-citizens have same rights as citizens except those linked to voting. which in turn doesn't prevent problems in modern society since non citizen can run a corporation and buy politican anyway
 
If you read the book, it covers both #1 and #2, doesn't really address #3. I'm not saying it's a model we could implement or even that it would be desirable to do so, but the book presents a pretty solid framework, discusses it at length, and shows how it works

It covers #1. It handwaves #2 by having all that conducted by civilian contractors.

As for solid work, it's a sci-fi work set in future after society went through several upheavals. It's easy to use that to create society you want when you can just say "after global war of XXXX people decided to...." and have every character in position of power or who makes important decissions as higly moral, uncorrup(able) and dedicated to greater good just because you are writing a book where your model is good, desirable and works because everybody does what they are supposed to do to make it work.

It wouzld be much harder to create such society in modern OTL democracy
 
In most Greek city states army service and voting rights were basically property qualifications anyway, if you owned a certain amount of land you were heavy infantry and thus entitled to vote. Athens big leap as giving the men that worked in town at the Ceramica and sat at the oars of the brand new navy a vote. But that soon died and a say again went back to property qualifications that were linked to military service, Roman Senators were huge landholders as were Medieval nobles.

The British Parliament even reflects the changing of this fact by calling the house that represented the non-nobles the House of 'Commons'.
 
The British Parliament even reflects the changing of this fact by calling the house that represented the non-nobles the House of 'Commons'.
The 'Commons' in House of Commons represents the common body of people (Latin commune): the 'common' in the sense of unenclosed land comes from the Latin communia and, by nature, isn't property. In fact, the lower House as initially constituted represents both property and military service: the representatives of the counties are the "knights of the Shire". In 1330, the stipulation was that these should be knights or sergeants; in 1340, they had to be 'belted knights', in 1348, they were belted and ordained knights; in 1371, they were belted knights thoroughly tested in both the practice and feat of arms; in 1373, they could be esquires but only if they were qualified by considerable experience of feat of arms, though Yorkshire never elected an undubbed representative until Henry VIII's reign. In fact, in several years- 1275, 1290, 1294, 1297- there were no representatives from the towns at all, only the shire knights.
 
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