re: #103 Anymouse 🌹

People in those countries who have not been in the military still have the right to vote.

“Skin in the game” is an empty argument. Everyone pays taxes (or tries to evade them) so everyone has “skin in the game.” Separating veterans out and saying “only this group has served its country, so only this group should determine its future” leaves out all those who serve their country in other ways besides pointing a gun at whoever the government tells them to: Teachers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, librarians, &c &c.

Take this to an absurd conclusion: All persons aged eighteen and over want the right to vote. In such a society, only veterans have the right to vote, so everyone joins the military. How does society function?

Moreover, in Heinlein’s society, those who would be barred from military service (anyone from a disabled person to a person with an incomplete education) would also be permanently barred from elections.

Anyone who volunteered for Federal Service (not “The Military”) had to be accepted. As the desk sergeant told Juan Rico: “Somebody could come in here in a wheelchair and blind in both eyes and I’d have to find them something to do—counting the hairs on a caterpillar by touch, maybe.” And at the end of his service, he’d be a citizen. Those godawful movies had nothing to do with the book.