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A thread resurrection - voting pre-requisites | by JPaganel | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
| This is a very interesting subject. |
by LurkerMo |
2003-10-22 15:54:15 |
Considering the current voter apathy, and what you get for choices to vote for, maybe some re-organization is in order.
But is it service to your country that should be counted, or service to the people of your country? And why restrict that service to just people of YOUR country? IMO what makes people able to appreciate the choices that they make is how other people are affected. How can you appreciate that if you haven't worked with other people? If you haven't seen the benefit that you can offer to other people?
I would support restricting voting privileges to only those that have served other people - and served well. This service could be in the community, or in national organizations, or even overseas - in third world countries, or wherever the need exists.
Enabling and organizing such service could easily be done as an alternative to military service (and, BTW, I don't think that military service qualifies as serving other people, no matter how much I love Heinlein's writing). The military budget could be divided to accomodate this, and the benefit in international relations should more than make up for the reduction in military powers.
Of course, there will always be those who go through the motions and don't reap the personal benefits of such service. How to evaluate the performance, and allocate the individuals serving would inevitably be contentious and if not handled well could invalidate any benefits from the restriction of voters.
Oh, of course only those qualifying as voters would qualify for holding office. And the same cautions apply. I really don't see how to guarantee that someone like the Shrub won't be able to get voted in. However, I do believe that this type of qualification would get higher voter turnout, and restrict access to elected offices to those of somewhat higher moral fiber, than no restrictions at all. |
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