Quote:
Originally posted by Strange Famous
Why? because the decisions politicians make effect them, whether or not they do community service. Your idea is actually the stuff of quite a few dystopain films/movies - and not disimilar in principle to the property qualifications on voting, or refusing women the vote. Giving the vote to people with the time and inclination to do voluntary service, and at the same time effectively denying the right to vote to, for example, a harasses single mom working two jobs just to make ends meet, who cant afford childcare to do your volunteer work and doesnt wok in an area you deem important to the community... to me a system that works that way is abhorent and alien to human decency.
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Actually, I'm politically liberal. But over the years I've seen so many people devalue the right to vote that maybe the only way to get people to value it is no longer make it free. As for having the free time, I'd put it on a sliding scale. Rich people could buy their vote with months of community service; poor people could buy it by making sure that their babies got (free) prenatal care at gov't clinics, thus saving potentially tens of thousands of K down the line in publically-financed health costs. Or keeping their kids in school. Or getting off welfare. Or even while they're in high school, by doing something more valuable to the community that serving on the football team. The high schools in my area mandate a certain amount of community service time for each kid as part of the curriculum. That could work, too.
What the hell, institute national service and make sure everybody has to do it -- not necessarily the military, but something. When you're done, you vote. And if you're in a wheelchair, they have to find something for you to do.
This is straight out of Heinlein, but I agree with him on this one.