In Heinlein's 1959 book "Starship Troopers", the civilians in his society can only earn their right to citizenship, and the right to vote, through 2 years of "Federal Service"; being assigned combat or non-combatant roles in the Federal Army or Navy, all with a certain degree of risk of death.
His argument is that anyone who is willing to risk their life for the defence of their people puts the safety and prosperity of the tribe before their own personal success, and so makes a selfless, loyal and informed voter. In his book, positions of government can only be held by those who have served military terms.
Should we make Military Service mandatory for those that wish to vote? Would you sign up for 2 years of Military Service for your right to vote and hold government office? Would this be an ideal political system?
Yes. Yes. No, though it would form a component of one.
The problem with Heinlein's society is that its entirely civic - its a Civic Nationalist utopia: there is little-to-no sexual or racial division, with socio-economic class - on the axes of wealth and of citizenship - being the primary routes of division within the society. Obviously, this is nonsensical, and though Heinlein's story paints an interesting and potentially appealing picture, it is quickly soured by the realization that the aliens and advanced technology are not the most unrealistic thing in this work of fiction, but rather, the utopian civic nationalist post-racial, post-sexual society.
What multicultural civically-oriented powers we've seen cannot even begin to approach something in the vein of "nationalism", at the very least due to the fact that a nation is a thing of blood, or it is not a nation, and thus any civically-oriented power cannot, by definition, be "nationalist" without breaking its own mold, so to speak; meanwhile, those very same societies are rife with, on the verge of collapse due to, extreme - and ever-increasing! - sexual and racial tensions which tend to supersede the socio-economic class-based tensions which are also extant to an extreme degree.
Mandatory military service to acquire the right to vote seems potentially appealing; however, in the context at hand, it is addressed within a utopian work of fiction, which ignores the realities of our world in large part. I would argue a more-appealing notion would be that only land-owners be allowed to vote, AND that military service for land-owners be mandatory, in terms of a period of service AND during wartime. The issue then becomes, as it did for the Romans, how to keep the wealthy from buying up all the land such that you no longer have a functional fighting force as the consequence of all the land being owned by a small group of wealthy people.
Austin Stewart
In a perfect world, yes. But let's be honest - if things continue the same way, future "federal service" would end up being service to the communist party before being allowed to vote and move up in the party. Military services is always used to brainwash the citizens, like is done in Israeli military where every citizen gets mandatory muh Holocaust education. Great if you live in a state that actually puts its people first but not great in ZOGworld where the state is just an instrument against the people.
So no, bad idea
Nathaniel Kelly
As long as you didn't have jews in charge of the process it would work fine.
Elijah Evans
So basically, Rome. They operated exactly the same
James Thompson
Yeah, but that goes for basically any political system, relatively speaking.
Dylan Lopez
Not really, no. Checked for see here:
The situation with the Roman military and how it came to be what you're likely conceiving of was a long and arduous process, and its outcome arguably was not to the benefit of Rome itself. Initially, IIRC, during the Republic period, the Roman military was entirely drawn from land-owners - if you owned land, you had to fight to defend it, period. Over time, it became an issue, as the wealthy elite were buying up all the land and then operating it using slaves, leaving the rest of the Roman populace kinda fucked and thusly diminishing Rome's military assets. As a consequence, they eventually moved to a payment-based anyone-can-join model, via which mean could earn land, and thus gain the right to have a say politically. This became a real issue in itself however, as men were now fighting for gold and the prospect of land/privilege instead of to defend such; and this further led into individual military leaders becoming the source of payment, and thus, of the loyalty of the troops (as opposed to the state). This is basically why, when Caesar sought to cross the Rubicon to march on Rome, his men rallied behind him - he was their paycheck, thus, if something bad happened to him, it would happen to them by extension (in all likelihood at least - who is going to believe some newfag general is going to pay his men as well as the man who they've been fighting beside for nearly a decade?).
Dylan Walker
It would become a one party system rather fast. Yes Yes Based on whose interpretation of an ideal political system?
