The Maelstrom of Violence

[David Horn]

(08-31-2017, 09:55 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: In Starship Troopers there is such a system though it isn't gone into much detail in the novel.  I've seen the movie (it is one of my favorite movies actually but I understand that movie was basically written by a cheese eating surrender monkey so his tinkering with the plot makes it suspect) but do not consider it canon. 

Heinlien said that veterans had the right to vote, though it is considered to be a lesser right.  As such this means that there is a lesser democracy.  Rather, the video clip I posted was far more relevant.  Exercising political power is exercising force.  As such it seems prudent to leave the exercising of that force to those who have demonstrated through military service that they are willing to make the safety and security of the body politic their personal responsibility.

This of course necessitates that any such state has an all volunteer military.  Fortunately the US already has such a military and instituting a draft would be an anathema except under the most dire of circumstances, if then.

First, the movie was one of the worst pieces of tripe I've ever tried to watch ... tried being the active verb here.  I tend to like Heinlein's books as sci-fi literature, though he is by far too libertarian for my taste politically.  There is at most a 0.00001% chance that a libertarian society can emerge and even less that it can work, so it's not a matter of pressing concern to me.  It's a philosophical paradigm suitable only for automatons. 

And fwiw, killing the draft was the first act in the play in which we're embedded.  It was a cynical ploy by Nixon, and the most likely takers on that offer werel on the right.  Why are the warmongers so unwilling to practice what they preach?