No one has to "earn" a right by being in the military.

The ship can't be turned by avoiding the basic principles. A society that sees welfare as a "right" is not going to stop welfare recipients from voting.

What would stop anyone from running for office? It has nothing to do with the right to vote. No one surrenders the right to vote by being in the military.

Alger Hiss, Owen Lattimore, Harry Dexter White and the rest of them infiltrating government to influence actions on behalf of the Communists had nothing to do with the right to vote.

If 18-year olds could have voted in the late 60s a lot of them certainly would have voted against the war and should have. They were being forced into the military by conscription. The "old enough to fight - old enough to vote" movement began in WWII even though almost everyone supported the war after Pearl Harbor.

Extolling "sacrifice" and "duty" is "from the heart" but not the "right place". Washington DC was not given a representative in Congress because Congressmen lived in states where they vote, not because people in government should not be allowed to vote. There is no justification for denying people the right to vote just because they are in government. That is an entirely different matter than mixing government actions with partisan politics.

A government in principle cannot represent the people without the people playing a role in selecting who is in government and how it acts. The standard is not the Pragmatist "practical".

Voting for representatives serving in a proper government is not "taking from one and giving to another".

Service is to the state as the requirement for voting is not just flawed, it is wrong and unjust. It's not a valid way to approach the problem at all.

But what do we need to VOTE on really. Anything really important is going to involve taking from one and giving to another, hence my opinion on voting .

We dont have any intellectually consistent objectivist-thinking politicians running, so I have to pick the least damaging to ME.

I would correct this slightly: those who take money from others should not be allowed to vote. If you are receiving a welfare check, you forfeit your right to vote yourself more money from my pocket. If you are engaged in meaningful employ as a civil servant, you are still entitled to vote, but I would suggest that such not be allowed to vote on monetary matters such as tax policy. Those in the armed forces (or veterans) earn their right to vote on anything and everything.

I applaud your efforts - both as part of the military AND as a steward of taxpayer monies. Thank you!

If voting allows the use of the collective force of the state to steal from anyone then only those who would not vote for such should be allowed to vote. This would narrow the field to almost no one but it might work. Voting does not secure liberty, it gives the takers justification for what they do. Thieves will always vote to legitimize theft. That way they have the government back up of violence to ensure the builders will not resist.

Several errors in this, Mike. I was part of that military in 1968, and I assure you McCarthy made most of us very nervous, as he seemed childishly naive about Marxist states. The later people who were conscripted under the draft would have had a high percentage that would vote for anyone to get them out of the Vietnam mess, but the volunteer military usually took a long view of possible outcomes.

Assume the US had stayed out of the WW II conflict. What would have been the outcome? We would have had three major hegemonies (Nazi empire of all Western Europe, including Britain; the Greater Southeast Asia Japanese Empire including Australia and New Zealand; the Soviet empire, consisting of the USSR and Eastern Europe), all opposed to our form of government. South American countries probably would have fallen under an Argentinian version of Nazism, supported by Germany. How long would we have lasted, with all the world against the surviving North American countries? We have a very lucrative market for our goods, thanks to the Marshall plan, and we outlasted the USSR, essentially "winning" the Cold War.

The military does not swear an oath to obey the government. It swears allegience to the Constitution. One of the mainstays of the Uniform Code of Military Justice is the duty to refuse to obey an order from any level of authority that may be unconstitutional, so obedience is not automatic, and in theory gives the military the responsibility to restrain government abuse of authority it deems as endangering the republic.

"Some members of the military have an inherent conflict "
I think it wise to determine who has a bias against the constitution's limitations on government, not to assume that all in a group have the same bias.
"I can't agree that military service is enough on its own to earn the right to vote"

Like other groups who get painted with a preconceived notion of what others assume is their behavior, the military is actually politically diverse. I gained a reputation as a "hardass" when I was in the business of procuring space assets. I fought with superiors whom I felt were unconcerned with wasting taxpayer dollars; I made it a point to make it clear we should not waste money on questionable technologies; I pushed contractors to be very accurate in proposals, and let them know I would accept no overruns; I forced logistics and operations people to present fully justifiable budgets, letting them know I would be independently verifying every dollar. I killed several major programs that were technologically unrealistic, and helped create less costly alternatives to several others. I never busted a budget, and had a widespread reputation as a technical expert (which, as I later found, put me on a KGB hit list).

My votes reflected a concern for smaller government (when I could find a politician who I felt at least wanted to concede government control over non-constitutionally authorized activities), fiscal responsibility, and sane foreign policy. I voted for Trump as a badly needed disruptive force, recognizing that big government people would fight him all the way. Just fleshing out the picture of my background as an individual, and not part of a monolithic interpretation.

The primary problem is not about who can vote. It’s about what people can vote for.
This kind of voting should never be allowed in a moral society,
“Let’s all vote to loot the earnings of this weathy individual so we can redistribute what they’ve earned to all of us. Who votes yes?”
(Repeat over and over and over)

I hear what you are saying, but that is not where to start. One can take your position, and simply be painted as a zealot, ignored and angry, or one can make an attempt to influence.

Can't argue with you logic, but it seems like it would sell better than to argue that we should stop help the poor.
We have to turn the ship, not just take strong (and correct) positions and hope to stop it and reverse it. This is just like the underhanded gun control advocates starting with magazine capacity, bayonet lugs, registration and licensing, with an eventual intent of eliminating firearms.

The line is when you are on public assistance. I cant in good concience take away the right to vote from any member of the military, and if you started doing this to "Government Workers" they would become ensnared. As to SS recipients.....Supposedly they earned that...again, you cant take from these people.

The solution....give one vote per $1,000 in taxes paid. Every working person then would get to vote. If you made too little income and got the earned income tax credit...IE pay no taxes....you are incompetent and SHOULDN'T BE VOTING ANYWAY until you can structure your affairs in such a manner that you do pay taxes!

The founders did not let you vote unless you were a property owner and therefore paid taxes, so there is precedent for this. The liberals should be happy with this because they claim the rich pay no taxes.

Agree. Nor should it ever be.

What woiuld stop a "fifth columnist" party from running for elected offices? That was the fear behind the Red Scares. I assure you that if 18-year olds could have voted, a lot of men in unifiorm in 1968 would have cast ballots for the peace candidates, such as Eugene McCarthy. No one is more opposed to war than the peoiple who have to fight it.

And if you look at World War II, is that not exactly what happened, that the collectivist parties entered America into a collectivist war? What was the outcome, the final outcome? The Marshall Plan and the Cold War. We did not defeat collectivism, we embraced it -- or at least the vast majority did. Was that not a betrayal?

When you serve in uniform, you swear an oath to obey the civilian government. That may be another error in philosophy, but the solution is much deeper than deciding who can vote and how.

Dr. Z is not a good Objectivist, so his language is often loose even as his heart is in the right place. His ideas are not integrated, but neither are they wholly falacious.

Change "sacrifice" to "investment."

He followed the right course of action, not engaging in electoral politics while being a member of the government. That appears be the one idea that everyone here agrees on. It is why Washington DC never had a vote in Congress.

I am not sure that that is true. For all of their flaws, the moth-eaten monarchies of Europe did demonstrate that a constitutionally limited monarchy is practicable. Given that the correct philosophy is implicitly accepted across a cutlure, It would be no worse and in many ways better. Monarchies take a long-term view because they have a generations-long investment in the outcome. Democracies are givent to range-of-the-moment decisions.

The problem is not how you chose the leaders, but the political philosophy that builds the framework of government.

Yes, it is about ideas. Arguing politics is pointless until the implicitly-accepted epistemology and metaphysics change. That said, though, among those who accept reason and reality, sooner or later, we have to understand the correct application of a proper political theory.

The idea that only "property" owners should viote is a hold-over from feudalism,. The idea offered here, that service to the state (military, etc.) should be a qualifier is also flawed. But like the idea of land-holding it is a way to approach the problem.

In The Secret of the League by Ernest Bramah, the defeat of socialism was sealed (not begun) with the sale of voting shares in the govenrment. As with.a corporation, you could buy more shares and have more votes.

Voting is required to have a representative government. Do you want a dictator whose successor is determined by a coup? Voting is not what distinguishes a properly limited government from a welfare state democracy.

Strictly speaking there shouldn’t be voting at all. Particularly when voting today just determines whose ox is to be gored. I don’t vote today to get stuff from the government, but to prevent it from getting my stuff. Not voting just allows the collectivists to collect more from ne