Mr. Moderate

If you give somebody something for free, the recipient isn’t likely to value the gift very highly. On the other hand, if you make them pay a dear price, then their view of the value of the same thing is likely to soar.

I believe that the United States has made a big mistake by giving away the right to vote to virtually anybody, with virtually no qualifications whatsoever. It seems obvious today that, when only half the voting-age population even bothers to vote for President of the United States, that many people don’t value their vote very highly. I would prefer a system that required each person to earn their right to vote, preferably by performing some sort of paid public service for something like 2 to 6 years. This would be equivalent to what some governments do by requiring every citizen to join the Army at a certain age (this is what Israel does, for instance). Whether the government just gave you a free education and you’ve now graduated, or whether you’ve just been admitted to the United States as a permanent resident, you need to perform some kind of public service for some period of time to earn your right to vote. If this policy were in effect, I would bet that the turnout among eligible voters would exceed 90%.

Now, the public service need not be military service, although certainly military service will qualify. We can use things like the old Works Progress Administration (WPA) or Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Or it can be more like the Peace Corps or Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA). I do not even mean these examples to be exclusive. But what I do mean to advocate is that some form of public service ought to be required of our citizens in return for the benefits of living in our nation. People do not value citizenship very highly, so I think it would help a lot if we made people earn at least some aspect of citizenship in some way, shape or form. Earning the right to vote seems to me to be the most-logical aspect of citizenship to make people earn.