Thoughts and Ramblings

In “Starship Troopers” Heinlein proposed the idea that only citizens can vote and only those who served in the military can become citizens (no inheritance of citizenship). The idea is interesting in that voting is limited to only those with skin in the game (military service). While I read the novel many years ago, recently I considered an similar interesting thought experiment:

What if only tax payers can vote? Here, by “tax payers” I mean those who net pay money to the government. So if someone receives $4k from the government but pay only $3k in taxes, this person doesn’t qualify. But if this same person paid $5k in taxes, then they would. How would the US be different if this were the case?

It’s no secret that the culture inside Washington is different from the rest of the nation. It is so strong that many elected officials who go to Washington get corrupted into betraying their principles and becoming one of them. They are told “how things are done” and accept it as they chip away at their integrity until they are no longer the same person. This is one of the ways the culture in Washington encourages a type of group-think. Eventually most everyone ends up buying into the mentality if they spend enough time there.

The phrase “Our Democracy” is often repeated by politicians particularly when when claiming something is a “threat to our democracy.” The phrase is meant to scare because the people will assume that the “our” includes them. What if doesn’t? What if the “our” is not the country as a whole but just the Washington insiders?

With this definition of “our” in mind, the phrase “threat to our democracy” make much more sense. The threat isn’t to the country or to a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but rather a threat to the Washington insiders who’ve long since abandoned the task of working for the people. So when you hear about a “threat to our democracy,” just remember the “our” is not you.