# Voting Franchise in Heinlein's "For Us, The Living" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 10, 2015, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733 "2015-07-10T04:44:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/21 "2015-07-12T14:35:22Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > I guess I’m a bit puzzled as to how having a good knowledge of the mechanics of government is going to help you make a decision between candidates. Well, if you’ve got an understanding of how your government works and it’s obvious the candidate doesn’t…you’d be less likely to vote for them. So that could be one benefit. Recent comments on the Supreme Court also make me think there’s a lack of understanding about three equal branches and checks & balances. Understanding that and how voting impacts that might cause people to select better candidates. > [@](#): > > Knowing the issues of the day and where each candidate (claims to) stand on those issues is important when voting, but that doesn’t seem to be what RAH is saying. No, it’s not. I think RAH has a general attitude that a more educated voter base (on how their government works) is going to result in voters better able to pick candidates. > [@](#): > > Now if the proposal was that anyone _running_ for office had to have taken a comprehensive course in the mechanics of government, that I could get behind. Because a lot of elected officials seems to be frankly baffled by basic concepts such as separation of church and state and the Supremacy Clause. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t. First, I think if someone want to run for office, then they should already either know it or have taken the initiative to learn it. If a candidate hasn’t, then I want their apathy and ignorance exposed. And I don’t think it would alter anything. How many people involved in the Constitutional Convention were involved in passing the Alien and Sedition Acts? There’s something I wrote in [one of my Notebooks of Maggie A](http://maggieameanderings.com/2012-May-27.htm) that speaks to the attitude of people in who tend to end up in government, it’s "The difference between engineers and lawyers? If engineers had been running the government, they would have looked at the Constitution and said, “These are our specs. We have to follow them.” Since lawyers were, they looked at the Constitution and said, “These are just words. How do we get around them?” ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/22 "2015-07-12T14:42:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In my 7th grade class, they had us learn and take the Citizenship test, figuring if immigrants can do it, those born here should be able to also. Why not? Overall it’s an easy test. Though I might have done better on it in 7th grade. The Christian Science Monitor has (or had) it online, so I took it a couple of years ago – no prep, took it cold. Only missed one question about who were Federalists and who were Anti-Federalists; I remembered both groups, but could not remember which group the names listed belonged to. In 7th grade I wouldn’t have missed that one. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/23 "2015-07-12T18:06:40Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > Why not? Overall it’s an easy test. Though I might have done better on it in 7th grade. The Christian Science Monitor has (or had) it online, so I took it a couple of years ago – no prep, took it cold. Only missed one question about who were Federalists and who were Anti-Federalists; I remembered both groups, but could not remember which group the names listed belonged to. In 7th grade I wouldn’t have missed that one. Here’s a link to the “Naturalization Self Test” [Welcome to the 2008 Civics Practice Test! | USCIS](http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/quiz/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test/naturalization-self-test-1) As you say, it’s pretty easy. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/24 "2015-07-12T20:45:19Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > Yes, I expect they’d try. Ultimately I expect they’d fail in court challenges. If taking the course is a requirement, the courts would come down against “make the class nearly impossible to take, making it hard as possible.” > Based on the way Heinlein structured learning in FUTL, very little teaching is done in classrooms. Most of it is what we’d call online learning. That you fit in when and where you can. > > Curious though, how many people who work three jobs and have kids do you think are registered to vote and then vote **now**? My gut feeling is not many more like hardly any to barely over none. In that case, this wouldn’t make a difference. As has been shown- all you gotta do is win one election, jerrymand the districts and you can control Congress for several elections. Actually quite a few. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/25 "2015-07-13T00:56:39Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > If that were true, we wouldn’t have so many people so ignorant in how their government operates. Even people running for office like someone who thought she was qualified to be Vice-president when she didn’t know what the Federal Reserve was or when asked to name a Supreme Court case other than Roe v Wade that she disagrees with couldn’t come up with one case. (I could name a list.) > > If that were true, I wouldn’t have gotten into an argument with someone over if the electoral college exists. You also wouldn’t have to get in arguments over whether 1/3 is greater than 1/4, whether people are in kingdom animalia, or whether this sentence contains a comma splice. Just because it’s taught to people does not mean they paid attention, which is the problem with this proposal. A high school civics class covers everything the hypothetical government class would cover, and people would pay just as much attention to the latter as they currently do to the former. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/26 "2015-07-13T08:11:07Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > Such bods might sit through the course, but be able actually to learn very little indeed from it – nevertheless, they’d end up with the vote. One suspects that the number of such people ready to undergo to the bitter end, what would be for them the misery of the course, would be fairly small; and that the ability to persevere which they would demonstrate thereby, might indicate their potential, as more solid citizens than some. > [@lalaith](#): > > I think you’re right. Some people are going to sit through it and not learn anything. But the requirement of having to sit through it when they’re not interested is going to discourage them from finishing. As said by me – most of such folks, probably; especially with (as seems to me the right thing to do, and assuming matters fairly administered across the board) the course being deliberately made long, detailed, and indeed on the tedious side. A few “non-learners” would, I feel, stick it out to the end, for whatever reason, and become eligible to vote. By managing to do this, they would at least have shown that they possessed the positive quality of tenacity. > [@lalaith](#): > > Curious though, how many people who work three jobs and have kids do you think are registered to vote and then vote **now**? My gut feeling is not many more like hardly any to barely over none. The general issue of the person “with three jobs and kids”: I harbour the belief that if something is important enough to someone, they’ll make time and opportunity to do it – no matter how difficult their circumstances make accomplishing this. > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Here’s a link to the “Naturalization Self Test” [Welcome to the 2008 Civics Practice Test! | USCIS](http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/quiz/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test/naturalization-self-test-1) > > As you say, it’s pretty easy. I’d concur – on the whole, ludicrously easy: and some of the questions can be got right by using common sense, even if you don’t outright know the answer. I’m not American, and uninterested in the nuts-and-bolts of politics, and I got 21 questions out of the 25. (Was wrong on the first ten Amendments; the National Anthem – I thought it was _My Country 'tis of Thee_; the Federalist Papers writer; and Susan B. Anthony.) > [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > You also wouldn’t have to get in arguments over whether 1/3 is greater than 1/4, whether people are in kingdom animalia, or whether this sentence contains a comma splice. > > Just because it’s taught to people does not mean they paid attention, which is the problem with this proposal. > > A high school civics class covers everything the hypothetical government class would cover, and people would pay just as much attention to the latter as they currently do to the former. I’d demur a little, re the above. It’s a function of natural human perversity, that we very often resent our enforced formal education – there’s so much in life that a child or adolescent finds more interesting, than the crap which they have to endure getting droned at them many hours a day: many of the young, thus, absolutely resist learning. I incline to the view that if it’s instruction which one is seeking out voluntarily – even if only as a means to an end – more of it is likely to register. As touched on earlier, a few people would sit through the putative “course of learning to qualify as a voter” like rocks, with almost everything going into one ear and right out of the other – but would stick it out to the end of the course, and thus qualify to vote. At least by this, they’d have demonstrated tenacity and endurance, which should count for something. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/27 "2015-07-13T13:57:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > As has been shown- all you gotta do is win one election, jerrymand the districts and you can control Congress for several elections. > > Actually quite a few. I despise gerrymandering. I know the Supreme Court’s Obamacare and gay marriage decisions got the attention, but I actually think the more important decision was the anti-gerrymandering decision of [Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Legislature_v._Arizona_Independent_Redistricting_Commission). That was the decision that will make the biggest impact…because it impacts everything that goes through Congress. (Or will as more and more states manage to find a way to let the voters chose their representatives and not the representatives chose their voters.) Our state legislature here in Florida got its hand slapped. We don’t have citizen ballot initiatives here. Instead, the citizens have the power to alter the state constitution. So years ago we passed anti-gerrymandering amendments. The legislature was supposed to follow them, but they did the redistricting and what did they do? Ignore the law and gerrymander and think they could get away with it. (Of course that’s what they’d do. Follow the law? Not us. We’ll skirt it, twist it, make it do what we want and think it’s okay.) But it got taken to court and was tossed out. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/28 "2015-07-13T14:04:22Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > You also wouldn’t have to get in arguments over whether 1/3 is greater than 1/4, whether people are in kingdom animalia, or whether this sentence contains a comma splice. > > Just because it’s taught to people does not mean they paid attention, which is the problem with this proposal. > > A high school civics class covers everything the hypothetical government class would cover, and people would pay just as much attention to the latter as they currently do to the former. As Amateur Barbarian said, “Your dictionary must have a different definition of “stiff” than mine.” And this is Heinlein describing it as stiff. I shudder to think of _his_ definition of a stiff course considering I get lost in his laymen oriented, popular fiction explanations of ballistics that are only a paragraph or few long. So Heinlein’s idea of a course on government…that would be something. But I think I’d enjoy taking it. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/29 "2015-07-13T14:18:22Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > The general issue of the person “with three jobs and kids”: I harbour the belief that if something is important enough to someone, they’ll make time and opportunity to do it – no matter how difficult their circumstances make accomplishing this. Yes. I just don’t think there are (under the current system) or would be (under Heinlein’s proposed system) many people who would value it enough to do it. But more power to those who did. (Oh, and I enjoy seeing your British spelling. I read so many British authors that it took spell-check to “unBritish” my English and force my spelling back to American.) > [@](#): > > I’d concur – on the whole, ludicrously easy: and some of the questions can be got right by using common sense, even if you don’t outright know the answer. I’m not American, and uninterested in the nuts-and-bolts of politics, and I got 21 questions out of the 25. (Was wrong on the first ten Amendments; the National Anthem – I thought it was _My Country 'tis of Thee_; the Federalist Papers writer; and Susan B. Anthony.) Sadly, do you know how many Americans couldn’t have done that? Funny on the national anthem considering the melody of _My Country 'tis of Thee_ is your national anthem. (At least you have a singable national anthem. I have a friend who’s a lifelong professional singer and, by choice, she prefers not to sing our national anthem because it’s hard even for her and she doesn’t do it justice.) > [@](#): > > I’d demur a little, re the above. It’s a function of natural human perversity, that we very often resent our enforced formal education – there’s so much in life that a child or adolescent finds more interesting, than the crap which they have to endure getting droned at them many hours a day: many of the young, thus, absolutely resist learning. I incline to the view that if it’s instruction which one is seeking out voluntarily – even if only as a means to an end – more of it is likely to register. As touched on earlier, a few people would sit through the putative “course of learning to qualify as a voter” like rocks, with almost everything going into one ear and right out of the other – but would stick it out to the end of the course, and thus qualify to vote. At least by this, they’d have demonstrated tenacity and endurance, which should count for something. I’d agree with this. An adult who want to do something is usually going to put more effort into it than a child who’s being forced. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/30 "2015-07-13T15:47:03Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > Funny on the national anthem considering the melody of _My Country 'tis of Thee_ is your national anthem. (At least you have a singable national anthem. I have a friend who’s a lifelong professional singer and, by choice, she prefers not to sing our national anthem because it’s hard even for her and she doesn’t do it justice.) National anthems are in my perception, weird for sure: a few – such as that of Spain – don’t even have any words. If I have things rightly, “The Star-Spangled” is modelled on some 18th-century British drivel about Anacreon and the Sons of Harmony – if anything’s random, it would seem that national anthems are. > [@](#): > > I’d agree with this. An adult who want to do something is usually going to put more effort into it than a child who’s being forced. For sure – people have been saying for ages: that youth, and education, are mostly wasted on the young. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/31 "2015-07-14T14:30:27Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > National anthems are in my perception, weird for sure: a few – such as that of Spain – don’t even have any words. If I have things rightly, “The Star-Spangled” is modelled on some 18th-century British drivel about Anacreon and the Sons of Harmony – if anything’s random, it would seem that national anthems are. I’ve always been told it was an drinking song which made perfect sense…Most people would only try singing it when they were drunk. And only drunks would think that singing sounded good. It’s a great orchestral piece, but orchestras have piccolos and can hit that high note. Most people can’t. And that includes a lot of professional singers. Smartest thing I ever saw was a pro who rearranged the song to lower the high notes. > [@](#): > > For sure – people have been saying for ages: that youth, and education, are mostly wasted on the young. I’ve wished I could go back and take those classes again now. I’d get so much more out of them. Though I’m not sure if the teachers would appreciate a group of older, better informed, far more likely not to take their bs and to speak their minds students. Teachers get away with bullying young students and passing on incorrect information – even information they _know_ is incorrect. A teacher who tried that with this group would find themselves put in their place. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/32 "2015-07-14T14:32:06Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > The aspect of voting I most remember from FUTL is that declaring non-defensive war requires a nationwide plebiscite - and voting “yes” is equivalent to signing up for the Armed forces. Also another very interesting idea of Heinlein’s. What I liked was in the book was there never was a “yes” vote once that law was passed. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/33 "2015-07-14T14:38:06Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > What I liked was in the book was there never was a “yes” vote once that law was passed. Well, you have to consider - and I am sure Heinlein did, later - that there very likely never would have been a “yes” vote for US participation in WWII. Not until the Axis powers had consolidated their gains and controlled the seas, at which point it may have been voting to bell the cat. Point being, FUTL was written post WWI… and pre WWII. Everyone in the 1920s and 30s really did think war was something that could be avoided by civilized people after the monarchy-driven mess of the Great War. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/34 "2015-07-15T01:40:37Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Well, you have to consider - and I am sure Heinlein did, later - that there very likely never would have been a “yes” vote for US participation in WWII. Not until the Axis powers had consolidated their gains and controlled the seas, at which point it may have been voting to bell the cat. > > Point being, FUTL was written post WWI… and pre WWII. Everyone in the 1920s and 30s really did think war was something that could be avoided by civilized people after the monarchy-driven mess of the Great War. I’m not sure about that, not after Pearl Harbor. Anyway, I’m not sure that WWII would have qualified as a non-defensive war since we were attacked on our land. And if it’s a defensive war, there’s no citizen vote. (I’m going by what Andy L posted. It’s been a while since I read that section of the book.) Same thing about the war in Afghanistan — after 9/11. But every other conflict post-WWII, those would be considered “non-defensive” IMO and I don’t think there would be the votes for them. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/35 "2015-07-15T15:02:34Z")
> [@lalaith](#): > > In For Us, The Living, Heinlein has the franchise limited as follows, "Required voting helps ---- only those can draw the dividend who vote, and the franchise calls for a rather stiff course in the details of the mechanics of government…There is no examination. If there were, the party in power might use it to disenfranchise the opposition, just as such laws were used to disenfranchise the negroes in the South in your day. I don’t understand. I don’t think a lack of a formal test would prevent an administration (whether a legislative one, or merely a school district administrative one) from successfully monkeying around with the content of these classes if it felt it was “necessary” to do so. After all, people need to learn what “works”, or what the “correct” scope of government is, and so on, right? In fact, IMO, it appears that such meddling goes on in real life. ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733/36 "2015-07-15T19:23:29Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I don’t understand. I don’t think a lack of a formal test would prevent an administration (whether a legislative one, or merely a school district administrative one) from successfully monkeying around with the content of these classes if it felt it was “necessary” to do so. After all, people need to learn what “works”, or what the “correct” scope of government is, and so on, right? > > In fact, IMO, it appears that such meddling goes on in real life. Under our current system, they’d monkey as much as they could get away with. (I’m laughing my ass off at Texas ignoring it’s own declaration of secession and trying to paint slavery as a side issue — now that’s monkeying from a group of monkeys, no, wait, I like monkeys better than that than to compare them to Texas politicians.) But I think Heinlein thought that as we get an electorate who is more knowledgeable and as they elect better candidates, that less and less of this monkeying would happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-franchise-in-heinleins-for-us-the-living/724733.md?page=1)