Rights and Responsibility

Or... skin in the game.

Despite it being put together by Sargon of Akkad - who used to occasionally make a good point - I gave his overview of the politics of Starship Troopers a fair shake. FWIW - if you go in understanding that it will be filtered through his somewhat leftist-if-not-sjw worldview and that he bought into the lie that Nazis and fascists are somehow right wing, it nevertheless does completely disassemble the notion that ST is in any way fascist.

What moved me to write this though was the reminder that ST wasn't just a political screed, but some real talk about violence (ask the city fathers of Carthage what he means), politics as force, the systemic issues with all forms of socialism, and most of all, an attempt to look at the question of how we made those who decide invested in teh consequences of their choices.

Those who've been reading Taleb's "Skin in the Game" and who are familiar with Starship Troopers will immediately get the point.

For that matter - the book itself makes no claims that the restriction of the franchise to federal service veterans is the best system - it almost admittedly works by authorial fiat. In the end, it asks a meta-question, and it is but one possible answer to that age old question of how do we give those who make law and enforce law accountable for their actions, force them to have skin in the game, such that the choices they make for others are not risk free? ST looks at making them pay in - to have an emotional investment up front.

Much like the franchise in the US was originally available only to landed property owners. And why some suggest that we at least only allow the vote to net taxpayers.

Yes, I know, an immediate consequence of that may be for them to act in their own interests and vastly cut back on welfare taken out of their pockets. How is that any worse than those who would benefit from welfare having the right to take money from others through their vote? Morally speaking those who do not wish to give to charity of their own accord if no longer taxed may be greedy assholes, but they are not greedy assholes taking other people's money and thinking they have a right to it. And from a pragmatic sense of "getting what you pay for", cutting off welfare means paying for less poor people.