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To: metesky
A universal draft would be more acceptable if our damn schools would teach just what civic duty consists of instead of teaching what one can get from the system.

Hmmm. I am not so sure that state schools should be indoctrinating civic duty. Hear me out. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when civic virtue was at its highest in this country, as in the glory days of the Roman republic before Sulla, Caesar and the empire, schools were primarily private, and taught the classics. Senses of civic virtue and civic duty were inculcated not by the state, but by families and other citizens who commanded sufficient respect that some entrusted their children to them. And by the Churches, of course, but religious liberty and tolerance (if not full acceptance) has been an ideal (if not always a perfect practice) in the English-speaking world since the end of Bloody Mary's time. So, I am skeptical of state schools indoctrinating civic virtue, it smacks of Prussia or 19th century France, or worse, communist or fascist regimes.

I'm totally for the franchise being only invested in literate property owners, as originally conceived by those wiser than the courts that declared otherwise.

Well, I don't disagree with the concept of limits on the franchise based on property and educational qualifications, although I think them unlikely of every being accepted. I actually think a military/civilian service requirement for the frachise would be more broadly acceptable to society, since everyone would have the opportunity to serve and the right to.

70 posted on 01/06/2003 7:01:55 AM PST by CatoRenasci
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To: CatoRenasci
Agree on the schools/civic virtue issue, disagree on military/civilian service as franchise qualification, simply because we've had so many good citizens who served in neither a military nor civic capacity.
72 posted on 01/06/2003 7:36:42 AM PST by metesky
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