• • •

   The first known case, in Aberdeen, Scotland, was typical. Some veterans got together
as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting, hanged a few people (including two veterans)
and decided not to let anyone but veterans on their committee. Just arbitrary at first -
they trusted each other a bit, they didn't trust anyone else. What started as an emergency
measure became constitutional practice . . . in a generation or two.
   Probably those Scottish veterans, since they were finding it necessary to hang some
veterans, decided that, if they had to do this, they weren't going to let any "bleedin',
profiteering, black-market, double-time-for-overtime, army-dodging, unprintable"
civilians have any say about it. They'd do what they were told, see? - while us apes
straightened things out! That's my guess, because I might feel the same way . . . and
historians agree that antagonism between civilians and returned soldiers was more
intense than we can imagine today.
   Sally didn't tell it by the book. Finally Major Reid cut him off. "Bring a summary to
class tomorrow, three thousand words. Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason - not
historical nor theoretical but practical - why the franchise is today limited to discharged
veterans?"
   "Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter."
   "Preposterous!"
   "Sir?"
   "Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter
than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of
justification underlying the attempted coup d'etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi,
the so-called 'Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have
utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its
social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered
as to be lacking in social responsibility. I've given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?"
   Sally answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
   Major Reid was gentle with him. "Sorry. An appealing theory not backed up by facts.
You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it
verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime
rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime
most veterans come from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected
to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and
endangered - yet their votes count."
   Major Reid smiled. "Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason
for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It
works satisfactorily.
   "Nevertheless, it is instructive to observe the details. Throughout history men have
labored to place the sovereign franchise in hands that would guard it well and use it
wisely, for the benefit of all. An early attempt was absolute monarchy, passionately
defended as the 'divine right of kings.'
   "Sometimes attempts were made to select a wise monarch, rather man leave it up to
God, as when the Swedes picked a Frenchman, General Bernadotte, to rule them. The
objection to this is that the supply of Bernadottes is limited.
   "Historic examples range from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried
thousands of ways and many more have been proposed, some weird in the extreme
such as the antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic.
But the intent has always been moralistic: to provide stable and benevolent government.
   "All systems seek to achieve this by limiting franchise to those who are believed to
have the wisdom to use it justly. I repeat 'all systems'; even the so-called 'unlimited
democracies' excluded from franchise not less than one quarter of their populations by
age, birth, poll tax, criminal record, or other."
   Major Reid smiled cynically. "I have never been able to see how a thirty-year old
moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-year-old genius . . . but that was the age of
the 'divine right of the common man.' Never mind, they paid for their folly.
   "The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of rules - place of birth,
family of birth, race, sex, property, education, age, religion, et cetera. All these systems
worked and none of them well. All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually
collapsed or were overthrown.
   "Now here are we with still another system . . . and our system works quite well.
Many complain but none rebel; personal freedom for all is greatest in history, laws are
few, taxes are low, living standards are as high as productivity permits, crime is at its
lowest ebb. Why? Not because our voters are smarter than other people; we've disposed
of that argument. Mr. Tammany can you tell us why our system works better than any
used by our ancestors?"
   I don't know where Clyde Tammany got his name; I'd take him for a Hindu. He
answered, "Uh, I'd venture to guess that it's because the electors are a small group who
know that the decisions are up to them . . . so they study the issues."
   "No guessing, please; this is exact science. And your guess is wrong. The ruling
nobles of many another system were a small group fully aware of their grave power.
Furthermore, our franchised citizens are not everywhere a small fraction; you know or
should know that the percentage of citizens among adults ranges from over eighty
percent on Iskander to less than three per cent in some Terran nations yet government is
much the same everywhere. Nor are the voters picked men; they bring no special
wisdom, talent, or training to their sovereign tasks. So what difference is there between
 our voters and wielders of franchise in the past? We have had enough guesses; I'll state
the obvious: Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has
demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the
group ahead of personal advantage.
   "And that is the one practical difference."
   "He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is
enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history."
   Major Reid paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned watch, "reading" its hands.
"The period is almost over and we have yet to determine the moral reason for our
success in governing ourselves. Now continued success is never a matter of chance.
Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not
what we want it to be. To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from
which all other authority
derives - such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day. Force, if you will! -
the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is
exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force."
   "But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr.
Rico."
   He had picked one I could answer. "Responsibility, sir."
   "Applause. Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons,
authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as
current 'flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is
to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave
with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were
not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority . . . other
than through the tragic logic of history. The unique 'poll tax' that we must pay was
unheard of. No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible
to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the
disastrous possible happened instead - and responsibility was then forced on him
willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple."
   "Superficially, our system is only slightly different; we have democracy unlimited by
race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign
power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service - nothing more than a light
workout to our cave-man ancestors. But that slight difference is one between a system
that works, since it is constructed to match the facts, and one that is inherently unstable.
Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human authority, we insure that all who
wield it accept the ultimate in social responsibility - we require each person who wishes
to exert control over the state to wager his own life - and lose it, if need be - to save the
life of the state. The maximum responsibility a human can accept is thus equated to the
ultimate authority a human can exert. Yin and yang, perfect and equal."
   The Major added, "Can anyone define why there has never been revolution against our
system? Despite the fact that every government in history has had such? Despite the
notorious fact that complaints are loud and unceasing?"
   One of the older cadets took a crack at it. "Sir, revolution is impossible."
   "Yes. But why?"
   "Because revolution - armed uprising - requires not only dissatisfaction but
aggressiveness. A revolutionist has to be willing to fight and die - or he's just a parlor
pink. If you separate out the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep
will never give you trouble."
   "Nicely put! Analogy is always suspect, but that one is close to the facts. Bring me a
mathematical proof tomorrow. Time for one more question - you ask it and I'll answer.
Anyone?"
   "Uh, sir, why not go - well, go the limit? Require everyone to serve and let everybody
vote?"
   "Young man, can you restore my eyesight?"
   "Sir? Why, no, sir!"
   "You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue - social responsibility - into
a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him.
This is why we make it so hard to enroll, so easy to resign. Social responsibility above the
level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination - devotion, loyalty, all the higher
virtues - which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will
vomit them out. Conscript armies have been tried in the past. Look up in the library the
psychiatric report on brainwashed prisoners in the so called 'Korean War,' circa 1950 -
the Mayer Report. Bring an analysis to class." He touched his watch. "Dismissed."

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