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It was called citizenship, but [in Starship Troopers] the only thing you earned (and distinguished you from civilians) was franchise. Or: you gained (political)

It was called citizenship, but [in Starship Troopers] the only thing you earned (and distinguished you from civilians) was franchise. Or: you gained (political) authority by proving responsibility. >Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part... and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live. >[...] 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.

jhbadger 8y ago
In the real world what else distinguishes a legal non-citizen of a democracy from a citizen?
- anvandare 8y ago
  Could be various things, depending on the country in question and the type of alien residency. Off the top of my head: * Right to work, accumulate social security/pension rights, work for government entities, security clearance * Right to own land / property * No duty to carry an alien registration card at all times / freedom of movement within the country * Right to marry or (if married to a citizen) keep their children with them if they ever divorce and move back home * Right to political speech / lobbying * Right to leave the country and return unconditionally
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Those are privileges that come with being a citizen. The question was what distinguishes a non-citizen from a citizen -- which comes before that.
    - anvandare 8y ago
      Then I don't understand the question. Citizenship is a legal status. By definition, any distinction with other statuses will be legal ones: more or less rights (or privileges, if you will) and duties.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >Then I don't understand the question. Citizenship is a legal status. Depends on the culture. In ancient Athens, for example, being a citizen was attached to a moral imperative towards your state, not just a mere "legal status". You were first and foremost a citizen. In fact the opposite, a person concerned with his own affairs first and foremost, was considered by the culture an inferior person, and the word use ("idiotis" -- literary "private/concerned with private affairs"), survives to english as "idiot". That wasn't the case only in ancient Greece of course. In all kinds of cultures, citizenship and being a citizen, was considered as something bigger than "i got this legal stamp".
        Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
        By the way, I always thought that "Starship Troopers" were basically ancient Greece replayed in sci-fi setting. In Greece all citizens had to fight for the state, when the need arises (which was happening regularly and the threats were very serious). Sometimes they conscripted slaves, but the slaves were given freedom (or maybe even citizenship) after that.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t know about other countries, but in the US, it’s basically impossible to involuntarily lose citizenship, and citizens have an absolute right to enter the country. Permanent residents can lose their status and get kicked out of the country for various offenses, and can potentially be denied entry for arbitrary reasons.
  - captainperl 8y ago
    > in the US, it’s basically impossible to involuntarily lose citizenship Over the past 20 years, several laws have been passed that erode proof of citizenship: - id documents with an expiry date are not usable after that date (expired passports used to be accepted for domestic non-travel uses) - the Evite database decides whether you can work at many companies - parish records are sometimes deemed unacceptable as proof of birth, disallowing the reissue of other documents like passports - some people have duplicate SSNs - in the past year, a small number of people in both the USA and Canada have been told their original and valid citizenship documents were not valid by Immigration, with the burden of proof on the citizens.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Compare that to losing one’s permanent residency, which can happen because of something as simple as forgetting to tell the government that you’ve moved.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  Non-citizens can vote, sometimes. I’m an Irish citizen, but if I moved to the UK, I could vote in mostelections there. Edit: also, obviously, not all citizens can vote. Children can’t, historically women couldn’t, some countries used to have racial and/or economic qualifications, and some countries still don’t allow people who’ve committed crimes to vote.
  - shanghaiaway 8y ago
    Clearly that right to vote comes from your citizenship.
  - Taniwha 8y ago
    Here in NZ noncitizen legal permanent residents who have met a minimum residency can vote .... no taxation without representation and all that (something that the US has sadly forgotten)
watwut 8y ago
It is not true that you gain franchise by proving responsibility. You gained it by spending years in military. Those two are very very different things. Just because military power in control of government in book claims the equivalence does not mean the reader should buy it uncritically. First, anyone morally opposed to military is excluded, responsible or not. Second, being in military does not make you responsible. That claim is just a pro-military propaganda protagonist was taught in the army. Which leads me to thirds straight forward claim: the only way to gain the vote is to subject yourself to years of pro-military propaganda in environment where dissent is treated as undiscipline and where the tactic to make you adopt new values literally includes sleep deprivation and maximum exhaustion. Lastly, military dictatorships and dictatorships in real world did not proved to lead to more responsible exertion of their sovereign authority. Turns out military has its own goals and preferences that are often incompatible with goals of anyone else. Army without war looses power and plus what is point of army that does not want to fight, so armies tend to lean toward wanting the war, responsible foreign policy or not.
- anvandare 8y ago
  Federal Service was not necessarily military. The point was that it had to be grueling, something that you had to endure (self-sacrifice). Although yes, if they needed you to (possibly) sacrifice yourself by joining the armed forces, then that's what you got. You could list preferences, but the choice was ultimately not up to you what kind of service you'd perform. As for the responsibility aspect, that's exactly addressed in the book as well: >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." As for the military dictatorship, just as in the previous paragraph: you could not vote (or be voted for) as long as you are in Service. The Federation was a Stratocracy (of veterans), not a Military Dictatorship.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> It was called citizenship, but [in Starship Troopers] the only thing you earned (and distinguished you from civilians) was franchise. The franchise is pretty much the main distinction between citizens and legal non-citizen residents (immigrants or non-citizen nationals) in the US.

jhbadger 8y ago

In the real world what else distinguishes a legal non-citizen of a democracy from a citizen?

anvandare 8y ago
Could be various things, depending on the country in question and the type of alien residency. Off the top of my head: * Right to work, accumulate social security/pension rights, work for government entities, security clearance * Right to own land / property * No duty to carry an alien registration card at all times / freedom of movement within the country * Right to marry or (if married to a citizen) keep their children with them if they ever divorce and move back home * Right to political speech / lobbying * Right to leave the country and return unconditionally
- coldtea 8y ago
  Those are privileges that come with being a citizen. The question was what distinguishes a non-citizen from a citizen -- which comes before that.
  - anvandare 8y ago
    Then I don't understand the question. Citizenship is a legal status. By definition, any distinction with other statuses will be legal ones: more or less rights (or privileges, if you will) and duties.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Then I don't understand the question. Citizenship is a legal status. Depends on the culture. In ancient Athens, for example, being a citizen was attached to a moral imperative towards your state, not just a mere "legal status". You were first and foremost a citizen. In fact the opposite, a person concerned with his own affairs first and foremost, was considered by the culture an inferior person, and the word use ("idiotis" -- literary "private/concerned with private affairs"), survives to english as "idiot". That wasn't the case only in ancient Greece of course. In all kinds of cultures, citizenship and being a citizen, was considered as something bigger than "i got this legal stamp".
      - Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
        By the way, I always thought that "Starship Troopers" were basically ancient Greece replayed in sci-fi setting. In Greece all citizens had to fight for the state, when the need arises (which was happening regularly and the threats were very serious). Sometimes they conscripted slaves, but the slaves were given freedom (or maybe even citizenship) after that.
mikeash 8y ago
I don’t know about other countries, but in the US, it’s basically impossible to involuntarily lose citizenship, and citizens have an absolute right to enter the country. Permanent residents can lose their status and get kicked out of the country for various offenses, and can potentially be denied entry for arbitrary reasons.
- captainperl 8y ago
  > in the US, it’s basically impossible to involuntarily lose citizenship Over the past 20 years, several laws have been passed that erode proof of citizenship: - id documents with an expiry date are not usable after that date (expired passports used to be accepted for domestic non-travel uses) - the Evite database decides whether you can work at many companies - parish records are sometimes deemed unacceptable as proof of birth, disallowing the reissue of other documents like passports - some people have duplicate SSNs - in the past year, a small number of people in both the USA and Canada have been told their original and valid citizenship documents were not valid by Immigration, with the burden of proof on the citizens.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Compare that to losing one’s permanent residency, which can happen because of something as simple as forgetting to tell the government that you’ve moved.
rsynnott 8y ago
Non-citizens can vote, sometimes. I’m an Irish citizen, but if I moved to the UK, I could vote in mostelections there. Edit: also, obviously, not all citizens can vote. Children can’t, historically women couldn’t, some countries used to have racial and/or economic qualifications, and some countries still don’t allow people who’ve committed crimes to vote.
- shanghaiaway 8y ago
  Clearly that right to vote comes from your citizenship.
- Taniwha 8y ago
  Here in NZ noncitizen legal permanent residents who have met a minimum residency can vote .... no taxation without representation and all that (something that the US has sadly forgotten)

watwut 8y ago

It is not true that you gain franchise by proving responsibility. You gained it by spending years in military. Those two are very very different things. Just because military power in control of government in book claims the equivalence does not mean the reader should buy it uncritically. First, anyone morally opposed to military is excluded, responsible or not. Second, being in military does not make you responsible. That claim is just a pro-military propaganda protagonist was taught in the army. Which leads me to thirds straight forward claim: the only way to gain the vote is to subject yourself to years of pro-military propaganda in environment where dissent is treated as undiscipline and where the tactic to make you adopt new values literally includes sleep deprivation and maximum exhaustion. Lastly, military dictatorships and dictatorships in real world did not proved to lead to more responsible exertion of their sovereign authority. Turns out military has its own goals and preferences that are often incompatible with goals of anyone else. Army without war looses power and plus what is point of army that does not want to fight, so armies tend to lean toward wanting the war, responsible foreign policy or not.

anvandare 8y ago
Federal Service was not necessarily military. The point was that it had to be grueling, something that you had to endure (self-sacrifice). Although yes, if they needed you to (possibly) sacrifice yourself by joining the armed forces, then that's what you got. You could list preferences, but the choice was ultimately not up to you what kind of service you'd perform. As for the responsibility aspect, that's exactly addressed in the book as well: >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." As for the military dictatorship, just as in the previous paragraph: you could not vote (or be voted for) as long as you are in Service. The Federation was a Stratocracy (of veterans), not a Military Dictatorship.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> It was called citizenship, but [in Starship Troopers] the only thing you earned (and distinguished you from civilians) was franchise. The franchise is pretty much the main distinction between citizens and legal non-citizen residents (immigrants or non-citizen nationals) in the US.