HIGHLAND, UT | 5 August 2008 | Caspar Weinberger, Jr., recently wrote an op-ed piece challenging America’s mindset in voting. He asked the question whether every American old enough to vote should be allowed to. His point:

If you are intelligent enough to read the Times or to boycott it on purpose because of its consistent left-biased slant, you are most certainly smart enough to be a voter, whatever your ultimate choice for the election.

His lament:

The truth is that a citizen who takes the time to study the major issues and reach a conclusion based on that study is definitely to be at least off-set by a voting citizen who will vote because he likes Obama’s tie or McCain’s fatherly white hair.

Most textbooks record the progression of suffrage rights as one of ever increasing inclusivity. Surely, the right for blacks and women to vote was necessary for this country to extend equal rights to all. Other steps may not have been as prudent—say, for example, amending the constitution to provide senators to be elected by the popular vote, thus robbing states of their power in the federal legislative process. Universal suffrage has resulted in many people being allowed to vote who, because of their general apathy or ignorance, have no business stepping inside the voter booth.

The Founders certainly had some discriminating issues to work through. They recognized that; and they recognized that it would take many generations to sort all that out. But, I suggest, they had a greater understanding of suffrage than we do. Many of our current woes in this area are a result of our departure from their wisdom.

Agency and Stewardship

Our Founding generation took upon themselves a responsibility very few had taken throughout all of known history. Theirs was a worldview in which man was governed by principles and not the whims of men. They believed God and not government gave rights to man. They understood very well that with high privilege comes great responsibility. Or in other words, agency implies stewardship.

The Founders treated the right to vote with great seriousness. Prior to the constitution the right to vote was attached to the ownership of property, and in many areas only landholders were allowed to vote. The traditions goes back to at least the ancient Greeks that only the truly free possessed the presence of mind to vote wisely. And they attached that wisdom to the material manifestation of land ownership. When someone owns land, he or she generally has a greater understanding of stewardship and responsibility, and has usually worked pretty hard to “deserve” the privilege of such ownership. The Greeks, Romans and others believed that sense of stewardship carried over into self-governance and wise participation in community service.

The British colonists used this method in many of the various American colonies prior to the Revolution. However, the idea universal inalienable rights exposed a side of landholding through the ages based more on aristocracy than on merit. It is evident that the Founders agreed with the landholding idea of stewardship breeding or revealing wisdom, but they feared the rise of an American aristocracy, so eventually this method fell out of use.

It is possible to see the concept of landholding and the attendant sense of stewardship in today’s society. In my personal life I wondered about this idea. Why would the voting privilege be tied to land? And then I bought a house. Suddenly, I became awakened to all the responsibilities of land ownership. I took my stewardship seriously and I found that not only my awareness grew, my ideas changed. I suddenly became much more aware of what political leaders were doing. I took my vote seriously because I recognized a deeper stewardship attached.

I have also been a landlord and I do not see the same stewardship attitude from renters. They have very little regard for property, and my personal experience with them politically is that they care very little for the affairs of the day. Even to the point that I once advised a friend that the best way for her to serve her country in that election cycle was to stay home on election day. When a person lives in someone else’s home, that person does not respect the stewardship and often does more damage than good, residentially or politically.

The Founders held similar views. Jefferson, for example, believed that:

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Jay (Aug. 23, 1785)

Others held similar views. Simply put, voting rights without the sense of stewardship creates an electorate that eventually become apathetic and cynical to the welfare of their nation. One need not go far these days to see this in our society.

Spain’s Grand Invention

Jefferson also believed that “a nation [that] expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be.” In other places he defined this as an enlightened electorate. He understood the stewardship principle as it attached to voting, but landholding held the stigma of a landed aristocracy and he wanted to move away from that stigma. He rejoiced in the attempts of the Spanish shortly after his presidency.

There is one provision [in the new constitution of Spain] which will immortalize its inventors. It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. —Bergh 14:130. (1814)

An electorate that is illiterate is unable to appropriately or effectively pick its leaders. As Jefferson so eloquently explained many times, the powers of government should reside in the people. Stored in any other entity, they will soon wither to tyranny. Further, Milton Friedman explains:

A stable democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values. Education can contribute to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but also to other members of the society.

But the electorate requires constant vigilance to remain stable and keep that power. It cannot be kept by mere watching of the nightly news or a quick discussion at the water cooler. Literacy is a starting point for this vigilance.

Unfortunately, the current government-controlled education system is failing this electorate, as 40% of students graduate functionally illiterate. If today’s elective system were set up in this way, how long until the government schools make it nearly impossible to locate a literate American electorate?

Perhaps if more voters in America were truly literate, we would not have had the problems we had in 2000 when so many voters in Florida were rounded up and brought to the polls in buses and told just to pick the one on the left.

Unfortunately, Spain did not let this process play out. The country eventually caved to the pressure of giving suffrage to every citizen regardless of qualification. Sadly, the great experiment failed before we could learn the result. Still, the principle as uttered by Jefferson dominates self-government: the more educated members of a society are on matters of stewardship and community, the better able they will be in holding those powers in check against the rulers in government.

Where Have All the Teachers Gone?

In 1940, Mortimer Adler published How to Read a Book. He provided great insights on literacy that have unfortunately fallen by the wayside as the country’s educational system has followed destructive models which took us away from the classical education of the 3 R’s. In a chapter titled “The Defeat of the Schools,” Adler explains, “If the schools were doing their job, this book would not be necessary.” Adler poses a few questions:

Is it too much to ask that a student be able to read a whole book, not merely a paragraph, and report not only what was said therein but show an increased understanding of the subject matter being discussed? Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgment if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?

And this a decade or two before the real deliberate dumbing down of our schools began in the 1950s! Adler continues:

Why are these students not getting any help? …It must be because the educators simply do not know what to do about it; in addition, perhaps, because they do not realize how much time and effort must be expended to teach students how to read, write, and speak well. Too many other things, of much less importance, have come to clutter up the curriculum.

Too many other things? Indeed! Today’s system has failed us on many fronts, the most awful is perhaps the literacy question. Government schools, and most private schools I would add, do not do enough to help our children become literate. They have fine programs that teach letter recognition and word decoding; but the education seems to stop there. The schools simply do not have time to teach a student to use reading now to learn new ideas and to think critically about what they have read. Since the schools are not doing this, it is high time that such a practice become available somewhere else.

Free Minds Make Free Men

Adler, on the other hand, has been instrumental in the twentieth century in facilitating many great projects to preserve the great books and great documents of our time, including the Great Books series and the Annals of America, both by Encyclopedia Britannica. Inspired by John Erskine’s Columbia University honors program, Adler concludes his masterful work by explaining the importance of reading and learning in the functioning of a self-governing society and in the lives of “free men.” I quote at length for context.

I remember what John Erskine said when he launched the group of students I belonged to on the reading of the great books. He told us that for some years past he had noticed that college students could not talk to one another intelligently. Under the elective system, they went to different classes, meeting only now and then and reading only this or that textbook in common. Members of the same college year were not intellectual friends. When he had gone to Columbia at the beginning of the century, everyone took the same courses and read the same books, many of them great ones. Good conversation had flourished and, more than that, there had been friendships with respect to ideas as well as on the playing field or in fraternities.

One of his motives in starting the Honors course was to revive college life as an intellectual community. If a group of students read the same books and met weekly for two years to discuss them, they might find a new sort of fellowship. The great books would not only initiate them into the world of ideas but would provide the frame of reference for further communication among them. They would know how to talk intelligently and intelligibly to one another, not only about the books, but through the books about all the problems which engage men’s thought and action.

In such a community, Erskine said, democracy requires intelligent communication about and common participation in the solution of human problems. That was before anyone thought that democracy would ever again be threatened. As I remember, we did not pay much attention to Erskine’s insight at the time. But he was right. I am sure of it now. I am sure that a liberal education is democracy’s strongest bulwark. (Adler 356-357.)

He subsequently developed a study of great books from history that is nearly unparalleled in today’s educative practices. And the best part about it is no teacher is necessary to facilitate the program. Individuals and special interest groups may participate at their leisure in reading and discussing these books in a way that educates one’s mind and turns an individual on to the ideas throughout the centuries. The result is an education that readies the individual for acute discriminative citizenship.

I pull several statements from Adler’s comments that merit discussion.

• Students could not talk to one another intelligently.I challenge that if students of that day could not speak intelligently to one another, that today’s students are in even worse condition. And further that as bad as today’s college student has it, today’s adult population is so much more the worse. Neighbors live, eat, and sleep within feet of one another, yet hold hardly anything in common. Is it any wonder then that hardly anything happens at a caucus meeting or a townhall gathering?
• They would know how to talk intelligently and intelligibly to one another, not only about the books, but through the books about all the problems which engage men’s thought and action. The result of reading great books and learning to talk about them improves the general life overall of such an individual.
• Democracy requires intelligent communication about and common participation in the solution of human problems.The challenges we face today will not be solved by 30-minute sit-com solutions or by expert savior-like elected officials who claim to have all the right answers. They will only be solved when a statistically significant proportion of the population begins to take control of their own lives by becoming literate in and effectively living the ancient principles of prosperity discovered by our Founding generations. We must learn to consider those ideas, to discuss them with our brains turned on, considering the merits of the ideas rather than the typically ad homonym prejudices we blindly attach to ideas. We must patiently work through these ideas and give them time to bear the fruit according to those unchanging principles.
• That was before anyone thought that democracy would ever again be threatened.The twentieth century is known as the bloodiest century by sheer numbers in the history of mankind. More lives were lost in the name of creeping socialism and tyranny than at any other time. And even more souls were lost to its devastating effects on those who physically survived. Is democracy [read: self-government] under threat? Absolutely! And we must do something now in order to stop the overflowing scourge that is filling us to the brim.
• I am sure that a liberal education is democracy’s strongest bulwark. Only an enlightened electorate is able to store the powers of self-government properly. It will take an even more enlightenment to return those powers back to their proper vestiges. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and their contemporaries were raised up by studying the great books of their times. We are on the brink of a similarly revolutionary time of our own. One of the elements of raising ourselves up to the challenges of our times is to learn and understand the principles those great men implanted into our national psyche. This must be done before it is too late.

And this is only the beginning. Having a literate, enlightened electorate must then act upon the ideas they learn in order to be effective in restoring to them the powers of self-government.

A Test

“I believe that 100% of all citizens of a nation should be allowed to vote.” This is a great statement, one that I believe in. But rather than to stop at the period, one must ask a heavy question. What is a citizen? How can we know when someone has become a citizen? Immigrants who legally enter and live in this country eventually have the opportunity to become naturalized citizens. Among other things, they must take a test to accomplish this. The test is not incredibly difficult, but I wonder how many native-born Americans could answer these questions. Sample questions include:

1. What is the supreme law of the land?
2. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?
3. What is freedom of religion?
4. Name one branch of the government.
5. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
6. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
7. Who does a U.S. Senator represent?
8. What does the judicial branch do?
9. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?
10. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?

All of these questions are orally answered and none of them are multiple choice. Most of them seem simple enough, but think of Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking” and Sean Hannity’s “Man on the Street Interviews.” Many Americans could not answer these simple questions. These are topics that unless you care deeply about our country you wouldn’t necessarily know. That, therefore, begs the question: what is a citizen?

Isn’t it good enough just to be born in a country to be considered a citizen? I mean, after all, your parents worked darn hard to be in this country and to produce you kids in it. You should just be entitled to all the privileges of this nation, including choosing its leaders. Perhaps… But I suggest that a citizen is much more than just someone born in and living in a particular country. A citizen is one who is educated well enough to be a productive member of the society, one capable of self-government, one who possesses the ability to provide for himself and the wisdom to rule himself.

So, in addition to the naturalization test mentioned above, I propose another test to prove a person’s citizenship and therefore his qualifications to vote: a test of personal self-reliance.

1. Is the individual economically, politically, and intellectually self-reliant?
2. Does the individual have a basic understanding of the founding of this nation, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
3. Does the individual engage in meaningful personal civic service?
4. Does the individual engage in meaningful community civic service?

Conclusion

Mr. Weinberger knew he would take some heat with his article, and the commentary thereafter is indication enough that the majority of even those who seek to educate themselves on these matters are missing the mark. Images of blind and patriotic sheep conjure in the mind of those who have awakened and turned their brains on. But the fact is, in the marketplace of ideas, if you’re not taking a little heat from such collectivist, though well-intentioned folks, you’re not sharing enough of the truth.

Should everyone in America be allowed to vote? Definitely! If they can qualify as citizens on a much higher scale than we have required in the past. Citizens, true citizens, repeatedly demonstrate that they are able to rule themselves in wisdom by living disciplined, principled lives of self-reliance. This is not possible without literacy. Literacy is not simply the ability to decipher groupings of letters on a page, but rather a complex ability to read closely, discriminate proper principles, think critically about what one has read, to discuss intelligently, and to act upon that reading. In the political processes of our day, too many people vote by whim or by what they have heard say at the water coolers or on television or radio talk shows with pundits who know only a little more than they do. Candidates also reveal their lack of intelligence on a regular interval, showing they are hardly qualified themselves to vote, let alone to stand in their elected positions. Individuals often vote for the best looking or the most promising candidate rather than the candidate who has read and most fully understood the Constitution of the United States. Oliver Van DeMille poses the question: “How can there be Washingtons and Jeffersons today unless we read what they read, feel what they felt, and know what they knew?” To which I pose: And how will there be Washingtons and Jeffersons to elect unless there are Washingtons and Jeffersons literate and self-reliant enough to elect them?

Action Items

1. Read Adler’s How to Read a Book
2. Begin a Classic Reading course today.
3. Join a civic service organization, such as the FreeCapitalist Project, where you can associate with like-minded individuals also striving to realize self-reliance.
4. Become a real citizen of your country and community.

MRFC Principles: (2, 3, 4)

Sources

Caspar Weinberger, Jr., Should All Americans Be Allowed to Vote? HumanEvents.com, July 28, 2008.

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, Fortieth Anniversary edition, 2002, p. 86.

Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book,New York, NY, Simon and Shuster, 1940. (Note: In order to read the chapter on Free Minds and Free Men, you must obtain a copy of the book published prior to 1972. The older the copy the better.)

New Naturalization Test Questions, about.com

Oliver Van DeMille, A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century,Cedar City, UT, George Wythe University Press, 2000.