Without a doubt the ideal would be to see an 18-yr-old voting age. I suspected that the general voting age debate by other contributors will address the youth vote as a whole, so I declined to discuss it in my piece. Anyway, if you read my piece carefully, it does say youths aged 18 and above get the vote in those examples, and not merely servicemen.

Also, even if the idea of suffrage being accorded to servicemen only is implemented, females of 18-20 will also get the vote, if they are in the military or police or civil defence forces. The only problem is, this is a very select and small group of females who have volunteered for service, or rather, joined up for a career.

In terms of female suffrage, it is unacceptable. But it does reconcile with a fundamental principle of democratic representation – that those who contribute to the state are represented.

If there was no NS, and the voting age was set at 21, there is no violation of this principle except in circumstances where say someone below 21 earns enough to pay income tax. Then we would have a problem. But there is no female suffrage argument for making the voting age 18 in this case.

Note my argument is not – only NSmen can have the right to vote (which was indeed how it was done in the classical democracies), but that we cannot accept the inconsistency of not allowing NSmen to vote. Lowering the voting age to 18 is indeed the best way to resolve this problem.

In any case, I felt inclined to respond to a piece by Mr Seet King Hwee, who argued that NS should not a factor in deciding the voting age, as it doesn’t necessarily mean the serviceman who emerges from it is “mature enough”. His point is in fact hogwash. Maturity was never the basis of having suffrage. In fact, he clearly has no idea what the whole point of having an electoral system is.

Furthermore, if his argument is to be logically extrapolated, he is actually backing the idea that females should have their voting age retarded by perhaps two years. Given that maturity is a critierion for the right to vote, and he regards life experience as a fundamental factor in becoming mature, then surely 2 years of NS would be of benefit?

But of course, that is nonsense. Democracy isn’t like this. His idea leads to an essentially elitist state – suffrage given to those who are “good enough” to vote. Being “good enough” means being mature, being level-minded, presumably of good intellect and morality etc.

So I decided to turn his argument on its head, but not resorting to cheap and mistaken value judgements regarding the intangible benefits of NS.

My argument is essentially – you cannot demand non-citizens to defend a democracy. Citizens – nationals with full rights of political participation, including and especially the right to vote. If the solution is to lower the voting age to 18 then all the better. And for all practical purposes, this would be actually the most politically expedient way to resolve this problem.

Also, national bonding is actually not one of the prime pillars of National Service. The govt makes it look like it is to make NS more appealing and desirable. Bonding can be best described as a positive spin-off that makes for good PR. By no means a stated objective, much less a “pillar” of NS.