Evidently, though as a youth he took the trouble to keep up his citizenship by showing up for required military training, Epicurus taught that seeking office or kingship is not worth the trouble or the risks involved.
Information is lacking as to what he did or would have made of optional participation in the rights (or rites) of citizenship such as voting.
Too, one has to wonder, if voting were a requirement, whether it could matter how one voted, in light of such arguments, commonly made, as appear in the following post.
Should we vote?
It's not that the outcome doesn't matter.
It's not that whether or not the people can vote doesn't matter.
It's that the vote of any given individual does not matter.
It's not that the outcome doesn't matter.
It's not that whether or not the people can vote doesn't matter.
It's that the vote of any given individual does not matter.
Would a like argument hold for individual military service?
Oh, yes.
Ordinarily, the contribution of the anonymous troop cannot be supposed decisive.
And ordinarily, the individual has better options available simply as ways to make a living.
At best, voluntary military service in war is way too much cost for the assured benefits.
They could perfectly well win or lose just the same without you, you know.
But that doesn't mean they could equally well win or lose without hundreds of thousands or even millions of draftees.
Hence despite the floods of propaganda they can and do release on the public in wartime, even democratic leaders generally have to rely heavily on a draft law to make the price of not serving if called at least apparently higher than the price of serving.
Does necessity know no law?
Government necessity, I mean?
No, the 13th Amendment does not remotely mean that.
Perhaps the draft law is like law in general according to some philosophers who follow Hobbes.
Each troop, draftee or volunteer, is better off with a draft than without it if the conduct it requires is such that each is better off if all comply than if none comply.
At least in such a case the draftees are not being treated like so much canon-fodder entirely for someone else’s good.
But then whether it is so rather depends on what the draftees are forced to fight and die for, does it not?
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