Some people have suggested that the United States should require people to vote. Would this be a good idea?

Requiring Americans to vote would be both undemocratic and
unwise.

The ability to do more or less as we please is one
of the foundations of American society and of our system of government.  Our democratic
system typically does not require people to do anything of a political nature.  Allowing
people to decide for themselves what they want to do is fundamentally a democratic thing
to do.  Besides, imagine being required to vote.  What would happen if you were actually
required to vote and you did not like either candidate.  How democratic would it really
be to force you to express support for some candidate even if you did not actually want
to do so?  For this reason, mandatory voting strikes me as
undemocratic.

Secondly, it is simply unwise.  People who do
not vote often choose not to vote because they are ignorant and/or because they do not
care about the issues.  Mandatory voting would force people to vote even when they do
not know anything about the candidates or issues and when they do not care about those
candidates.  This would surely not improve our political
system.

For these reasons, mandatory voting would be both
undemocratic and unwise.