…I used this title before for an Examiner column, but it’s appropriate here as well.
Conservative heads are spinning (including Jonah Goldberg in the LAT, who calls it “slavery”) over Obama’s national service proposal. Personally, I don’t think it goes far enough. No, I’m serious.
OK, I’ll wait a moment for my conservative readers to get to their smelling salts.
Recall that one of my great concerns (one shared by several of the Founders) is the stratification of American society. Our social compact only works when we all accept that we’re all in this together, with the push and pull that comes when we realize that we really do sometimes have to “Join or Die” as the flag in the credits for ‘John Adams’ suggests.
You’ll notice that social mobility in the US is declining, as families like ours (and richer families) manage to hand off the social capital of good upbringings and good education – as well as real capital – to our kids.
In today’s society, there are really two arenas where there is significant mixing between the classes – public education and the military. One reason why I am so unwilling to give up on public education (even if some liberal friends don’t like my hypothetical solutions) is that I think it vital that the children of the well-off get raised alongside the children of the rich and the children of the poor to then extent we can do so. Our sons benefited hugely from being raised in a public school system (an excellent one) that nonetheless contains a mixture of wealthy kids, upper-middle-class kids, plain middle-class kids and some blue-collar kids. By comparison, the kids of my friends who are getting ‘better’ education in private schools are – I believe – coming out worse for the experience.
My son who is in the Army is profiting, as well, from meeting and mingling with a bunch of different kinds of people.
The question is how, in a country as large as ours, we maintain some public space and maintain enough social equality to ensure that all have at least some measure of access to that space. In my mind, that’s a legitimate concern for the state – because it is central to the state’s self-preservation as a Republic.
I believe that preserving the Republic ought to be a project dear to conservatives as well as liberals, and that to do so liberals must sacrifice some of the equality that is their ideal, and conservatives some of the freedom from coercion.
I don’t believe that by pushing people toward public school (without Draconian mandates), we’re somehow ‘enslaving’ children. Note that this doesn’t mean I’m completely happy with the quality of education, or that we don’t need to fight to make the schools better. But I have no ideological barrier to public schools, and I share the value of enshrining them close to the heart of our communities.
I’d like to see this principle extended, and based on raising my own sons, think that taking a year or two between high school and college to do some kind of public service would be a good thing for most kids. Some might choose to join the military. Others would perform other kinds of community service. Those who needed it might attend two years of an academic boot camp, designed to make sure they could read and calculate effectively when they got out. We’d have a surplus of undertrained 18 year olds afoot, and we’d have to figure out things to do with them. Parks need supervision, community organizations need workers, much of it – like the WPA – will be make-work. But to a big extent, that might be a better thing than paying universities to babysit them.
Some kind of ‘basic GI bill’ provides educational benefits for those who have completed it, and some kind of extension of the VA provides some basic level of lifetime health care.
Should it be mandatory? Don’t know there it gets tough. Would I give preferences to encourage people to do it? Clear preference at state junior and four-year colleges to those who’d done it? Absolutely. OK, discuss away. Me, I’m cooking tri-tip.
We need a vast public works program of some kind to replace our old highway infrastructure. It will need unskilled labor as well as engineers, etc.
We already _have_ a voluntary national service program, and have had it for the last fifteen years. Americorps attracts about 70,000 volunteers each year at a cost to taxpayers of at least $30K each.
There are at present about 4 million 18-year-olds in America, so the existing volunteer rate is not quite 2%, somewhat higher than that for the military with its longer commitment and obviously more challenging situations.
Two year service will entail managing up to 8 million youth. The current US government (ex military) currently employs just over a million.
Any sort of mandatory program will be virtually unmanageable and suffer many of the same problems as our draftee-based military a generation ago.
We already have a national volunteer program, and a clear indication of its ‘market demand’ and operational success.
By contrast, a bus-load of youth from our church is in Chicago for a couple of weeks of volunteering in some rather rough areas, working alongside inner city church kids. Last year they were in New Orleans, and the year before that in Juarez, Mexico.
Active volunteerism is already happening, but politicians are always solutions searching for a problem.
That formula usually results in more government involvement and more government control. No wonder Obama likes it.
Let’s see: your view is that since we already have a required public “service” system, the public schools, that is in many places a massive failure that disproportionately impacts the poor, we should create _another_ such system and expect different results. To something that may not even be a problem (I take _NY Time_ editorials as negative evidence — i.e., it’s a good bet that it’s completely wrong). Beyond that, if there is a social mobility problem, might it not stem directly from the failures of the public school system? And if so, wouldn’t it be better to work on that, rather than set up another system almost certain to fail in the same way?
The people who worked in the WPA long ago – speaking of those that did work – were a mostly rural and small-town people who had done hard work since they were children. Expectations regarding food, accommodations and pay were low. Social discipline, on the other hand, was higher.
We don’t have an unemployment crisis like we did back then, and we don’t want one. Compare European nations with national service programs, please.
Compulsory civilian national service is labor conscription, no matter what it says on the t-shirt they give you. The theory of labor conscription is that human beings are resources used to build States. It is rooted not only in the socialism of the past century, but the fascism of the last century. While that does not mean no such program could exist, it does mean that nostalgia for the ill-informed politics of a hundred years ago is not sufficient justification. It would be nice to see liberals at least acknowledge the fact – I wouldn’t expect them to listen to Jonah Goldberg, but George Orwell and F.A. Hayek pointed out these things long ago.
Sorry, I think 18 years-old is too late to learn tolerance. Children of status-obsessed parents grow up to be status-obsessed adults. Any intervention needs to be much earlier.
Any why do the less-advantaged have to pay for other’s learning experiences?
So you think we should all be Mormons.
Please excuse this “ignerent furriner”, but what exact ages cover “high school and college” in the US?
That’s a honest question — I’m from Oz, and we use quite different terminlogy and year groupings.
My wife will be quite interested in this post, since she is a public (State) school primary teacher with moderately sympathetic leanings.
Cheers,
Damon
Armed –
bq. Some kind of ‘basic GI bill’ provides educational benefits for those who have completed it, and some kind of extension of the VA provides some basic level of lifetime health care.
We cannot afford that. I would be in favor of universal military service. It did not hurt me any. I was NOT suited to the military but it did not harm me and I think maybe did this rebellious knothead some good.
bq. Those who needed it might attend two years of an academic boot camp, designed to make sure they could read and calculate effectively when they got out.
That might need to be made mandatory because of the state of public edumacation. It are dismal.
bq. The question is how, in a country as large as ours, we maintain some public space and maintain enough social equality to ensure that all have at least some measure of access to that space.
Huh? Social equality? Try “…and all men are created equal…”. But there it ends. It says nothing about what happens after creation. Some are smarter, etc. The bell curve will ALWAYS be there. Mathematics cannot be socially engineered without killing high numbers of people. The last century pretty much proved THAT! Why cannot the ‘Progressives’ learn that?
bq. You’ll notice that social mobility in the US is declining…
Not as far as I am concerned. Things just keep getting better. Quit listening to the doom-and-gloom crowd.
Bart Hall-
bq. No wonder Obama likes it.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Bart Hall –
bq. That formula usually results in more government involvement and more government control.
Yup, remember “Arbeit mach frei.” At least the way the Obamanator would do it.
Indentured servitude by any other name . . . evil ideas are no less evil because pretty names are contrived for them, or lofty aspirations are assigned to them.
“Hell is paved with good intentions.” Welcome to Hell, here’s your accordion.
The fundamental problem is that the entire underlying theory of the political system of the United States is that the individual citizen is sovereign, and all powers of the government derive from the sovereign individual. Indentured servitude (or “mandatory national service”) completely inverts this relationship–to advocate it, you must concede that every individual’s life belongs to the state. That leads directly to serfdom. (Now, it’s given that almost everybody has forgotten this inconvenient truth about the American political system, but it still hanging on, if only by a thread.)
Practically, the assertion that “taking a year or two between high school and college to do some kind of public service would be a good thing for most kids” may or may not be true.
But is it important enough to you that it’s worth advocating a form of indentured servitude?
And, also practically, no one can guarantee that all of these young serfs will not be used for purposes which are in the long run destructive to the body politic. Government has a pretty bad record of ignoring unintended consequences. I do not think that subjecting all people from ages 18 to 24 (or whatever) to two years of mandatory “service” will be nearly as beneficial as some may think it will be.
There are some ideas which reach the level of “horrifying” for anyone who believes that freedom and liberty are worth aspiring to. Mandatory national service is at the top of that list.
A modest proposal:
Mandatory national service is a fine idea. However, let’s not be ageist about it: if we’re going to require 1-2 years of public service from children, let’s also require it from adults who have never chosen to serve before now.
Those currently under 18 would have to begin their service within two weeks of their 18th birthday, or graduation date from high school, whichever was later, as would all future generations. But those currently older than 18, who had never served in the military, Peace Corps, Americorps, etc, would have to perform their 2 years of service starting at retirement.
We would, of course, not pay them their Social Security or any pension benefits, since they would be getting paid a small Federal stipend in return for their service. In return, we’d get a lifetime’s experience at very cheap rates.
Now, they _could_ say they were being shafted because they had heretofore been earning tens or even hundreds of dollars an hour; but as they were retiring anyway, that no longer applies. Naturally they can be made to work for whatever we choose to pay them.
It’s only fair, after all. If we’re going to mandate this for the young, it ought to be mandatory for everyone.
Grim – not a bad idea. Make it part of the newly refunded Social Security system we boomers would otherwise bankrupt.
For all the folks having fits over the “slavery” interpretation of this – how did you feel about the military draft? During a true national war?
…because if you didn’t see that as slavery as well, you’ve established that slavery is OK when you think there’s a really good reason for it…
A.L.
military conscription is an evil that sometimes is necessary to protect against greater evils.
Is Grim’s proposal modest or a poison pill?
How do you square it with the plain reading of the 13th amendment?
Isn’t it a bit early to be recruiting youngsters for the potato harvest?
Either way is fine with me. 🙂 If “mandatory service” is something that’s good for “the young” but not for you, then kill it; but if you’re willing to make an equal sacrifice yourself, then why not? It’ll do a lot more to achieve A.L.’s stated goal — building the bonds of the Republic — if we _all_ have to serve, rather than just telling the teenage set, “It’ll be good for you, build character.”
Aside from the very real subjugation of our young people in the pursuit of a concept that you feel would address a social failing, there are some very real practical problems with this.
About 10 years ago my town added 50 hours of local service as an “option” to graduating from high school. After 4 years it was made mandatory. To graduate the student had to perform free of charge 50 hours of community service. The justification was exactly the reasons stated here. The student had to arrange the service themselves, but the school provided “coordination” services to help match need with labor.
Problem. Even when including the surrounding towns, there was not enough community service available. This requirement created an annual pool of local labor of roughly 25,000 hours, in addition to the community service pool of regular volunteers and those sentenced to community service by the courts. With fully half the graduating class unable to find “service” to “volunteer” for, the schools came up with a “solution”. Students could work for local business for free and count that as community service. So local businesses either got completely free labor or created make work positions so that their customers children could get a high school diploma.
What did these kids learn? That their labor had no value? That their labor was the property of the school? Whatever lessons you may intend, based on my conversations with the students they learned that the system was simply BS.
In a free society, conscription is bad. Under extreme circumstances it MAY be the lesser evil. As a tool of social education its near the height of arrogant uses of the state’s power. This is not just bad, in a free society its evil
Why does the government have to get involved in this? Why not get a bunch of liberals to spend their own money to fund make-work projects for all the trustafarians and urban youth you can find? I get the idea that coercion is a feature not a bug.
…because if you didn’t see that as slavery as well, you’ve established that slavery is OK when you think there’s a really good reason for it…
Uh huh. I also favor the death penalty for treason but not for jaywalking, so feel free to berate me for that inconsistency too.
Filbert: are you then arguing that Israel is a socialist government? Because they demand essentially the same thing from their youth, and most of them serve willingly.
While I agree with you AL, I am wiling to tail back this proposal a bit, because the Right sees it as an unwavering social evil. However, I think Obama’s call is a good place to start.
It’s well known (in community service circles) that asking relatively small tasks of voters (such as signing letters to congress, or adding your name to a voter roll) dramatically increases future interest, attention and commitment to political issues. So why not get kids to invest in America? They have the time, the Xbox 360 can wait another week.
Simply put, there are so many social issues that are not well understand because youth (and most adults) don’t get out of our environmental cliques. Programs (such as these) will help the next generation identify & understand issues that they’ve never heard of.
Imagine if next summer we had thousands of highschool students emigrating to a two week program in New Orleans building houses… it wouldn’t take much cost (food & bring your own sleeping bag) and they could help rebuild the houses for those in need. 1 week = entire commitment for high school complete.
Yeah, let’s keep government schools praising mediocrity so they don’t offend anyone. Let’s keep teacher’s unions insulating teachers from competition and then we can use political correctness to insure their is no tough love or constructive criticism in the real world. Sure… that is only going to help, not enable, right?
You are well reasoned and I enjoy reading your thoughts. However, you seem to focus on the collective’s opportunities and I focus on the individual’s. We all encounter opportunities, some work to be prepared for their coming, others feel the work is too hard for whatever reason. Never the less, luck is when preparation meets opportunity and therefore there will always be “unlucky” people.
Incentives? How about “you don’t get to play Grand Theft Auto V until you can demonstrate you’re better than a thug”?
Nah, that’s deprivation of the 9th Amendment fundamental unenumerated right to be a fool.
uncle fred: _Problem. Even when including the surrounding towns, there was not enough community service available._
I attended a University that required 80 hours of community service to get your degree and there were similar problems.
But to be fair to A.L.’s point, it might be easier and more economical to find long-term work. Most jobs require at least some training and oversight that may not be worth the effort on the short end.
A.L., Basenote:
Should it be mandatory?
Hell no, it should not be mandatory. I have a philosophical allergy to government-encouraged service programs. I’m not hugely fond of Americorps, but despite my allergy I concede that it hasn’t really wrecked anything and that while I would not welcome an expansion, I wouldn’t really bother to oppose it, either.
But mandatory service? No. No, for practical reasons, no for political reasons, and no for philosophical reasons. The more mandatory, coercive, and intrusive these programs become, the more I oppose them on all grounds. I don’t dispute that there may be some of the benefits you claim, A.L., but I don’t think they outweigh the disadvantages.
If this is a matter of creating programs that really do give students the pressure-free opportunity to serve, and/or broaden their horizons, and/or relieve some educational cost burdens, then I’m fine with it. Where I start raising an eyebrow is where we start talking about targetted numbers of hours served over certain numbers of years, or conditioning federal aid to schools based on the performance of their service programs. Once school bureaucrats get into a position where they get XYZ million dollars in exchange for so many hours of service, they’ll make it as coercive as hell, because they’ll figure out a way to increase their salaries and bonus checks over it.
(I should also point out at this time that I am exactly as opposed to Obama’s plan to shuffle federal tax dollars through faith-based charity initiatives as I was opposed to Bush’s similar plan. Which is to say, extremely. It sounded like a patronage program then, and it sounds like one now.)
Fear not: if enough nukes go off or a bad enough plague hits, available retirees, hell, available over-fifties will be drafted for hazard reclamation work at low wages. It’ll be good for us, builds character. The surviving well-off of whatever age will of course not be drafted, they’ve proven they have character due to their evident election by Providence and will be occupied with “problem solving” and resource allocation — at a safe distance from the rads and rats.
/pessimo-snark
More immediately, and less floridly: Israel is a country of 20k square -miles- kilometers (as the books usually say, ‘slightly smaller than New Jersey”) founded in adversity by zealots (ooh, that word!) only 60 years ago. I do not begrudge them their enacting mandatory service. I do not foresee such being fairly distributed here, nor enthusiastically adopted.
[Edited to correct a space probe crash inducing magnitude error in units]
Actually: my high school (quite a long while ago now) had a service requirement. I fufilled mine working for the District Attorney’s office.
It’s been a tremendous benefit to me, in terms of understanding how the law works in America, and how the citizen relates to it. I’m not sure how useful my services actually were to the government, but hopefully they got something out of it too. 🙂
Anyway, the concept isn’t a wholly awful one. You do owe something, as a citizen, to the Republic. We just should make sure that it’s understood that _everyone_ owes the Republic something: rich as well as poor, as AL says, but also old as well as young.
Damon:
The American educational system works, roughly, like this:
Kindergarten is an optional year in some locations, mandatory year in other locations, and happens roughly at age 5-6, e.g., the children are about age 5 when they start, and a year later are 6. The specifics vary from place to place; in some locations it’s a half day, others a full day, etc. Even in most places where it’s optional, it’s usually done.
First grade is the year after kindergarten, and is generally a full day, all week. So, from age 6 to 7. This is followed by second through eighth grade. By eighth grade, the children should be about fourteen years old. Various locations break these grades up into various elementary school vs middle school divisions, but despite the names it’s still roughly the same scheme.
High school follows directly from that, with four years (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or grades 9 through 12) after which the students will typically be about 18 years old. This is the end of formal schooling requirements in the United States.
College or University studies are generally intended to be four year programs if done full time, straight through. Increasingly, they are not– they are adorned by internship or co-op programs with industry (in technical fields, especially) or lengthened to five years or more, either because of the degree requirements, or a slower pace as students work jobs to provide income for school, etc. Or is postponed a year or two (or ten) because the students don’t want to start for various reasons, etc.
Damon:
“high school” in the US generally covers grades 9-12 and the age group is approximately 13 years to 19 years; “college” or “university” would be the next four years, not usually referred to as numbered grades, and would usually include 17 years to 23 years old.
Completion of high school is not compulsory; with some variation, the legal requirement is usually to stay in school until one is 16 years old.
It is unusual for an adult to return to high school education, and those who do so generally are segregated into night and week-end classes, to accommodate work schedules. Adults commonly return to college level education, sometimes several times, so the actual age spread at colleges is something like 15 years to 80 years.
You do owe something, as a citizen, to the Republic.
I owe what, exactly? AL says “community organizations need workers”. Obama was a community organizer. Shall we mandate service to ACORN? Does that serve the Republic? I’d like to think there’s more to the Republic than the government and its cronies. (And I know there’s more to the school age population than citizens.)
_uncle fred: Problem. Even when including the surrounding towns, there was not enough community service available._
Please. It’s not that hard. I’ve managed to fulfill hundreds of vollunteer tasks. If you can’t find one, make up your own; here are a few out of the box examples:
1-Safe rides programs for drunk drivers
2-“What to do if you see a gun?” kids courses
3-Blankets/food for the homeless
4-Rebuild trails at national parks
5-Spend time at a retirement home
6-Donate time to the local church
7-Plant trees
8-Advocate for a cause
9-Join a marathon team that raises money for cancer awareness
10- Create a fundraiser (for charity of your choice)
Let’s keep in mind that these are all high school/college kids. They have 3 months each summer, and at least 2 weeks of winter vacation & a spring break. 50 hours (or more) is a cakewalk.
I don’t have a problem saying that Israel is basically a socialist nation and much like Canada and most of Europe is one that while we have pretty friendly relations with is not one that we should look to as a model for any policies on how our government treats or should treat American citizens.
Seriously “Israel does it too†is about as lame as Justice Breyer saying we should look at the decisions of foreign courts in deciding how to interpret out Constitution. You can say that we should be friends or allies with some of these other countries but that doesn’t mean we should blind ourselves to the fact that most of the world doesn’t respect individual rights anywhere close to the extent that we do in the United States.
_I owe what, exactly?_
Loyalty. Love. Honor. A personal commitment to her defense. A personal commitment to her improvement. You owe her for providing a safe harbor while you were weak, so that you would have a chance to grow strong; you owe her future generations a contribution to ensuring that they inherit a similar security for their persons, and the ancestral liberty that is their — your — our bithright.
A conscript military is usually a shitty military to be blunt (even Russia professionalized their military!)
That being said, I know the point of this post is a call to create some “national volunteer” service. Just as putting chess tables in the ghetto and throwing more money into public schools suddenly created a renaissance for the ‘less well off.’
I would call this agency “make-work” and its function is to keep kids busy picking up trash as opposed to helping out the economy by going to college or saving some money (or blowing it) from a simple service type job. If you got nowhere to go and you are medically qualified, the military is always hiring and offers great medical and educational benefits.
A.L.:
That “true national” war qualifier is interesting. We know very well how many national service proponents felt about the Vietnam draft. What if their grandchildren decide they’d rather go to Canada than work on an interstate highway? What if they start burning down registration offices? And then brag about it for 40 years, like the damn hippies? Bleah.
I actually agree with this statement and the best way each of us can protect that “ancestral liberty†which is the :birthright†of each of us and future generations is to make sure that anyone who would infringe on that liberty in the name of “national service†is kept as far from the levers of political power as possible.
Grim: _my high school (quite a long while ago now) had a service requirement. I fufilled mine working for the District Attorney’s office._
Is working for the D.A. (or the government) a form of national service? I see an exemption forming.
One of the problems with my University service requirement was that the most common method of meeting the requirement was finding a public sector summer job one year and then working for free the last two weeks. Particularly given the number of interesting and/or economically rewarding public sector jobs, this seems close to buying an exemption.
Wow, Grim – that was great.
A.L.
alchemist _I’ve managed to fulfill hundreds of vollunteer tasks._
I believe my University’s service requirements were more specific than simply performing “good deeds.” They wanted employable services for which an employer signed the time card. Part of this was to avoid fraud, but the larger “mission” was to encourage people to experience using the gift of their education in a way that would encourage them to either take similar jobs upon graduation or appreciate them more. This is probably a more narrow objective than A.L. is discussing, but I do recall that the administration of the program was nightmarish for the University and they were going to discontinue it as soon as the federal government stopped underwriting it.
_How do you square it with the plain reading of the 13th amendment?_
Since the 13th amendment was the result of conscription, its hard for me to read it as precluding it.
AL, have you sat down and read Liberal Fascism yet? Because one of Goldberg’s points in that book was how an obsession with leveling & obliterating class distinctions via active nationalistic mysticism is integral to fascism and other anti-internationalist left political movements, especially when that obsession expresses itself in non-military mobilization via conscription into Bellamy-esque “economic armies”.
And yes, conscription is a temporary form of indentured servitude. Given a choice between a form of indentured servitude which puts military-grade weapons in the hands of the temporary slaves, and one which puts said temporary slaves, unarmed and unorganized, under the authority of state-appointed civilian overseers for the purpose of laboring in some Organization Todt project, I think I prefer the military draft.
Grim:
Loyalty. Love. Honor. A personal commitment to her defense. A personal commitment to her improvement. You owe her for providing a safe harbor while you were weak, so that you would have a chance to grow strong; you owe her future generations a contribution to ensuring that they inherit a similar security for their persons, and the ancestral liberty that is their — your — our bithright.
But Grim, she owes me the right to choose how to fulfill those commitments, or I will refuse to be bound by them.
Reply to Alchemist at #20:
Yes indeed, Israel is a socialist country.
If we do this thing, we should be under absolutely no illusions as to exactly what it is we’re talking about.
Indentured servitude.
Dress it up with as many words as you need to to assuage your conscience, but any way you cut it, you’re talking about serfdom. Maybe you’re ok with that for “the greater good” but if you’re willing to give on that one, what other rights and freedoms will somebody else decide are too inconvenient for them, “for the greater good?”
Remember the old saw that “democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for supper.” If you’re a wolf, it’s all good. For the sheep, not so much.
Now, if you drop the word ‘mandatory’ from national service, I’m willing to listen to any number of creative ideas. Tie it to reduced-cost post-secondary education . . . give people who’ve given their time a break on taxes . . .
My objection is to MANDATORY national service.
Now, I’ll also agree that Grim’s proposal of requiring it of absolutely everybody is something of an improvement . . . but I’m still having that same issue with the whole mandatory thing. That’s simply not how our political system was designed–the whole sovereign we the people thing.
[Typo corrected per author; correction-related posts deleted. –NM]
The first para of Wishard’s post@4 says it all. Our society is unrecognizable from the day’s of the WPA, PWA, CCC, etc. My Father was briefly in the CCC and was always proud of the fact that he helped build Lake Decatur, Ill., but (1)it was the depression and for him there were no other alternatives and(2) it was only temp.stop on way to college. And yes, he was from a small town where his Father was a blacksmith and his Mother ran a boardinghouse. A totally different mind-set
in that generation–even if one did (as he did) ultimately serve as an officer in WWII and go on to be an academic with four degrees. Try getting your typical faculty member of today (or his children) out on a mountain-side living in a sixty-man, open-bay barracks in the woods while wielding an ax and chain-saw to “do his bit” and see how far that gets you….
Couldn’t we do this less expensively if we all just had a nice group hug?
Whatever our problems are as a nation, is isn’t that we each individually get to decide what our “Pursuit of Happiness” entails.
filbert – I didn’t suggest it should be mandatory…specifically asked the question, but agree that making it truly compulsory is pushing too far.
Mitch – haven’t read it yet, and note the issue – but have also read Toqueville and the federalists who are also concerned about the same issue – does that make them fans of Mussolini?
A.L.
PS: Oh ya, I almost forgot the “boyz in the hood.”
The police can’t even stop the drug-dealing, killings and general mayhem now, let alone supervise their “volunteer” “good works.” Yes indeedee, I’ve got a real mental picture of how that would all work out!
virgil xenophon: _My Father was briefly in the CCC and was always proud of the fact that he helped build Lake Decatur, Ill._
Thanks to your dad. I’ve played paintball at a bachelor/ bachelorette party in a woodsball field adjoining the lake. It was a beautiful location and a beautiful day.
_Try getting your typical faculty member of today (or his children) out on a mountain-side living in a sixty-man, open-bay barracks in the woods while wielding an ax and chain-saw to “do his bit” and see how far that gets you…._
Or we could ask Habitat for Humanity how many more unskilled workers, the one’s that don’t know how to pound a nail, they want.
_”But Grim, she owes me the right to choose how to fulfill those commitments, or I will refuse to be bound by them.”_
I suggest you try that line the next time she asks you to fulfill your commitment to jury duty. 🙂
I mentioned the D. A. office thing above, and Mr. Shaw asks if it counted; well, it did for the purpose of the high school program, anyway. It was unpaid service (mostly proofreading their new trial manual) and, as I am not a lawyer, it was in no way intended to prepare me for a career.
It did, however, introduce me to the concept of jury duty. I remember a farmer who had been summoned to jury duty just at the moment that something critical needed to be done at the farm — I forget if he was harvesting a winter crop, such as winter wheat, or planting a spring crop, but it was something he needed to do that very week or lose the crop. He sat all day in the courtroom waiting for jury selection, and when he got up, he explained that and asked to be excused. He said he’d be happy to come back two or three times over the summer, when his crops needed little from him, but his whole year’s income depended on activity this week.
Rather than releasing him at once, like a civilized person, the judge instructed him to wait until he had a chance to speak to him, then proceeded with the rest of the day’s jury selection. When it was all done, he made the farmer stand up in front of the court and gave him a stern lecture on the subject of the importance of jury duty, and how no one was excused, no matter how it affected them, and if _he_, the judge, should be called, even his high office would not excuse him…
(Let us here imagine that jury selection process. Defense Attorney: “What do you do for a living, Mr. Jones?” Jones: “I’m a sitting State Superior Court judge.” Defense Attorney: “Thank you, I think I’ll be vetoing this candidate.”)
…and so on and so forth for quite some time.
He did finally let the farmer go back to his crop.
In any event, I’m sympathetic to the idea that the government should not be licensed to ask too much. That’s why I said that, if we do this, it should be done for everyone, not just children too young to vote against it.
However, national service _could_ be a good idea, well done. And there are some duties, including jury duty, that we do need citizens to perform whether or not they would choose to do so. So long as you are not obligated except as the laws require, and so long as you are duly represented in the Congress that makes those laws, there we are.
I’m also happy _not_ to make such laws; but there’s nothing in the law that is inherently unjust.
I’m with Marcus Vitruvius and against Armed on this one – to my alarm I find I’m also across the table from Grim. Some reasons:
Practical: If optional, participation will be comparable to the existing service programs, i.e., not enough to solve the problems Armed listed. The optional version leaves us where we are today, with some new, weak incentives. If mandatory (or coerced with strong incentives), it would be a sham. Requirements would be defined to pass with ease all but the most unenterprising. As Armed says, much of it would be makework, and makework is always waste.
Practical: Waste is waste, and institutionalized time-wasting on a national scale would leave the country unambiguously worse off. Lifetime health care for a year of picking up trash? It would have to be pretty basic.
Practical: Taking a year off is impossible for some career tracks – musician, athlete – and unnecessary for any young man or woman whose parents and teachers have inculcated with a sense of direction and ambition.
Philosophical: Liberty is central to the American genius, and liberty means you can tell society and moral improvement to take a hike if you want to. Self-preservation is a legitimate concern of the state, but what kind of Stepford nation would want its young men and women, in the prime of their creativity and energy, dutifully signing up for 12 months of makework?
Philosophical: “Service,” as defined, privileges the least consequential sort of labor over “best use” of one’s abilities. Acquiring skills for independence is a respectable occupation for an undertrained 18-year-old. I happen to think I have done some service to my country by getting into a good college and finishing in four years instead of five or six. If you have the tools to become an engineer, or a biochemist, or (even) a futures trader, you had better do it without waiting a year to pick up trash, and put yourself at society’s service that much sooner.
(Note: Service as defined includes military service, but mostly only for those who would have chosen it anyway. I do not think military service is makework.)
Philosophical: Making service mandatory would devalue it and degrade those who now serve voluntarily. It is an honor to serve, and a privilege to serve a nation that compels its citizens only in dire necessity. But it is precisely the voluntarism, the self-sacrifice, that makes the service honorable.
Bottom line: Every one can and should benefit from “serving,” especially at a young age, but true service is in finding the single best use for your abilities. Leave moral improvement to the small institutions of civil society.
Lack of contact among classes may be a real problem, but I suspect it mainly affects a few professions and locations. In most careers, in most of the country, you still have to work productively with people of all ages and backgrounds.
Shoot – sorry…
[NP, fixed. –NM]
AL, I have to say here…
…if it’s not mandatory, why the hell would rich kids do it? You can’t bribe them with modest college benefits, because they’re wealthy. They can afford to pay for their own college, or at least have private means to pay, and they’re largely attending private universities, so you can’t really make their matriculation contingent on them finishing their national service requirement. And given their expected lifetime earnings, trading a year of income for a year of modest benefits they don’t need would be a horrible idea.
Thus, if it’s not mandatory, the wealthy won’t do it, saving a few who would likely have opted in for national service anyway. And if the wealthy aren’t doing it, your class mixing does not happen, which means you’re largely wasting your time, so why bother with the rest of it?
[Avatar, marking out text with hyphens here does a strike-out, not emphasis. I fixed your text using italics tags. –NM]
PPS: Anybody out there want their kids to share an open bay barracks with the crips and the bloods?
After all, “diversity” is the alter we all kneel before, is it not? Or will the barracks be “segregated” as a life-saving measure? *Your* kids *first* in this brave new progressive world of social “interaction.” Or will people be able to “opt out” and send their kids to _private_ volunteer organizations in the same way almost all liberals eschew public schools for private ones for their own children–while forcing everyone else
to endure the mindless hell-holes the public ones have become in all too may cases? This is _exactly_ where Grim’s preference for a scheme that applies to “everyone” breaks down. How does one enforce participation by “the boyz in the hood” without armed insurrection breaking out? And you think they’ll _volunteer?_ And agree to be _supervised?_ Half the projects in this nation are no-go zones even during the day–and even for the police.
Part of me likes the idea of taking rich kids and making them shovel poop for a year alongside poor kids, but there’s also an unpleasant element of compulsion with any such scheme.
Also, this is clearly more of a social education scheme for rich kids than anything else; the poor kids don’t benefit much, and probably end up being worse off if they’re ambitious and would otherwise be trying to get to college. Another problem is many poor kids work to help support their families, and this would prevent _them_ from being gainfully employed, instead of being a sort of living museum piece for the edification of middle class and rich kids.
As a personal observation, I’ve had a fair amount of experience with ‘volunteers’ that come out for public service projects due to high school or college requirements. Most of that’s in building and maintenance of trails in public parks around the SF Bay Area, something I’ve done as a volunteer for about 20 years, as worker, crew boss and project lead and engineer.
Depending on the season, it can be pretty sweaty and/or muddy, so I’ve got respect for anyone who picks it as their service of choice. That said, I’ll routinely get twice as much work out of someone who shows up entirely on their own, compared to someone who’s there to get their service hours checked off. Motivation counts, whether you’re digging dirt, or in the military. I doubt Grim really wants to go back to the draft, please have a care on what you wish on those in the civilian volunteer sector.
Obama and AL’s maybe-maybe-not-coercive service plan is of course overs on what Mickey Kaus talked about some years ago in ‘The End of Equality’. The justification for putting the collectivist arm on a free citizenry, as I understand it, is social and economic stratification.
How about we go after that issue directly, assuming it can actually be documented? Maybe work on the education system, as several above suggested, since that’s pretty much the gatekeeping function for advancement in a knowledge economy. Anything between some real (and mandatory) competition for the incumbent education system to a complete overhaul of same to reflect our existence in a networked rather than industrial society. Of course, that would require the Dems to challenge one of their core constituencies, the public employees’ unions. I guess it’s a lot easier to threaten to turn government power on the citizens than to do that.
Grim, #48:
I suggest you try that line the next time she asks you to fulfill your commitment to jury duty. 🙂
I’m an engineer, Grim. I’ve tried on multiple occasions to serve on a jury, but they never let me….
And in civilized locations (I happen to live in one) there is a pretty easy way to defer jury duty– I was scheduled to serve something like two days after my dad had a heart attack, and the first day of service was to be the day of his absurdly multiple bypass surgery. In Chicago, there’s a number you call and you’re automatically given a deferment the first time. (They dismissed me, next time.)
Now, that said, I take your point. I am not an absolutist. I do not object to reasonable taxes, although I may differ on what’s reasonable. I do not object to jury duty, although the laughable sums paid out in many districts really do make extended service a hardship for some. I do not object to forced military service in times of extreme national duress, although I am far happier with a voluneer force for a great many reasons, etc.
But do you take my point? I believe strongly that these intrusions into private life should be kept as small as possible. Timothy at #49 picked up my practical, political, and philosophical trio and ran with it very well. Even above all that, though, I believe strongly that most people serve best– serve indirectly, for the most part, serve unintentionally and unknowingly, perhaps, but still serve best– when they are doing what they love, and doing what they believe in, for their own purposes.
I’ve got two big problems with mandatory service-
1. Its un-American. Why do young adults always get the shaft in this nation, particuarly via policies conveniently championed by those who wont have to participate.
2.The idea that the next Kennedy scion is going to be learning life lessons diggin ditches with the poor kid from the other side of the tracks may sound sufficiently pleasant for a 90210 episode, but we all know its bullshit and the rich will continue to get the favorable treatment that, after all, is the entire point of being rich in the first place. Basically you are just grabbing middle class kids and setting them back a couple of years from kicking the crap out of the Ivy League debutantes in the free market. Unintended consequence? Economic disparity increases.
All in the hopes that trustfund baby Special K will join with street smart Turbo and Ozone to learn a valuable lesson about civics and breakdancing. Too Saturday Afternoon TV special for me man. God knows if I was cattle prodded into something like this i would have spent the whole time getting high and figuring how to ditch out. Matter of fact that’s what i’d still be doing. Call me when for the next World War, otherwise i’ll find my own ways to help my community and enlighten myself thank you.
(The above was for comic effect only. I don’t smoke weed. I drink a lot of Jack Daniels.)
_But do you take my point? I believe strongly that these intrusions into private life should be kept as small as possible._
That I understand, and agree with as far as it goes. If it wasn’t clear from the example above, I think the judge I described was an utter jackass.
Actually, though, this is a useful lesson that a citizen may need to learn: I suspect the calls for Single-Payer Health Care would greatly diminish if people had the opportunity to enjoy government-provided health care in the military for a few years. Your desire to have a government official providing for your needs will likewise diminish every time you meet a two-bit petty tyrant like that judge, who is granted the power to arrest and imprison, and uses it to deliver high-horse lectures to honest farmers from his bench.
The other side of that coin is that we might see some bratty kids — and not only rich ones, but inner city ones also — shown that the Republic has a claim on them: that it doesn’t just exist to provide them with rights and benefits, but can honorably require their service as well.
In any event, all I’m asserting is that there’s nothing wrong with the concept _in principle_. Like jury duty, it is something that the Republic can do if it decides — through the Congress — that it needs to do so. I’m certainly willing to see us avoid it.
I also agree that there is nothing wrong with this in principle. I must say that I am shocked that Grim has not mentioned the militia as a precedent yet.
And conscription and militia service has been very difficult to execute without providing for special cases or exemptions. What to do about pregnancy, jobs that can’t go unattended, family dependents, mental impairments, special skills, etc. Each step away from a uniform standard opens the door for unequal treatment and undermines the egalitarian intent.
And I think Mark B’s point needs underscored. It’s not just that such a massive program would risk make-work projects (economic losses), it’s that people doing apparantly meaningless tasks will become more alienated from their country — the opposite of the intended result.
Look, I think we’re dealing with a serious american problem: disinterest in American society, especially among youth. They’re are two different plans being discussed, so let’s be clear what’s what:
AL is discussing essentially a massive extension of Americorps (that being non-mandatory).
Obama is discussing a mandatory plan for 50-100 hours of community service per student per year depending. It’s also a plan in its infancy, so will likely be altered/modified. Note: you don’t HAVE to do a program you don’t want too. But you have to find SOMETHING. Hopefully (as in the case of Grim) or as in my experience, you find something interesting and hopefully learn something about our society. That’s as good (or possibly better) than anything you’re going to learn in high school anyway.
Someone asked why students would want to do this? Why do you think students volunteer? To meet people, for leadership opportunities, for scholarship opportunities. Obviously, if everyone HAS to serve, the impetus will be on the best students to serve MORE. Even rich kids aren’t guaranteed a spot at Harvard or Yale. You want to demonstrate your strengths as a leader (or as a member of the community), here’s your chance to go above and beyond the requirement.
PD SHaw: It sounds like you had a badly implemented program that wanted a cross between volunteer work and an internship. Organized “deeds” are precisely the sorts of programs I’m talking about. Obviously, it needs to be somewhere that the service time can be recorded, however if students can demonstrate a independent accomplishment and the parents sign off on the hours, I would consider this. I would also give extensions/service relief for those:
a) with ill or recently deceased family members
b) working with learning disabled siblings
c) raising children and attending school simultaneously
OR other situations that could be worked with on a case by case basis with a school counselor. The point is too get students involved in their communities, but sometimes the family needs their time more.
Mitch: Jonah Goldberg is not a historian. This is primarily because he has no idea how to properly use primary sources (hint: you need to be fluent in italian or identify the translator to use italian as a primary source). Therefore, it’s not surprising that he uses bad translations, out of context quotes, and badly misrepresented opinions as primary sources. Sorry.
How about Robert A. Heinlein’s idea from _Starship Troopers_? National service is purely voluntary, but only people who have completed their national service get to vote. Lots of people don’t volunteer, and they don’t vote. (I’ll have to go back and check, but I think it’s national service that makes you a “citizen”, and hence entitled to vote. Everyone else is just along for the ride.)
Furthermore, you can express your preference for how you would like to serve, and the default is that you will be discharged after two years, but once you have taken the oath to serve, the Government (competent and benevolent in that novel) decides based on its needs what to do with you and when to let you go. (Of course, the novel takes place amidst a very serious war, so the term is extended.)
One more bit: they cannot reject a volunteer. They may have to create a make-work job for a couple of years, but that is still service, and still earns the vote.
“Loyalty. Love. Honor. A personal commitment to her defense. A personal commitment to her improvement.”
Perhaps I should have underlined the word “exactly” in my question.
“you owe her future generations a contribution to ensuring that they inherit a similar security for their persons, and the ancestral liberty that is their — your — our bithright.”
So if I spend as long as it takes working to prevent, and if need be overturn, this enormous infringement on the liberty of future generations that the collectivists on here are advocating, I’m good, right?
#4 from Glen Wishard at 2:10 pm on Jul 08, 2008
The people who worked in the WPA long ago *- speaking of those that did work -* were a mostly rural and small-town people who had done hard work since they were children.
_My father worked in the WPA in NYC. anything to back up the snarkiness of the bolded comment?_
Compulsory civilian national service is labor conscription.
Not only is this a bit overwrought, from what I read, Obama’s plan appeared to set the system up as a trade off for educationalassistance from the Govetnment. I do not think this is what Obama outlined. To my mind, it appeared to be more like an intern program.
#29 from bgates at 7:02 pm on Jul 08, 2008
I owe what, exactly?
I would be very interested in your answering that question yourself, BGates. Is the answer, Nothing? If not could you please enumerate?
My answer is “nothing”, _and_ I’ll enumerate.
If I do something for the country because I owe it, then once I’ve paid my debt I can stop. That’s how I handled my car payments. I think better of my country than that. What I do for my country, I do because I love it, and I love it because what little I know of history and the current state of the world convinces me it’s the greatest country ever, and because it’s my country.
Part of what I love about it, though, is that I am free to live my life and contribute to my community as I see fit. Grim says I owe the country loyalty, love, and honor. I give those to it freely, not because Grim says so, and not because Barack Obama came up with some measure of those things, and told me there would be something in it for me if I did what he wanted.
“The question is how, in a country as large as ours, we maintain some public space and maintain enough social equality to ensure that all have at least some measure of access to that space.” -he asked, over the internet.
Beard:
I was wondering if someone was going to throw that into the mix. Your description is correct – completing a term of federal service entitles you to vote, hold public office, and hold certain reserved jobs like police officer.
A key difference between Heinlein’s scenario and most real-world national service proposals is that it’s completely voluntary – not only is entrance voluntary, but so is continued service. You can resign from the service at any time, even in wartime. The stipulation is that no one who resigns is ever readmitted, so you permanently give up your chance of being a citizen.
I wonder if the non-compulsory nature of Heinlein’s federal service ruins it for some. Is making everybody do something (anything?) a good thing in itself – is it in fact the entire point? Is it offensive for people to have a choice, even if they’re only fictional characters?
Beat me, but I note that Heinlein is very popular with libertarians, but not so well loved by liberals. When he wrote this book, they even laid the f-word on him.
For grim, bgates and others:
bq. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. — John Stuart Mill
AND
bq. “I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget.” – Anon. (As far as I know.)
I would add to the first …safety and *comfort*…
Nortius Maximus, you said:
bq. More immediately, and less floridly: Israel is a country of 20k square miles kilometers (as the books usually say, ‘slightly smaller than New Jersey”) founded in adversity by zealots (ooh, that word!) only 60 years ago. I do not begrudge them their enacting mandatory service. I do not foresee such being fairly distributed here, nor enthusiastically adopted.
I would add that they have mandatory service *because they are surrounded by people who want to kill them all, every last one of them*. The ‘Final Solution’ of the Corporal from Austria was not an invention of the 3rd Reich but one of the Islamic world. Please refer to the body of work of Bat Ye’Or.
I would also make the point that even though we are not surrounded by those who wish to kill us all, unless you have been hiding in a cave both figuratively or literally for the last 7 years, we have an enemy who stated intention is to seek the end of our civilization. You may not believe them, I do.
Now, back to the thread – service. What is wrong with asking as a condition of membership in the group for some contribution to that group? Please do not provide specious arguments like it is ‘indentured servitude’ or some such. Argue the question. What are the pros and cons?
Pro- Gives you experience with something bigger than your own selfish needs. Gives you a sense of accomplishment that you can do something for something that is hard or difficult for you. I could go on and on.
Con – It does take a couple of years out of your life and does delay some things. But most young adults do that anyway. That is why it takes most more than 4 years to complete the college degree or tech school. I think they need the break to sort of do the self discovery thing. It does not hurt them to work some while they do it. If it is in service to the country, that cannot hurt.
I do agree there are circumstances where accommodations can and must be made. But you know what? I think those that have disabilities will be more than willing to do what they can to help. That young man with Downs at the grocery store is more appreciative of his small job sacking groceries and a a lot more pleasant that others.
/rant off
Bye, now!
/aside
For Nortius Maximus
I am in Israel right now, as Marc knows. I think I have some insight into the country.
‘Hobo:
bq. “I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget.” – Anon. (As far as I know.)
That little gem was the sig of someone who used to post in the Extro mail list. He derived that from David Brin, but that specific formulation appears to be his. {Nort looks around…} His name is Michael M. Butler. Credit where credit’s due.
I am in Israel right now, as Marc knows. I think I have some insight into the country.
Then you probably see more uniformity in the sense of existential threat there than you would here, no? 🙂
Following on Shaw@59 I would point out that one of the reasons America went from the WWII General draft by blind lottery to the post-war _Selective Service_ model was _exactly_ to devise a more flexible plan to accommodate the need for exemptions–but THAT flew in the face of egalitarianism and ultimately led to its vast unpopularity due to a sense of the public-at-large that it was “unfair.” (which it was if one believed that all should have an equal chance alike at being drafted and put under the gun).
Put coldly, the underlying philosophy/rationale of Selective Service was that it was more rational for the overall good of the nation to have a potential chemical engineer in school rather than in a fox-hole by luck of the draw where his future valuable contributions to the nation might be cut short. Conversely, fox-holes should be filled by–crassly put–cannon fodder incapable/less capable of lending their brainpower to the greater good in other ways. Other “vital” professions were also exempt–police, fire, teachers, nurses, etc.
Of course, even the “blind” draft by numbers of WWII that critics of selective service wanted to return to had exemptions for farmers, for example. Farmers skills were non-transferable in the short-run and they owned their own equipment and land which would have had to have been seized if they themselves would have been drafted–and who would have farmed more efficiently in their stead?
And that, my friends, is the horn of the dilemma.
Plans that are “fair” are not “rational”, and visa versa.
Grim:
Is the call to compulsory national service an appeal to patriotism? Alternatively, is it intended to instill patriotism in the young? Whose patriotism?
Are we going to turn every young person into a little Yglesias, or are we going to straighten all those little Yglesiases out? Either way, what exactly gives us the moral right to do that?
It seems obvious that a “values” definition of national service broad enough to accommodate everyone’s values would be so broad as to be incoherent, and I predict it would quickly become the most hated social regimen since Prohibition.
If, on the other hand, some definitional values are imposed through national service (as A.L. envisions it, I think) the question is not only whose values, but who is going to impose them and how. (Our other compulsory project, public education, has done a very poor job of instilling national unity, probably because it is usually trying to do exactly the opposite.) Indoctrination must begin with discipline.
We have three main models of mass discipline – the military, the public school system, and the prison system. Only the first is a notable success, and is politically unacceptable to the left. Unless you have a plan to quell the left, we are going to get something in between 2 and 3.
_I give those to it freely, not because Grim says so, and not because Barack Obama came up with some measure of those things…_
I don’t believe I’ve ever been mentioned in the same sentence with Sen. Obama before. I hope there won’t be cause for it to happen again.
In any event, you’ll never have to do _anything_ because _I_ say so. I have no power, and seek none; and I am always willing to disagree with someone.
Nevertheless, I think your conception — however philosophically attractive the concept of owing _nothing_ to America might be — is unrelated to the concept of government we actually have.
I mentioned the jury duty example above not only because of the way in which the court relates to prospective jurors, but because of the banality of the example. Mr. Shaw asks why I didn’t reference the militia, and it is for just this reason: the same reason I didn’t reference the draft. Jury duty is not about emergencies or unusual cases. It is about very ordinary cases.
We find that, every day, we have crime; and we have decided that, based on ancient and well-supported custom, juries of citizens must judge guilt in order to preserve our common liberty from subversion by the state. So, in order to preserve that liberty from that state, we give that very state power to summons any of us on any day out of our lives, and compel service for as long as necessary to try a case.
This isn’t about an existential threat; in other words, the reason I used jury duty was to avoid exactly the problem mentioned with regard to comparisons with Israel. This isn’t about invasion or war; and it isn’t about collapse of civil authority. Jury duty is about the very normal, ongoing, boring function of civilization.
It may be the case that the ordinary, normal function of our civilization could in some ways be improved by a service concept. I can think of arguments both for and against the idea. I think such a concept would have to be universal to be valuable: one imposed upon the young, the one group who cannot vote for or against it, would not be, unless the elders who can are ready to suffer it themselves. If they are, then I will be willing to hear more about the proposal.
Nortius Maximus-
He is now credited in my quotes file. Thanks.
Know which of Brin’s books that came from?
Glen: B1ng*.
‘Hobo: Umm, not sure about book(s). But see “his website’s Parting Thoughts page.”:http://davidbrin.com/parting.html
There you will find, in big print,
bq.
“I am a member of a civilization.”
bq.
(IAAMOAC)
It’s pretty likely that is the source of the middle sentence. The whole thing is worth a read. At least as often as a once-yearly trotting out of the Declaration of Independence. 🙂
If David Brin will forgive me, I’ll post the text of that page here because I think it’s very salient to the overall topic of service, as well. It’s so short it miiight just barely squeak in as “fair use”. I retain the copyright notice in the spirit of nothing-to-hide and will pull this if he ever says to.
bq. My Parting Thoughts
By David Brin, Ph.D.
bq. Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved.
bq. I believe it’s good that we have a rambunctious society, filled with individualistic and opinionated people. Serenity is nice — we all need some — but to hold it up above all other values has become a cheap cliché. Serenity alone never brought progress. Hermits on hilltops never solved a problem.
bq. The adversarial process — the tug and push of contrary views — helps us to improve, both as individuals and as a culture. Criticism is the only known antidote to error — elites shunned it, and their evasion spread ruin across history. We do each other a great favor (though it’s not always appreciated) when we help find each others’ mistakes.
bq. And yet…
bq. And yet, it also seems to me that we’d all be a lot happier, and better off, and more capable of dealing with criticism if each of us were to remember, now and then, to say the following phrase:
bq. “I am a member of a civilization.”
(IAAMOAC)
bq. This is more true now than ever, as we enter an edgy century of transition.
bq. Our society has many flaws, but if you ponder history and cantankerous human nature, it’s astonishing how far we’ve come. (Wouldn’t our ancestors have wanted us to be better?)
bq. We don’t say IAAMOAC often enough.
I have nothing else to add, other than that it seems like Robohobo and I agree on something… can that be correct?
Thanks everybody, good discussions help the week go faster.
Grim, #58:
Yes, I know your example was wry. As was my response about not being allowed to serve on a jury due to my engineering career. (It’s funny ’cause it’s true….)
And no, there’s nothing wrong in principle with encouraging some level of service. In detail and implementation, though, I tend to find many things wrong. I outlined a big practical problem with Obama’s “encouragement” plan above– encouraging local school board officials will end up, I’m certain, being extremely heavy-handed at local levels… not to mention, incredibly corrupt.
And I also think that, absent severe threats to the nation, that there would be prolonged court challenges to implementing anything even remotely direct: The thirteenth amendment, so far as I am aware, has not been repealed. (Yes, I am aware that this is not as simple as it could be; that the Supreme Court upheld the draft, for instance. But I would still expect serious court challenges on that subject.)
Alchemist, #60:
Look, I think we’re dealing with a serious american problem: disinterest in American society, especially among youth.
No, I think they’re just not interested in American society in the way you would prefer them to be. I also don’t think forcing, goading, or guitling time and labor out of people si a great way to get them to change their minds on this subject.
And on the larger, general subject of who owes what to which, let’s bear some things in mind:
1) The nation is not the government. Whether or not I owe the nation, or society, anything in particular, my point remains that it is not, except in limited contexts which I wish to limit as sharply as possible, up to the government to decide how best I should make that payment. My tax burden is high enough already without someone in Washington DC deciding that I owe time and labor on top of it.
2) Let us also recall that the state, and our government, is a construct of men made for the purposes of men, and not the other way around. I state this very clearly, very forcefully: The apparatus of the State exists for my benefit, not I for the benefit of the State.
I mean this fully, in a way I expect will irritate certain brands of both liberal and conservative. Cultural conservatives, for instance: I do not exist for the sake of having children to meet your demographic dreams, or marrying what you think of as an appropriately sexed partner to match your cultural ideals. But liberals, on the other hand: I do not exist for the sake of providing service because it fits your socio-economic ideals.
Simply, I exist. If I exist for anyone, I exist for myself. To the degree that I exist for anyone or anything else, that is my choice. To the extent that I don’t, that’s just something other people are going to have to get over. I bitterly resent legal, governmental attempts to force me into compliance with anyone’s view of the ideal society beyond the absolute minimum, because I don’t exist for you. I exist for me.
AL: I must admit that I’ve never read more of de Tocqueville than the usual excerpts you can’t avoid if you’ve ever taken a civics course or read anything on the subject of American politics. One of these days… about the same time I get around to reading Adam Smith.
But I really do think that the transition from ‘boy, the draft is neat – look how its wartime use creates a sense of tribal unity and egalitarianism which our American lack of “blood and soil” traditionalism has deprived us of’ to ‘hey, isn’t there some way we can get the benefits of that wartime denial of liberties to provide that sense of unity and cohesiveness without all the warfare and death?’ is a dangerous one.
Kids should be required to volunteer by their parents – it’s a moral obligation by the family and good for the child. This does not translate to “schools should make kids perform services for the government”, because a school and a government should have no uncompensated claim on child labor.
*ESPECIALLY* when talking about kids who haven’t achieved their majority. I thought progressives opposed child labor? Or is it only child labor which monetarily benefits the child and his family that is to be deprecated?
Has anyone actually looked at the socioeconomic breakdown of AmericCorps members, to see if a volunteer organization gets the kind of “social mixing” AL seems to want to achieve? What if we find that the rich kids stay away or the poor kids choose to work instead of provide their labor for free?
And if we decide that a certain level of patriotism is now a _mandatory_ virtue, to be instilled into citizens at 18 years of age via compulsory service, do we get an official license to question the resulting level of patriotism of political candidates? *cough*cough*
(FWIW I’m in the anti-mandatory service camp, for the reasons others listed above.)
Zeroing in again on the “micro” real-world, practical problems this concept engenders, as opposed to the philosophical overview much richly discussed here, I spotlight #78 where he observes the great potential for “corrupt” and “heavy-handed” official action at local levels. Let me relate a personal story:
In 1940, when the draft was renewed by Congress by a single vote, my Father was teaching high school in the little town of Woodriver, Illinois. Society was a lot less mobile in those days and he was the only “out-of-town” male of draft age around. The town’s quota for that first month was one (1). Guess who got his draft notice from the local draft board? In fact, as my Father told the story, he didn’t even wait for the official notice before he started packing his bags when the quota was announced.
The above vignette provides some insight, I believe, about human nature and the potential for programmatic abuse Marcus Vitruvius worries about.
PS: My memory failed me again.The draft was to _expire_ in Oct, 1941. It was at THAT time Congress extended by a single vote. My Father was part of the earlier,*OHIO* (Over the Hill In October) draft.
I took a step back, thought about it for a while, read the various comments, and I still have to come down against the idea of a national service program–AL’s voluntary one, or Obama’s (current) less-than-completely voluntary one.
On top of the philosophical/political-science arguments against it, it’s a program that just cries out for misuse, corruption, and abuse, and would undoubtedly steadily expand its reach until it becomes truly universal and mandatory. (Yeah, that’s a ‘slippery slope’ argument, I know, but it’s one well-informed by the fairly steady march of government intrusion into private life since the Revolution).
In short, I think it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to be playing around with. Unless you’re talking about the very limited and defined case of an imminent, organic threat to the nation requiring a military draft (or, if you will, the calling up of the militia) I think it would be incredibly corrosive to what rights we as individuals still have. And in some (communitarian) quarters, I think that’s exactly why it’s being proposed.
As for AL’s desire to increase the exposure of different socioeconomic groups to one another–I’m not sure how you get that (theoretically desirable) result without the program being universal and mandatory. And as a practical matter, there will always be exemptions, and it is not difficult to imagine who will qualify for those exemptions.
No sale for me, unless someone can construct an argument that will convince me that the benefit to society is worth the danger it holds for the rights of the people to the use and enjoyment of their own labor. I haven’t seen one yet in the discussion.
Unbeliever: I have no idea wether Americorps members are socially diverse, I would guess they’re mostly middle class students though (everyone I know has fallen safely in that category). Still, at the very least everyone there is exposed to areas of american poverty, school degradation, law degradation etc, so at the very least they get experiences outside of their regular neighborhoods.
Filbert: I just don’t see the slippery slope of a volunteer commitment. PeaceCorps has been around for at least 40 years and I have yet to hear complaints of misuse, corruption or abuse.
Filbert, #83:
I took a step back, thought about it for a while, read the various comments, and I still have to come down against the idea of a national service program–AL’s voluntary one, or Obama’s (current) less-than-completely voluntary one.
And I do want to stress (since I’ve been banging pretty hard on the idea) that a voluntary program– while not for me– doesn’t make my teeth itch in the way that a strong-armed approach does.
I do not want to stand in the way of anyone who wants to volunteer or serve. I do believe that what A.L. says about benefits to society overall has some merit. I just don’t want this to be intrusive, intimidating, and coercive… and I have too much experience of local school districts to think that it would be anything else as currently described.
The real problem as I see it with the Heinlein proposal is tied up with the provision to keep people in service way after the two-year term for reasons decided by the government. Can anyone else see the problem with that? Again as I see it, what would in practice happen with any 21st century government (certainly including the US and UK ones) is that anyone fool enough to go along with it would be in service for ever – or resign and lose his or her vote, having rightly decided that the use being made of him or her was inappropriate.
Of course, what would actually happen is just about the same as what would happen and did happen under conscription; the rich and powerful would find some sort of safe and comfortable service, for two years only, suitable for their esteemed offspring. So, as they usually do, said rich and powerful people would have found yet another way to keep the ultimate power (in this case the vote) in their hands.
Another proposal I have seen about is quite simple. Did you pay tax (over a certain amount) last year? You get to vote. Did you not? Then you don’t. This rather simple system would keep power out of the hands of both the workshy (who would otherwise vote for whoever would give them most free goodies) and the plutocrats with no intention of making their proper contribution and legions of tax advisers telling them how to keep their money in tax havens. Taxation without representation is an evil, and the cause of the American Revolution; representation without taxation is a worse one.
Personally, I also like the Heinelin idea of Coventry; the idea that for certain classes of crime, the punishment is to completely lose the services and protection of the civilisation whose rules you reject. Absent future tech, probably the best way to do this would be to take prisoners serving more than a certain length of term, dump them on an island with basic building and agricultural tools and materials – and leave them there, having first laid a minefield in the water around it. If they want to kill each other rather than co-operate so they won’t freeze or starve to death the first winter – well, that’s their problem.
Fletcher- I don’t see what crime & punishment has to do with civil service?
Fletcher Christian #86:
bq. Of course, what would actually happen is just about the same as what would happen and did happen under conscription; the rich and powerful would find some sort of safe and comfortable service, for two years only, suitable for their esteemed offspring. So, as they usually do, said rich and powerful people would have found yet another way to keep the ultimate power (in this case the vote) in their hands.
That’s generally true of _any_ system: the rich and powerful will use their riches and power to stay rich and powerful.
But for this specific example, this problem was largely mitigated by the unique structure of the armed forces Heinlein setup in _Starship Troopers_. Each branch of service had rigorous skill-based tests, including the psychic corps and pilot programs. The branches that actually went into front line combat–infantry, combat engineers, etc–had a strict “everyone fights” policy; at one point Rico mentioned that when the unit dropped into enemy territory, even the cook and the chaplain dropped, as well as the entire command structure all the way up to the generals.
The differences between the US Armed Forces and Heinlein’s cap troopers are quite obvious, and this isn’t quite the place to debate the merits or detractions thereof. But if we’re going to talk about the Starship Troopers model as a possibility, you really have to consider including all the little details in the setup that made it (theoretically) work as a whole.
#87 Alchemist:
The connection is really quite obvious. Any member of any society has both rights and obligations. If you are not prepared to accept the latter (in this particular case obeying laws similar to the present-day USA or UK regarding sanctity of life and property) then you don’t deserve, and shouldn’t get, the former (protection from assault and theft, provision of basic services, and so on).
Similarly, if you are not prepared to contribute to the expenses of government then you shouldn’t have a say in it. “No representation without taxation.”
A similar problem was addressed, unfortunately unsuccessfully, in the 1980s in the UK. The community charge (inaccurately called the poll tax) was an attempt to address one of the reasons for the incredible inefficiency, corruption and profligacy of local government in some areas of the UK; that a large proportion of those voting in elections for that tier of government had no financial stake in the outcome, because they didn’t pay any local taxes. The predictable result was gross overspending on goodies for the nonpayers of tax, and indeed gross overspending generally. The policy of ensuring that everyone contributed was eventually defeated by what amounted to civil unrest – including rioting in some places.
As a result, the UK still has grossly inefficient, corrupt and profligate local government. As does the USA, as I understand from what may be incomplete information.
This is yet another example of one group of people telling another group of people what they should do with their lives.
Capitalism, liberty, freedom, individual choice — these things work because each person is trusted to know what will benefit them (and those close to them) the most. Not everyone gets it right, but the result is overwhelmingly positive. By trusting the individual, we have empowered the individual in place of the inevitably tyrannical few who made up “government” in past generations.
Placing boundaries is all well and good, but when you find yourself drumming up ideas as to what other people can do with their own lives, you’ve crossed the line and need to find something more constructive to do. Stop meddling.
Just stop it.
We do seem to be developing a sort of reverse Starship Troopers system- IE more than half the potential electorate doesn’t pay federal income tax… and they are the ones electing those who decide on tax law.
I’m curious why it seems to be a progressive’s preocuppation to expose the middle class and wealthy to the poor, if via service or via mandatory participation in, say, social security… but the reverse doesnt seem to be the case. IE allowing the poor and lower middle class to opt out of the tax burden. This seems to be a one way street. I would tend to think people demand a lot more from their government (schools, social services etc) when they are paying for them than when they arent. Doesnt that argument follow this thread’s line of reasoning?
If there is a socio-economic split in this country, i would argue it is between the tax payers and the tax absorbers, and nobody seems eager to figure that one out.
Sorry, busy as heck and not much time to engage right now…
A few things, bottom-up.
First, to me, it’s as much about exposing poor kids to better-off ones as vice versa – both for the simple ‘broadening the doors of possibility’ of it, and because it’s the very poor who are as disconnected from our society as possible.
Next, it’s a nice college-sophomore thought that we’re all autonomous individuals and we should have a polity that springs, untarnished from our foreheads like Athena – but the reality is that the individualist polity that was founded here only has worked because it has been tied to a deeper set of cultures – and as those cultural underpinnings erode – either we find a way to replace them or we replace the polity – I’ll vote for the underpinnings because I like the polity.
Any such program will be unjust, intrusive, coercive, and problematic – at times. It will also – possibly – be a great tool for firming up those cultural foundations that many of us are a little worried about – not in any deliberate way, but in a bunch of unexpected and useful ways that tend to spontaneously happen when a group of people are given tasks in common.
A.L.
So then, out with it, A.L.:
Mandatory or non-mandatory?
You left it hanging in the basenote.
I’m honestly torn, but I’ll go with non-mandatory with strong incentives (major priority for pubic colleges & universities, some basic health care, etc.).
A.L.
AL: You are totally right in one respect in that everyone alive today has been the beneficiary of a supportive matrix formed by a culture and political system developed by those who went before, and thus for us alive today, the State preceded us as individuals and we are it’s progeny.The problem is that life is dynamic and the difficulty in firming up those cultural foundations you are so worried about may best be summed up in the old saying: “Is my grandfather’s ax still my grandfather’s ax if my father replaced the head and I have replaced the handle?” Given this eternal conundrum, efforts to, use a mechanism to insure the integrity of your grandfather’s ax which, in your own words, “unjust,intrusive, coercive,” and at times a “problematic” tool for achieving the results you so desire seem to be not only laced with a large amount of downside risk out of proportion to the upside potential, but it is also a way of avoiding more dismal conclusions about the second law of thermodynamics. In short, even at it’s best it is but a marginally effective band-aid for more deep-seated problems.
The sad fact is that entropy cannot be reversed, the only question for us is whether the pace of disorder and societal disinigration is rapid or comfortably slow. My personal motto is that everything in life is a double edged sword–so
there is always _some_ downside potential to any approach or form of social organization, ther desirability of each choice being the old Ben Franklin balancing test, Seen in this light,
while multi-cultural societies such as ours have
their advantages, they carry with them many downsides as well. I would suggest here that there is a limit to which the cultural glue that holds any society together can survive an endless erosion by not just a drip, drip, drip erosion of “diversity, but what has become a near flood-tide of “changeness” that threatens to turn this Republic into a tower of Babel. And while, yes I know, that no nation on earth is better situated to successfully absorb diversity because of the structure of our Constitution’s
care for minority rights and the fact that our nation is centered not on race per se, but a “dedication to a proposition” to which all sorts of people may rally to, there are limits to everything.
Untrammeled immigration(both legal and illegal) racial quotas, set-asides, affirmative action,
the “digital divide,” bi-lingual education (recently high-lighted by Obama) cultural “no-go” zones in our major American cities, you name it, all lead to the old question: “Can the Center hold?” And while it is true that there has been much material progress, there has also been cultural disinigration. Can a society simultaneously advance and decline at the same time? Undoubtedly yes–but not forever. “A House divided against itself cannot stand,” a fairly intelligent politician once said, and his admonitions are just as true today as in his, if not more so. Only problem is, truly addressing the problem(s) requires more moral courage and psychic/physical energy than most people can summon to gird their loins for the all to obvious heavy lifting involved. Hence ways to put a band-aid on the real problems such as the subject we are discussing now.
I’m a big believer (and participant) in volunteerism, but I just can’t get behind the service corps for the most part. If it’s mandatory, it’s involuntary servitude with nowhere near as good a justification as a military draft (which itself had better be a darn good one, in view of the problems with both the draft and the conscript army). If it’s voluntary but offers “strong incentives,” it strikes me as just another public tit, and as usual, it will be my taxes that pay for it.
The public school system was supposed to be the big mixer-and-leveler mechanism. Why it’s failing at that task is a hot-button topic, but hadn’t we better resolve that question before we extend the process another four years and give the students a paycheck and benefits to boot?
I apologize for the horrible punctuation and spelling in #95 as I re-read. My spell-checker is down and I was under time constraints. And yes, I know the difference between “to” and “too.”
My heels aren’t totally dug in against the prospect of some kind of voluntary program (expansion of Americorps, or otherwise), with incentives. I’m just don’t see how such a program could be structured so that it would bring in the kind of wide swath of American society that would meet Armed Liberal’s goal of exposing people from different socioeconomic groups to one another on a personal level.
Could be a failure of vision on my part, and maybe anything to increase that contact between the social strata is better than what we have now. I’ll go with that thought for the purposes of constructive and amiable discourse.
The practical question is: how do you structure the incentives for a voluntary program so that enough of the “haves” see it as beneficial to them to participate? It’s my (again, possibly flawed) perception that the “haves” are, if anything, more politically diverse than the “have-nots” in our society. If your incentives bring in the progressive, communitarian- or socialist-leaning “haves” but not so much the conservative, libertarian, lassez-faire “haves” (or vice versa) then you’re not really achieving the goal you’re after.
So, if y’all are game, let’s dig into the detail of what incentives you can offer in a voluntary program, such that all socioeconomic strata and political leanings of those strata have an approximately equal incentive to participate in a national service program. Free post-secondary education is not a huge incentive for the “haves” who can afford it anyway, and if you’re inclined to Grim’s suggestion to throw it open to all age groups, isn’t attractive to those who’ve finished their formal education.
Maybe you give an extra 5% deduction off of the income taxes paid by participants of the program, in addition to subsidized post-secondary education? Something more/else? One size won’t fit all, so the program will need a range of incentives that target all of society’s economic strata.
I’m still inclined to believe that such a program, even one that at first is voluntary, will ultimately be destructive of liberty, but I’ll play along, as I’m well aware that I can occasionally be wrong.
Filbert: If I were to give away one thing that would ultimately help students it would be this : college loan refunds. I know alot of studnets who would gladly give up 1-2 years of their life for removing even part of the 20-50 thousand dollars they have on their heads.
Trust me: I know some people in the US military that joined purely because of that fat bonus, loan repayment, or had nothing else to do and wanted to move from home.
There are patriots in the military as much as their are nihilists. Being in the military does not suddenly make you appreciate or like America – Especially if you are conscripted in the military.
And btw, some people actually end up liking and living in Germany, Italy, or Korea after being stationed there since the US likes to maintain a ridicuously expensive overseas presence (currency rates, fuel prices, status of forces agreements/kickbacks, etc) and is so interested in subsidizing other countries’ security despite getting actively shat on by host nations (Turkey, EU, Korea).
It’s easy to see why they might like it. Germany, Italy, and South Korea are prosperous and peaceful societies, the sort of places anyone might like. It’s as if some unseen force has been protecting them and encouraging their development.
…as if some unseen force has been protecting them and encouraging their development…
…spooky…whatever could it have been?
A.L.
Who could it beeee, who could it beeeee…. Oh, I don’t know, could it beeeee…
SATAN?!!
/churchlady
You’d think so, sometimes. 🙂
It’s not me that thinks so, it’s the staff and visionaries of “Qaedant…”:http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/07/the-q-is-for-qu.html
(h/t Iowahawk)
Nort – that’s one of the funniest things that retro clown has ever done.
A.L.
Aside from all of the problems with this proposal, consider this:
All programs eligible for enlisting our young people would have to be ‘qualified’ by…a some government bureaucracy dominated by liberals and Democrats, just as almost every bureaucracy in the federal government is. You would see programs set up by semi-criminal organizations like ‘Acorn’ highlighted for service, while programs initialized by conservative organizations such as the NRA and the Salvation Army, not to mention the Boy Scouts, would be beyond the pale.
In short, this kind of scheme has long been proposed by the Democratic Party, for it is a fantastic tool for the wide-spread propagandizement and political conditioning of America’s youth…and at government expense, to boot.