Co-blogger Jim Lindgren has done an excellent job of criticizing the "Service Nation" proposal for up to two years mandatory "national service," eventually to be imposed on all Americans.
As Jim explains in his first post, Service Nation is backed by a wide range of prominent politicians, activists, and philanthropists, including several potential 2008 vice presidential candidates. This impressive list of backers heightens my previously expressed concern that proposals for government-imposed forced labor are entering the political mainstream and may be on the road to enactment. Other prominent supporters of mandatory national service (cited in the post above) include Charles Rangel, the late Bill Buckley, Rahm Emmanuel, and Bruce Reed, President of the center-left Democratic Leadership Council. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has endorsed mandatory national service in the past, though (as far as I know) he has not reiterated this view in recent years.
The fact that mandatory national service is attracting the support of numerous mainstream, centrist politicians and activists is a sign of its political viability. These people are unlikely to endorse any major proposal that could damage their political prospects. Another political factor in its favor is the fact that the targets of such proposals are almost exclusively young people - a group with very little political influence. The combination of powerful backers and weak victims is always a political advantage.
I don't expect mandatory national service to be enacted in the near future. But it might well be adopted through a slow process of accretion over the next few years, perhaps by the Service Nation target date of 2020. For example, one can imagine an initial proposal that merely requires mandatory service as a condition of receiving federal student loans (as many national service advocates propose). Once that law is enacted, critics will claim that it is "unfair" for relatively affluent students to escape this obligation by paying for their tuition with private funds. The law could then be amended to cover all college students. At that point, many would consider it unfair that college grads are required to serve, while other young people are not. Eventually, the law could be expanded to impose mandatory national service as a condition of getting a high school diploma. Obviously, these requirements would have to be imposed on students in private schools and colleges as well as public ones. Otherwise, they would not be truly "universal," as national service advocates insist they must be. Other slippery slope paths to mandatory national service are also possible. The scenario I outline is just one of several plausible possibilities.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Service Nation States that It Does Not Support Mandatory National Service:
- McCain's Time Magazine Essay on Patriotism Touches on Service.--
- McCain Campaign “studying options for national service.”--
- Why Mandatory National Service is Unconstitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment:
- The Mainstreaming of Forced Labor:
- Service Nation, Part III: Mandatory Community Service is a Basic Assault on Anglo-American Liberty.--
- Service Nation, Part II: The Goals of Its Leader.--
- Service Nation, Part I: Time Magazine Announces Public Service Campaign.—
Obama has proposed a $4,000 tax credit to college students if they do 100 hours of community service.
And he has proposed that the government require that 25% of work-study funds be devoted to community service, rather than all devoted to campus employment.
Service Nation's plan and other similar proposals would require all young people to serve, whether or not they receive specific government benefits or not. And the high school and college proposals I outline would presumably apply to private colleges and schools as well as government ones. Otherwise, they wouldn't be truly universal, as advocates want them to be.
Also, is there any easy way to defeat this? I really don't like where the political calculus for this is heading.
The tragedy is that the left, after four decades of an almost exclusive diet of continental philosophy, have forgotten American (and, yes, Anglo too) traditions of pluralism, and thus are more interested in fighting the right over who gets to control this new (model?) army instead of the legitimacy of its existence.
The march through the institutions nears fruition.
It would have to be overturned by an army of 18 year olds who didn't have enough motivation to somehow dodge this new draft. 100 percent certain there will be pressure releases (ways for motivated teenagers to dodge the program) such that pent up frustration doesn't threaten the program politically.
I'll also note that some legal "Professional Responsibility" requirements suggest that lawyers donate both time and money every year to very specific groups of people. As much as you can rationalise that it's the price of joining the profession, it's pretty clear that we don't require teachers to give out 50 hours of free tutoring to inner-city folks, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters to build homes for low-income people every year - because that would be absurd.
Perhaps it is because I'm still somewhat of a Young Person myself, but I fail to see the perverse fascination that adults have with making sure that kids learn their lessons. Forced "community service" does not serve the community - a community which contains young people as well as old, nor is it "service" in the "volunteer" sense of the word.
All this really teaches young people is that, when they are old, they too can force their values upon other people, and force weaker (either politically or otherwise) groups to pay the price for their morality. Kids are remarkably good at sensing hypocrisy, and these proposals reek of it - the lofty notion that community service is a wonderful thing, so good that it trumps the right to live one's life according to one's own dictates, but those who find it so worthwhile can't be bothered to do it themselves. Ugh.
(And, as I pointed out in an older thread, a fair amount of "military" work nowadays is transporting food hither and yon or doing police work and nation building.)
If these arguments against "involuntary servitude" have any merit, they would apply to the military draft, as well.
So guess what happened: the union got itself on the authorized "community service" list, and would literally sign off on the hundreds of hours of "community service" without requiring the union member to do anything at all -- except vote the right way, of course.
Why is it that liberals crave controlling other people, even to the extent of taking away a year or two of their lives? This country really grew and prospered after indentured servitude and slavery were abolished. Now odumbo and company want a piece of your kids' lives for their new "force," in return for peanuts.
C'mon, libs, tell us how patriotic this controlbot idea is. We might as well move to Cuba and join the rest of the state-owned proletariat. At least they have nice weather there.
Sheesh. You little dictators have been around the UN way too long.
Yeah, imagine that, someone having a problem with involuntary servitude. The mind boggles.
True. That's why the draft only happens in times of war. Are you claiming there is a similar national emergency that this measure is intended to address?