Ezra Klein: National Service

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May 23, 2007

National Service

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

It looks like Medium John Edwards, at least on the campaign trail, is vaguely in favor of mandatory national service, though presumably allowing people fulfill their service requirements by joining a beefed up Americorps. This is the sort of issue that left-of-center types often have mixed feelings about, for reasons Kevin Drum outlined backwhen he was the Calpundit.

On the stump this strikes me as decent politics, as a way of promoting what you might call "national greatness liberalism". You could package it with a moratorium on base closings and support for ROTC at schools that cancelled it during the Vietnam era, and make a real Sistah Souljah moment out of it. Point out that it's bad for the nation to have an Army that doesn't match the demographics of America and encourage students at some Dirty Hippie school like Weslyan or Hampshire College to join the military. After all, if elites and the upper middle class knew more people who would be fighting in war, maybe they'd be less likely to support war.

As a policy, well, that's a bit different. Obviously the devil is in the details, but a number of democracies, notably Switzerland, Israel, and the Social Democratic Paradise of Denmark, have a mandatory service component and do just fine.

May 23, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

I doubt that that a national service would be anything besides a universal pain-in-the-ass that accomplishes nothing, makes a whole segment of the population cranky, and costs a lot. Besides, national greatness is a crock.

In addition to that: I don't want to; I wouldn't be affected, unless it took in people in their middle twenties, but such a sentiment is enough for me to oppose imposing it upon the forthcoming generations. It was enough that I was dragged through the mandatory educational system four twelve years while I was considered a minor (I'm excluding high school, which I could've dropped out of, but didn't because that would've been foolish).

Posted by: Paludicola | May 23, 2007 10:37:03 AM

Israel is in a special situation, where maintaining a large military is necessary, under the current imperial political consensus, and probably for a decade or two after that. And even then, there are lavish exemptions for politically-favored groups (e.g., right-wing religious nuts).

The other countries haven't fought too many wars recently, I notice. Hmmmmm....

Posted by: Barry | May 23, 2007 10:40:20 AM

Any service must be military service. To include other forms of service is to create safe-havens for the wealthy. You will see the wealthy steered towards Amercorps. There must also be no exemptions for college, or anything but the most terrible of afflictions.

Palu, at this point there's very little difference in lifetime earnings between highschool dropouts and highschool graduates. For most people, those last few years are wasted ones as they won't be able to afford college anyway. I

Posted by: soullite | May 23, 2007 10:49:48 AM

I've always been a fan of national service ideas as long as they include military alternatives like Americorps. It would be great if the range of alternative options was fairly wide to allow people to volunteer in an area related to their eventual career.

Posted by: eriks | May 23, 2007 10:50:34 AM

Any service must be military service. To include other forms of service is to create safe-havens for the wealthy.

Not just that. The left whined about the draft in the sixties and wanted an all volunteer army. Now we have an all volunteer army and they are still whining. The meme is that it's still forced for economic reasons.

It's all a crock.

Soullite is correct in that conscription must be universal and it must be military. Any variation on this will not be as fair.

Bring back the draft!!

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 23, 2007 11:22:39 AM

package it with a moratorium on base closings and support for ROTC at schools that cancelled it during the Vietnam era, and make a real Sistah Souljah moment out of it. Point out that it's bad for the nation to have an Army that doesn't match the demographics of America and encourage students at some Dirty Hippie school like Weslyan or Hampshire College to join the military. After all, if elites and the upper middle class knew more people who would be fighting in war, maybe they'd be less likely to support war.

This has always struck me as one of the dumbest hobbyhorses of the "communitarian" "left" in the US -- an idea whose support among the under-25 population is precisely zero. Way to reel in the youth vote!

Reducing support for war by imposing mandatory military service makes as much sense as increasing support for universal health care by dumping plutonium in the drinking water.

Posted by: moron | May 23, 2007 11:25:56 AM

First of all, let me suggest that the phrase "medium John Edwards" is confusing. Unless that association was intentional?

A moratorium on base closings, in a vacuum, seems substantively bad. There obviously is a constituency for it and it just means the status quo, so it could easily be worth offering as a tradeoff for something good, but I'd treat it as something to be accepted rather than actively pushed for. Pork-barrel spending is pork-barrel spending.

As for the Army's demographics being unrepresentative of the rest of the country, I agree it's bad, but is it new? What would such a chart have looked like in 1968 or, say, 1993?

Sorry I don't have anything more substantive to say, but this seems like one of those issues which is emotional for tangential reasons, and I'm even more hesitant because, being 24, I'm unfamiliar with Vietnam, the biggest of those tangential reasons.

Posted by: Cyrus | May 23, 2007 11:29:03 AM

Neil sez: a number of democracies, notably Switzerland, Israel, and the Social Democratic Paradise of Denmark, have a mandatory service component and do just fine.

I guess you may feel that some early AM snark is appropriate, but I object to your characterization of Denmark as a 'Social Democratic Paradise'. I guess this could be characterized even more negatively (The People's Republic of Denmark?), but your words are the words of right wing ideologues. Social Democracy is not socialism, and it is not communism.

Your possible 'snark' about Denmark doesn't contribute to this discussion.

On the topic at hand, I also (with Fred, as unlikely is that may be) think that return to the military draft should be law, without possibility of exemption. Since this would affect such a small percentage of age-eligle persons (male and female), I also see values in requiring non-military national service for those not-selected for military service (but not as a user-selected way of avoiding military service). But that is moot, because neither form of required national service is anywhere near a practical political reality.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 23, 2007 11:43:18 AM

Any service must be military service. To include other forms of service is to create safe-havens for the wealthy.

No, it also creates safe havens for the poor that do not, in fact, wish to join the military, but believe they have no other out, because they are aggressively recruited by the military and the "voluntary" service organizations are not set up to make use of their contribution.

Posted by: BruceMcF | May 23, 2007 11:45:10 AM

Reducing support for war by imposing mandatory military service makes as much sense as increasing support for universal health care by dumping plutonium in the drinking water.

The rationale is that, if you or your children are in harm's way and would be the ones being sent to fight, it would make you think a lot harder about the reasons of being sent.

The draft in Vietnam had too many 'exemptions' and 'deferments' (loopholes) and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew which branches of service to join to get out of going to SEA. (If you coundn't afford to sit in college for an extended time.)

This is NOT your grand-dad's National Guard today. Back then, they had mostly outdated/outmoded equipment that was unsuitable for actual combat. After Vietnam, they upgraded the Guard and Reserves with the latest and greatest (or at least more modern), making them much more attractive for deployment.

if Americorps (or the Peace Corps) is an option, it must be open equally, and NOT just a haven for the children of the influential.

Posted by: DaveE | May 23, 2007 11:55:18 AM

This is a fantastically shitty idea.

Posted by: Christmas | May 23, 2007 11:58:13 AM

I hear what folks are sayin' about making it military-only to keep the rich kids from copping out. But there's a whole lotta jobs that need doin' here that could be alternatives.

Health care's too expensive and there's a huge nursing shortage. Well then, I hear there's a whole lotta ass needs wipin' in the brain injuries units, that requires skill most people already have (or at least really, really ought to have learned by 18), and I dunno that any nursing unions would mind having interns to help them with said task. Is that an "out"?

My pie-in-the-sky conception of mandatory service is simply civil-service, which military service would be a subset of. And I wouldn't necessarily make it mandatory in the do-it-or-you're-doing-time sense, but there's a certain appeal to making it a Heinlinesque "Voting is for stakeholders, civil-service guarantees citizenship" kinda carrot...

Which runs right up against the wall of feasibility. Meh.

Posted by: chiggins | May 23, 2007 12:02:30 PM

So you do mandatory service or what happens exactly? You get fined? Imprisoned? I guess I'm missing the point of what this is supposed to accomplish.

Posted by: Ron | May 23, 2007 12:22:24 PM

Cyrus: good point about "Medium John". I blame Atrios.

I don't know if the situation w/ the Army demographics is getting better or worse. It got somewhat closer to US demographics right after 9/11. But I think recent recruting classes are further: more rural, more working class, etc. Numerous studies have shown that family income is the best predictor of recruting rates.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | May 23, 2007 12:23:30 PM

Don't make it mandatory, but there are hundreds of thousands of public service jobs which need to be done, particularly for limited amounts of time. We've been travelling around the US, staying mostly on federal and state land, and so many jobs and services are being outsourced to private firms, including the operating of most NPS campgrounds in the western states. This is unbelievably bad, and is a step in the corporatization of public lands in the US.

We need a new CCC - to clear underbrush from national forests neglected for years by administrators too stupid or afraid to allow for controlled burns. We need new low-impact DoI and USDA-administered campgrounds, to handle the large seasonal crowds, despite the newly privatized "public" campgrounds won't be filled to capacity every weekday. We need trails to be maintained, or eradicated, based on the needs of the local wildlife, not just the hikers, ATV and snowmobilers.

There are so many time-specific jobs which could be handled by a volunteer "national service" corps. As far as these jobs being "easy outs" for the wealthy - really now, how much time have you spent in the backcountry of the US West, with no air conditioning, no shower, no Starbucks and no cell-phone service?

Posted by: MB Williams | May 23, 2007 12:23:30 PM

Jim: I'm not trying to demean Denmark. I'm trying to point out that this policy is perfectly compatible with Social-Democratic governance.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | May 23, 2007 12:27:19 PM

Any type of mandatory service is un-American - whether it be conscription into the military or into a senior citizens center. We abolished indentured servitude, we abolished slavery, we abolished the draft, I see no need to bring any of these things back into a modern society.

On the other hand, full-ride college scholarships with a living stipend all tied to voluntary public service (military or otherwise) is decidedly American. Money for something is the American Way after all, and it would be a far better investment than a lot of the crap we currently invest in.

The wealthy will wriggle out of it, but something that should be obvious by now is that the wealthy will wriggle out of ANYTHING. That's part of being wealthy -- the ability to not do crap you don't want to do. The way to get the wealthy to go along is to make it obnoxiously shameful that anyone would even try to dodge out of it, even if they have the money to do so. I don't see that attitude cropping up in the US in any generation currently living, but if you want to force the wealthy to do something without using shame as a motivator, you had better be ready to take up arms and break out guillotines because the model you're looking at is the French Revolution.

Posted by: NonyNony | May 23, 2007 12:47:03 PM

Instead of mandatory national service with non-military options, we should eliminate the peace-time military altogether, and only have a military when we are in a declared war.

Posted by: Lukeness | May 23, 2007 12:49:21 PM

Considering that we live in a country and culture that practically worships children, and parents just barely require their own children to refrain from being complete monsters in public, it is hard to imagine a time when the US will actually ask our youth to do something meaningful and useful for a couple of years, and then make it mandatory. We already have parents who are quite viciously opposed to "forcing" their kids to learn science and history in school, lest it offend their delicate religious sensibilities - you think these parents will ever ask their kids to clean bedpans and change linens in a VA hospital? Hell no - and by the way little Braxton here's a brand new Wii to help you get over the trauma of even having to think about doing such terrible things, sweetie.

Posted by: sprocket | May 23, 2007 12:50:04 PM

Who says that national service should be visited only on the young? Suppose that six months were required every ten years, providing a modest salary and generous tax breaks. How would that change the political calculus?

Posted by: Jim M | May 23, 2007 1:14:51 PM

It seems that many who advocate National Servitude are 20-something policy analysts who did not serve in the Army. Since the Army is now accepting general volunteers up to age 34, I am curious as to why these analysts don't go out and sign up for 2 year themselves since they deem it so important to the heath of the Nation.

Cranky

Posted by: Cranky Observer | May 23, 2007 1:18:21 PM

When I was between ages 18 and 25, I supported mandatory national service. Today, I still support it, but much less enthusiastically.

It might encourage citizenship and other virtues, and it might benefit the Country a lot. It would provide a lot more soldiers and service-members.

It would be expensive to run, and it contradicts our current attitude and culture. As I grew up, I realized that our National culture is not exactly the one I wanted. I also realized that we could only change it so much. Mandatory National Service is not the place where I would put my emphasis.

Also - the draft wasn't universal. Between the lottery system and the ability to get exemptions, a lot of people did not have to serve. Whatever we do, we should not bring that type of system back.

Posted by: MDtoMN | May 23, 2007 1:38:32 PM

Cranky - many people who advocate a tax increase do not send the IRS extra money. Many people who support a gas tax do not purchase gas as though it were taxed. Does that shock you? Let me explain - many policies are desirable if applicable to everyone, but one might choose not to take that course of action individually.

First, one more soldier doesn't make a huger difference, 100,000s more would. Second, many who support mandatory National Service believe it would change the culture and political calculus in ways that would make service more appealing. Third, doing service for 3 years would be a big career sacrifice if not everyone does it. If everyone does it, not so much of a sacrifice.

Posted by: MDtoMN | May 23, 2007 1:42:39 PM

Any type of mandatory service is un-American

Tell that to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

It seems that many who advocate National Servitude are 20-something policy analysts who did not serve in the Army.

Yeah, I do wonder about that. I don't think it should be limited to 18-19 or 18-22 year olds. Something like 18-25 or even 18-34 as the Army is today. Or, as someone suggested, six months every ten years, though that's even further into dorm-room bull-session material. I'm at least starting to "do my part", which I'll cover next week.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | May 23, 2007 1:44:24 PM

There's no point in talking about national service; it's a waste of everyone's time. The wealth class will never accept letting their children "waste" a couple of years of their lives in the Army or Americorps or whatever, and everybody with a brain (which obviously includes Edwards) knows it. I actually think it's a decent idea, but I get aggravated when I see it brought up, because it's so obviously unattainable. Look what happened when we still had a draft: the well-off made sure that deferments for education were available, so their children wouldn't have to serve. We need to pick our battles with the wealth class; getting some kind of national insurance past them is also going to be almost impossible, but that's where the resources need to be concentrated.

Posted by: beckya57 | May 23, 2007 1:52:48 PM

I'm probably too old to get drafted, but if they'd tried, I'd dodge it for sure and I'd encourage everybody to dodge it. Our solution to an out of control president who starts optional wars is to give him a LARGER army and inexhaustable supply of soldiers to send to their deaths fighting for incoherent missions murdering innocents around the world? Is anybody who has argued for the draft in this comments section actually draft-age? If not, may I suggest you shut the hell up and think for a second before you send a generation to their pointless deaths? If it comes down to it, I'd rather do prison time than army time. There is no way I'm going to kill anybody for George or anybody like him. If we get invaded (note to wingnuts: 9/11 was not an invasion) and have an ongoing battle on our borders (note: this will never happen), then we can start talking about a draft.

Posted by: Patrick Casey | May 23, 2007 1:58:08 PM

Actually, I do have more substantive thoughts on it. Speaking of Atrios, this reminds me of his opinion of the people who agree with the Iraq War but criticize the execution. (Sorry to apparently get off-topic, I swear I have a point.) He argues regularly, and in my view persuasively, that the attitude is naïve at best, because Bush has amply proven to be unwilling to admit error or change course, so the only meaningful realistic choice is between opposing the war or supporting Bush's war.

It could easily come out to be the same thing with a national service requirement. You don't get your ideal version of the program, you get a program designed by committee and who knows if what sold you on it is still attached. And I'm not talking about under Bush, but in general. This isn't a specifically targeted federal agency which happens to work in an unconventional way, this is an ongoing effort to... well, other than promoting ~~jingoism~~ national greatness liberalism, what exactly? People have talked about the military vs. non-military question, and whether the work would be busy-work or would offer competition with union work or something else entirely, and more details. But would you still be willing to support a national service program if those issues were decided in the other direction from what you want?

There are indeed a lot of things the government or someone should be taking care of that they aren't. But the solution to insufficiently maintained parks is to properly fund the existing NPS, USDA and Department of the Interior by raising taxes or cutting spending in another area. Not to draft a few million people for national service that might or might not wind up doing some of the things the CCC did 80 years ago in a completely different situation.

Posted by: Cyrus | May 23, 2007 2:02:55 PM

I couldn't do it. I have no respect left for the office of the president or for the federal government as a whole. If Bush asked me to feed his plants or hold a door open for him, I'd tell him to shove it - let alone requiring me to fight or do some dumbass beurocratic nonsense. My businesses have made 20 million dollars and provided work for hundreds of people in the last five years - if I'd been drafted, none of that would have happened for me, my investors, or my employees. Would the nation have been better served if I'd spent those years killing brown people or picking up trash in the public parks?

Posted by: princelyfrank | May 23, 2007 2:17:08 PM

I'll merely repeat something I posted on a comment thread over at Eschaton:

As far as I can tell, the Constitution does not empower the federal government to provide for mandatory national service, except for the Army and Navy. The only way the FedGov could encourage national service is by making federal benefits--student loans, govn't ensured mortages and the like--is by making them contingent on national service. That is even worse. The rich don't need such benefits--they can pay for schooling and private mortgages (or pay for their housing with cash)--and the poor probably can't use them. Such a program would be very much a class-based assault on the middle class.

Posted by: raj | May 23, 2007 2:23:39 PM

Any type of mandatory service is un-American

Tell that to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Shrug. All three supported forced conscription. Washington also supported slavery and slaveholders. Roosevelt was perfectly willing to appease racists to form political coalitions. I'm sure if I knew my history better I could find something appalling about Lincoln too. They were three men with 18th and 19th century values, many of which we no longer find applicable today, so throwing their names out there is kind of meaningless -- it's not like the country was founded on a fundamental idea of forced public service, but it was founded on a fundamental idea of liberty.

And forced servitude of any kind is anti-liberty, no matter how egalitarian you want to try to make it. Whether that is by legislating forced servitude in a militia, forced servitude at the local homeless shelter, or forced servitude at an Army Base in Iraq. Giving choices over what kind of servitude you can indenture yourself to doesn't make it better. A better proposition is to make it a contract between equals, and not the government forcing a decision onto the backs of its citizenry.

Posted by: NonyNony | May 23, 2007 2:36:33 PM

I'm amused to see, upthread, that Jim thought I wrote this post. I talk about John Edwards so much that all Edwards posts are reflexively attributed to me!

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | May 23, 2007 2:37:35 PM

Edwards is taking a page from Clinton's 1992 campaign where his most popular (per Washington Post polls) proposal was "National Service." He got through the whole year selling it as a college money scheme for everyone. Unlimited college money repaid with "a year or two" of rewarding work meeting "unmet needs." The resulting Americorps is nothing like what Bill Clinton was picturing for the rube audiences of parents with high school age kids.

Americorps is very expensive. Thats why its small. These are created jobs that cannot replace existing federal workers. The cost of creating "service" programs and managing them is pretty high. Some Americorps jobs cost the government over $30,000/year.

Posted by: Ksren | May 23, 2007 2:56:30 PM

You work in Chuck Grassley's office, Ksren? Because that's the exact same crap about AmeriCorps "jobs" he was spewing in the mid-90s, when National Service was one of the GOP's favorite punching bags. The sort of math supporting your claim is akin to taking GMs fiscal year budget and then dividing it by the number of GM employees to arrive at some ridiculously astronomical "cost" per job.

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Posted by: Donte Gold | May 23, 2007 4:31:06 PM

This would be involuntary servitude, would it not?

Do we take the 13th Amendment seriously, or don't we?

Posted by: Keith Thompson | May 23, 2007 4:34:50 PM

I can appreciate the desired effects of mandatory service. But it would take more than a generation to have people doing so without extreme resentment. Our notion of freedom would have to change dramatically. Whatever form the service would take, military or not (and I agree with others that it would have to be military otherwise you're going to have cushy niche service options for the privileged), it would play like a military draft: forced service or jail.

And the ways this could go wrong...oh, man. There would be a fight to privatize service methods. Bet on that. So there would be huge opportunities for wasted tax dollars. And to avoid fanatical, extreme nationalism to creeping into some service options, again, it seems military service is the best option to keep a lid on that. (Strange as that is to say.)

As I said, I like the desired results of mandatory service but still my gut reaction was no f****ng way. I've been paying taxes since my first paycheck at fifteen years old. I continue to see about 38% of my paycheck go bye-bye. I've given enough. Now my reaction changes as I think through it but don't count on everyone to think things through...we are the people who elected George Bush twice.

When I see that we give a s**t about each other and our collective welfare enough to enact national healthcare and make it work without huge waste, then I'll start to think people would buy into mandatory service and the collective benefit to the nation and society behind it.

Posted by: Gabe | May 23, 2007 4:36:49 PM

This would be involuntary servitude, would it not?

No, it would not. It's called military service and has been practiced constitutionally for many years previous to the all volunteer army. Do you also rail against those who the state incarcerates?

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 23, 2007 4:45:31 PM

> No, it would not. It's called military service
> and has been practiced constitutionally for
> many years previous to the all volunteer army

The Constitution specifically grants the right to raise an Army, which is presumably the basis for the constitutionality of the military draft. Can you point me to the equivalent section of the Constitution authorizing compulsory civilian service?

Cranky

Posted by: Cranky Observer | May 23, 2007 5:44:07 PM

Universal national service would cost a whole bunch of money. I think a lot of folks overestimate what kind of value for money our country would get from hiring every 18-20 year old. For starters, there absolutely has to be non-military options, because many young people are physically unfit for military service. Once you get beyond the military, how many jobs are there that can be done by recent high school graduates? And remember, we are talking about programs that would employ not only the 4-5 million people who turn 18 each year, but also the folks who would train and supervise them.

If this is *mandatory*, we can't get by with promising tuition or paying folks in kind with training. We would have to pay them enough to live or provide living quarters for them. We'd almost certainly have to cover insurance. And even then, some people would find service a financial hardship for them and their families (even in WWII heads of households could be exempted as 3A). The big point is, even trying to cut costs down to the bone, salaries and benefits would cost 40-50 billion annually at a minimum . . . and that wouldn't include costs of actually doing stuff.

I can't see how this would possibly be worth it.

Posted by: leanmc360@aol.com | May 23, 2007 6:14:17 PM

This is a stupid idea whose time should never come.

"Now, from the makers of Jury Duty....it's Compulsory National Service!"

F-that.

What do you propose the punishment be for those kids who refuse to go? How many years in jail do they have to serve? Or, if there is no jail, what kind of fine can the rich kid pay to get out of it? Or do you compel people to do their service at gunpoint?

Again, this is such a stupid idea.

Posted by: Luke | May 23, 2007 6:25:26 PM

I wrote:
This would be involuntary servitude, would it not?

Fred Jones replied:
No, it would not. It's called military service and has been practiced constitutionally for many years previous to the all volunteer army. Do you also rail against those who the state incarcerates?

I'm not convinced that a military draft is constitutional, though there are legitimate arguments on both sides of that argument. In general, amendments can override both earlier amendments and the main body of the Constitution; one could argue that Article 1 Section 8 grants Congress the power to institute a draft for the purpose of raising an army, but the 13th Amendment takes this power away. If the 13th Amendment were not intended to bad the military draft, its authors should have said so.

But that's not really relevant to this point, since, as Cranky Observer points out, the Constitution grants Congress the power to raise armies, but not the power to raise a civilian service corps.

As for people incarcerated by the state, the 13th Amendment has an explicit exception for "punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", so that's not a Constitutional issue -- though I'll note that the phrase "or any place subject to their jurisdiction" may raise serious questions about Guantanamo.

For those who didn't follow the link in my first comment, here's the text of the 13th Amendment, quoted from www.usconstitution.net:

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

If you think that mandatory national service is consistent with the 13th Amendment, what isn't? Where do you draw the line?

Posted by: Keith Thompson | May 23, 2007 7:59:07 PM

The Swiss militia system has worked out very well-- kept them out of both World Wars (the Swiss take things to the next level, they had, and probably still do, every bridge and mountain pass pre-wired with explosives).

We don't need a standing Army. Draft every young person at age 18 into their state's national guard. After 6 months of training, let them go back to their civilian lives and serve an additional 2 or 3 years in the Guard. Civilian alternative service could be available for those who can't pass the physical (which is always a large fraction of inductees) or conscientious objectors.

As for the other services, the Air Force, Navy and Marines could recruit from the Guard for the necessary active duty personnel. The president could be required to get congressional approval to call up Guard units for active duty service. That would stop a lot of unnecessary wars before they got rolling. And if we ever did face an unavoidable, necessary war-- a Swiss-style militia would give us a huge pool of trained manpower.

Posted by: beowulf | May 23, 2007 8:43:37 PM

Its ideas like this that keep me(and a majority of Americans) from voting Democrat. You are all officially communists. Congrats. I'll stick with the truly American value of freedom. Oh my good, I said the seven letter word twice. Boo on me.

Posted by: JB | May 23, 2007 9:49:38 PM

If you oppose American militarism, you should support mandatory military service (MMS). In addition to the longterm cultural/political changes MMS would foster, the US will most likely need a very large pool trained people to handle a nuculear catastrophe within the next 20 years.

Posted by: godspeed | May 23, 2007 10:06:41 PM

JB writes:
Its ideas like this that keep me(and a majority of Americans) from voting Democrat. You are all officially communists.

I'm a Democrat, and I oppose mandatory national service on Constitutional grounds. Perhaps you'd care to re-think your position. (And the correct adjective is "Democratic", not "Democrat".)

Posted by: Keith Thompson | May 23, 2007 10:19:34 PM

I oppose mandatory national service on Constitutional grounds.

For over 50 years the Supreme Court and others didn't have a problem with conscription and now, all-of-a-sudden you see a problem....right?

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 12:14:43 AM

make that 150 years!!!

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 12:16:50 AM

For over 50 years the Supreme Court and others didn't have a problem with conscription and now, all-of-a-sudden you see a problem....right?

Right, except for the "all-of-a-sudden" part. And, of course, a lot of people have always had a problem with conscription.

What exactly is your point?

Posted by: Keith Thompson | May 24, 2007 6:25:47 PM

Liberal policy should be rights-expanding-- that is, it should promote liberty. The difference between liberalism and libertarianism is that the liberal conception of freedom is something that can be threatened by forces other than those of the state, and liberals see the state as a potential mechanism for addressing some of these injustices. When the civil rights act banned public racial discrimination, it was a fundamentally liberal action: it sacrificed one right (the right, for example, of a hotel or restaurateur to offer or deny service to whomever he pleases according to his personal system of beliefs) in order to bolster a larger right-- the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of one's skin color. A small right was sacrificed so that a larger right might be preserved.

A draft can be a liberal action, when the alternative represents a greater infringement upon rights. Faced with the second world war, the consequences of a loss would have been far more dire than those of the draft: defeat or invasion by Axis forces. We do not face a situation today where the rights that would be lost by not imposing a draft exceed those that would be lost by imposing it.

A policy of national service is, therefore, at this time, essentially not liberal but socialist: it sacrifices some rights not to secure others, but to promote some conception of the public good. While this may, indeed, serve some national interest, its fundamental illiberality makes it difficult to support-- particularly in an era when our rights have already been so greatly eroded.

Posted by: Anthony Damiani | May 24, 2007 7:50:28 PM

The costs of a mandatory service program would be high, but the benefits would be as well.

For the schools that will host the privileged group that goes to college after service, life would be different, maybe something like the post WWII time when the GI Bill brought older, more mature students to campus. Instead of 18-year-olds away from home for the first time, entering students will have some experience in the world and (we hope) a bit more focus about their direction. For this reason alone colleges and universities should be calling for the program.

For employers the same kinds of benefits will be seen. Post service -- whether it was doing clean-up after a natural disaster or filing tax returns for low-income filers -- these job entrants will have work experience. They will have worked with others and held responsibilities outside the school.

We are trying to encourage our national leaders to create mandatory national service at Everyone Serves. Sign our petition to encourage all the presidential candidates and both parties to make national service part of their platforms.

Posted by: Rob Johnston | May 25, 2007 5:18:00 PM

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