Posted on 07/23/2008 10:10:07 AM PDT by newbie2008
Several people have sent a link to this post on the Time Magazine effort to push national service. In an addition to violating liberties on a massive scale, this program would be a colassal waste. It will rob young people of their most important years early in life, taking them out of productive work and making them less able to offer anything to the marketplace after: an extension of an already catastrophic system of publicly funded education, which already drains brain power and time. That both the left and right favor this scheme perfectly illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy and state-worshiping mentality of these people. Fear the future under their rule.
My tax burden doesn’t count as National Servitude already? WTF!
If you're a liberal pacifist freak, and you despise the military then f-off.
Sorry guy, but I can’t agree. IMHO, national service along the Israeli model would be nothing but a good thing all around.
This short blurb provides no details. National service could take many forms. But no one but a fool would think that 4,000,000 kids (about the number per age group) should be diverted from their career and educational goals for a year. Our entire military is around 1,500,000. There is nothing productive for 4,000,000 kids to do, and we sure don’t need a bunch of do-gooder, half-witted little totalitarian wannabes making up things for anyone to do as so-called national service.
BTW - I have 13 years military experience. So I also served that way.
Kids that want to volunteer, will. Kids that don't...shouldn't. End of story.
“IMHO, national service along the Israeli model would be nothing but a good thing all around.”
Israel is an entirely unique situation, and they have extraordinary national defense needs that require some contribution from most all their able bodied citizens.
The USA is nothing like that.
Sounds good until you get into the details and costs. And the numbers would be enormous. There are about 30 million people between the ages 18-26.
That compulsory national service nonsense raises its ugly head again.
Required civil national servitude has always been a loser. Always will be too. Keep talking Barry.
Will BO ever find his way into the 21st century?
bookmark
National service is a good idea. 18 months of service in one of several places.
1. Armed forces
2. Coast Guard
3. Forest rangers
4. Border patrol
5. Americorps.
6. CCC
7. Red Cross
It would cost money but it may well save lives as well. Lots of young people need to really put themselves together. This would give them a chance.
I’m already a serf........
Everyone who enters the program should be issued a uniform to encourage group cohesiveness.
I suggest something subdued, like brown shirts. We wouldn't want to use gang colors or anything associated with any particular political party.
They could also be issued sturdy and rugged boots, preferrably black.
When they leave the program then they would at least have a set of clothes they could use until they got a job in the private sector.
All this would do is (a) piss off a lot of kids who are forced to put their lives on hold to serve the government; and (b) cost a bunch of money that we can't really afford to spend as a nation.
The military would not want to be stuck with under-trained kids who have no interest in serving. It takes at least 18 months to just train a soldier to the level our military requires.
This is a pointless, totalitarian boondoggle. We shouldn't let the government conscript our kids for make-work projects.
“National service is a good idea. 18 months of service in one of several places.”
Eighteen months? Then you’ll pick up about 6,000,000 kids to do what? That number will exceed the number of full time employees in all those agencies you listed. That’s why this is a very dumb idea. It would be a complete waste of time and accomplish little other than to satisfy the vanity and self-importance of a lot of do-gooders with totalitarian urges.
And, if instituted at once, you’d have to shut down about 25% of US college classes for a year and a-half while they waited for their normal freshmen classes to complete the national waste of eighteen months.
“The military would not want to be stuck with under-trained kids who have no interest in serving.”
True, and if all the kids served the military, each active duty member would have two or three assistants following him or her around. That’s assuming 4,000,000 kids doing their 18 months national servitude straight through.
The numbers alone make this an absurd idea.
And, Obama’s notion is even worse: 50 hours of service from each high schooler, and 100 hours from each college student. That will involve eight age groups, and would total around 24,000,000 young people per year. We’d need a new government bureaucracy of several hundred thousand to keep track of all that.
Nuts!
Which, at the end of the day is really the point of this- an expansion of government.
Go to your local bookstore, shake out the subscription litter cards in Time magazine and send them back in for processing. Liberal litter.
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