Decius wrote:
The authoritarian wing of the Democratic party has announced compulsary servitude as the cornerstone of their campaign. So many years of Republican style authoritarianism, I'd almost forgotten what Democratic style authoritarianism felt like. I don't know what scares me more, the fact that something as useless as this is the centerpoint of their plan, or the fact that there must be a huge number of voters out there who think this is a good idea and will vote on it.

The premier component of the new social contract The Plan promotes between citizens and their government is universal citizen service.

I was happy with the old social contract.

John Kennedy was right: A nation is defined not by what it does for its citizens but by what it asks of them.

OK. First of all, Kennedy said that a person is defined by what they do for their country, not that a nation is defined by what compulsary services it requires of its citizens. Second, Kennedy had loftier things in mind than 3 months of disaster preparedness training. Third, by this logic the higher the taxes the greater the country.

If your leaders aren't challenging you to do your part, they aren't doing theirs. We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing for the first time an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft, nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of a natural disaster, an epidemic or a terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.

How does "do this community service or you go to prison" create an "ethic of universal citizen service?"

We're the sole superpower and biggest target in a world where the capacity for evil is more decentralized than ever before. For years, we have worked to remake the world in our image by spreading the gospel of democracy, freedom and capitalism. Doing so has been and continues to be in our national interest. But we should not forget: The more the world copies our strengths, the harder we must work to hone those strengths ourselves.

I dunno if you've heard, but disaster preparedness is not one of our strengths.

I'm going to agree in part and dissent in part. One place you can balance the "Service" side of this, is with the college side. If college is universal, part of "paying" for it would be the civil defense/civil service side. That seems reasonable to me.

What I'm very concerned with is what constitutes that civil service? I can think of things that would be of enormous value. Everyone knowing CPR, knowing how to swim, hell, plant some damn trees. But what else will get lumped in there? Clerking for some lawyer who works to shoot this stuff down? Becoming a buearucratic functionary? Things like the CCC were good. Things like W's bailed on national guard time to work on a senate campaign aren't. Who draws those lines?

Mike the Usurper wrote:
I'm going to agree in part and dissent in part. One place you can balance the "Service" side of this, is with the college side. If college is universal, part of "paying" for it would be the civil defense/civil service side. That seems reasonable to me.

If they are paying for you to go to school, you owe it to them. The military will pay you to go to school if you're willing to do a tour of duty with them. My problem is when they're not paying for you to go to school, but you gotta do their community service anyway. Its like a universal prison sentence.

What I'm very concerned with is what constitutes that civil service? I can think of things that would be of enormous value. Everyone knowing CPR, knowing how to swim, hell, plant some damn trees.

Thats a big question. Of course, I learned how to swim, how to do CPR, and how to plant trees in elementary school. I'm not sure a new program is needed for that. Likely, the answer will be whatever is politically expedient. They seem more interested in the abstract idea of making everyone get involved in a program then what that program might actually consist of.