Better school systems, mandatory mil. service...?

Great Debates
41

I’m having a hard time accepting the idea of the franchise as a quid pro quo for national service. For one thing, that sort of restriction runs contrary to the course of the country’s history. The trend has been to expand the franchise and toward direct election ( the National Electorial College is the notable exception to direct election but that has constitutional roots and is founded in the big state-small state conflict that runs constant through the federal-state political structure of the country). Remember that in the beginning it was common for the right to vote to be tied to property ownership. Once property qualification was eliminated, the franchise was restricted to white males (free, white and twenty-one). With the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments to the US Constitution the franchise was extended to males only, with a number of local variants designed to restrict voting rights to white males. It was not until after WW I that women received nationally sanctioned voting rights. It was not until the 1960s that the games that were played at State level to restrict the vote were outlawed by national legislation. The most recent presidential election amply demonstrates the there are still some restrictions on universal suffrage, but those restrictions may be as much the result of incompetence as of intent and design. To now say that only people who have completed, or are exempted from, national service, are entitled to vote seems to me not only a radical idea but also a stunningly bad one.

For generations we have proclaimed that a guiding principal of this country is the equality of all people before the law. While that principal may often be observed in the breach more often than would be liked, it is an ideal on which this country has been based since at least the Civil War. To now proclaim that voting rights are to be exercised only by people who have paid a price for them is a stunning reversal of that national ideal and is tantamount to saying, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” You cannot have equality of all before the law if all people are not entitled to participate in making the law by the exercise of the vote.

42

It was, in fact, the only part of his plan which I assumed you supported. Sorry, didn’t mean to imply otherwise.

**

Sure.

Think again. 105 million people turned out to vote in your last presidential election. 97 million turned out for the congressional elections. Somehow I doubt only a few of them would mind losing that privilige, and somehow I doubt that only a few of them would join the military or civil service to retain that privilige.

According to the 1999 US census, 20 million people made up the government workforce (I believe the Department of Defence is included in this statistic). For the sake of argument, say only 25% of voters decided they liked participating in the democratic process enough to enter civil or military service. That still means an enormous increase in civil and military spending, to pay for the doubled workforce, training, facilities and the make-work programs and services created to accommodate these would-be citizens.

Another question which occurs to me, is whether there will be an entrance requirement for these civil service jobs, and if so, what then for those people not accepted?

43

I realize the idea is not the direction we’ve been going; but I’m disturbed more and more by the “not-responsible” culture that’s becoming more and more prevalent. All people are still entitled to participate; I would like to see them make a gesture of responsibility first. I view it as “all animals are equal, but some animals choose to be more equal than others”. The key lies in choice.

msmith said

Unfortunately, that’s all too true. I would like to think, given the society which I have described as a middle-ground between Homers suggestion and our current state, that all of you here would have chosen to serve in order to protect the rights of those who had not.

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is more often that power corrupts, and I can see that it could degenerate into a fascist regime. The key is in “checks and balances”, I believe, none of which have yet been mentioned. I must retire to the drawing board to modify the Beelzebubba Plan for World Domination[sup]TM[/sup] to include these.

[sub]I have been diagnosed with a clinical inability to be 100% serious. Please don’t hate me for it.[/sub]

44

Sorry, Jeff, your reply must have been made as I was doing mine.

Short answer: I’m thinking about it.

I’ll get back to you.

45

mssmith, I hate to point this out (as you have more or less squared away your other comments) but the military has not been desegregated since the '40’s. Only the Army/Air Force.

The Navy (I can’t say for the Marines) has been desegregated since the Mexican War, before that, even, if we count the continental navy during the American Revolution.

I agree that the Military is slightly Homophobic, which is why I disagree completely with ** God Emperor Leto II’s ** statement in * God Emperor of Dune * that an all male military creates homosexual tendencies.

Nonsense. I’m one of said Homophobes. After living in San Francisco for my Sophomore and Junior years in High School, I went wildly right in politics and philosophy. So, when I make a neo-facist statement that offends people, you just blame the ** Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence**

Man, am I getting off track

Even the Cadets @ Texas A&M (For freshmen and Sophomore years) are under the Don’t ask don’t tell policy.
I wonder if any one here thinks that Switzerland is a facist regime, seems to me that no one has pointed it out. I don’t think their citizen-soldiers consider Switzerland a facist regime.

Which is, of course, the type of Regime I’m going to implement when I become ** Lord Protector** of NorthAmerica.

(To offended Irishmen: Bite me)

46

It is a shame to see atavistic irrational militarism on display but such as it is.

I haven’t the time to attack the body of unexamined presumptions built up in this thread, but a few comments.

First, in regards to mandatory public service building a nation and responsibility, I direct parties to consider the history of the Soviet bloc and even today in the CIS. Mandatory military service does not have a happy history in re building positive civil society. Boy Scouts might well be a better idea. The underlying problems, if they are in fact real problems, posited by posters here in re the USA are unlikely to be resolved by these means.

Second, in re connection between the military and society, I would observe that this does not pose a problem in my mind. The USA did quite well without the conditions which have held since WWII, i.e. relatively large percentage of the population serving in the military. Pointless nostalgia for the cold war era military-civil relations is not a good method of analysis.

Third, in re Switzerland, Gost, the system is not really comprable in any meaningful way to what is being discussed here. I would posit that universal service as a condition of having full civil rights is in fact fascistic.

47

Collunsbury, Obviously it wasn’t in my last post, but I proposed that citizenship qualification would come from 2 years military service ** OR ** 3 years social service (i.e. AmeriCorps, Police Work, Park Service, etc.).

No one here (at oleast, so it seems) is proposing mandatory military service, merely necessary if you want to be a citizen. I think Military service being the only way to be a citizen is Bullshit myself, which is why I proposed the 3 year AmeriCorps alternative. The Military has to be a volunteer one, in order for it to be effective. Just look at most of the west European nations (sans Britain) during the Kosovo war, almost all of them have conscription, yet they provided very little in the way of the campaign.

When it looked as if we were going to have to land troops on the ground, only us and Britain were willing to do so. France, Germany, Italy(who was the big bitcher that dragged NATO into it) all were hesitant to throw * poorly trained 1 year conscripts * into combat againest battle hardened volunteer Serbs.
Which is why: 1) The military must be kept as volunteer as possible
2)The AmeriCorp option is presented, because it would help with our nations infrastructure and eductaion more.

48

Okay. So the very best way any individual can serve the powers of Right and Freedom for All is to learn to shoot people?

It takes three years of teaching children to read or what not to equal two years of yessir, nosir?

Mandetory military service is incredibly silly. I am a very bright, very compassionate, very willing to help mankind person. Who would be absolutely useless behind a gun. (I’m pretty much a pacifist. I’m going into Engineering ethics. Trying not to make things that hurt people.) Why should my peace mongering be punished in this uber-society? Or is war the ultimate form of civilization?

And tell me again how military service makes people compassionate and independant?

The education guidelines are also too tight for individuals. I was reading Kipling when I was four. Phonics in first grade were way, way too late. (Why am I putting lines over this? I can already read!) The probelm with trying to fix society is that its full of people. And people are all different. Shoving them into uniform for 5 years, 2 years, whatever isn’t going to make them all the same. The ones for who the system works will be fine. The ones for whom is doesn’t will be torn apart and not only will society lose anything they could give, but it will be saddled with taking care of them.

49

On the question of what good is it to be in the armed forces, which seem to be the focus of the “Don’t teach people to shoot people” school of thought, I don’t read any one in this thread as advocating mandatory conscription into the military and navy as the only form of mandatory national service. For one thing the armed forces could not possibly handle the huge influx of people that would be involved in that sort of a thing. According to the 2000 census, my little State of 2.9 million people had some 46,300 18 year olds. By extension the nation of 250 million would have some 3,975,000 18 year olds. That is clearly an impossible number for the armed forces to absorb on an annual basis even if we assume that 25% are physically or mentally unfit or claim ethical/religious exemption. Clearly a fair number of these young people would have to perform their national service elsewhere.

To get to the base problem, however, the nature of military and naval service, there seems to be a sense that the armed forces produce some sort of homicidal automaton. This was not my experience as a soldier and it doesn’t look as if the other posters who have had the experence think any differently than I do. Certainly active duty is not everybody’s cup of tea. It can be a highly unpleasant experience involving the threat of death and maiming, and separation from friends and family. Speaking for my self it was an experience I would not give up for any amount of money, but one no amount of money would induce me to repeat it.

On the other hand the armed forces for me did represent an opportunity to take all the responsibility I could handle (which is to say that I could have had more than I could handle), be responsible for my self, find out that I was not the center of the universe and that the rest of the planet did not exist for my gradification. I learned to stand up straight, look a guy in the eye and speak clearly and concisely. I learned how to be a responsible subordinate, and an effective leader, and, just as importantly, how to get rid of the dangerous or inept leader and the insubordinate or inept follower. I learned to keep my anxiety under control and not to allow my self to be intimidated. I learned how to follow orders and how to give them and make sure they were carried out. I learned to take pride in my self and what I could do. I learned what I could not do and how to get help. I learned how to live in a situation in which my life and safety depended on some one I didn’t even know doing his job right and where people I didn’t know depended on me doing my job right. Despite high school and college athletics, I was in good physical shape for the first time in my life. I learned to think for my self and that the object of discipline is to make me do the right thing when there isn’t time to think. I learned that life is not a bowl of cherries. I learned how to handle firearms fom rifles and pistols up to things that threw an object bigger around than my head. I learned to appreciate what my father and grandfather and their fathers before them went through. I learned to head space a .50 caliber machine gun (nickle-dime, go-no go). I learned to eat a breakfast of creamed ground beef on toast, and to be greatful for a drink of blood warm canteen water, and to take care of my self and to take care of my buddies and my people. Those are all good things.

50

Your comparison is false, as you are comparing one group, which spans 50 years, to another which is a snapshot of current spending. In other words, you’re comparing 105 million people ranging from ages 18 to 65 (roughly) to the 1999 government roster. Do you have statistics for the number of people who’ve served at least two years in civil-service roles over the last 50 years? I think this would be a more accurate comparison. I’m looking for said stat’s.

Under The Plan there is no entrance examination for acceptance into the civil service, as it is everyones right to serve. However, individual positions within the civil service might have entrance exams of some kind.

I think SG has addressed the issue of pacifism v “learning to kill people to get the right to vote” fairly well, and I agree. The two points that I would stress:
A) It’s not really the military part that’s being advocated, it’s the service part.

B) Even assuming it’s the armed forces you end up serving, they can and do teach you some very important values. It’s not “Here’s a gun, here’s how to kill without thinking about the consequences, now we’ll turn you lose into society.” They try to instill values such as “Honor”, “Integrity”, etc. It may sound corny or cliché, particluarly given that there are crimes committed within the military just as there are outside, but the thought is sincere.

Medea’s Child

This was, I think, Homers position, I’ll let him address this question.

I don’t think anyone’s advocated churning out veritable clones based on some recognized cookie-cutter pattern of a “good person”. The idea is to put individuals into a role where they must serve the people (country, society, etc) before they may participate in making laws, holding public office, etc. Based on the limited set of (granted very powerful) rights that are dependent upon this service, I don’t see justification for your statement that “society [will] lose anything they could give, but it will be saddled with taking care of them.”

I’m still thinking about checks and balances…

51

I can’t find those stats on-line. Perhaps some more resourceful doper can dig them up. Obviously, the number of government employees is bound to increase, the question is how many.

I couldn’t find any hard statistics for the annual number of high-school graduates, but based on my estimates it would be 3 - 4 million. That’s a lot of potential government employees.

So what are these people going to do when they enter the government? What important work are we going to find for them to do? There is no manpower shortage in the military or government, at least nothing that an influx of unskilled 18 year-olds with a high-school education could solve. We already have a government bureaucracy and a military which are able to perform those services required of them, perhaps not perfectly, but adequately. Any additional influx of employees would be a drain on resources and funding, both of which could be better spent elsewhere.

That is one of my major objections to this service for citizenship, which still no-one has addressed; that it is a drain on the system with little or no positive benefits other than a) acting as a litmus test for civic pride and b) arbitrarily restricting the franchaise (if you even consider this a good thing).

52

[Hijack]

Not to be confused with the movie by the same title. Similar names used in both, but the movie is a very long way from being the book.
[/Hijack]

53

Public service/Military service is not a prerequisite to citizenship here in Germany, nor must you first serve in order to vote.

54

Jeff, apparently the jackpot of Federal Employment statistical information can be found under the Office of Personnel Management.

Of course, it’s written in beauro-speak, so I’m trying to filter out some relevant info. After a brief survey, I haven’t found anything that antedates 1994, nor have I found any information about turnover rates, etc.

FWIW, the publication “Federal Workforce Statistics for Fiscal Year 1999” lists total “Workyears” as 2,767,963; with 2,324,189 of those being “full time permanent”, which is defined as:

55

This sounds like a great system. When can I begin undermining it?

56

Or the Israelis, or the Swiss? Funny, you think the Israelis feel like Nazis?

**

I did two years active duty in the Army, was promoted in a fashion commensurate with my abilities and time in grade/service and never once asked to adopt any ideals that were not endemic of being raised in a country where I’m free to complain about any damned thing I want to. I did, often. I even voted when I was in (turned 18 while I was in so I first voted in the Army), and no one told me how to vote. I was also paid, trained, and got college paid for. No one made me swear to change my values when I went in, I did have to swear to follow the legally given orders of my officers and directives of those appointed above me. All of these orders are not only guided by the constitutuion but also numerous conventions and treaties (the Geneva convention forbids soldiers using weapons that even domestic police officers can use, or homeowners for that matter.). You can even determine after joining that you are a pacifist as long as it is before you actually get into combat, and you may get into a bit of trouble (the yelling at kind, not the breaking rocks in Kansas kind), but you are most likely to just be sent packing without GI benefits.

Well maybe not someone making 70k a year, but how about someone who does not earn any income having the ability to fote on city, state, national financial matters? Why should someone who makes no financial contribution be allowed to say with the money’s contributed by others? Should I get a say in where you spend your savings? I don’t think so. Fortunately the vast majority of people who actually do show up to vote are working contributing members of society.
**

The difference being that civil or military service is (at least in Heinlein’s world) withing anyone’s reach, unlike the rim of a basket-ball hoop. In our world? People who cannot march or do regular militar duty could certainly fold parachutes, count inventory or explain first aid. Except retarded people, and I’m not sure retarded people should vote (although it seems like that is who is in the electoral college at times)
**

You may have the right as it stands now, but should you? Hell no! Lazy does not, btw, mean someone who has a sit-down job or is a great thinker. Lazy is someone who let’s others do for them what they could do forthemselves and have no good reason not to do. If you don’t contribute or at least try to contribute then to hell with you.

**

We are not in a democracy. We are in a republic (or a Federalist state as Hamilton would say). We have a representative government and as to weather it does indeed work, well that is obviously up for debate.
**

Then who, pray tell, is running the country right now? Beurocracy was created to give the stupid and shiftless a place to go.
**

At the very least federal service is great for team building and if used with a more wide vision it could be great for public works.
zen101

57

zen: Your apparent contention that a citizen of the Republic must have an earned income prior to having any say in how that Republic is governed is a dangerous idea.

58

Retarded people can’t fold parachutes or count inventory? What planet are you from? I encounter retarded people on a daily basis who sell me food at restaurants (even counting my money and giving me change! gasp), bag my groceries, help me out at hardware stores . . . the list is, for all practical purposes, endless. And you would deny them the right to vote? Force them, as wage earning members of society, to submit to the wills of others on how their lives shall be led?

Count me out.

  1. “No earned income” != “making no financial contribution.” Take the hypothetical case of a person with millions in inherited wealth who owns a corporation or business. He himself lives from his inheritance and draws no salary or wage, yet might employ many people and pay their salaries.

  2. If memory serves, the demographic group that turns out to vote in the largest numbers is the elderly and retirees, who are often living on fixed incomes through pensions and Social Security.

WTF is it with the Cult of Heinlein? People think we small-l libertarians are nuts, but man oh man, we’ve got nothing on these guys.

59

Folding parachutes (actually “packing parachutes”) is certainly a regular military duty for those Service Members involved in that. In the Army (and probably the other Services, except for the Navy), Parachute Riggers are required to be parachute jump qualified and their CO or OIC can direct them to go on a jump mission with one of the very chutes they’ve packed.

60

So is space travel and falling in love. Does danger equate bad? If so then say what you mean.