That bit I bolded is very much a* tu quoque*. The fact that you phrased it as a question rather than a direct accusation doesn’t change the nature of it in the slightest.
“Selfishness” is not a core American value. Individualism is. You and other people who think government has a right to control society choose to define individualism as selfishness.
But ‘individualism’ isn’t just a core American value. It’s a core value of western society, dating all the way back to the Magna Carta. It’s the opposite of the philosophy that says that people are born as servants to the state, that freedom only exists due to the largesse of your betters, that the state has a right to direct the people and tell them what to do for the good of all.
As has been pointed out to you, Americans are more personally charitable than just about any other people. American charitable giving is at an all-time high.
Another thing to note is that American charitable giving tends to move in the opposite direction as taxes and other government coercion. When taxes are higher, Americans give less.
I imagine charitable giving is lower in other countries because in other countries people have the expectation that charity flows from government. They’re taxed high, so they feel they’ve already given their ‘fair share’.
But injecting government as a middleman is destructive to society. Giving money personally and helping your neighbors builds community and creates a sense of self-worth and communitarianism among people. It also allows them to more closely oversee where their money goes, and gives them a greater incentive to ensure that it’s spent wisely. This is why religious charities in the U.S. work better than government handouts. Charity from government, paid for through taxes, breeds resentment - resentment of the people who some feel weren’t taxed enough. Resentment by some of the people getting what are seen as unfair benefits. The nation becomes a mass of people fighting through their representatives to get their ‘fair share’ of the public largesse.
But the key is that is has to be voluntary, and this is the part that people like Obama don’t get. They think, “Hey, those kids in that religious charity are learning to love their neighbors and they’re helping the poor. This is a good thing, so let’s turn it into a giant government program!”. What they don’t realize is that it’s a good thing because the government isn’t involved. Inject the government into the process, and you destroy everything that made it work in the first place.
Kids who volunteer today generally do so because it’s part of the values of their family. Often it’s through the church, or they are taught it from their parents. That’s why it is so beneficial to them - it’s part of a healthy social structure they are raised in, and part of the values instilled in them by their parents.
Now take a bunch of inner city kids with largely absent parents, and tell them the state requires 50 hours of their time to scrub graffiti off the sidewalks. Have the whole enterprise be overseen by some overworked teacher who resents having to do it. Then see if they learn the same message.
Is this a religion? Are you saying that if I donate money to a charity so they can hire someone to do a job that needs to be done, that’s somehow less noble and good than if I volunteered to just do the job myself?
Are we trying to help people here, or are we doing penance for the crime of having money?
America is quite unique in its belief that social services ought to be performed by non-government entities. The rest of the developed world is every bit as generous as the United States. In the US, we call it charity. Everywhere else, they call it taxes.
So America has no Child Protection Services, I take it?
Look, here we are, right on the slope, I just seem to be further along than you. And I’m not slipping. Slippery slope is also just fallacious rhetoric unless you can provide reasonable evidence for the probable progression down said slope.
I’m going to bed now, I think.
Be careful what you wish for. Do you want George Bush deciding which societal mores are taught to your children*? Your guy isn’t always going to be in power.
However… this is yet one more reason that the feds should back off. Societal mores vary around the country and are best decided on the local level. If schools are going to teach them, the content shouldn’t come from the central government. Not in a country as vast, populous and diverse as the US.
*Yeah, I know you’re not an American, but since we’re debating an American program here, think of how you’d feel if you were.
To be relentlessly fair, Sam, you post “witnessing” all the time, you baldly state that government action is somehow detrimental to society. Now, you are perfectly free to state that as an argument, to state it in* support* of an argument is nothing more than a reading from the Libertarian Catechism.
Which is also fine, of course, so long as you recognize that you are offering opinion in support of opinion.
Are these pro-compulsory national service people ok with taking compulsory national service a step further and include military service? Girls, too. While we’re all forced to communize with each other, we should be able to defend ourselves, too, especially from some foreign invasion. Military service teaches discipline and builds character, right? With everyone taking the same direction, we would all be better socialized to think alike, too, right? Like minds don’t argue.
Now that we’re all on the same page, why just limit it to young people, why not 50+ year olds as well? They’ve had 50+ plus years to live with the benefits of American society, it’s about time they paid what is owed. Oh, and speaking of paid, it’s going to cost money to find something for all these people to do. Let’s just have them do it for free because, hey, America keeps you safe and provides you with jobs and all that.
This is just like those places you visit (like museums, street fairs, etc.) where there is a recommended donation of $X. But, donation means it’s voluntary, right? Otherwise, why call it a donation. and not an admission fee, or a tax?
No, thank you. Move along. Maybe we Americans donate and volunteer so much because we aren’t forced, too. We do so, through our own free will. I’m afraid compulsory national service will create this mindset: “Hey, I already volunteered, I already put in my X years, I already pay my taxes, why should I do any more, when I already did what was required of me?” And the government’s answer to that is, “Fine, you’re right, you did. We’re going to introduce legislation to take even more tax and time away from you.”
If I want a nanny state, I’ll move to England and pay the exorbitant taxes. If I wanted to think like everyone else, I’ll join the Borg.
This is very correct.
The comparison is necessary to establish a baseline. Without a baseline, there is no way to infer whether a given level of charitable contribution is indicative of notable generosity, notable stinginess, or somewhere in between.
Er, no. The post stated a number of objective facts (e.g. that contributions to selected local organizations engender more community contact that payment of taxes does, that people resent having their tax money spent on people they consider unworthy). The former is perhaps a matter of interpretation; the latter is an objective fact that will be speedily confirmed in just about any public discussion of government welfare programs.
No it’s not, but I think I’ve already done my part to fight ignorance on this and it’s really not worth continuing. Hopefully those in the peanut gallery can understand the distinction.
Ah…so, since we have CPS type laws and services this means it’s ok to go against the wishes of parents and extort the labor of children if the cause is good or if the goal is to show the poor waifs the beauty of service to the state?
Well, ‘probable progression’ is all in the eyes of the speculator I would say. Let’s see though…here is what you said “I just happen to think civil service is one of those things where parents should be overuled, like vaccinations and teaching evolution.”
Ok…since by implication you mean mandated ‘civil service’ I would say the slippery slope starts out with the government asking for something small, a small service of a couple of hours a month from ‘young people’, perhaps with a few modestly funded programs that some politician in Washington feels is worthy. The next progression would be to expand the funding (since this is what government agencies invariably do, seems pretty ‘probable’ to me). Once expanded…yeah, we are going to need more ‘volunteer’ labor! So, either those ‘young people’ need to work more or we are going to need to extend the age groups for those ‘volunteers’. And since by and large people are going to resent being forced (directly or indirectly) to do these things they aren’t going to be the most efficient labor force for these pet projects I’m guessing this will necessitate further expansions of funding or personnel…or both.
As there will always be more ‘worthy projects’ that the public needs I think it’s a logical progression from your own statement to force more and more ‘civil service’ from people…of course for the GOOD of the people and all that jazz.
Once you start out with a mindset that ‘civic service’ needs to be forced on the populace it doesn’t strike me as a great leap to demand more and more…after all, there are always all those worthy projects out there, and the need of the people and society as a whole much always take precedence over the needs and greeds of the individual, blah blah blah.
Thus once one accepts your premise (“I just happen to think civil service is one of those things where parents should be overuled, like vaccinations and teaching evolution.”), seems logical to me that one has planted their feet firmly in space and has started down that slippery slope. YMMV of course…in fact, seeing your assertions in this thread I can predict with fair accuracy that in fact it does.
Sleep well! Comes the revolution you may not get to! 
-XT
Americans believe this? Really?
I’d say the same of anyone who’s ever been in an American public high school, and believes that a principal of such an institution has any hold over his students remotely resembling the semi-coercive powers a boss has over his employees.
Except that has not been the case. A relevant paper on the topic. Mandatory Community Service: Citizenship Education or Involuntary Servitude?
The authors note that it may not be necessary to mandate service.
"Little research exists comparing the relative effectiveness of community service hours and service-learning, but, overall, data show mandating service may be unnecessary. The key to getting students involved may be simply to make opportunities available.
According to a 1996 survey by the Independent Sector, 59% of 12 to 17 year olds reported volunteering over the last 12 months. Half of those students indicated they got involved through their school (the other half through a religious organization). More than half of the teens (51%) said they were asked to volunteer, with almost all (93%) of those doing so. Among teens who were not asked, only 24% actually volunteered. In other words, teens were nearly four times more likely to volunteer if asked than if they were not."
So while it may not be necessary to require the students to participate, it seems worthwhile to mandate that schools offer volunteer programs.
And values can be instilled by the community through the schools as well, another part of their social structure. The above study shows its most likely through either school or the church that kids learn the value of volunteering, and I am certain both venues ask for the support of parents also. It seems better to me to have as many institutions as possible trying to instill values in children - the family, church and the community. And those values are rarely contradictory, though they are often at odds with the consumerist culture that dominates the general media.
Do you a have cite for any program anywhere that actually works in that fashion? The strawmen arguments are getting tiresome.
You’re welcome to call it whatever you want, but you’re working this one awfully hard.
This is at the level where, if Bush or McCain said it, it might be worth a snarky post or two.
IOW, Obama isn’t exactly standing strongly behind the words that you are turning into such a big deal.
I’m not declaring it a non-issue. I’m saying that national service is well down on the totem pole. Right now, we’re fighting a war in one country, are the occupying power in another, and the climate is changing for the warmer a bit too rapidly for anyone intelligent to be sanguine about. Millions of Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure, millions more are in danger of doing so, and most of the rest are watching the value drain out of their homes. This at a time when their household incomes still haven’t gotten back up to where they were when Clinton was President.
Those are first-tier issues.
National service is nothing like that, is it? It’s not even nearly as serious as those issues.
Even the best efforts of you and your wingnut friends can’t break this issue into the top tier. People have serious shit they’re worried about, these days. They’re not going to vote against Obama over something like this, the way they voted against Dukakis because of Willie Horton, the ACLU, and the Pledge of Allegiance.
As what? Oops, he didn’t say. Nor did he say how he meant ‘well.’ Proportionately as well? As reliably and securely? Etc.
So far, so good:
Your interpretation. And I agree, it’s the one that, on the face of it, would make the most sense - if it was remotely plausible that he meant that. Except it isn’t.
So your brain is clouded by the humidity of your panting and drooling over John McCain.
Look, we all agree that when John McCain referred to troubles on the Iraq-Pakistan border, he didn’t really mean there was such a border.
And it’s exactly the same thing. It’s the interpretation that, on the face of it, makes the most sense - if it was remotely plausible that he meant that. Except it isn’t.
You can judge both remarks by the same standard. Or you can judge just one of the two by that standard, but one would have to note the unavoidable discrepancy.
I did no such thing. Please to quote, if you think otherwise.
Yeah, and you’re a booster of a party that wants kids to pray in school, learn about ‘intelligent’ design, and have them say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Why don’t those conservative businessmen have their employees say the Pledge of Allegiance, or stand respectfully as everyone else does? Why don’t they lead their employees in prayer - again, with those who don’t believe in saying that prayer standing respectfully while everyone else prays? They wouldn’t even have to get Congress to vote on it.
I mean, we adults have a much better grasp of what those prayers mean, and of the seriousness of the Pledge of Allegiance. We’re much better at resisting peer pressure, and all that.
Guess it all depends on which side’s demagoguery you have a problem with.
Also, see my response to SteveMB on this particular one.
And he’s talking up giving more tax dollars to “faith-based organizations”. I’m devoutly religious, but I don’t like any organization I support or belong to taking tax money. The tax breaks USians get for charitable donations are quite generous, and should suffice for any religious organization to do whatever mission it wishes.
All that is entirely aside from the already back-breaking public debt my grandchildren - and their children, if they have any - are facing.
I’m also a Heinlein fan, and I have always maintained a neutral stance on his concept of National Service (It’s all in how it’s implemented, IMO). But this doesn’t sound like a very good path to implementation, even if the taxpayers could afford it.
I want everybody to be able to get as much education as they desire, but this program sounds half-baked to me.
Poe-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe
I believe good government can be the tool society uses to regulate itself. You seem to be of the opinion that government is, and only can be, wholly seperate from society.
I’ve not said different. American values are Western values.
Those are 3 distinct philosophies to me, and while I agree with the first and third (subject to a virtual equivalence between state and society), I do not agree with the second.
And I’ll note that charitable giving is not the only type of social god.
As you’ve later pointed out, others choose to do the opposite, and enact social benefits through taxes, like UHC and other forms of welfare. Why is charitable giving any inherently better than social welfare paid by taxes?
Only if the two (government and society) are not the same thing.
I’d argue the opposite, that it promotes class divisions and a feeling of superiority on the part of the giver, and expects humility and gratitude on the part of the recipient. It is certainly not commonly seen as a relationship of social equals.
It’s not just their money. There is no-one around in modern society who doesn’t owe that society in many ways. No-one is free from obligation to his fellows. Your way would allow a person to shirk that debt should they choose.
Other countries seem to be able to run welfare systems OK. That the US is incompetent at it is not an indigtment of the idea, but the execution.
This is , IMO, because people aren’t educated enough in how the social system should work. Part of that is clinging to the ideologies of individualism and capitalism. Throw that way, and people will not be as resentful, either direction. It helps if the system works, of course, like several European countries. Or even your Canada, IMO.
Yes. Noble and Good are subjective terms. The cost-benefit analysis might not work out the same way, but like I’ve said before, all of life shouldn’t be a cost-benefit thing.
Both.
I think there was a miscommunication - I wasn’t saying that it was OK to force kids to work, I was saying it was OK to teach kids that volunteering for civil service was a moral good over their parent’s objections. Whether the kids then volunteer or not should still be up to them.
If I had my way, there would never be a Guy in power.
They don’t have* to vary, though.