We need mandatory National Service in the US

[brickbacon]

@Justin_Bailey

Do you think governments are reducing library hours because there aren’t enough teenagers to put away the books? No, that’s happening because governments are deciding to lay off degreed librarians and support personnel.

Teenagers can act as support personnel. The bottom line is that there is a cost for keeping libraries open, and if that cost is deemed too high due to labor costs, we can lower that by providing low-cost labor. Even so, I doubt it will fix the issues at every library, but it couldn’t hurt.

@The_Peyote_Coyote

Fuck no, brickbacon. As someone who was in the hospital last week, there is no way in any hell in any mythology that I want any kind of health test done by some untrained kid. I want it done by a professional.

Kids already do health tests. I had a job working at a hospital as a college student running tests. I am not advocating they start doing complicated procedures, just to do routinized testing that is already being done in some cases by people of similar capacities. For example, students would be great at enabling hospitals and doctors’ offices to maintain better records, and ensuring that checklists are followed.

@voltaire

Though I know I’m being a nitpicker, isn’t the whole point of scantrons is that they don’t need to be graded by a human?

People still need to run them, enter them into online databases, etc.

@alphaboi867

Where are you going to find the money to pay for all this? And you’d still need to pay wages, health benefits, room & board, workmen’s comp insurance, etc for millions of conscripts. Do you really think this will somehow be cheaper than paying people who actually want to do the jobs to work?

Yes, it would be. If run efficiently (eg. dormitories, shared meals), it would be cheaper than any company doing it that has to account for profit. Also, it is not just a numbers game. I think there would be positive cultural and societal benefits to our nation’s youth having shared experiences and contributions. Common sacrifices and hardships often bond people in ways that would be helpful. It would also give those currently in our country illegally a way to get citizenship.

@alphaboi867

A voluntary national service program that pays for college tuition and/or vocational training in exchange for 2 years of service might be a good idea. Of course we basically already have that in the form of the military, though with a longer service commitment.

But how are you gonna pay for that? I see your point, bit the problem is that the military does not provide the wide variety of opportunities for service that a broad based service program could. More importantly, a voluntary system ensures that people if means never have to sacrifice, or share in the responsibility for keeping this country functioning. It also means that people of means will have fewer opportunities to interact with people that are different from them.

@Muffin

Taking people out of the workforce and supporting them with tax dollars for a couple of years will reduce tax revenues and increase government spending, all for no good purpose, for people tend not to be very productive at forced labour.

It won’t reduce tax revenues by much since most people are not working (or at a low paying job) at that time anyway. They are often in school accumulating debt in route to getting a degree. Often times, that is just wasted money since they may not graduate. Furthermore, under my program, they could use the time they are enlisted to take courses that would count towards an eventual degree, reducing the cost of a university education. That would mitigate the opportunity costs and the sunk costs. Additionally, as we have seen in Israel, giving people the opportunity to train together, and expand their networks means that we might see a more robust, broad economic expansion as a result of their service, increasing future revenue as a result.

Yes, people tend to not be as productive at forced labor, but that can be mitigated by giving people choices that more closely align with their hobbies and future goals. More importantly, some of the disdain is cultural. That’s why some kids for whom there is a cultural expectation to do well in school work hard even though they are “forced” to go to school.

[Omar_Little]

Have you not been following the news for the last several weeks? We’re trying to make the government smaller, cut government expenditures, to reduce the deficit and the US debt. How the hell do you propose your National Service program be funded? With monopoly money?

[brickbacon]

@spooje

Roads get built all the time in the free market.

If it’s a private road, it is paid for by private citizens. If it is a public road, it is paid for by taxes.

I was speaking in generalities. Yes, there are private roads that get built, but our highway system, and transportation in general, would be pretty inadequate if we relied on the free market.

@spooje

There is no shortage of labor in the Medical Field that I am aware of.

Well, we ration health care to a large degree based on costs. Even so, there are often shortages of nurses, lab techs, primary care physicians, etc. Students would/could not do most of those jobs, but they could take over some of the tasks given to people in those occupations. More importantly, they could be used to defray other costs that could be used to make the salaries of PCP more attractive. Right now, many doctors spent large amounts of time dealing with administrative issues like insurance reimbursals and covered drugs. That is not a productive use of time. The large idea behind this project would be to allow highly trained and skilled employees in public, labor-intensive fields to spent more time doing skilled tasks rather than menial labor. There is no reason to have a teacher grading multiple choice tests, and entering grades, instead of actually teaching a student. Doctors shouldn’t spend their time on the phone with an insurance company at the expense of diagnosing patients. In order to make the skilled employees more productive, you need to have other people doing the unskilled work. Teenage enlistees would be perfect for that, and they would gain valuable insight as to how a workplace functions.

@Chessic_Sense

We could even build camps in which to concentrate all these workers. Free housing! I’m glad brickbacon came up with this solution, finally.

Right, because I am a Nazi. I guess the people in the Israel government are Nazis as well.

@Chessic_Sense

You have a very weird definition of “need”. “Things we need” and “things we’re not willing to pay for” have no overlap.

You need to get a better dictionary.

need (nd)
n.

1. A condition or situation in which something is required or wanted: crops in need of water; a need for affection.

We need to fix various parts of our infrastructure. As this article titled, “U.S. Infrastructure Needs Overhaul” argues. We are often not willing to pay for these things, hence the second part of the post you referenced. These are not incompatible ideas.

@Marley23

Ah, I missed your fourth point. So you’re also proposing we put a lot of college professors and ancillary employees out of work.

A few, but as some of the most educated people in our society, I think they can find other jobs.

@Marley23

I agree there is a lot of infrastructure work that needs to be done, but do you actually think no one is administering tests at hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices? You think nobody is grading tests? (That one in particular screams “pointless busywork.”) And do you think the problem with infrastruture is that there is nobody who can pave a road? The problem is a lack of money being devoted to those projects.

There are often not enough people to do these things. Or rather, there is not a willingness to pay the people to do these things at the prevailing wages. That’s why there are thousands of rape kits that have not been processed and millions of medical records that have not been computerized. Completing these things would save us all money, but nobody wants to bear the costs because they themselves will not receive benefits that outweigh these costs. By reducing the costs of completing these things, far more people would be willing to subsidize them.

@Marley23

Aren’t those people being taken away from other jobs?

Some sure. But the increase in productive things being done that will have multiplier effect would likely cancel out any job losses.

[Typo_Negative]

@brickbacon

I was speaking in generalities. Yes, there are private roads that get built, but our highway system, and transportation in general, would be pretty inadequate if we relied on the free market.

If we relied on it for what, exactly? To come up with the dough?

[Der_Trihs]

@Marley23

As a ballpark figure I’m going to say there are 10 million kids age 18 to 20. Instead of going to college or entering the labor force for whatever pay they would normall get, they’re now doing those jobs for cheap.

And probably doing them badly. Someone working under coercion does a poor job because they just don’t care about doing a good one, and are often angry enough to sabotage the task wherever practical. I know that if you’d done something like that to me at that age I’d have done as much damage as possible, both out of anger and out of a sense of duty. I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t tried to do some damage in retaliation.

[brickbacon]

@Omar_Little

Have you not been following the news for the last several weeks? We’re trying to make the government smaller, cut government expenditures, to reduce the deficit and the US debt. How the hell do you propose your National Service program be funded? With monopoly money?

Spending to make the “government” more efficient will SAVE money in the long run. Almost all pundits have acknowledge that the primary way to reduce the deficit is to GROW. In order to do that, we should spend money in a effective way. Better roads, better schools, and better health care will all save money. Just a single payer health care often means governments spend more in total, it often means less overall money is being spent. It’s about efficiency. Additionally, as I demonstrated is the case in Israel, mandatory service can often spur eventual private sector growth. Just as NIH functions to perpetuate growth, so too could a mandatory service.

[DianaG]

@Chessic_Sense

“Things we need” and “things we’re not willing to pay for” have no overlap.

I LOL’d.

I mean, really… mandatory service is a terrible idea, but not quite as downright silly as that quote.

[brickbacon]

@spooje

If we relied on it for what, exactly? To come up with the dough?

If the government had never been tasked with building any transportation system, what do you think our system would look like today? Do you think we would have highways, trains, and airlines?

@Der_Trihs

And probably doing them badly. Someone working under coercion does a poor job because they just don’t care about doing a good one, and are often angry enough to sabotage the task wherever practical. I know that if you’d done something like that to me at that age I’d have done as much damage as possible, both out of anger and out of a sense of duty. I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t tried to do some damage in retaliation.

Ideally, there would be a way to weed out sociopaths.

[Omar_Little]

@brickbacon

Spending to make the “government” more efficient will SAVE money in the long run. Almost all pundits have acknowledge that the primary way to reduce the deficit is to GROW. In order to do that, we should spend money in a effective way. Better roads, better schools, and better health care will all save money. Just a single payer health care often means governments spend more in total, it often means less overall money is being spent. It’s about efficiency. Additionally, as I demonstrated is the case in Israel, mandatory service can often spur eventual private sector growth. Just as NIH functions to perpetuate growth, so too could a mandatory service.

I disagree that having the government spend money on things to put people to work where there isn’t demand for those services would be frivolous and wasteful. The growth that pundits and others are talking about as a way to get out of the deficit is growth in the private sector which will in turn create more tax revenue for the government. Your analyzing the wrong side of the equation, increased government spending will only make matters worse.

[Justin_Bailey]

@brickbacon

Teenagers can act as support personnel. The bottom line is that there is a cost for keeping libraries open, and if that cost is deemed too high due to labor costs, we can lower that by providing low-cost labor. Even so, I doubt it will fix the issues at every library, but it couldn’t hurt.

Allow me to lay a little expert knowledge on this part of your plan. I work in a library. More specifically, I’m the supervisor to all those teenage workers you say we need to hire. Your plan won’t work because teenage library workers are the only staff members your average library has a surplus of right now. And if I had the budget money to hire more, I’ve already got a stack of resumes as thick as a dictionary.

Creating some sort of makework program won’t help libraries stay open longer hours. To do that we need the local governments to open their wallets. After that, the libraries already have policies in place to hire as many teenage workers as we need and the libraries already have applicants to fill those positions.

[Grumman]

@brickbacon

Ideally, there would be a way to weed out sociopaths.

And what would be done with these “sociopaths”?

[randomface]

People that resist forced labor, either by doing work slowly or poorly or by sabotage, are not sociopaths. The enslaved have every right to resist slavery, whether the chains were affixed by a single man or a group of men.

[Marley23]

I guess we’re glossing over the military part here, but once again, the military does not want conscripts. They want volunteers.

@brickbacon

A few, but as some of the most educated people in our society, I think they can find other jobs.

Even if throwing a bunch of professors out of work weren’t a bad thing, I was also saying you are throwing the support staff out of work, too.

There are often not enough people to do these things. Or rather, there is not a willingness to pay the people to do these things at the prevailing wages. That’s why there are thousands of rape kits that have not been processed and millions of medical records that have not been computerized. Completing these things would save us all money, but nobody wants to bear the costs because they themselves will not receive benefits that outweigh these costs.

Suddenly we’re not talking about the roads and infrastructure anymore, or about running the medical tests. Is that because a high school graduate probably isn’t qualified to do them after all?

By reducing the costs of completing these things, far more people would be willing to subsidize them.

Right, they might be willing to pay for it if it costs less. Except to get the cost down, you have to convince people that the government should be able to force their children to do it.

Some sure. But the increase in productive things being done that will have multiplier effect would likely cancel out any job losses.

Cite?

[Sandwich]

The plan is almost perfect. All you need to do is make one tiny little change. Make it obligatory for all able bodied 68 year olds. That way you get cheap experienced labour, and reduce your pension problems all in one go.

[alphaboi867]

@Sandwich

The plan is almost perfect. All you need to do is make one tiny little change. Make it obligatory for all able bodied 68 year olds. That way you get cheap experienced labour, and reduce your pension problems all in one go.

Goot point. Alot of jobs the OP suggested (library aids, feeding tests into a scantron, filing medical records) are stuff that most adults, even the less than fully able bodied, can do.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Not a chance.

Riots, sabotage, vandalism.

[Roderick_Femm]

Sure, Brickbacon. Only, you first.

Oh, you’re not between 18 and 20? How did I guess that? You’re mighty free with other people’s time and effort. Maybe you could voluntarily pay more taxes to help things along.
Roddy

[Lord_Feldon]

@voltaire

Though I know I’m being a nitpicker, isn’t the whole point of scantrons is that they don’t need to be graded by a human?

Somebody still has to take them to the machine and feed them in.

Not that it justifies slavery.

[BrotherCadfael]

There’s just one problem with this idea…

[brickbacon]

@Omar_Little

I disagree that having the government spend money on things to put people to work where there isn’t demand for those services would be frivolous and wasteful.

There is a demand. Are you seriously arguing that people in, say, LA don’t want more roads? Do you think people in the Northeast corridor don’t want high-speed rail? The problem is that in a democracy with finite resources and citizenry that has disparate views of the role of government, the demand that exists cannot be fulfilled. If we went through with some of these projects, they would not be wasteful.

@Omar_Little

The growth that pundits and others are talking about as a way to get out of the deficit is growth in the private sector which will in turn create more tax revenue for the government. Your analyzing the wrong side of the equation, increased government spending will only make matters worse.

No, you are missing the point, and mischaracterizing the “pundits”. Many want more government spending in several areas where private sector footdragging has led to inefficiency (eg. health care). Second, I already provided a cite where mandatory conscription has led to private sector growth. A large reason why Israel has/had the most startups outside of Silicon Valley is because of government spending in the form of mandatory conscription. Strengthening infrastructure and making industries more efficient will spur private sector growth leading to more tax revenue. In short, there is no wrong side of the equation, only bad policies. If you would like to argue this is one, that’s fine, but to claim government spending can’t spur private sector growth is demonstrably false.

@Justin_Bailey

Creating some sort of makework program won’t help libraries stay open longer hours. To do that we need the local governments to open their wallets. After that, the libraries already have policies in place to hire as many teenage workers as we need and the libraries already have applicants to fill those positions.

Okay, I’ll defer to your judgment here. What would libraries do after governments open their wallets, and why could their decisions not be expedited by cheaper labor?

@Grumman

And what would be done with these “sociopaths”?

If they break the law, they will be subject to stiff penalties. I think we are talking about different things here. My point of contention is someone who says that they would deliberately sabotage things that could potentially lead to injury and death all because they are mad that they were forced to work is acting like a sociopath. If someone were to do something like that just to prove a point, I would hope the law would treat them as harshly as possible.

@Marley23

I guess we’re glossing over the military part here, but once again, the military does not want conscripts. They want volunteers.

It would still be voluntary because enlistee would be able to choose any variety of jobs. That said though, I don’t really care what they military wants. The military didn’t want gays or blacks for a long time too. What they want is secondary to me to be honest.

@Marley23

Even if throwing a bunch of professors out of work weren’t a bad thing, I was also saying you are throwing the support staff out of work, too.

First, you still need teachers and support staff to teach online classes. But, if the system resulted in a more efficient and cost effective educational system, I will not cry for those who lose jobs.

@Marley23

Suddenly we’re not talking about the roads and infrastructure anymore, or about running the medical tests. Is that because a high school graduate probably isn’t qualified to do them after all?

Of course a high school graduate cannot run all tests, but they can run many of them. As I said, I did many tests as a college freshman.

@Marley23

Right, they might be willing to pay for it if it costs less. Except to get the cost down, you have to convince people that the government should be able to force their children to do it.

Yes, as evidenced by this thread, it would be hard to convince people to do it.

@Marley23

Cite?

For what?

@Roderick_Femm

Sure, Brickbacon. Only, you first.

Oh, you’re not between 18 and 20? How did I guess that? You’re mighty free with other people’s time and effort. Maybe you could voluntarily pay more taxes to help things along.

I would pay more in taxes to help things along. While you are right that I am above the age of enlistment, that’s a pretty shitty argument as to why I can’t advocate for something I believe in. If people could only argue for changes in laws that directly affect them, there would be few things most people could talk about.

I have a question for you guys? Is this just a bad idea for the US, or should other countries get rid of it as well? Why do you think it seems to work in other countries, but could not work here?