We need mandatory National Service in the US

Septimus, the title of this thread includes the phrase “mandatory National Service”. I don’t think there is any rational way to come to the conclusion that the OP wanted this to be voluntary.

Over the years I’ve come to consider that instituting mandatory military service would be a net benefit to the country as a whole. I don’t think that, in the nations that require a year or two of service at the beginning of adulthood is on onerous burden. Given my background in hiring I’ve found that, by and large, those with military service in their background (especially former enlisted personnel) have a greater discipline and ability to overcome hurdles than those without. Certainly those in their mid-20s or so who have a term in are better at getting things done.

That’s part of what I think it would bestow: those one or two years would provide a sense of discipline and goal-orientation that might help focus the country as a whole. I think it’s overlooked but I’ve always believed that the universality of veteran status among men post-WWII (Quote one of my ethics professors: “It’s not significant that I served in WWII. ALL of us served, in one way or the other, in WWII.” He was in his 60s at the time.) provided a level of discipline that was able to best take advantage of the US economic opportunity in the 1950s and 1960s.

Still, it’s a mixed bag. Heck, I’m an advocate of 12 month per year schools (which cheeses off my kids). A look at which countries do have mandatory service is interesting. There are certainly some acknowledged third world shitholes (a term I picked up at USAID) but some significantly successful first world democracies as well. Amusingly, on wiki’s list of nations with and without mandatory service ‘Iran’ is right next to ‘Israel’ and both are listed as ‘yes’. But there’s also Taiwan, Switzerland, South Korea, Finland, Denmark, Brazil, Bermuda, and Austria.

So again, it’s a mixed bag. I think there would be benefits to it. But I can see the objections as well.

Oh, and the idea of putting conscripts into work in hospitals and suchlike? That’s ludicrous.

Duplicating things seems to be a hallmark of your idea. I’ll grant you that Acela does not go as fast as high speed rail in Europe and Japan, but it sounds like you’re now proposing we build an entire new set of tracks for it even though it does what you said we need. That doesn’t sound like a good use of resources regardless of what it costs. We don’t have an infinite supply of unwilling drafted teeangers working on the railroad all the livelong day.

Then why bring the kids into it? Why not just demand professionals do it for lower pay? It cuts out the training time, too.

“Unit cohension” was the euphemism for “we don’t want [del]blacks[/del] gays,” and I agree it was nonsense.

Again, this is a hallmark of your proposal: it involves assuming you know how to run things better than the people who run them for a living.

I don’t know what issues they have or don’t. But I know they’ve had these programs (wrong as I think they are) for some time and aren’t proposing a big disruption to their existing workforces.

I’m glad you said this because I think it cuts to the core of your misunderstandings here. I never once had a teacher walk out of the classroom to grade our Scantrons. They do that after school or during lunch breaks. I don’t feel as qualified to comment on how doctors spend their time, but I think the majority of practices have office staff who handle the kinds of paperwork you’re talking about. So this work that you are having the service members do would not actually result in more classroom time and more time with patients. And last I knew, librarians weren’t taking time away from children’s programs and adult education to put books back on the shelf. You know who was doing that work? Teenagers working for low wages. Some of those kids are librarians today.

I’ve acknowledged the rape kit thing is actually an issue. So is the lack of nurses, at least as far as I know. I still think the solution is giving existing programs the funding they need, finding more efficient ways to do the work, and encouraging people to take the jobs. Not making kids do them instead of going to college. I don’t think that’s a good use of their time.

No, what’s stupid is that this is a major issue and you’re treating it as a nitpick. Your ideas would cause a lot of economic disruption by taking millions of students out of college where they could make progress toward their chosen careers, throwing people out of work, and affecting the wages of a large number of people. You’re saying all of those things would as a positive because this work really needs to get done. I was asking if you have some kind of factual basis for saying it will work out to the good, or if you’re just putting sprinkling fairy dust on it and assuming everything will be fine in the end because that’s what you want to happen.

Exactly. My kids are trying to educate themselves and prepare for their future and the old folks think that would be a good time for them to skip a couple of years? Rather than the old folks paying for the labor they want or getting off their asses and doing the work that needs to be done for themselves, they think it would be a good idea to steal a couple of years from someone else. Nice. Really nice.

This is exactly the mentality that brought us Social Security. Tax the young and leave them an IOU.

How about we demand 2 years from everyone over 60? Retirees aren’t making any useful contribution to society and they won’t be make any useful contribution in the future.

As someone who actually went through two years (well, 20 months) of mandatory national service in the Greek armed forces (the air force specifically), I can unequivocally state that this was a huge waste of time and resources for everyone involved:

  • Me
  • The military
  • Greece

For me, I can promise you that the last thing I wanted after having finished college was to put two years of mind-numbing routine between my degree and becoming a productive member of society. During that 20 month period I cleaned barracks, stood guard, cleaned barracks, stood guard and pushed missiles on and off their launch ramps, cleaned dishes, cut grass, etc. Did the Army try to take advantage of my skills learned during college? Nope. How many conscript economy graduates does the army need? Camaraderie? Don’t make me laugh till spittle causes floods in central Europe. Do you know with how many people I stayed in contact with? 1 guy. My “salary” during those 20 months? The equivalent of 4 (four) EUR per month.

For the army, I was a weight. They had to feed me and keep me for 20 months. They knew that after 20 months I’d be gone. Do you think anyone is going to invest productive manpower or resources to train someone they know will leave in 20 months just to repeat this process afterwards? The answer is no. But since I’m there, they have to give me something to do. So in your standard work day, I had between 6 to 9 hours of guard duty, 3-4 hours of some menial occupation (painting barracks, cleaning barracks, pushing missiles) and the rest was lunch / free time, etc. For 20 months. But I don’t blame them. They don’t need me, but I’m there, by law I have to be there, so they must find ways to occupy their time and my time.

For Greece, instead of me working and contributing in the country’s GDP, taxes, etc, I was a net weight on the country’s finances since they had to pay to feed me, clothe me, transport me from A to B.

Sure, there’s some kind of civic duty involved and whatnot, but there is a reason many countries are reducing the duration of conscription or getting rid of it altogether: There is no tangible benefit to outweigh all the negative aspects of conscription.

And before anyone says, “Aha! you said you went there after college, I said that only 18 year-olds should be conscripted”, 18 year-old conscripts or conscript with no formal education
were given even more menial assignments than average. The army sometimes did try to match expertise with some kind of specialization (e.g. a telecom engineer became the switchboard operator - I kid you not) but an untrained 18 year old simply became an untrained 20 year old when he got his discharge papers. Every single time.
To repeat the main reason for this: The army is not going to waste resources training someone who is going to leave for good after 20 months. And they’re not gonna let conscripts within 100 yards of any piece of expensive new equipment and risk it being destroyed though faulty handling or whatnot. They have carrier soldiers for this.

There is a reason Greece reduced the duration of conscription to 10 months, and it’s not because the 20 month version was such a resounding success.

Seconded.

More precisely, it’s the medieval corvée and is as efficient as the rest of the feudal system.

I, for one, would love to ride on brickbacon’s high speed rail corridors that were built with cheap, unskilled teenage labor.

I’m guessing it will be a bike path with a cardboard train.

Guess what? Infrastructure is expensive because of the materials, expertise, and safety of the project. Not the unskilled labor. Besides, what teenager is going to pick the hottest, noisiest jobs when apparently you could get a cushy gig running scantron sheets through a machine? The whole proposal as presented here is nonsensical.

I"m still waiting to see who’s magically paying for all the skilled labor that will still be required, along with materials and equipment rental. Because it won’t be the States or the Feds – if they had money, I wouldn’t have so many shelved projects.

Sorry that your government didn’t value you.

Now, let me point out that in the US if you join the military, e1 under 2 years [basic raw recruit through basic training and training for your potential military job] is roughly $17000 per year. Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour [ or $15000 per year.]

May I point out that if you join the military, you get your basic uniform issue, your medical care and your food and housing given to you. All you have to manage to do is obey orders, exercise some personal discipline and you can’t be fired. All you need to do is [currently] have a HS diploma and no felonies…

Now, tell me that the average slacker kid who is getting out of HS with nothing specific in mind other than a free ride for 4 years at college on their parents wouldn’t be better off actually learning to self discipline, keep to a schedule, learn to follow orders and actually get out and interact with people from all different walks of life. Hell, they even have access to people who will discuss financial planning, they can take college courses while still in, be able to save money for the future education or down payment on a house or fancy car in addition to the self pride of being able to have a job and their own money, and the ability to then continue on having had some exposure to real life instead of just slacking along.

Now, what is the down side of giving this chance to every kid, rich or ghetto?

Well, in the case of an organization like City Year, it is possible and very effective to get young people without education degrees volunteering to help in schools. I wouldn’t call it unskilled labor, but we managed to be effective with a month of training.

Also, why not just set a time window in which someone has to complete their service? That way, kids would have a choice between serving after graduating high school and doing something useful with their gap year, or serving after college or whatever so that they can use their education to do some good.

I don’t know about building maglev train tracks (nor do I know why that seems to be the default service project…) but if the service was carried out through Americorps affiliates then everyone would have a broad selection of causes to take up, which meant that at least more people would be doing work they cared about and thus doing it better.

That depends on which orders he has to obey. If nothing else, you’ve unilaterally decided that military service is the best way for him to spend two years of his life, a decision that is not necessarily accurate.

Is this what you did when you were in the military?

My time did not give me the impression that the military was particularly good at teaching self-discipline, keeping to a schedule and getting out and interacting with people from all different walks of life. Following orders though, that it did. Their future boss/clients will do that as well.

I’m opposed to mandatory national service… I won’t go as far as to call it “slavery,” but I’d far rather pay taxes to have freeways built than be conscripted into actually going out and building them.

I’m also opposed to “public service” requirements for high school graduation. I hold this to be intrusive.

There is an acculturation issue: people in such disciplined and ordered groups are subject to “taking orders.” I don’t think it’s a good idea for citizens of a free society to become “militarized” in that way.

(The current unemployment situation is bad in much the same way: it makes it a lot harder for people to quit their jobs in protest against bad bosses. It puts us in a disadvantageous position regarding “taking orders” as opposed to “following instructions.”)

Trinopus (not a libertarian…just a liberal…)

Well for starters not every kid is a slacker with nothing in mind other than a free ride for 4 years on their parent’s dime. :rolleyes: Also an 18 is not a kid; he is an adult. Adults are free to make their own decisions, for better or worse. I had by act together and I sure as hell wouldn’t want this supposed “chance”. I managed to learn self discipline, how to keep to a schedule, and to follow orders by stuff like going to school, working a job (that I actually chose & could leave without my employer locking me up in a cell), and interacted with with people from “all walks of life” in the workforce & in college. Also my parents’ instilled those values in me. And you what? Even if young adult is slacking off in college on their parents’ dime that’s betwen him and his parents’; it’s not the state’s business. If that’s how they want to spend their money they have every right too.

And what happens when certain jobs have more enlistees choosing them than positions available while other jobs simply don’t have enough enlistees applying for them? How do you fill those jobs in a voluntary manner? If you answer is simply to provide higher pay, better benefits, or other incentives doesn’t that defeat the entire point of your proposal?

[QUOTE=13th Amendment, Sec 1]
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
[/QUOTE]

You are proposing a form of service which is involuntary. Now the Draft is also a form of service which is involuntary, but the Supreme Court ruled it does not violate the 13th Amendment. The rational being the Constitution also gives Congress broad powers to raise & support armed forces. Armed Forces. Congress does not have the same power to raise a non-military labor service via conscription. There isn’t really a precedent for in in American history. The CCC and WPA were both voluntary programs. We did require conscientious objectors to perfom alternative non-military service when we had the draft; the key word being “alternative”. Military service was still the default option.

Congress only has to power to conscript people into the military. It can provide alternative service for conscientious objectors and making qualifying as a CO as easier as it want’s, but it can’t draft people into AmeriCorps. The Constitution simply doesn’t give it the power.

Jury duty isn’t the same thing. Jury trials seldom last more than a week; let alone multiple years. And the vast majority of jurors are free to go home at the end of the day. Also the Constitution mentions specifically mentions juries. And juries have always (in Anglo-American tradition) been chosen by sortition. HS graduation community service requirments don’t count either since there’s no law actually requiring anyone to graduate from high school and it’s state governments (or local school boards using delgated authority from the state) implimenting them, not the federal government.

Not that I think a state-level, non militia based, compulsory 2 year community service requirement for all young adults would be constitutional either. In any even it would be highly impracticle since it’s alot easier to move out of state than it is to another country.

Honestly, though, why shouldn’t there be a community service system not unlike the draft? I mean in the sense of a lottery. When a kid turns 18, they put their names into a registry that they may be called on to help in the event of a major catastrophic event in their area the way someone might get called for jury duty. For example, when I was in Boston a big hurricane hit central Mass and did a lot of damage and killed some people - “draftees” would be called on in circumstances like those.

I have spent my adult life as a dependent, not enlisted though I did try to enlist. Something about a broken back that make me 4f even though physio had returned me to functionality at that time. I didn’t start to have issues again until about 10 years ago when my body pretty much went to hell. Sucks to turn 40.

And knowing a fair number of guys and families in the military, yes they do learn self discipline, they learn about a lot of different people they would have never met, many get to travel to foreign duty stations where they learn about different people and cultures, and yes they did learn to take responsibility and that includes paying attention to scheduling. No idea what branch you were in or when, so your personal mileage may vary.

What, you can’t ask for volunteers when there’s a crisis? No one ever shows up of their own free will to help out?

On top of that, have any of you folks considering this draft considered what happens when one of these non-volunteers gets hurt or killed on the job? Construction is a hazardous business you know. So is post-disaster clean up.

Nope; it has everything to do wtih national service. Anyone who earns an honest living serves the nation – that’s why members of the nation are willing to shell out money for whatever it is they’re doing.

It may not serve the State, but since I don’t share your supreme reverence for that entity that isn’t a problem for me.

The effective conscription of a vast amount of new people would either require a lot more money being put into the armed forces to pay for all this, or if not, then a lessening in quality in quantity of all those advantages you point out. I don’t know how much it costs to pay, house, feed, and train a soldier in the U.S., but I imagine that hundreds of thousands of new recruits would put a dent in the budget.