Isn't the best form of national service working to improve yourself?

[hedgehog]

If each one of us reaches adulthood equipped with the best education possible, good nutrition and good health care and allowed to go out and compete in a fair job market, isn't that the best way to build up the country? If we have a good income distribution, we'll be able to pay the taxes needed to hire teachers and construction workers so there'd be no need for "volunteers" to shore up the public schools and patch up the infrastructure. We don't expect people to pay back for their grammar school education; why do we insist on it for a college education? When are we going to admit that having a high percentage of college graduates is as important today as having a literate population was a century ago?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I agree.

Higher education should be free to all. And national service, as in being forced to stab paper with a stick like a road felon, is a joke.

Everything you say makes sense, but how the heck do we get there? We have gone down such a wrong road these last 30 years or so, it is a long way back just to get where we were.

[IndyOp]

2. No! Good freaking grief! This nation is full of self-absorbed MEMEMEMEMEs

- the career I want, the house I want, the family I want...

Personal Responsibility This; Personal Responsibility That; Personal Responsibility Shmersonal Responsibility.

GOOD GOD DAMN. Personal Responsibility IS NOT ENOUGH. Of course you must be responsible for yourself. Of course I must be responsible for myself.

And you are also responsible for your community. You are responsible for ME. And I am responsible for YOU. And we are responsible for our shared resources -- including schools, educational centers, justice buildings... OURS. And we ought not ask anyone to do a job that we think is "below" us.

The PURPOSE of national service is to change our current, myopic, INDIVIDUALISTIC culture to one that is more balanced -- one that recognizes our constant inter-dependence. A culture that understands and respects collectivistic cultures, even if it does not become one.

No one does anything important for themselves BY THEMSELVES. I teach college and I am about ready to stroke out when the next student in my social psychology class tries to convince me that THEY are responsible for their personal success. Bullshit. Did you build the college buildings? If all the other students and profs left, could you DO COLLEGE all by yourself?

If you attended my public university as an in-state student, your tuition would be $15,000 lower than out-of-state students and about $40,000 lower than international students. Why? Because EVERY U.S. taxpayer is chipping in to put your bottom in a seat at that university. The JANITORS and the COOKS in the cafeteria are paying taxes to cover your expenses.

I would like to OFFER a decent salary to any and all high school students who would LIKE to serve a year to benefit their country.

As a prof - I promise you that the students who started university after a year working a job serving their community would get MUCH more out of the "college experience" than the students who treat college like it is high school with easier access drinks and drugs.

The purpose of national service is *not* to use young people for cheap labor - it is to offer young people the opportunity to see their community and nation as it truly is: interdependent. It is to offer young people the opportunity to turn away from the MEMEMEMEME of natural childhood self-centeredness and expectation that life should be made easy by people who love you.

The purpose of national service is to increase respect for ALL workers in the U.S. Right now many youth clearly believe that there are some jobs that are beneath them -- that "hired labor" should do those jobs. Bull. I am now a university professor, but along the way I worked at McDonalds; I worked at a daycare center changing diapers, unstopping toilets, and doing what I could to help abused children find solace; I worked at a nursing home with elderly people whose minds had left them who peed and shat themselves, who had to be fed and walked, gotten out of bed and put back to bed, bathed and dressed, comforted and respected.

I've read several of your posts protesting the idea of national service and did not respond. Well, I have now.

I think that if anything concerns me about national service it is that it will be perceived by many youth as just another way for older adults to control younger adults -- force them to do this or that -- well, college pretty much is that and so is getting a "real job" and so is serving in the military.

I think national service should be instituted and that it should be voluntary for a number of years and then assessed after 5 or 10 years to determine whether it should become mandatory.

And, yes, of course we should be paying for the education of all of our citizens for them to go as far as they can go in our educational system. This is an investment that we should make for the benefit of our communities. I even think it should be a right.

Of course, with rights come responsibilities.

Flame away...

[bobbolink]

3. No flames, not at all! "If I am not for me, who am I? If I am not for others,

what am I? If not now, when?" Hillel

This nation got so wrapped up in individuality, that community has been totally lost. It's a complete joke.

I'm guessing it will take a huge disaster to reawaken a sense of responsibility to the whole.

That big earthquake is the result of the founding fathers spinning....

:cry:

[TahitiNut]

4. Bravo! (God forbid I ever have to share a foxhole with some of these self-obsessed hogs.)

Or a lifeboat. They'd damned well better row or learn to swim. :grr:

[omega minimo]

6. Good rant. Did you see the 60 Minutes on the shocker that new college grads were finding

when the imagined $40K/year-to-start lifestyle (and acknowledgement of their Specialness and lifetime of Self Esteem worship) did not magically appear on schedule? That's not to laugh-- kids need to be raised with self esteem AND realistic expectations.

Appreciate you posting this, esp. from you perspective as a college educator. You acknowledged the validity of OP's point about education benefitting society (although TPTB don't want healthy, thinking human beings starting trouble, donchaknow) and slammed the notion that national service is "beneath" current (poorly) educated youth.

Absolutely, there needs to be a return to the concept of interdependence.

Someone else replied to you about how we've gotten wrapped up in "individuality" and I get it, although I would call it "greed." This is all the fallout from the Greed Is Good mantra-- the I Got Mine So Screw You mentality that extended to the insane competition for pre-schools and the homocidal maniac parents on the soccer field.

These are competitive conspicuous consumption clones-- has nothing to do with being "individuals." They're consumer drones, identical, trying to be special while trying to all be exactly alike.

[hedgehog]

10. I haven't seen such contempt for young people since they were all labeled

Hippies back in the 60's and 70's. What is wrong with expecting a decent wage if you graduate with needed skills? I notice that there is no teacher shortage in areas that offer a decent starting salary.

This is not a socialist republic. We don't live in communes or kibbutzes. What we need is enough controls on our capitalist system to ensure that the benefits of our economy are distributed across the economy instead of accumulated by the top 2%. Once we institute proper social security and ensure our community needs are met (Roads, hospitals, schools, parks, then let people get about their business.

[TahitiNut]

15. Yep. Those (so-called) "old geezers" and "old farts" sure do chap SOME folks' behinds.

:eyes:

[hedgehog]

19. I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I heard this rhetoric back then

and I'm hearing it now. It has more to do with envy than with concern over the morals of the young.

[TahitiNut]

24. I'm "getting at" the language used here on DU to refer to older DUers.

Not just once or twice, either. :shrug:

Insofar as ascribing feelings of "envy" to others ... that's just a smear.

Check out the following threads if you want to see what I'm "getting at" ...
"National service" is about beating up on youth
Isn't threatening people's kids with a draft to 'wake them up' a form of terrorism?
Yes, let's have a draft
Hey Greatest Generation, you're all a bunch of bigots (Now, this is a really 'enlightened' title.) :eyes:

There's a couple dozen more that can be easily found with 'Search.'

[omega minimo]

25. "Morals of the young"

:wtf: I think you misplaced your reply in this subthread. :crazy:

[hedgehog]

26. I don't restrict the term "morals" to sexuality.

The accusation is that young people are too self-involved, pampered and careless of others and need a term of national service to set them all straight. It sounds to me like envy from people who wish they could have been that self-involved, pampered and careless of others at that age.

[omega minimo]

20. $40K for a first job is "a decent wage"?

Fuck "contempt" Please look up the 60 Minutes referred to-- I was describing the segment.......... :evilfrown:

And note "This is not to laugh. Children should be raised with self esteem AND realistic expectations."

Don't throw all your bull at me-- direct it where it belongs.

[hedgehog]

22. Just because all too many people in this country are underpaid doesn't

mean that $40K isn't a decent wage.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Bravo

by the way this ME is killing the country

[hedgehog]

8. I keep reading articles that Americans are the most community minded people in the world.

There is a difference between bonded labor of any type and free labor that is taxed to support the community as a whole. I live in a high tax state, New York, and I wouldn't trade our community services for any other state's. My point is that service to the nation does not necessarily involve joining some sort of work corps or military obligation. Just being a good hard working citizen should be sufficient. I owe no one for my rights; that's why they're called rights, not gifts.

If you have a problem with your students treating their college years as a four year drink and drugs fest, then that is your problem. Solve it. My kids have all hit the ground running working on their studies and helping others. All forced service will do is generate more clever ways around working.

[w4rma]

12. How the heck is someone supposed to be responsible for everyone else when they don't have the

skills to take care of themselves?

FIRST you need to realize that people need to be able to create stable lives for themselves and their families BEFORE they can really START working on creating stable lives for other people.

[XOKCowboy]

16. No flames here. Very well spoken

I don't like the idea of a draft or of national service since I lived with the draft all through high school. But you've made several good points. I made a post about the Rangel's draft proposal and the people who responded so vehemently against it were mostly only worried how it would affect THEM. Not the country. Just them. Oh there were plenty of excuses and rationalizations but mostly it'd interfere with their personal freedoms.

I thank you for so eloquently stating what I wanted to say to all of them.

[Jcrowley]

23. Bravo squared

Each other

needs

Each other

I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.

- Leo Tolstoy

[Selatius]

5. You're talking about the New Deal, and the New Deal has been abandoned by both parties.

It's free trade now. It's the race to the bottom for workers in the name of serving corporate masters. National Service isn't going to help you if your job was sent to a forced labor camp in China.

[Cleita]

9. I'm sure you can find many who agree with you at any gym

in town.

[hedgehog]

11. I like to garden and read. If other people like to work out in a gym,

what's wrong with that?

[Cleita]

13. I like to do all of those things too; read, garden and work out

in a gym, but it's not the same as spending a year in the peace corp or the the military, or doing some other service for one's country.

[hedgehog]

14. We've all been brainwashed by having a standing military.

We serve our country best when we live as free people making our own decisions. If people aren't willing to volunteer for military service, maybe we should consider that an indication that we're not really ready to go to war. (and that means really volunteer, not volunteer under the duress of a bad economy or no tuition for school)

I wonder how many people who are so excited at the notion of every kid spending a year in national service look down on Mormon missionaries? I'm willing to bet only certain kinds of service are politically correct.

[TahitiNut]

17. Yep. It's like celebrating Christmas by opening all your own presents, right?

:eyes: Such a virtue.

[hedgehog]

21. Go back and read the Declaration of independence.

From time to time, we may have had to fight for our freedoms, but that was to keep them from being stolen, not to "earn" them. As much of that fighting was done by people sitting in at lunch counters as was ever done on a battle field. When it comes down to it, most people have fought just for the chance to be left alone to do their own thing. I fail to see how mandatory service moves this cause forward.

[Cleita]

18. You have made up your mind. It's fine. So have I. n/t