Mandatory Service for Young Adults

You don't mandate things just because they would be good for the people involved or the country as a whole.

Otherwise, we'd mandate broccoli and ban MacDonalds.

That's a recipe for losing liberty.

 

Sorry, but what?

There's lots of "mandatory" stuff in American life. I used "taxes" to illustrate one example. That would include sales tax and real estate tax and state tax. Another would be your driver's license. Or a restaurant license.

There's lots of stuff in American life that's mandatory.

Including, for many, many years, a draft.

 

Actually the bumper stickers are going to read:

Save us, bloated government scheme!

 

You know what would save the world's economy?

Get everyone to agree to stop killing each other over flags so we don't need a military.

 

It was your example, so it was the one I dealt with.

As far as a driver's license goes, you don't have to get one. If you don't want to drive, it's unnecessary.

If you're talking about true, mandatory, service, there's just no way its legal. Based on what?

 

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

 

I have to have a DL if I want to drive. I have to have a liquor license if I want to dispense alcohol.

What legal footing was the draft based on?

 

But I can avoid you're licensing by avoiding the activity they are required for.

Will service be required for a license to live?

I'd have to look into the draft to give you a good answer. Just being honest. But, from our nation's founding, we've called men to arms in times of war.

 

Freedom isn't free, Y-F.

We all have to do our part.

Truly, I don't know how I'd feel about it, but I think that if you take youngsters ages 18-25 and put them in the military or peace corps or fixing trails in a national park or whatever, most would benefit greatly from it.

 

They very well might benefit from it. That's still not a good enough reason to institute it.

As to whether they would benefit, well that would probably depend on how well it was run. You're talking about building a massive program from scratch. You'd likely end up with a lot of people standing around bitching about what a waste of time the program was.

And, let's think about a couple of other things. If you're going to send kids far from home to fix a trail in a national park, you're now responsible for transporting him, housing him, feeding him, etc. That's expensive as hell.

And, is little Johny going to get to go home for Christmas to see his mommy? Are you paying for his flight? Does he get a two week vacation? Do you fly him home for that too?

In the military, they're put through an intense basic training. They're deployed -- often overseas -- for long stretches. They miss holidays at home.

People would never stand for that in a mandatory service program.

And, let's also not forget that unions aren't going to be happy with their work being done by kids in a service program.

It's a Utopian idea. It's unworkable in a country our size.

 

Yes. Thankfully, the Constitution says what the Federal government can't do to you.