PrintMarch 31, 2009
Obama and compulsory service
"One can applaud" the Obama administration's promotion of volunteerism, writes Ronald Goldfarb at The Hill's Pundits blog,
"and at the same time ask..... [w]hy not a uniform requirement of national service for every 18-year-old or high school graduate?"
Goldfarb, a veteran of the Camelot era, served his country in uniform, so perhaps he has a better right to pose this question than many.
We know how, in a moment of exuberance, Obama spoke of a "national civilian security force" on the campaign trail.
We know that the GIVE Act, recently passed by the Senate, originally contained a provision to explore the idea of compulsory national service.
And I know this: if Obama tried to introduce compulsory national service for "every 18-year-old or high school graduate," he would instantly destroy the better part of his political capital with young people, even alienating his most ardent supporters.
The idea of compulsory anything -- let alone giving two or three years of your young adulthood to the State -- is utterly foreign to the so-called Millennial generation.
It will be interesting to see how, where, and when, this idea next rears it head.
Lona Manning blogs from Canada. Her parents were staunch anti-Vietnam war activists who left the U.S. to protect their oldest son from the Draft. They voted for Obama.
