National Service

From time to time, Fixer and myself have espoused a belief that national service is called for to make actual citizens out of the apathetic populace. Time magazine, obviously regular readers of the Brain, finally picked up on it.

But at this moment in our history, 220 years after the Constitutional Convention, the way to get citizens involved in civic life, the way to create a common culture that will make a virtue of our diversity, the way to give us that more capacious sense of "we" — finally, the way to keep the Republic — is universal national service. No, not mandatory or compulsory service but service that is in our enlightened self-interest as a nation. We are at a historic junction; with the first open presidential election in more than a half-century, it is time for the next President to mine the desire that is out there for serving and create a program for universal national service that will be his — or her — legacy for decades to come. It is the simple but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.

The basic plan as outlined in the article uses a "carrots instead of sticks" approach. Hey, whatever works - at least somebody's thinking of ways to make it workable. Go read and tell us what you think.

They call for us Olde Fartes (lctp) to do what we can in our Golden Years to act as mentors to the youngsters. I volunteer to help the babe on the cover learn whatever she wants to know and then some...