"23 Proposals to Revitalize our Constitution and Make America A Fairer Country". Well, wouldn't you know, one of these proposals is for Universal National Service (UNS).
Well, here we go. First you mention sacrifice. I told you I don't support the notion of sacrifice. Now it's fairness. I've gone several rounds on this thread about fairness. Not something I'm into, either, not in the kumbaya sense of it. So any proposal that invokes fairness will get pretty much the same response from me as one that invokes sacrifice. <g>
Additionally there is the moral argument:
It is not about you--it is about we all have a shared obligation to defend and work for the country.
I disagree that that's a moral argument. I see it as a political argument.
No doubt there would be screwups and stockades and jails would be needed for those who refused to participate.
I think you're being way too cavalier about that. What about the kids that end up in therapy for the rest of their lives or become alcoholics or kill themselves? Not everyone is suited to boot camp. I wouldn't be surprised if we lost a third.
Approximately $16,000 per participant with 4.1 million participants per year
What, only one year of service? And comparing the cost of military training with Americorps? Good grief! Americorps takes a conference room, an instructor, and a notebook. And what about paying the kids. You'd have to give them an E-1 salary, no? That's more than $14K/year right there. And you're not counting the extra tanks and shooting ranges we'd have to build to give them something to train on.
I know the cost of the required service doesn't include the increased costs to the military of having to accommodate more soldiers, but there are also offsets
I think you're missing the order of magnitude here. According to the census we'd be looking at nearly 20 million kids at a time. Wiki says we have a million and a half military. That means 13 kids per current troop. You'd need more than the whole military full time just to manage the kids. We'd be defenseless.
As long as you think this can be done on the cheap, this discussion won't get anywhere. I can't see spending trillions of dollars for a chance at a partial attitude adjustment. It's not good value. I doubt it would be good value at $212 per citizen but at least you could make that argument with a straight face. More realistic cost figures, not so much. This initiative would make health care costs look like chump change.
Basically it is my experience the military will do what it is asked to do. You want us to train our nation's young people we will train out nation's young people.
Sure, they're "good soldiers." They'd do it. Right after they staffed up and bought all the stuff they'd need.
I agree that the vulnerability of this proposal is the effective use of the participants.
No kidding...!!
They will get there eventually.
Maybe, although the kids who would be most likely to find a cure for cancer are just the kids who would be most likely to be ruined by the military life.
But even without that problem, the opportunity costs include the years they wasted marching around with guns when they could be doing productive work. Taking a few years away from a scientist's career is a real loss.
The budget is out of control because we have become self-satisfied and self indulgent with the political class pandering to us and starting wars we basically don't care about because they don't touch us directly (unless one of our kids has volunteered).</i.
So are you going to stop the pandering before or after you start the draft? Remember, even assuming your idea works, it will take a generation or two before the self-indulgent culture recedes and is replaced by sacrifice. What do you do for a budget during that attitude-adjustment transition. Do we stop Medicaid and crop supports and food assistance, etc. first and let folks do without during the transition? Or do we incur both the costs of both our current indulgent programs and your service program concurrently for the duration of the transition? I was assuming an add-on, which would be a budget buster if I ever saw one.
If we are just requiring book work from them what message does that send?
Perhaps you missed the part about the civics training. The message is in the civics training.
E Pluribus Unum. United we are one.
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