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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (130728)	2/12/2010 9:51:26 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Respond to of 542214

Will get back to you. Busy. Thanks for the reply.

To: Lane3 who wrote (130728)	2/12/2010 12:58:10 PM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542214

V: The question then becomes how do we obtain a "responsible" and "respectful of the enabling societal framework" citizenry? L: It does. V: Agreed! I submit one of the best IS REQUIRING service of them in some form. L: Getting back to why I engaged this topic, I questioned your focus on restoring sacrifice as our key guiding value. You wrote that the problem is that "the concept of shared sacrifice is no longer there." I argued that your focus was off target. V: I am just calling what required service is/was for most individuals. Back then (1965 my year of entry) most of us hoi polloi were not there because we wanted to be there, thought we had better things to do with our lives, certainly could have used more money for our service, and in the end the country was potentially asking us to give up our life for it (and I knew people who gave it up). So from my point of view it is what it is--a sacrifice. L: What I was objecting to was your framing sacrifice as the goal. In the above clip you now offer sacrifice as a potential means to achieve the goal rather than the goal. I am satisfied with that. I can accept sacrifice as a potential means to the end, just not as an end in itself. V: Alright, I am not hung up the word either, but if we are going to require service it is going to require sacrifice is it not? But, whatever, if it produces the citizens we want that is all I really care about it what ever term you choose to apply to service. We can debate about the form and its manifestations, but do you agree with the principle in general? L: "One of the best" means to the goal, dunno about that. I really don't like the idea much as I have said before. I find it depressing and defeatist. But I recognize that it might resonate with some people as it does for you so I won't rule it out as one among many means to the end. V: Why do you not like the idea of requiring our a nation's citizens to all be equally available to meet its defense needs? Why is it OK to entice people to die for the country through the use of economic incentives? Here are the benefits I see as having required service: 1. Fosters citizen unification and awareness of civic responsibility. (Everybody would have had the common experience and shared values.) 2. Acts as a check on the professional career class in the service. (Would Abu Ghraib have had happened with college educated draftees serving?) Also would give the service a multiple pool of talents to draw from. 3. Acts as a check on the political class? Would the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have happened if there was a draft? Open question(s), but certainly there would have been much more debate about it in congress and on the nation's campuses. 4. Makes the citizenry in general tougher both physically and mentally. L: However, since an appreciation of sacrifice isn't necessary to achieve responsibility and respect for the enabling societal framework, and since it clearly doesn't resonate with everyone, I would object strongly to requiring it across the board. Out of respect for individual differences, I would not object to making it one tool in the toolkit for those with whom it resonates. Imposing it on everyone is something else. V: Alright, what are the "tools" you would use to get the citizens we both desire?