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

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (130827)	2/13/2010 5:19:53 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542226

I thought it was on the basis that it was inefficient and not needed (to defend the country). It inefficient and not needed to defend the country. If you would, just set out the reasons you are opposed to the UNS then we can have a clarifying argument. 1. There are other approaches for accomplishing the goal. This one seems relatively drastic. 2. It may accomplish the goal for some people but it wouldn't work for many others and would totally screw up yet others. I don't have a clue what the proportions of those groups are but I look at it as "first, do no harm." I see a lot of risk to the participants, particularly relative to the gain. And what would make some people appreciate their country's foundations more would turn off other people to various degrees. You could end up with a net decrease in foundation appreciation. 3. What it might accomplished is utterly dwarfed by the cost. 4. We don't need all those kids underfoot. They couldn't be used effectively. 5. It would place a drain on our military. They don't need any self-imposed problems. They have enough to do dealing with actual enemies. 6. You couldn't assemble enough trained troops quickly enough if we needed them, anyway. It would be too little, too late. 7. Lost opportunity. Some of those kids could, instead, be curing cancer or creating some breakthrough technology or building a business that employs lots of people. 8. We can't afford it. The budget is already out of control. 9. The idea of such involuntary servitude is distasteful. If it isn't unconstitutional, it should be. There are probably some more that will come to mind in the middle of the night... <g> If we're going to pay all those kids for a few years, I'd rather pay to send them to college where they would, in return, be required to pass citizenship and character training in addition to their regular coursework. It would be cheaper and more productive with much less risk of harm to the participants or the culture. At least for our money they would have learned something useful to the country in addition to maybe coming to appreciate our foundations, your goal.