(This is one of a weekly series of posts entitled “A Centrist’s Platform”. The complete collection of Centrist’s Platform posts is available on a single page, or via a special RSS feed.)
During my last year of college and my first year in the “real world”, I went on a Heinlein reading kick. I read everything of his that I could get my hands on.
One of the ideas that stuck with me from that phase was that of “National Service” from Starship Troopers
Maybe that’s because of a lingering interest I had in the military. As a teenager, I very seriously considered joining the military, in part to address questions of how I was going to pay for college. And since then, I’ve encountered many people who would be interested in contributing their time to National Guard duty, to assist in disaster recovery and other manpower needs…but are unwilling to enlist due to the potential of true military involvement.
We’ve had incarnations of national service-like constructs before in America. Consider the FDR’s CCC, which made work for the unemployed. Consider also attempts such as the Peace Corps and Americorps, both of which might suffer a bit from limited benefits and the granolaish associations with the programs.
So, I would love to see the creation of a national service corps — a decently-funded program by which Americans can contribute their skills to the country as a whole, and by which simple manpower can be organized and mobilized for domestic, peacetime needs, without the threat of being summoned overseas to be shot at.
Considering the concerns we have in this country in which the solutions are impaired by a lack of manpower, there should be plenty that a designated pool of talent could be drawn upon to resolve.
Perhaps such tasks could be as simple as augmenting/relieving the National Guard for border patrol support and sandbagging duties. Some folks believe that the illegal immigration problem is fueled by demand for labor to fill jobs that no American will voluntarily take; perhaps having a pool of labor to draw upon would resolve that. And, of course, there are concerns about being unable to find teachers or doctors willing to serve in challenging environments (remote towns, inner cities), which could be addressed as part of a national service program.
Yes, there are already programs or constructs to address all of those concerns. However, it seems to me that they suffer somewhat due to their balkanized nature. One program, efficiently run, should be able to draw a larger talent pool to fill a broader variety of needs.
Heck, I can even imagine my being drafted for a couple of weeks a year to go bolster ranks of federal analysts. The Federal Part-Time Actuarial and Statistical Corps, anyone?
I understand that many people might be uncomfortable with the concept of National Service. I myself am not a fan of the idea of compulsory volunteerism. National Service also seems uncomfortably close to a resumption of the draft. And my expressing interest in the creation of a National Service Corps does require me to table my general distrust of any expansion of government’s involvement in our daily lives.
But thinking about how the draft of the 40’s and 50’s lead to a mixing of society — folks of different economic backgrounds and from different parts of the country rubbing elbows in ways that hadn’t previously been common — and considering just how much debt lower- and middle-income young adults incur to get a good start in independent life…. well, maybe a national service program wouldn’t be such a bad idea.