A "Domestic Draft": a Positive for the United States?
It may surprise many, but I am a fairly avid reader of alternative news sites like Guerrilla News Network and Info Wars because they do publish stories that are rarely found in the mainstream media. The stories are usually interesting and portray viewpoints that unfortunately do not make it onto Brian Williams' nightly telecast. For example, the sites seem to agree that Georgia is not this angelic little state in the Caucasus being bullied by big mean Russia.

Well, anyway, a story that has turned up on both of the sites that I mentioned, as well as many others, is that President-elect Obama and his probable chief of staff, Indiana Representative Rahm Emanuel, would like to implement a nationwide "goal" (but formerly a "require[ment]") that high school- and college-age students nationwide perform some kind of community service. Whether it will be compulsory or not remains to be seen, but evidently Emanuel called for a compulsory nationwide program in a book he wrote in the past few years. Some have compared the book's plan to a "domestic draft" in that it would be compulsory and it would involve three months of civil defense training, in addition to community service.

Would it be un-American to introduce this "domestic draft," or even a lesser plan of required community service for young adults? Yes and no. The concept of any sort of draft scares many Americans, myself included, because the government can essentially come and force you to drop everything and serve. Upon being drafted, the person would have to serve for only three months, and not in combat, but it still would come as an inconvenience to most, of not all. In addition, it undermines the idea of community service because, in general, service is voluntary (not counting service as punishment for a crime or as a requirement for a religious program). The quality of the service might go down, or it would make very little difference, especially when compared to that of willing volunteers who would continue to serve whether they had a requirement or not. Forced military training, even if only for civil defense, would probably rub many Americans the wrong way. Too many are pacifists and would not be willing to fire a gun at a member of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Arkansas. Further, the military draft was stopped in 1973, when the Vietnam War was drawing to a close. To resurrect that ghost might be suicidal for the next administration, as well as the government at large.

I would consider myself a Communist, but in a perfect world, I think that Communism should be voluntary. Soviet Communism was an evil because people were essentially enslaved for the good of the "people"--you know, those in the Kremlin. Maybe I'm just going through the pains of a citizen of a capitalist country adjusting to the system, but something does not seem right about it. Hopefully things will work out.

Oh, and remember Test Card F from last fall? Well, I found this the other day:



This was broadcast on Soviet state television in the 1980s. I think their coverage of Chernobyl consisted of this screen with a voice telling the people to go back to work and that nothing was wrong. This, of course, would have taken place only a year after the disaster. Anyway, it doesn't quite compare to Test Card F, but I like it.