12-06-2009
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Sonia Sodha
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Subject: Think Tank: National Service for 7-Year-Olds
An article by Sonia Sodha in the UK Times titled,
Think tank: National service for 7-year-olds,
highlights the scope and intent behind the drive to impose a mandatory
national service requirement on the citizens of many countries across
the globe. Although this story is about Britain, there is nothing
here that doesn't apply equally to what is currently transpiring in
the United States. Here are a few excerpts:
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"Broken Britain" has become a broken record. Politicians and
commentators sketch a society consumed by greed and celebrity
culture, bereft of the "we're all in it together" values of
post-war Britain. We all agree that we need to create a
stronger society, yet all sides seem to struggle with practical
ideas for how to do it.
Demos [the think tank] today launches a report arguing
that the principle of national service, abolished in Britain
in 1960, still has something to offer. A national civilian
service — a sort of "civic corps" — would look
very different from its military forebear: it would be flexible
and tailored to people's lives, not a one-size-fits-all
compulsory scheme.
It would, however, be based on the same principles that
underpinned wartime service: the idea that we owe something
to each other and that citizenship is more than a soulless
contract between individuals and the state. It would be
paid for by introducing interest on student loans, raising
about £1.2 billion a year.
The scheme would see people serving throughout their
lives, taking up opportunities, from school projects at
the age of seven to paid leave for employees. For a week
a year, people would down their tools or keyboards and pick up
litter, dredge canals, become reading mentors or help the
elderly. The community benefits would be huge.
If it is to work, the service must be universal.
Youngsters, your country needs you.
[Emphasis added]
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Just as I have been arguing throughout these many articles, the premise
upon which the entire idea of national service rests is the socialistic
belief that we are not sovereign individuals possessing an unalienable
right to our own lives, but instead are merely components of society; a
group to which we "owe something" simply as a consequence
of our existence. And in fulfilling that duty, we must strive to make
our subservience to the state something more "soulful".
Please write to me with an explanation if you have any idea what this
actually means. It must be important because it comes from a "think
tank"!
And just like voters in Chicago, the British plan is to enforce their
program early and often. With a bold stroke, they would conscript you
at age seven and then keep a guiding hand on your throat throughout
the remainder of your life. But there is nothing further to discuss,
since the "community benefits would be huge". Any what could
be more beneficial that dragging productive citizens away from their
selfish "tools or keyboards" and reassigning them to perform
valuable community tasks like "picking up litter", "dredging
canals" and "reading to the elderly". Actually, it sounds
more like a plan for teaching an entire country how to Go Galt!
To further demonstrate that words have lost all meaning for a great
segment of society, the think tank, Demos, states right at the
top of it website:
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Demos is a London-based think tank. We generate ideas to
improve politics and policy, and give people more power over
their lives. Our vision is a society of free and powerful
citizens.
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They are first and foremost promoters of "free and powerful
citizens", with the intent of giving "people more power over
their lives". Raise both of your hands if you think there is no
contradiction between their stated purpose and their proposal for
mandatory national service. For the rest of you, use your hands to
pour a drink and raise a toast to 1984 - a few years late, but still
arriving fully intact.
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