That's interesting, Lyle. I thought it was my responsibility, as a parent, to train up my children in the way they should go. But your answer would seem to say that parents can abdicate that responsibility in deference to yet another government program. You already know I am a member of the Hurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I'm sure you know that our 19-21 year old young men are already asked to serve God for two years, acting as missionaries for our church (the women serve from 21-22, but you probably already knew that, too). So would this new compulsory government program pre-empt our members from serving their missions?

Teaching our citizenry to be responsible and contributory should start in the home with the family. No government program has yet to be able to make up for the lack of parents taking responsibility and teaching their children. Government compulsion is never the answer.

If we would quit spending money on federal programs that are not really federal responsibilities, maybe the federal government could do better at its Constitutional obligations, a primary one being national defense.

Lyle,
This idea comes up often these days. It is very frustrating in the military to see how little attention in paid to military issues by most citizens.
The basic problem here is one of quality. A draft will get a lot of people that do not want to serve. This caused huge problems in Vietnam and it would cause them today. Even with the highly motivated volunteer force of today we had some atrocities committed in Iraq. Imagine how the military would have behaved with draftees.
Personally I subscribe to the Starship Troopers plan (the book, not the movie) - military service is voluntary, but you don't get to vote or hold public office unless you have done service. That would ensure our politicians actually had some clue about the military and warfare.

I don't think this is a bad idea, however it's easy for me to come to that conclusion since it doesn't really effect me directly. I'd be interested in hearing what some folks who fall into that age bracket, or have kids who fall into that age bracket, think about it.

It might also be a good opportunity to get those who have fallen behind in the basics up to speed, and to see that every youngster gets some sound financial eduction as well as a part of whatever training period is involved. As this is bound to be a program where the product of the efforts of those involved is apt to be less than the expense involved in running the program, I'm not sure we need to add to the cost by offering too much after-the-fact sweetening. If in fact this is going to be mandatory and a part of growing up, one thing people need to learn as they grow up is that there isn't always a reward for ones efforts beyond what is gained through the effort itself.

@Lyle Ruble... Compulsory Military service is clearly Constitutional and can happen through Congressional action. I'm not sure that 'Mandatory National Service', as you designed it in your post(educational, welfare services....), falls in the preview of the Conscription powers/abilities given by the Constitution to the Military Service. I think Conscription for 'National Service' would require us to Amend the Constitution.

Interesting map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service

So much for the 13th amendment and all of that talk of slavery. Rube you hypocrite fascist.

Why not decide to cease extending this fricking empire. The debacles in Iran and Iraq cost 1.3 TRILLION dollars. Suppose we hadn't gone to these dances? We dont need more warriors...we need less wars. As to LDS... I was filed for CO and eventually won it on the basis of being a plain old Christian. There is no justification for war in the New Testament. To the contrary...we all know the teachings are about peace and unity, brotherhood.... in a word, love. There is no love in war.

War is the biggest business government has. Where do these trillions go? The soldiers get a bit...the mercenaries get some.... but the arms manufacturers and the people who rebuild the countries we blow up get the big money. Bectel and Halliburtons are the only winners in war.

We gave Saddam billions to kill Iranians, sent him the chemicals to gas the Kurds, then we attack his country and kill him. No... not more conscripts here... more sanity.... PLEASE....

There's no need to implement a draft, and the necessity will become less and less in the future as military technology and the accuracy of advanced weapons systems increases. America already has a manpower surplus pool, so if any conflict were to arise that required such ground based initiatives then I'm sure there wouldn't be a problem filling the ranks. The upcoming October Surprise; a conflict with Iran will resemble the air campaigns over Iraq, the Balkans, Libya, etc. The odds of the United States implementing a draft after the public backlash to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan is highly unlikely. Also, have you noticed how all of the anti-war protests coming from the radical Progressives suddenly disappeared when Obama got selected? We're still in the Middle East doing Israel's bidding, yet there's no great outcry from the radical Progressives. No big rallies, marches, etc. When W was in office it was something every week. Now, nothing. And we just had the bloodiest month on record in Afghanistan...not a peep from MSNBC et al.

AWD.... its off to the side a bit but I agree with you. I dont know what my label is but I find little general difference on positions relative to war between our two parties. War is the biggest business our government has. BTW, you seem to slap down the progressives for being quiet about our military exploits (Afghanistan for instance) but where do you stand? What has the 1.3 trillion plus bought us in Afghanistan and Iraq? I would say it has lined the pockets of major American corporations, and has bred the next generation of American hating militants who have watched their countries burn. In a phrase I would say we have bought into a perpetual war.... very good for the bottom line but very bad for life on the planet.

Alfred,
Which part of US history are you expert in? You challenge people with oblique stabs. Curious about the platform from which you address the people on this thread.

If we require their volunteering can they at least drink a beer legally?

Let's see, they can marry, be a soldier, buy a gun, drive, vote, BE REQUIRED TO SERVE (what?) but they still won't be able to go to a bar and order a drink.......

@ Lyle...That's an interesting concept, and I believe that the nation and the people would be improved with some kind of national service as you put it. I am, however, opposed to mandatory service. It didn't work very well in Vietnam or Korea. I enlisted in the Army in 1975 and retired in 1995. I saw the tail end of the draft era and the changeover to the full voluntary military. It is much more professional than the draftee military of yore. However, I think the government could 'coerce' national service by making federal benefits available to those who serve, and denying federal benefits to those who do not. For example, if you do not serve, you are not eligible for federal student loans or federally backed home loans. If you serve, you are eligible for those programs with some possible reduced rates. As I said, it is an interesting idea and well worth discussing.

I find it very interestin that you are asking for shared sacrifice, but when it comes to public unions, you sing a different tune.

I like this proposal from the stand point of building national pride and that we have to may people sucking off the system that could be put to work.

Yet I have 2 major concerns:
1) Your statement "take the nation’s youth and mold them into citizens who understand the needs of a larger society" is a heavily progressive, it takes a village, type statement. While you include the military as one of the services; the rest belong to the nanny state empire being built in the US. A system as this would add huge layers of bureaucracy to an already bloated system.

2) The issue with today's idle youth has nothing to do with national service. The youth toady are being raised by a public education system to concerned with its own growth then the ability of our students to succeed. The goal of high school currently is not to create workers, but to push more and more kids into college. Clogging our system with young adults that should have been working a trade rather then getting a bachelors in Post-Modern Western European Fecal Drawing.

If I could, I would amend your idea and incorporate into the high school curriculum. Require classes that include high community involvement in some of the areas you suggest. Give the ROTC higher access to recruiting. Return shop classes and apprentice work in the various trades, making low level shop classes required for graduation. Reducing the college burden to those that actually need further education.

Lyle, I like the idea of better discipline, fitness and aptitude. But isn't this supposed to be going on during 12 years of public education? Madatory conscription into a liberal service group makes me ill-at-ease. You see, my idea of service would be volunteering to work with the NRA, in order to better appreciate the 2nd amendmant. This could be as simple as a summer of high school grads teaching the younger grades the finer arts of archery, skeet shooting and waterfoul hunting. Heaven knows we have an overpopulation of Canada honkers. While I might be stretching a little here, I think you get the point. My idea of service may be different than yours. How would you like that "service" if you don't like firearms?

The distinction here is voluntary. The pay for volunteering is somewhere between little and nothing, so we aren't spending money we don't have. We've seen the deleterious effect the draft has on the quality of the military, and it would have the same impact on the other services you describe. Our voluntary military, athough stretched thin in your mind, remains a superb force. This isn't by accident. It is because those that serve want to be there. There is a lesson there.

Although I almost never agree with you, I never doubt your patriotism. Thank you for your service.

Another expansive and costly Indoctrination program is not the answer. The massive government run public education at least teaches us all this . Let's focus on changing that and getting back to teaching freedom ,liberty, self governed lives and the responsibilities that go with it. We the people would be far better off than yet another liberal pipe dream . It will never happen in my lifetime so lets leave it at that. America teaches that self success cant be mandated by the government . Focus on fixing schools before starting another doomed idea.
In the past, Lyle you wrote of that in one of your prior articles . You were definitely closer to the right track there. At least there we all agree public education has become pretty much a enormous failure. Clearly, with the massive deficit we face there would be no stomach for another so called Liberal Right to tell American's how to live their lives.

As the proud parent of a couple of those "listless, goalless idle youth", I totally disagree with your proposal. You can not require anyone to volunteer - see any dictionary for the definition of that word.
My children, and their friends, are not idle and goalless. They work. They try hard to get an education so that they can support themselves as adults. They play sports, music and do scouting and other community service. Just because there are some youth that are hopeless (and whose fault is that?) - does not mean that you can use a stroke of the pen to paint them all as idle bums. Open your eyes to the quiet majority that are good, and even productive! junior members of society.
Our society has vilified skilled trades for so long, and lowered the value of most work to the point that even a good college education may not be enough to get a job that pays a living wage.Forcing a two year wait in the midst of higher education will only delay even longer the time until these youth become full "adult" members of the community.
God bless those that do serve in our military - and my husband and I are among that number - but YOU may not decide to draft MY family, and, incidentally, my paycheck - to pay for a program to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
And, by the way, this proposal is a fascist idea, not a "liberal" one.

@Donna Kiefer...Where did I say volunteer? I clearly stated mandatory, not voluntary. What debt do your children owe this society and community in which they live? T hey have been blessed with an abundance of unearned and undeserved privileges. Everything has a price associated with it and the fulfillment of returning to the nation two years of service is not too much to expect. To finish their service by the time they reach age 21 or 22 is not an unreasonable delay.

I agree that not all youth are goalless and idle, but just because your children and others aren't doesn't mean that they should be exempt from serving the needs of a greater society. What price is freedom and citizenship.

You are obviously unaware of the world outside the confines of your world. We are only as strong as our youth and doing what we can do to strengthen their preparation to join society is a small price to pay for the benefits gained. BTW this proposal is no more fascist than serving in scouting.

Tulsa unless you want to go back to subsistence living (and that means making all your own stuff, finding all your own food, fighting others for your own personal survival, etc...) there's always going to be a greater good. I'm not 100% with Lyle on this, but there are some benefits to it. I've never met a kid who was fully developed in all ways at the age of 18 and who probably couldn't benefit from some sort of service position where they're doing something that benefits more then just themselves. I also look at it as a way to kill two birds with one stone. There are things that we pay for as taxpayers that could be done by these kids. Lyle probably hasn't even considered the possibility of programs such as this eliminating the need for some public employment positions that pay at a higher rate and offer expensive benefits - but I have.

The youth will pay back to the family and community for the "gifts" that were provided to them. They will pay their taxes and work to support themselves and their future families, just as their parents and grandparents have worked to support them. All of us have received "unearned" contributions from previous generations, so why should this requirement to pay back to society be limited to 19 year olds then? Of course, I also believe that if a society deems certain benefits to be good and necessary, that society should pay for those benefits - that is what taxes and ballots are for. To have "society" decide to require payment from only one segment (19 yr olds) seems grossly unfair to me.
Ask any career military person if they want to return to the days of conscripts and they will tell you "no, thank you!". There are many good reasons why we went to an all volunteer force after the Vietnam Era debacle and it has improved our military and our security immensely. I respectfully submit that compulsory "service" is not a good idea. Yes, there are places in the world that require it's citizens to be trained in the military and be members of a national guard. If I lived in a place that is constantly under attack, I may have a different opinion, but this is the USA - not Israel. Do I believe in community service as an integral part of citizenship? Yes. I have instilled that into my children, and I practice what I preach. Do I think we should forcibly command this service? No.

And, I respectfully submit, that since you do not know me, my background experience nor my level of involvement in the world that you should keep to yourself the opinion that I don't know anything "outside the confines" of my world.
One of the major illnesses of our society comes from the inability of many of it's adults to have disagreements in a rational fashion without resorting to personal attacks and incivility. If an idea can't stand on it's own merits, trying to belittle a person in order to throw up a smokescreen is rather - well, lame is a word the kids might use. Have a good day.

@skinnyDUDE...If the shoe fits? I admit that there are times when I do approach issues on theoretical levels and if that's an academic bubble, that's what it is. I don't deny it, but also many issues can be raised, debated and defended based on ideological principles and potential. Solutions are not drafted and achieved by only one idea, but through hammering out by varying interests. Donna Kiefer has raised legitimate objections that deserve to be answered, even though I find her perspective to be very narrow. That's not an insult to her or her intelligence.