USA Today, on Thursday Oct 26, 2006, had a Forum face-off “Why Democrats are losing the cultural war” on page 13A. The face-off raises some points that I have been making in my blogs and websites for some time.
Amy Sullivan has a piece “Republicans’ Edge: Seeing the Problem.” She gets this right, by going into the layering of issues. Politicians galvanize voters on abortin, gay marriage, and to some extent stem cell research, as well as the free display of religious speech in schools and public places. These issues are just the visible tips of Titantic cultural icebergs about the meaning of individuality in reference to the group. She is right, that the culture has become superficial, looks like a candy store in the media, then ruthlessly prosecutes those who stumble across the line of the law. At the individual level, competitiveness has superseded service or any sense of social payback and focused on visual and financial appeals.
Hodding Carter and Ronald Goldfarb, in “An opportunity for shared sacrifice,” comes even closer with a rather blunt and strident call for mandatory universal national service, at 18, for everyone, for a minimum of 18 months. Besides my own concerns about “involuntary servitude,” the piece does raise some obvious questions. One is that thirty years ago, we resisted the idea that civilian service could sub for the risks taken by those in the armed forces. That concern became discredited by the failure of Vietnam and Watergate, and would probably be discredited again by the problems in Iraq. Another question is whether service could be spread out over a lifetime. Remember that just four days after 9/11, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin was calling for resumption of the draft on CNN. Another obvious question is, what happens with "don't ask don't tell" for gays, not just in the military but in other areas where forced intimacy might occur.
The “shared sacrifice” is a more appropriate buzzword than many others, and one which Ross Perot used in his independent or Reform 1992 campaign. What both parties are starting to get is that you can’t take liberty for granted, and the sharing of hardships (especially in a world with concerns like global warming) is an “inconvenient truth” that goes with freedom, and is necessary for people who are less fortunate to be treated properly. The social conservatives are right are hinting in that this starts with family responsibility and a “pay your dues” consciousness, but they aren’t very forthright about it yet. It’s interesting to see that, in this Forum, the greatest bluntness came from the Democrats.
Goals for America has a short piece advocating national service at this link, and the group has suggested that if America doesn't want outright conscription again, it should support the partitioning of Iraq into semi-automonous countries!
Remember, though, that any attempt by the government to force "sacrifice" with law naturally invites corruption.
I have weighed in these problems on my own domain. Try:
Pay your bills, pay your dues
The draft and mandatory national service
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Individualism and the stake in social justice
These date from 2004 and 2005.
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