Not that I skipped any grades or even had a good GPA, but I was big for my age, a precocious reader, so they started me in school young.

So should I have dropped out of college?

one ironic step away from Colbert's viewer "heroes".

..over the age of 25, and does not draft women over the age of 21.  If you emigrate to Israel past that age, you have to volunteer for military service if you want to serve.

Public service isn't the product of force, it's the product of education and public virtue.

To me, liberal-left ideas are about using government to help people choose their own path. Because we recognize there are existing inequalities, we need to help folks overcome those inequalities first before they'll be able to realize their potential.

That cannot be achieved through forced labor.

a lot don't.

And my reason for wanting people to get some training more involves coverage for emergencies (no I don't mind if this happens in high school, for all I care, though truck driving high schoolers might be a poor idea. teach em all first aid, and the basics of being a nurse.  or basic strategic organizational thought).

You gonna PRAISE the person who spends most of their time playign online poker while working for the federal government?  I sure as hell ain't -- even if they win!

that doesn't solve a good deal of the problems I would use national service to solve!

It's a great way to train future computer geeks in something useful during Emergencies (like say triage or truck driving).

"Sense of duty" should be part of the culture, and should be reinforced via the normal means by which cultural values are propagated (e.g. the media).

But hell no to spreading it by way of anything coercive or compulsory.  If a value is worth anything, it'll spread among free people acting freely.  

The idea of setting up any kind of service corps as a means of "putting young people through experiences of whatever kind" is a form of brainwashing.  It's psychological social engineering, and making it compulsory turns America into nothing more than a cult.  

If a voluntary program has certain experiential components because they are essential to the mission, e.g. boot camp and the spartan life of a warrior, that's OK with me.  

But if "experiences" have nothing to do with core mission requirements and are deliberately designed for the purpose of what they will do to/for someone after they leave the program, that's way creepy.  

For example one of the things Marines undergo at the end of basic training is a 3-day combat simulation exercise that is done basically with zero sleep.  By the end of three days with no sleep, the average person is hallucinating and borderline-crazy.  However it's understandable that this is necessary for Marines, who very often have to fight under those conditions as the "point of the spear" in the toughest combat.  The Marine Corps needs to find specifically those individuals who can remain functional under those kinds of extreme conditions, during times when life and death is at stake every minute of the day.  

However if something like that was done with e.g. Conservation Corps volunteers, it would be way the hell over the line.  There is nothing in their mission, unless they are going to be firefighters or some such, that requires it: it would be purely gratuitous, and that is not acceptable.  

view of "entitlement."

If someone wants to work hard to get an education, that's hardly "entitlement."  Rather, it is quite the opposite: hard work merits rewards.  Do you begrudge that?

And, as for this:

They'll go into debt for 10s of thousands for an education that gives them a shot at wealth. But fuck the rest of it.

Have you not noticed what is happening to everyone but the (very) upper class in this country?  It is harder and harder to get a job, obtain health insurance, etc.  A college degree is now, effectively, the minimum necessary education for a middle-class existence.  And tuition costs a fortune.  Thus, a logical person would want to go to college, get a job, and start paying off those loans ASAP so they're not so saddled with debt that they can't buy a house or support a family for years.  

Furthermore, there are many careers that require years of training already.  Medicine, for instance, can require 12 years post-college.  That means they're 34 before they can start their careers and even begin to pay off loans.  (and, before you start complaining that doctors are greedy self-interested bastards, remember that medicine is, in fact, a service, and a lifelong, demanding one at that.)  Understandably, such people would rather not be yet older by the time they finish.

I could get on board with 6 months - 1 year of service, provided that there were strict government controls (do you want legions of young anti-choicers   organized to protest around every OB/GYN office in the country?  How about evangelicals knocking on your door to "spread the good news" every other day?), but 2 years is a bit much.

And frankly I think you are the one who knows nothing.

Let me tell you about coming up in America today.  "Get rich or die trying" is not just a catchy phrase, it is the literal truth.  If you are not rich in America, you can fuck off and die.  That's how it is.  

I was one of those guys who worked my ass off and got into a tech career in the 90's.  Only time in my adult life I've had health insurance.  You know what happens to people who don't work big jobs with health insurance?  One of my friend's mother had a stroke, without health insurance, and had her house seized and sold to cover the medical expenses.  Now she's a brain damaged woman who can't speak or feed herself, with no assets to speak of or pass on to her impoverished family.  

Maybe you are feeling comfortable.  Have you got enough?  Most bankruptcies are caused by excessive medical bills.  Losing everything is not just for the poor and irresponsible anymore.  It is for you.  Chances are, you're just a bad roll of the dice away from it.

Get rich or die trying.  Absorb it, because this is the truth of the new America.

but if I were, I think I could logically make it more sound than yours.

In our economy labor is money and national service is but one way of returning effort to the economy.

Where do you think the money to pay taxes comes from?  That money doesn't come out of nowhere, it comes from providing a good or service to the community in the form of employment.  

that it's more about improving the nation as a whole than the character of those who serve, although improved individual character would certainly be a happy byproduct of the whole thing.

But I agree that the original response likening this idea to slavery is ridiculous.

Involuntary servitude is more like it, though there are good arguments that it doesn't even reach that level. I'm more incensed by the idea that one has to serve in the military to be a good citizen which johnfire is making. That is pure lunacy.

Pardon my plain english.

the "Not that I disagree" part?

There is this idea that they should not be taxed on their income, forgetting that said income is made under the protections of the state and with and from other citizens. Libertarians think they exist in a vacuum, it seems. Seeing them on DK is nearly as disgusting as seeing a Freeper.