And with that, John Edwards was out of the race for President.

I don't think he necessarily means shipping out to war. If that's the case, I somewhat agree with our friend from South Carolina.

I'm not especially fond of mandatory service but someone has to kill the brown people of the world, right? JK

This is how rumors on the Internets get started.

Does "service to the country" have to be military?

I served my country by not voting in chicken hawk assholes. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Get the name of everyone who voted for Big W Failure, and have a nice big surge in Iraq.

I have a hard time seeing what else it could be. Is he seriously considering drafting people into civil service jobs? I think we need some clarification on this from Edwards.

Since when does mandatory service mean military service?

The Swiss have national service, but a significant number of people actually do it in a civilian capacity. Like the PeaceCorps or AmeriCorps, or, hell, the CCC.

Good points.

I think some type of mandatory service, say two years is a good thing. But it'll never happen in this country.

I would gladly serve a mandatory 2-4 years service as long as I was able to keep the VA benefits the rest of my life. This country would be a better place if EVERY 18 year old had to live a structured lifestyle were you can't buck authority. I have seen my fair share of people who still use mommy's gas card that I would love to see in Basic Training. My only catch is I would rather try to swim to Japan then to serve under this current administration.

Let us not forget, Service Guarantees Citizenship.

He is definitely NOT talking about only military service. The Peace Corps would be another option. He's certainly not the first politician to suggest this, and it's not all that controversial of an opinion.

I thought backlash would be about the "poor kids" part. Middle-class and upper-middle class military families hate hearing that kind of shit.

Maybe they should only give the right to vote to those who serve in the military. That's a good compromise, right? Citizenship Requires Service. As long as we're not attacked by giant bugs, everything will be fine.

Then voting numbers would be even lower.

Honestly, the more I see of Edwards, the more I come to believe he has no chance of getting his party's nomination. A guy with his wealth and his lifestyle campaigning on poverty issues is a hard sell. The $400 haircut, the work for a hedge fund with a large salary (and the explanation that he did it to understand how markets affect poverty), and his large speaking fees ($55K to talk about poverty to college kids) show that he does not have the political chops to hang with a hard-nosed campaigner like Hillary or an inspiring candidate like Obama. He gained traction in 2004 in a fairly weak Democratic field. He's playing with the big dogs now. His recent statements just reinforce my belief that Edwards will be the first big name to drop out of the race.

Bullshit. The fact that he has money and likes to spend it doesn't mean he can't provide legislation and reforms for the benefit of the poor. That's very weak reasoning.

And it pretty much says that no matter who gets elected, the poor are fucked. When was the last time you saw a middle class top-level politician?

Edwards already slit his throat by continuing on the campaign trail despite his wife's cancer diagnosis. Radio talk was awash with people commenting on how given his finances, they wouldn't hesitate to spend all of their time with their dying wife and kids as opposed to being constantly separated from their family on the campaign trail, not to mention the health effects doing that would have on his wife. And those comments were coming primarily from democrats.

I'm not saying the fact that Edwards is rich means he can't push for policies that benefit the poor. Hell, FDR was loaded. His lifestyle has nothing to do with what he could accomplish if he were elected president. But it sets up a huge dichotomy that hurts Edwards' electibility. When poverty is one of your major campaign issues, it is bad politics to take a ton of money consulting for an exclusive hedge fund and huge speaking fees, while spending more on a single haircut than a poor family spends on food in a month. These are political slip-ups that will be spun into flat-out hypocrisy by his opponents. The skilled political teams behind Clinton and Obama will make use of this and it will hurt Edwards' campaign immensely.

There should be no such thing as a mandatory service of any kind in this country.

Right. William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote a book ten or fifteen years ago centered on advocating this idea.

Hey, I should write for the San Francisco Chronicle. A few hours after my earlier post, I ran into this article:

More at the link...

It does a better job of summing up what I was trying to say earlier.

It's bullshit like that that makes me understand how broken the election system is.

For anyone running a even moderately successful campaign, to get press coverage, to get people talking, you have to have money. There is no way in our present society a poor man can run for president. They will never be a credible candidate. And thus, if people are going to use their monetary stature as some sort of litmus test, there will never be a credible spokesman for the poor running for office. To get in to door, you need to have the cash, and that's all there is to it. It's a smoke screen, and it's something the right really knows how to do well.

To be fair, any poor person can run, but they have no real chance of winning. Part of it is that we want a president who has established that he/she is capable of leading a country that is an economic and military superpower. That means a record of accomplishment in either the political or business worlds, and usually both. Those accomplishments usually, but not always, result in a person becoming fairly wealthy. Someone in middle management at a small plumbing supply business with no political experience, for example, probably isn't the person you trust to effectively run the federal government, no matter how good his ideas on health care may be.

In the modern era, I don't believe Clinton was all that wealthy when he took office. Nixon didn't make much money in his life until after he had been Vice President. Eisenhower's military salary probably didn't allow him to take Scrooge McDuck-like swims through silos of money either. I'm not sure about Carter. Most of the modern presidents, though, have been embarrassingly wealthy.

As for money in politics (ie, donations, corporate funds, the cost of campaigns, etc), yes, it's ridiculous, particularly in Congress. The hard part is figuring out what do about it without trampling on free speech rights. But our current system still allows for guys like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama to come along and raise a ton of money even though they are not incredibly wealthy themselves.

All this talk about campaign financing and mandatory service is a distraction from the real issue: Edwards is a girly man with pretty hair. What kind of message do you think that sends to our troops?

I think it's a fantastic idea. Our nation is far, far too individualistic and I think it's really hurt our country. People are isolated and alienated from one another under the current paradigm. An institutionalized mandatory service, military or otherwise, would do a lot to make Americans feel like they're a part of a broader community and would also probably help break down ethnic and economic barriers to communication. Americans would start to actually feel like they're a part of something important they have a hand in shaping.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Or...

You be the judge.

Or it could make them resent the hell out of the administration and Congress who made the law, leading to that party not sniffing power again for the next few elections.

I'm talking from an objective sociological perspective of what it would amount to if we disregard the reality of implementing it. Of course the pragmatics of such a policy would make things a long term effort of education and persuasion.

Well, then I agree it's generally a good idea.

I think it's a great idea, and could be expanded on - every single US kid (rich or poor - NO EXEMPTIONS!!! Not even if you're the kid of a Congressman, President, or Bill Gates' kid) that hits 18 must register with Selective Service and is given a choice - start your service immediately after you graduate High School for 1-2 years (be it the military, PeaceCorps, etc.) with the money you make being applied towards college (like the GI Bill, I believe), OR go to college first, THEN do your service. If the kid likes what their doing after their term ends, they can continue and make it a career.

Even if the service is military, service should restrict the kids to a domestic self-defense force / Homeland Security (keep our borders safe from invasion, inspect incoming cargo for possible terrorist stuff, etc.). If anything, they could also work with the Corps of Engineers and do projects like fix up disaster areas (New Orleans, for example), build new housing for the poor, plant forests, etc.

Probably never happen, but...

"Remember...Service means citzenship."


Let's try not to turn this country into the planet from "Starship Troopers" until the bugs hit us from Klendathu.

I take it most of the people in this thread in favor of making 18-year-old kids serve mandatory millitary terms aren't 17-year-old kids.

What about serving on a jury?

Other than compelling relatively minor affirmative tasks such as filing a tax return, filling out a census, or the aforementioned jury service, I agree with BobClark.

As a matter of fact, I did serve in the Navy.

And although it was a cushy office job and there was no chance of going to war, It was still 21 months of my life.

The thing is, I believe that a country's population would be more reluctant to support a war if they knew it would be their ass or their kid's ass on the line.

Think you nailed it better than I could. Again, as was mentioned earlier in the thread, compulsory service doesn't automatically mean military service. If anything, it should be like the New Deal back in FDR's day - bunch of social and urban renewal programs, etc.

If military service is an option, then the new recruits should NOT be sent overseas, but should be put into action here (see my earlier post). Besides, if a senator's kid does any compulsory military service, I'd bet you that kid will be defending Rhode Island rather than head towards Iraq if the kid's dad has anything to say about it.

I'm 21, but even three years ago I'd have advocated as much. And I have no desire to be in the military either. I'm neither violent nor particularly respectful of authority, I just think that overall the concept would prove beneficial to society and every member of it.

Yeah, um, I already did that joke.

They certainly have a much stronger sense of community there and everyone feels like they have some ownership of their country. That's the consequence of a lot of factors though that are probably more closely related to the cause of mandatory conscription than the result of it. In Israel everyone, Jews anyway, already feel somewhat like part of an extended family (an Israeli was actually talking about this to me today)... in America where there's more opportunity to segregate along racial and ethnic lines mandatory conscription could help to break down those barriers. But maybe not, this is definitely conjecture on my part.

I did 18 months with AmeriCorps when I was in my 20s and it was a good experience. I'm against mandatory anything, but I think a lot of people could use that experience.

I served in the Army for 20 months and it actually wasn't such a big deal. I got to live in a couple of new places, make some new friends and command tanks. And I wouldn't worry about the US turning fascist. If the nation is democratic so is the army.

I was in the miltary just long enough to grow up and get my priorities straight until I got badly injured and missed going to Iraq. Back at the start of '03, I was telling every kid out of high school that he should join up and get the hell out of his parent's house.

Now...I have nightmares, absolute terrifying waking-up-in-cold-sweat nightmares about being back in and being shipped over to Iraq. It doesn't help that my present disabilities transfer over to my dreams. In times of peace, yeah, everyone should do something to help them mature, but the freedom to choose and have a choice is what so many have fought for since the U.S. was established.

The majority of Americans did back when it started.

So you did. I must have missed it on a new post load. Great minds apparently think alike.

It upsets me to see people propogating these talking points..in reality none of that stuff would hurt his ability to be an effective leader.

In response, let me be lame and quote myself from earlier in the thread:

In summary, it is bad politics.