A universal national service might change all that. Donating your labor is a much more substantial sacrifice than any check, no matter how large. There is something much more human about labor that creates a bond between giver and receiver. With a year of service for our government, we may not feel the government owes us something, but we probably would care a whole lot more about what our government was doing. It's only natural. You don't sacrifice a year for your government without feeling you have a stake in it somehow.
ASK AN ISRAELI. In their country, all men and women have to give two years of their lives to the military, and have to remain on reserve for most of their lives after that. And probably no other country has such a politically-oriented public. Of course, Israel has had to face constant threats to its survival from the very beginning, a condition that has probably made its citizens care anyway. But their caring also comes from the sacrifices they make. People are giving so much to the government that they feel they are closer to it, and maybe, God forbid, that they even comprise it.
What else can a year of service do for you? It can make you less ignorant. These days, Ivy Leaguers think that being a Springsteen fan means you are "in touch" with America. Well, there's a lot more to being "in touch" than playing records, and only the few of us that led unusual childhoods can say they truly know America. Growing up in suburbia, I only know about upper-middle class, mostly white Americans. When urban riots or farm failures are mentioned to me, my first and only image comes from the television set. A lot of this country's problems arise from the fact that we're so spread out and so diverse, we find it difficult to sympathize with each other's problems.
A universal national service might go part way in solving that, by making us a more connected society. When a privileged Ivy Leaguer is thrown together with a Black kid from Harlem and a farm boy from Iowa, we might begin to understand each other a little better. It certainly won't be peachy--there will probably be a lot of tension between us. But we'll go home knowing more about each other. A universal national service won't solve all our problems, but it will help eliminate the ignorance that makes solving them all the more diffucult.
If these last two ideas sound sort of cloudy and vauge, that is because they are. The personal benefits will not be something we can point to easily, but will instead be something we feel. Of course, "feelings" are not very convincing to us materialistic young men and women. That's why we should be forced to do it. Eventually, the civic-mindedness and open-mindedness that arise from a universal national service will manifest themselves, and those who come after us won't think they're being forced at all. It will be self-reinforcing, and eventually seem almost natural.
I hope Hart and Torricelli's efforts won't be watered down into a wimpy voluntary national service along the lines of the Peace Corps. That would defeat the purpose of a national service in the first place. Like the Peace Corps, a voluntary service would be very popular in its first few years, but eventually the idealism will fade, as it does with most voluntary efforts. And like the Peace Corps, a voluntary service would attract the people who need it least--the open-minded, civic-minded charitable ones who work at Phillips Brooks House. The people who need it most-the ignorant, apathetic, materialistic ones--would avoid voluntary service like the plague.
I should know--I am one of those aspiring, apathetic Yuppies. I'm not in favor of a compulsory national service because I'm a nice, thoughtful person who wants to make everyone as nice and as thoughtful as me. I'm in favor of a compulsory national service because I'm a greedy, apathetic person who won't do a good thing unless I'm told to. Just ask my mom.
No more fake hearing losses for me, Mr. Hart. I'm listening.