Rahm Emanuel: Mandetory Service For All Young Americans

I don't think that conservatives should get hysterical about this. I agree with Emanual that Americans lack a national shared experience that binds the nation. Most American youth wander around aimlessly with no real sense of national purpose, commitment or understanding of what it means to be an American. Most kids, especially many privileged kids that I know, take America for granted and know only benefits without responsibilities. They think that the freedoms they enjoy came for free, and always have been for free. They have no sense of the sacrifices made.

Conservatives need to be vigilant to ensure that any mandatory national service that the Obama administration is clearly contemplating, is not political in nature, does not indoctrinate other than to instill a general patriotism and a sense of collective responsibility for our freedoms. Any program that smells of left-wing indoctrination or an "internal security apparatus," should be resisted. Not only could such programs be abused by the left, but by the right as well when it eventually returns to power. Generally speaking, the idea of national service is not on its face, a bad idea. This country was in many ways a better place when there was a draft (in some ways not). So far they are not talking about a draft, they are talking about a shared national experience for youth in the form of some sort of national service.