This means that our society is inherently functional.

If there is something that has to be done, why rely on the bureaucracy of the federal government to do it when private individuals are more the capable of doing what needs to be done.

FEMA really screwed the pooch on Katrina. They should have had a website listing everything they needed and anything that needed to be done so that people contributing stuff or their time could do so effectively. There were planty of people willing to go down to New Orleans (and other gulf places) to help clean up and rebuild. There were even more people and companies (especially building materials manufacturers) who were more than willing to contribute supplies and what not as well. Many of the volanteers were turned away by FEMA or were required to attend “diversity” seminars and the like before being allowed to work in the affected areas.

But FEMA insisted and insists on running everything top-down, which is why they have been rather ineffectual in getting anything done.

Rather than FEMA, the old civil defense networks ought to be recreated. They were more decentralized and run on the local level than FEMA is. Given the threat of terrorism, not to mention the more mundane economic suffering if the economy becomes bad, decentralized networks of volanteers, like CD, would be very useful in time of need.

It is no coincidence that Carter, one of our more liberal-left presidents, created FEMA as a replacement for the old civil defense networks.

“People see volunteering not as a form of public service but as an antidote for it.”
When I first saw this sentence, I thought, wow, what a colossally stupid statement. To be fair, we’ll never know the writer was unaware of the inversion of the meaning of the word “service”, but even if he wasn’t, he did not seem to think it necessary to discuss or even mention it. Or perhaps he thought it would go over the heads of the remaining TIME readers?

I would be in favor of a mandatory national service only because it would spur resistance against the corrupt federal government by the normally apathetic young. Every government oversteps due to its overestimation of its strength and popularity. Some of these oversteps are fatal, thankfully.

And where in the US Constitution is a monstrosity such as a Public Service Academy authorized, if one still cares about the Constitution? I’m sure the Founders would be appalled at such an idea.

The Framers would be part of the revolutionary army fighting against the corrupt leviathan from D.C. They did not tolerate such levels of taxation and regulation.

Reading through the previous debate, one of the things that came to mind was that most or all of the non-mandatory methods for improving participation in the military (or other forms of public service) target immigrants and poorer segments of society by definition.

Likewise, volunteerism and charity appeal most to people who HAVE time and money to volunteer—aka, the people not targeted by the above-mentioned methods. This suggests that the best approach might be to put serious effort into these non-mandatory programs. The poor and recently-arrived get a leg up and a chance to become more fully a part of this country, but the wealthier people’s volunteerism isn’t discounted either.

As for Beowulf’s question about financing. . . if Bush had canceled his tax cuts and taken the time to build up the military BEFORE invading Iraq, would we be in the situation we’re in today? More broadly, ANY solution to the problems facing our country is going to require money. If we can’t pay for non-mandatory, or for a draft, then we can’t pay for much of anything else.