Homeland security needs?

[HollowpointHank]

I am beginning to think that we need some drastic measures in order to properly secure our nation. I have noticed that Israel has mandatory military service for all it's citizens. What do you think of that? I think it is a great idea. People might think more of there country and how blessed they are to live here if they had to defend her and see how the rest of the world lives!!!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[nn]

I would not go that far; back during project 100,000 we got some real dumb birds that caused much trouble.
I would say " If qualified"

[Paco]

I have thought of that too, especially after I got back from a business trip to Singapore.

My only question is, will it work. I know people will do it if it is mandated, but will it really make them love America more, I don't know.

I guess it would be a valid question to ask a Vietnam draftee if he loved America more after he was drafted? I am too young to know and have made sure not to bring that question up out of respect, but since I have found this forum I know it is a safe place to ask as long as it is done respectfully.

Regardless, as nn pointed out, it may gather some people you don't want unless you have guidelines to follow and don't waver on those guidelines.

[chickdiver]

I have had similar thoughts- but I'm not certain that mandatory military service is the way to go. I think everyone should be required to live outside the country for at least a year. You cannot begin to appreciate what we have here until you have experienced how the rest of the world lives.

[Paco]

You cannot begin to appreciate what we have here until you have experienced how the rest of the world lives.

That is the truth, it hit me most when I went to New Delhi for a business trip.

[falcon1]

I am beginning to think that we need some drastic measures in order to properly secure our nation. I have noticed that Israel has mandatory military service for all it's citizens. What do you think of that? I think it is a great idea. People might think more of there country and how blessed they are to live here if they had to defend her and see how the rest of the world lives!!!

I have for years thought that some form of public service (between high school and college, with some legitimate exceptions) would be extremely beneficial. Military service would be one option, but not everyone is suited for it. Peace Corps, VISTA (or whatever it is called now), working for a religious institution or at a health care facility, parks (national, state, and local), and many others might be good alternatives. I understand the desire to make it mandatory, but perhaps providing very strong incentives to enter such service voluntarily might reduce resistance to the idea in the long run. Great notion, though, and at some point I hope something like this idea comes to pass.

[Paco]

but perhaps providing very strong incentives to enter such service voluntarily might reduce resistance to the idea in the long run.

You mean like pay them what they are worth?

I'm sorry, and I hate to say it but more over I hate the fact that it is true, but the last time I changed jobs my salary increase was almost as much as recruits make in a year. What is wrong with that picture, I pay more than enough taxes to pay these men and women 2x their salary, and I know I'm not alone.

[chickdiver]

You mean like pay them what they are worth?

I'm sorry, and I hate to say it but more over I hate the fact that it is true, but the last time I changed jobs my salary increase was almost as much as recruits make in a year. What is wrong with that picture, I pay more than enough taxes to pay these men and women 2x their salary, and I know I'm not alone.

You are absolutely correct. It is shameful that a junior enlisted family often lives below the poverty line and qualifies for foodstamps and other assistance.

[goldshellback]

No. A volunteer force is still the best force. Our kinder, gentler military....as mandated by the kinder, gentler liberal goverment that tells us exactly what is politically correct, wouldn't allow us to use proven corrective measures to 'help' those who don't/didn't want to volunteer. Our moral would suffer greatly and that would ultimately hurt us.
Isreal is not the U.S. Securing thier country from danger requires a diffrent approach than securing our borders.

Our country was built on the strengths of individuals coming together as a nation. Sadly, that spirit isn't as common today.

[falcon1]

You mean like pay them what they are worth?

I'm sorry, and I hate to say it but more over I hate the fact that it is true, but the last time I changed jobs my salary increase was almost as much as recruits make in a year. What is wrong with that picture, I pay more than enough taxes to pay these men and women 2x their salary, and I know I'm not alone.

I need to clarify. Those who enter military service always deserve the very best pay we can give them (and more, probably). By incentives, I meant (for other types of service) breaks on college tuition, tax incentives, etc.

[QKShooter]

I have had similar thoughts- but I'm not certain that mandatory military service is the way to go. I think everyone should be required to live outside the country for at least a year. You cannot begin to appreciate what we have here until you have experienced how the rest of the world lives.

[packinnova]

Sorry, but I completely DISAGREE. Yes, I'll give it to you that folks don't usually understand what they have until they're in the shoes of folks defending it, but to force someone into labor of any kind? Have you guys forgot what you were defending?

[Hopyard]

I'm with Packinova on this one. You can't have a free society when The Government insists that people serve this way or that way between this age and that age.

And when people don't want to do what they are compelled to do, they won't do it right. They smoke weed and drink hooch and do everything possible to avoid their unwanted reality.

There of course could come an emergency of such special significance and dire need that compulsion might be necessary; but in such situations people do tend to step forward also.

We are far from being the garrison state that Israel is forced to be. And we don't need universal conscription. It didn't work between the Korean War and the end of Viet Nam, and it can not work in any situation short of where Uncle just wants to throw bodies at a problem. Keep the generals honest. With conscription they get to throw lives away while playing big shot. With a volunteer force they have to give some consideration to not making things so bad that no one will join.

[obxned]

Some kind of service is a great idea, but what do you do with kids who are the right age but nearly illiterate? Or speak English so poorly that no one in another county can even tell they are speaking English? Or have broken the law so early and often as to be of no use anyone, even to themselves.

And service for how long? Certainly 2 years in Vista is not equivalent to 2 years in the military.

[packinnova]

Some kind of service is a great idea, but what do you do with kids who are the right age but nearly illiterate? Or speak English so poorly that no one in another county can even tell they are speaking English? Or have broken the law so early and often as to be of no use anyone, even to themselves.

And service for how long? Certainly 2 years in Vista is not equivalent to 2 years in the military.

It doesn't matter whether it's Vista or the military or shelter hand-out lines. Literacy only matters so much as the people foolish enough not to read between the lines. The only equivalence to forced labor is called SLAVERY and has no such place in a "civilized" world.
Do our fighting men and women deserve MUCH more pay? ...Absofreakinlootely!
Do we need to go into forced labor to fix our security "problems"? ...A resounding HELL NO!
That is one issue I WILL take up arms against my own brethren over. If not that, than what the heck else is worth fighting for? If a man chooses to serve the "public" in some form or fashion, that's wonderful as it is HIS choice and I may very well join him at his side, but the moment you take that choice away, you are no different than the hundreds or thousands of the dictators damned who have come before you.

Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch -- or build a cyclotron -- without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call "human nature", the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who are a human being, the question "to be or not to be" is the question "to think or not to think."

[...]

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.

Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle -- and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world:

"I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." -John Galt, Atlas Shrugged