"We have heard enough of liberty and the rights of man; it is high time to hear something of the duties of men and the rights of authority." -- Orestes Brownson. Maybe we ought to say the rights of Authority.

Cool! I just got his book on the American Republic.

I started reading it, then my wife returned it to the library. Quite good. I've ordered now too.

Since we're all sharecroppers, it's OK for massa to impress a few of us into an involuntary servitude of military service? Interesting logic.

Slightly different--military service is okay on its face, but it's especially silly to worry about it when so many other involuntary servitudes are permanently entrenched and getting more burdensome.

First, a world in which Bob Heinlein is a prophet is not necessarily a world in which I want to live.



Second, to everything OJ says, I say piffle. It is bedrock American doctrine, shared by liberals and conservatives alike, that the state exists to serve us, not the other way round.



The attraction of the draft is that it is very helpful in forming one nation out of a disparate group of immigrants of different races, religions and cultures. But this is a two edged sword. There is a sobering passage in Thomas Ricks' Making the Corps
, which I highly recommend, by the way, in which a black gangbanger and a Southern white boy are assigned to share a tent on manuevers. Trying desperately to find common ground, they soon realize that they both hate the Jews. I wrote "one nation" above, but we're always in danger of having to spell that "Ein volk."

?David:



I agree--the surrender of personal sovereignty has been entirely voluntary. We have precisely the lack of freedom we sought.

Good Derbyshire
column on that point.

OJ, methinks you like Autority too much. Hell, we're half enslaved now, why not just go whole hog and elect a king?



In the days when wars were decided by attrition, conscription made sense. The quality of your soldiers was less important than the quantity. Nowadays, quality counts, and the most important quality is the desire to serve.



I was a junior officer in the Marines in the early 80's, and I was struck by how the senior officers who had served in Vietnam had such a violent distaste for the draft. The Marines did not take draftees, but the Army did, and the level to which some officers showed contempt for the state that the Army had sunk to seemed to be directly attributable to the bad showing that the draftees had made in that war.



Unless we are fighting for our lives on our own doorsteps against the forces of Sauron, I say we keep the Service voluntary. We have today the mightiest fighting force that the world has ever seen, and it is thanks to the volunteers.

Orrin sometimes sounds like Amitai Etzioni and his "communitarians," who seek to promote community even by coercive means. I often think Etzioni would have to praise kidnappers and rapists, because they are breaking human isolation and bringing themselves and their victims into community. Orrin's argument that we have many debasements of our liberty, why not one more for the causes we favor, is just conceding defeat.

PJ, if that is the case, then I don't understand why Orrin would be complaining so much about the loss of freedoms, as it is individual freedoms which are eroding communitarian cohesiveness.



I think that all the talk of lost freedoms is overdone, we are freer today than any other time in history. I think that we have the best of both worlds, in that people who desire close community are free to build or join such communities (Mormons), and those who treasure personal freedom are free to not join.



I think that there is a wide disparity between individuals as to how much freedom they can stand. Older societies were more communal by necessity, personal freedom was a luxury that society could not afford. Today that is different, society can get along with less cohesiveness, though the community minded don't like the kind of society that results.

I agree with Robert D. completely. Conscripts should not be required to go to war beyond any nation's borders, unless it is directly in self defense, as opposed to being just in our interests. Our current voluntary armed forces are the finest we have ever put in the field. I make that judgement as a former, 1951, combat Marine rifleman.

Semper Fi, Genecis!



Another point to make is that what Rep Wrangel , and also what Orrin, are doing is to put forth arguments for the draft based on acheiving some social policy. Never use your military to solve social problems! You owe it to those who serve to let them concentrate on what they are there to do. Fight!

I think Robert has just put down the Royal Straight Flush of arguments against the draft.



Early in the Clinton Administration, the Economist did a piece on Etzioni and the communatarions. I have never seen a more vicious or successful attack on an idea. By the end of this relatively short article, communatarionism was dead.

I've now linked through the Derbyshire piece to Fred Reed's argument. It seems to me there's a confusion on both Reed's and Orrin's part - they seem to think freedom and self-reliance are the same, or at least so closely linked that you can't have one without the other. But self-reliance is an economically-determined condition - we rely on our selves when others won't offer help or offer it on terms we regard as too costly. Thus, self-reliance is a kind of poverty. People naturally desire not to be in this state.



It is the misfortune of the 20th century that in rebelling against self-reliant poverty people also rebelled against freedom. I think to recover freedom, we have to begin de-linking these two concepts in people's minds.

In defense of Bob Heinlein, he was opposed to the draft of his time, and his selective service was based on a reward. Those who served were awarded the privilege
of a vote. Otherwise, nothing else changed. Some of his novels could be goofy, but there are worse prophets to have: Francis Fukuyama for one.



In defense of Southern white boys, they're about least naturally anti-Semitic group of people around. Ricks would have done better picking someone from New York or Ohio.



That being said, the idea of a draft being imposed by this government is an absolutely awful idea. It'll be riddled with deferrments and out clauses before it even leaves committee. As with the last draft, the only people who will serve are those with a conscience or those without connections. With the all-volunteer service, you at least don't have to bother with the latter.

PS - By the way, I endorse Robert D's points in this thread.

RobertD:



I'm pro-king.



But I'd keep the professional military separate from the draftees.

pj:



I do concede defeat. As conservatives have long known, this is where democracy leads. The many, fearful of their own inadequacy, bind the few and we end up with a system where the only relationship that matters is the individual's with the State.

As to the Communitarians, they are correct in their analysis but shy away from the necessary remedies. The State having replace communities it is necessary to dismantle the State if we are to restore Community. http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1007
)



But their very refusal to follow through on their own ideas suggests why the battle is over and the statists have won. "The best lack all conviction"

Being a natural spoilsport, I just want to point out that there is no "right" to flood insurance in a flood zone.



The national law forbids selling flood insurance in a danger zone, and your county planning department has maps showing the no-go line.

Robert Anson Heinlein is unto a god to me.

I strongly oppose a draft. We are a nation based on individual liberty, and also capitalism. We already offer inducements to join the military, ranging from cash bonuses to money for college. If enlistment rates don't meet demand for soldiers, then the pay and benefits should be raised, until the need is met. Popular wars would cost less, murkier projections of force, more.

Furthermore, if Americans can't muster the will to serve in the Armed Forces, we deserve to be overwhelmed by the less decadent. It's both moral and the law of the jungle.

OJ -- That was more or less the Economist's point. The communitarians would identify a serious flaw in modern society, describe all the ways in which it was harmful, and then regret that individual rights meant that there was nothing they could do about it.



Derek - I love Heinlein the novelist(at least until he discovered that editing made no difference to his sales and I still read all those books out of some vague notion of obligation). I agree with a lot of his social criticism. But as a short-lived non-genius, I have no desire to live in any of his worlds.



As for southern white boys, it wasn't at all Ricks' point that swbs are anti-semitic. It was that the Corps does such a good job instilling morale that recruits will go to great lengths to find common ground, just as these two recruits did. (Also, I have to admit I might be misremembering the story. It could easily have been a northern skinhead. I'll have to check the book tonight at home.)

Michael--



No one would be more horrified at calling Heinlein a god than Heinlein. Its always risky to identify an author to closely with one of his characters, but Jubal Harshaw is always a good guide to what Heinlein really thinks. Jubal's reaction to "Thou are God" is, I think, understatement of what Heinlein's reaction would be.



Also, if you're unlucky, someday I'll tell you about the book length Marxist critique of Heinlein I once read.

I was going to let the many typos in the post below go, until I realized that I rendered "Thou art God" as "Thou are God", thereby losing all my Heinlein street cred.

David--You're points are well taken, except one: I don't think editing could have saved Heinlein's later works, unless of course we're talking about editing in the sense of "Bob, quit while you're ahead."

Harry:



The taxpayers reimburse you.

Orrin, your review of Glendon's book is perfect. Now apply your own words: "The communitarians are right that we need to repair the damage that has been done to our communities, but they are making a serious mistake in trying to use government and the courts as their tool. . . . We can and must put government dependency behind us and learn to depend on each other again."



The same reasoning applies in the draft. We can and must learn to depend for our national defense on each other. We would be making a serious mistake to rely on governmental coercion to bring about our defense.

pj:



But we're not going to. We're on the losing side of history.



There also won't ever be a draft again because people don't want responsibilities; they want "benefits".

Try telling the people on Kauai that the taxpayers reimburse them. Even their insurer welshed.

I liked the Orrin of the Glendon review. "We can and must!" - ringing words. The new Orrin - "we are on the losing side of history" - not very inspirational.

I remember hearing an NPR segment several years ago about a homeowner's association which was trying to acheive some kind of communitarian ideal. They had committee meetings for everything. No matter was too small to be discussed, they had to reach consensus on everything, all their children had to play together, everyone was pegged for one duty or another. To me, it sounded like the subdivision from Hell.



Personally, I think that communitarianism is just a guilt trip for people who think that they should live like their ancestors, not realizing that modernity was created by their ancestors leaving the farm or the village or the neighborhood the first chance they got. There is a reason that people chose to leave these places: they were oppressive, restricting, and offered little opportunity for growth and prosperity. For every idyllic village worthy of the poet, there were thirty hellholes, with people fleeing like rats off the Titanic.



Real communities are organic, they come together naturally. You can't engineer them, like a Disney theme park. You can have all the community you want in the suburbs - just go to the Boy Scout pancake breakfast at the VFW, attend the High School Christmas concert, go to the County Fair, or just hang out somewhere where people gather. Shovel your neighbor's driveway, or cut their grass.

Think of the Communitarians as the domestic policy version of the Neocons. Just as neocons were driven out of liberalism by foreign policy, but remain attached to the idea of big government, so the communitarians have been driven out by the social effects of liberalism, but are unable to leave behind the idea of government action.



It is in large part because these two very smart groups of disaffected liberals find themselves unable to become true conservatives that one would have to say big government is permanent and will only get bigger.

pj:



That's why conservatives are the true romantics--we can't win but we struggle on.

I swing both ways on communitarianism.



A friend of mine who grew up in a small town

in Virginia, noted that in South Boston you

were forced to know and get along with,

more or less, everybody. His town had a

village idiot, village atheist etc. You were

forced to come to terms with them.



On the other hand, while Robert is quite

right about choosing your friends in the big

city, it can be stultifying in another way.



Many years ago, I listened to a radio report

on what I suppose we would today call

vegans. The group was physically dispersed

but kept in touch through modern electronics

(the phone then, this was before microchips).



One was quoted approximately thusly:



"Everyone I know agrees. I mean, there may

be a few who are skeptical that the grass

feels pain when you mow the lawn, but

everybody knows that the insects suffer

terribly."

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having served in the military, or at sea." The vast majority of educated men my age lied and cheated to evade military service. After active duty, I spent a few years in the SMCR, which meant a good haircut at least once a month, which was like having a globe and anchor tatooed on your forehead. I never let on to my disdain for those who let others go in their places, but I could always tell that they knew who they were and what they had done. Now, thanks to how we have obviated the need for mass formations, we do not need them and we do not want them; but they should never ask us to respect them.

I live in a little development of seven houses and we have a neighborhood association to maintain a common driveway and a little bridge into the property. At first, one of the neighbors wanted to be very active, with regular meetings and a foreign policy, but a couple of us squashed that. Now, we just send him a couple of checks a year to pay for the plowing and bridge inspections, and mow the common area on our assigned weekend.



Last summer, however, one of the homeowners decided to build a garage, with a little efficiency apartment on it for his daughter, and needed our permission. In theory, I'm close to being a property absolutist; I'm skeptical about zoning, let alone allowing the neighbors a veto over the owner's use of his own property.



And yet, it turned out our neighbor wanted to leave open the possibility of renting out the apartment if his daughter moved out. He made a passionate speech about the possibility that, after retirement, this might be the only way he could afford to stay in the dream house he and his wife had sacrificed to build. But I, and my other neighbors, don't want renters in our development. So we made him change the plans so that the apartment wouldn't qualify as a rental unit under the zoning laws.



Communitarianism makes dictators of us all.

Orrin - I think we are certain to win.

pj:



Utopianism? I'm stunned.

Harry, I agree with you that there is a tradeoff to mobility and personal freedom. People will suffer from the loss of connections - some people more than others.



I think that community is still possible, it will just look very different from older forms. When I stated that real communities are organic, I meant that they grow from the needs of the social environment. It starts with ad-hoc associations, and over time traditions and rituals form around the relationships. It is unplanned, and follows a set of unwritten rules. We can't replicate the communities of the past, we have to be creative about using what we have to create new kinds of communities.

Orrin - not utopianism, faith in God's providence. Reality will just keep on refuting the delusions of the left, and eventually people will catch on.

Robert, yes, I agree about new communities. We form them naturally, not always for good reasons.



To go way back to one of your posts, I cannot agree that the problem of the conscript Army of the '60s lay with the conscripts.



The military was very sick by the late '50s, for reasons I cannot completely explain. The imposition of incompetent civilian leadership by Kennedy just about

finished it off. But it wasn't draftees who swore out faked bomb reps or looted bowling alleys.



On the other hand, see B. Burkitt, "Stolen Valor," for a more upbeat interpretation.

Harry, granted, you cannot blame everything on the conscripts. But given the incompetent leadership, throwing conscripts into the mix just made a bad situation worse.



The remarks I heard from the senior officer was just one point of view, and you must understand that Marines don't need much of an excuse for bad-mouthing the other services. But there was definitely a state of low morale in the service when I joined in '80, and only started turning around once Reagan took office.



We will have more times of bad civilian leadership in the future, which is why I think it imperative to keep the service voluntary. A conscript army with good leadership and a popular cause can win. But without one or both of these, conscripts will only make a bad situation worse.

pj:



God said to Noah, "the Fire next time."

God also sent the rainbow.

Fear not, David C., my Heinlein comment was hyperbole, although twenty years after discovering his works, I can still see the deep impression he made on my worldview.



As to the comments others have made about his lack of editing, good gravy, yes. I once edited "The Number of the Beast", for fun, and there's a taut action thriller hidden in there.

Michael:



Try the same with Atlas Shrugged and there's a nice 180 page novel lurking.