THE CASE FOR UNIVERSAL MILITARY OR CIVILIAN SERVICE IN AMERICA
Frumentarius | June 16, 2022
These are the views of this author only, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sandboxx.
It does not require great insight for us, as Americans, to realize that we are as hopelessly divided along partisan and ideological lines as perhaps we have ever been in the post-Civil War era. While we struggle with this seemingly insurmountable political strife, we are also simultaneously beset by an epidemic of never-ending gun violence. Feelings of extreme alienation and grievance felt by some amongst us, directed against various manifestations of “the other,” somehow seem only alleviated by acts of mass violence against those understood — however incomprehensibly — as posing some kind of mortal threat to the mass shooters themselves.
How do we overcome these twin illnesses within our society? How do we move toward a civic society where differences do not mean hatred and insurmountable division, but rather, are seen as healthy expressions of civic engagement and as signs of a robust democratic republic? How do we expunge these feelings of extreme alienation, hatred, and paranoia against “the other?”
I would put forward that, given the absence so far of any other effective remedy, and because I assess that the benefit would be significant in and of itself, the solution to these problems is a period of mandatory service for all Americans once they turn 18.
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-case-for-universal-military-service-in-america/
