I've written here about the the oxymoron "mandatory volunteerism," and the concept unfortunately just keeps gaining momentum. There is a group called Service Nation with some heavyweights behind it, and, considering their stances on national service, both Obama and McCain would surely endorse its goals:
Service Nation is a 16-month non-partisan grassroots and grass top political campaign intent on pushing the issue of National Service to the forefront of American life and convincing the next President and Congress to put into law a Voluntary National Service Act by September of 2009.
The secondary goal of Service Nation is to set America on a trajectory to become a nation of universal national service by 2020.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think we can get to "universal" national service without a mandatory program -- you know, life a draft, but for everyone. Scary.
