Gratitude
Flaherty, Francis
BOOKS A Bill of thanks
fter decades of decry- ing the growth of gov- ernment, William E Buckley, Jr., is now proposing a big-gov- ernment idea. A BIG big-government idea: A program of...
...Does nonmilitary national service violate the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition of involuntary servitude...
...How will it be financed...
...Far from being an unprecedented oppor- tunity for brainwashing youth, national ser- vice is just one more year of schooling, they say--like a junior year abroad...
...Only a true conservative would stren- uously insist that, honest, he does not really mean to help the poor...
...The Service Franchise model is thought- ful and substantial...
...For one thing, cleaner parks and comforted senior citizens are not the "governing justifications" for his sug- gestion...
...For instance, there is real risk that the voluntary nature of the scheme will make it a poor kid's program...
...And as for worries about the accretion of power to the state, national-service advocates sim- ply point to compulsory-education laws...
...Buckley's goal is great: 80 percent par- ticipation, by Americans born after 1973, by the year 2000...
...Does it endanger our unions...
...Complete with his signature sesquipedalian silliness (my favorite: Stakhanovites), Buckley ably discusses these and other national-service issues...
...The mil- itary draft aside, should the state be able 230: Commonweal GRATITUDE Reflections on What We 'Owe to Our Country William F. Buckley, Jr...
...Such mechanisms are hardly revolutionary, Buckley says...
...Buckley dubs his preferred model the Service Franchise...
...And he takes us to Switzerland to show how national service--in particular, universal military service--brings coherence to a heterogeneous country of twenty-six rel- atively independent cantons and several major languages...
...They include denying driver's licenses, high school diplomas, Social Security payments, or tax deductions to nonparticipants, and granting those who have served certain privileges for govern- mental benefits...
...imagine what a major national- service program might do...
...It is voluntary, but he recommends using a variety of powerful "sanctions and inducements" to spur widespread participation by the three mil- lion Americans who turn eighteen each year...
...A BIG big-government idea: A program of national service in which hordes of American youth, spurred on by state-imposed sanctions and inducements, will spend a year caring for the aged, clean- ing parks, conducting voter-registration drives, microfilming crumbling library books, and so on...
...Ignatius to the staff during Lent, and plant eight trees to honor the Jesuit and laywomen martyrs in E1 Salvador...
...A federal agency will supervise the Service Franchise...
...National service is a venerable notion, championed by George Washington, William James, and others...
...We weight the board of trustees with a majority of Jesuits, require controversial speakers who might attack the church to be paired with a speaker from the "other side," impose a rigid core curriculum, offer the spiritual exercises of St...
...Buckley's blinders about the poor are also bothersome...
...Great too is the cost: Assuming half of those eligible sign up, the annual expense would be $16 billion...
...Brian Wren A unique opportunity to join a small ecumenical group and study with these distinguished scholars in the intimate setting of historic Lincoln College, Oxford...
...The subject sparked great debate during the Vietnam years, and it is now the focus of congres- sional bills from both sides of the aisle...
...But while Buckley's political colors come through in this and several other ways, he has produced in Gratitude, his twenty-ninth book, an evoca- tive, engaging work on an important sub- ject...
...BOOKS A Bill of thanks fter decades of decrying the growth of government, William E Buckley, Jr., is now proposing a big-gov- ernment idea...
...Also-- despite Buckley's wariness about this point--national service can be a great boon in addressing our social problems...
...Buckley has hardly become a rnnning-dog redistributionist...
...I wouldn't try this line on the homeless guy I see at my sub- way station many mornings...
...The story of the Rev...
...Charles Curran's 1986 removal, at the Vatican's order, from the CU theology faculty for his "liberal" but widely held views on sexual morality and of his losing fight for reinstatement-- ending only recently with his appointment to the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University--is one of the great stories in American Catholic history...
...But don't cancel your National Review...
...Without selecting specific ones, Buckley also provides an inventive list of other pos- sible spurs to serve...
...What activities are eli- gible...
...The problem is not theoretical: the volunteer army is more poor and more black than the nation on aver- age--and has been sharply criticized for it...
...He describes lesser-known pro- grams too, such as Aflanta's rule that public high school students must perform some community work in order to graduate...
...Why should a rich kid want to spend a year earn- ing a measly few thousand dollars in tax credits and pin money...
...But these Draconian meas- ures, in a putatively voluntary system, will likely be politically unpalatable...
...He offers us Alexander Hamilton and Adam Smith for the proposition that the state may instill in its citizens those virtues needed for its preservation...
...But Buckley gives short shrift to the compulsory model...
...This raises the question of compulsory national ser- vice, which on its face seems more egal- itarian than a voluntary one...
...It is fine, splendid in fact, that national service can anticipate solid good done to other human beings," he allows...
...Shame on you, Bill...
...But his main aim, he says, is to sensitize citizens to the debt they owe their "patri- mony" and thus to foster in them the public spirit that democracy demands...
...Moreover, to "rouse the civic sense" through national service, Buckley says, will greatly fortify our system of self-government...
...Peter Hodgson Dr...
...wit- ness, for example, the GI Bill...
...Buckley replies that rich kids are not impervious to the denial of driver's licenses and diplomas...
...Every voter knows the ennobling feeling that even modest national service bestows...
...It is a prototypical American story, that of a free individual--reminiscent of OXFORD SUMMER SCHOOL IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES Tuesday 6 August - Monday 19 August, 1991 LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD THE LECTURERS Professor John Macquarrie Bishop Kallistos T. Ware Professor Rowan Williams Dr...
...Random House, $16.95, 169 pp...
...Who will pay the billions required...
...Francis Flaherty to compel or induce young people to serve civilian needs...
...While Iraq and recession will keep national service off Washington's short list for a bit, many believe with Buckley that the issue is "coming very slowly to a boil...
...Through national service, he says, citizens can "requite to the land that nurtured them a measure of the profit they take" therefrom...
...Voluntary or compulsory...
...Inevitably, though, any national-service advocate must get down to brass tacks...
...One major inducement is the basic year's pay: $10,000 in tax credits, to be "spent" on the participant's future tax returns...
...The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., whose own faculty handbook describes it as a"national center for Catholic culture," which "accepts the standards and procedures of American institutions," in a community "faithful to its own national traditions," has affirmed its identity and definition of freedom by expelling its best known and most widely respected moral theologian...
...Is Milton Friedman right that national service bears an "uncanny resemblance" to the Hitler Youth Corps...
...He tallies the millions of jobs, from Big Brother to snow-removal worker, that are available and suitable for national service...
...Spend, spend, spend...
...Who will run it...
...He also dissects the military draft, Peace Corps, VISTA, Guardian Angels, and other examples of national-service programs-- public and private, compulsory and vol- untary...
...Some people, often due to the happenstance of birth, have profited much more from our land than oth- ers...
...Specifically, what is the program to be...
...He cites polls confirming that nearly three-quarters of Americans like the idea of national service (though far fewer want to foot the bill...
...But it is a complicated stew: National service raises profound questions...
...The promise, though, is as great as the peril...
...How long is the term of service...
...It also exhibits its cre- ator's political predilections...
...But each state, if its vot- ers choose to participate, will handle within broad federal guidelines most of the financ- ing and operation, including setting appro- priate sanctions, deciding which activities are eligible for national service, etc...
...But Buckley says the returns are worth it...
...N. T. (Tom) Wright Dr...
...Sue Gillingham Dr...
...F. W. Dillistone Canon John Fenton Dr...
...Despite Buckley's revulsion for redis- tribution, perhaps in the best national-ser- vice system the fortunate would pay their debt to society by paying society's debt to the less fortunate...
...AN AMERICAN CATHOLIC STORY CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION, THEOLOGY, AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM Charles E. Curran Notre Dame University Press, $27.95, 257 pp...
...Contact: Norma Christensen 820 Park Avenue Worland, Wyoming 82401 Phone: (307) 347-3836 Fax: (307) 347-2133 or Fernand Beck Fordham Preparatory School The Bronx, New York 10458 Phone/Fax: 212-884-6261 5 April 1991:231...
...One major sanction is the denial of federal educational aid to nonpartici- pants...
...Raymond A. Schroth t our university we have devised a variety of strategies--some silly, some sub-lime--to allow for freedom but still protect our Catholic iden- tity...
...Buckley is creative in crafting carrots and sticks for his plan, but most of them deal with dollars...
Vol. 118 • April 1991 • No. 7
