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general freedom media and media people

The Other Other

“How would you characterize this moment?” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Pulitzer Prize-​winning author and historian (and occasional Biden advisor) Jon Meacham.

“I think you have a dedicated minority of the population — it was the secessionist slave-​holding interests in the 1850s,” responded Meacham. “Today, it is this vast swath of people who have found a home in the Republican Party, who are no longer part of a coherent and constructive and good-​intentioned conversation about the future of the country.”

Meacham then posited that “a democracy fundamentally depends on our capacity to see each other not as adversaries — or heathen — but as neighbors.”

Wait … did the tenured television expert say our whole system relies on not considering those you disagree with politically as “the other,” just mere seconds after comparing a “vast swath” of Republicans to slaveholders and essentially accusing them of being incoherent, destructive, and evil?

While Meacham bemoaned “these” otherwise undefined Republicans, CNN flashed pictures of the January 6th rioters on the screen. Hmmm. Obviously with the best of intentions.

Next, Zakaria sought the input of another Pulitzer Prize-​winning author and historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin … also a well-​known plagiarist

“The answer” to seeing folks as this “other,” according to Goodwin? “I believe it’s national service,” she argued. “You get people from the city to the country, country to the city, you begin to create a new generation that has shared values.”

She’s delusional, but serious.*

Notice that her Pulitzer Prize-​winning psychopathy would force millions of young (read: less powerful) citizens into government make-​work, to be directed and “re-​educated” by Washington-​based experts … like Goodwin (and Meacham).

The other thing? Ironically, the program aired on Independence Day.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Last week, in a New York Times op-​ed, Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway urged “compulsory national service for all young people — with no exceptions.” He contends forcing young people out of their chosen life paths will “build bridges between people” and “shore up our fragile communities.” 

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Big Issue 2020

“National service will hopefully become one of the themes of the 2020 campaign,” said Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Why?

Talking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Mayor Buttigieg explained: “we really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency, but also just this era.”

Oh, goodie, another threat from which the wannabe wizards of Washington can save us.

“One thing we could do that would help change that,” announced Buttigieg, “would be to make it, if not legally obligatory, then certainly a social norm that anybody after they’re 18 spends a year in national service.”

What does he mean by “if not legally obligatory”? Perhaps it is nothing more than this: he is considering a program of forced service, but wants plausible deniability, a way to back off in the heat of an election campaign … when moms and dads are voting. 

Buttigieg wants “the first question on your college application” or “the first question when you’re being interviewed for a job” to be whether a young person did national service. 

Hey, I want a lot of things. Does a President Buttigieg plan to force all colleges and employers to ask his question first?

What seems obvious to citizens seems lost on politicians, the rather clear difference between offering jobs to the nation’s 4 million 18-​year-​olds and dragging them away from their lives to make them work for Washington. 

Host Maddow, for her part, supports a draft, but expresses doubts about its feasibility, noting “we seem wired as a country to reject that at every level.”

She is correct: Land of the free, home of the brave and all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Congress Considers the Draft

Yes, “mandatory national service” is a live topic — again!

Mandatory National Service? on Vimeo.

But the situation is not hopeless. This is not a “done deal.” Indeed, there is something you can do to prevent universal, intersex/​all-​gender mandatory conscription. Click here to find out more. 

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Blame the Kids?

Why is it when some politicians or pundits get a brilliant idea about how to make the country better, involving (of course) making people do as the government dictates, it only applies to other people?

Sunday, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist and Times-styled conservative David Brooks bemoaned the electorate’s disunity due to the unprecedented unpopularity of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton: “We could have a winner at 42 percent. Look at those poll numbers.… And so, that’s almost like a minority government. I think we’ve just got to do something about it.”

Do something? What?

Brooks explained, “Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago has an idea that every kid who graduates from high school spends the next three months in some sort of national service. So a kid from Martha’s Vineyard or Marin County is with a kid from Mobile, Alabama, and just three months, it would make a difference.”

Chicagoans will warn against emulating Mayor Emanuel.*

“I thought national service was going to be a given,” host Chuck Todd then offered. “I mean, my God, we’ve been talking about national service my whole adult life and I can’t believe we’re not there.”

News Flash: The problem with our politics is not the fault of teenagers. Nor would forcing young people to put their dreams on hold the better to toil in some social engineering scheme solve anything.

Want national service? Begin with politicians and TV talking heads.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* A whopping 62 percent of Chicagoans disapprove of their mayor and fully 40 percent want ole Rahm Never-​Let-​a-​Crisis-​Go-​to-​Waste Emanuel to immediately resign. The mayor’s delay in releasing an incriminating police video, until after his re-​election, has been the most incendiary issue. But also consider some ugly facts about systemic breakdown in city governance: the number of murders this year is already higher than last year, four out of ten freshman in Chicago high schools fail to graduate and 91 percent of graduates going on to college require remedial courses.


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