Via Timmy I see that Demos has jumped on the enforced servitude idea so beloved of control freaks everywhere.
Demos today launches a report arguing that the principle of national service, abolished in Britain in 1960, still has something to offer. A national civilian service — a sort of “civic corps” — would look very different from its military forebear: it would be flexible and tailored to people’s lives, not a one-size-fits-all compulsory scheme.
It would, however, be based on the same principles that underpinned wartime service: the idea that we owe something to each other and that citizenship is more than a soulless contract between individuals and the state. It would be paid for by introducing interest on student loans, raising about £1.2 billion a year.
The scheme would see people serving throughout their lives, taking up opportunities, from school projects at the age of seven to paid leave for employees. For a week a year, people would down their tools or keyboards and pick up litter, dredge canals, become reading mentors or help the elderly. The community benefits would be huge.
Sigh… As Tim points out, this idea has been tried before and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. The state does not own our bodies and the state is not society. We do not owe something to each other. Voluntary service should be just that; voluntary. Anything else is slavery.
Frankly, the only rational response to a call to reintroduce slavery is; “fuck off!” Sorry, can’t put it any better than that.
I’ve got a french friend in his late thirties (AFAIR), he just sees his year of national service as a complete waste of time – it’s hard to disagree with him.
However, I would like to link benefits to work; no work, no money.
It might bring a new realism as to viable work options. I don’t feel the need to subsidise 16 year old mothers or other people too lazy to work at the local supermarket.
They think they are owed a ‘decent job’, regardless of their qualifications – I don’t wish to provide that subsidy.
My neighbour did national service in the French army. He came back; several of his friends in the village didn’t. That this is wrong on so many levels goes without saying – or it should.
I have no problem with linking benefits to work as there is an exchange and people can always say “no” and go without – but this idea is intended to apply to everyone irrespective of circumstances.
Voluntary service should be just that – voluntary. Making it compulsory is Orwellian. At the same time, people in our contemporary selfish society should be more motivated to help others. A friend told me the other day that when she suggested to her young nephew that he could earn some money to fund his holiday by being a carer for a few weeks, he reacted with disdain at the horrid idea of giving a bath to some repulsive old person…..
Typical demos, the global socialist bastards.
.-= My last blog ..Schooner versus ketch in a split rig =-.
Could be worse. I have a nephew who thinks old people are merely oxygen thieves who should pop their clogs and leave their worldly wealth to young folks who will know how to spend it properly. I think he’s joking…
We had a GP (now retired) who once cheerfully remarked that she thought everyone should be put down when they reached 70. She was in her mid-50s at the time, and I think she had a difficult mother.
I hope she was joking – she probably was, as her colleagues are still doing their best to keep me going now I’m in my ’80s.
XX The scheme would see people serving throughout their lives, taking up opportunities, from school projects at the age of seven to paid leave for employees. For a week a year, people would down their tools or keyboards and pick up litter, dredge canals, become reading mentors or help the elderly. The community benefits would be huge.
Sigh… As Tim points out, this idea has been tried before and it wasn’t particularly pleasant.XX
Aye, and every year, all the kids in the Soviet Union, and China, “volunteered” to go and help with the harvest, and at the end of every “five year plan” they would all be shipped off to factories to help “fulfil the norm”.
Should appeal to Incapability Brown and his gang of non performing parlaimentary communist apes nicely.
And don’t think the ever so slightly red (pink) communist Cameron and HIS ape following will change anything. They are all the bloody same.
.-= My last blog ..Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/6/2009 =-.
I have no problem with linking benefits to work as there is an exchange and people can always say “no” and go without
Or they might ‘choose’ to support a demagogue, who might just put smug middle class folk against a wall and shoot you. There’s a reason why advanced western societies have a welfare state, because having the turbulence of a revolution is just a little bit worse.
Voluntary service should be just that – voluntary
Well of course. Besides, the half-wits of New Labour have already ensured that the scheme is utterly unenforcible, as it will be a requirement to participate to pass a CRB check. Therefore this scheme will be closed to anyone who cannot pass a CRB check or refuses to participate in one.
Stephen, if people are fit to work and choose not to despite it being available, then I see no reason why there should not be some exchange if they want state benefits. I am not suggesting that the safety net for those who are unable to work be removed. This is neither smug nor middle class. I’ve been out of work on more than one occasion and I know exactly what it is like. I would choose to look after myself as that is exactly what I did before.
Therein lies the key to rebellion 😉
It might start off as voluntary, but we all know how it’s going to end.
.-= My last blog ..Libertarians can be complete ****s =-.
LFAT – unfortunately callmedave is in favour of this type of thinking…
As for voluntary, I don’t think voluntary is even how it is starting. Classic Nulab Newspeak. When they say “voluntary” what they actually mean is “compulsory”.
As to linking benefits to work, related here is what has recently happened inm a part of Berlin.
They had serious problems with truancy among the ethnics. (The schools there (Neuköln) can be 98% immigrant, those that are not have a proportionatly reduced problem).
So what the Bürgermeister has introduced is a scheme wherby child benefit is related to school attendence. No days at school, no benefit. And remember, “child benefit” lasts until 25 when someone is still in full time education!)
This is set to last a year as a trial, then, if successful, will be taken up by the whole of Berlin.
.-= My last blog ..Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/7/2009 =-.
Stephen, if people are fit to work and choose not to despite it being available, then I see no reason why there should not be some exchange if they want state benefits
If there is work and people can do it then people should be paid a living wage for doing it. You must know as well as do that workfare will just be used a cynical means of getting cheap labour below the market rate at the point of a gun. Why would an employer employ people at minimum wage when he can get workfare serfs at sub-minimum wage.
Besides, I paid 30 years into this system. If I get made unemployed then I expect to receive what I have paid for, not forced labour. Don’t pay me and expect revolution. It is as simple as that.
If we must have national service, I strongly favour the Swiss model. From Wikipedia: The Swiss Armed Forces, including the Land Forces and the Air Force, are composed of conscripts: professional soldiers constitute only about 5 percent of the military personnel, and all the rest are conscript citizens aged from 20 to 34 (in special cases up to 50) years. Also: The structure of the Swiss militia system stipulates that the soldiers keep their own personal equipment, including all personal weapons, at home.
Surely there’s nothing like an armed citizenry to keep government in its place.
Best regards
Nigel, I don’t even like the Swiss system. An armed populace is one thing, but enforced army service is something I would always resist.
Stephen, if someone persistently fails to make themselves available for work despite being perfectly capable, then yes, benefits should be withdrawn. I’ve paid into this system for thirty odd years as well, and I resent dragging my arse out of bed early in the morning and travelling thousands of miles for work in order to keep the idle and feckless in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed.
None of this says people shouldn’t be paid a living wage for work and none of this says there shouldn’t be a safety net. When I found myself unemployed, I chose to sort things out for myself rather than rely on the state – I took anything rather than not work.
Stephen, if someone persistently fails to make themselves available for work despite being perfectly capable, then yes, benefits should be withdrawn
But you don’t need a workfare system to do that. What I am objecting to is forced labour to receive benefits that I have already paid for.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. I am, however, saying that it shouldn’t be an open ended arrangement. A safety net is just that, something that gives you breathing space until you get back on your feet. There are, however, people who see benefits as a lifestyle option – not least because the system makes it uneconomic for some of them to work. But then we are getting into the iniquities of taxing the low paid and that’s another subject entirely.