Isn't "Jonah Goldberg" pretty much a synonym for "mad shriek for attention"?

So Jonah Goldberg believes that a military draft is unconstitutional. That's good to know. What about stop-loss retention. or other forms of involuntary service currently being imposed on former military personnel? Or is involuntary service only ironically akin to slavery when a Democrat proposes it, rather than when a Republican actually imposes it?

Screw Jonah, and screw the Los Angeles Times for giving that weasel a voice. And while I'm at it why is TNR posting this tripe for discussion and comment when it is worthy of neither.

"But then why even open the column the way he did?"

Hits.  

Both Goldberg and the L.A. Times are perfectly willing to whore out their standards for a bit more cash.  (Not that Goldberg has standards.)

What do you expect from a guy who coughed up three-hundred-plus pages detailing the ways in which American liberals are the intellectual descendants of Mussolini?

Eve,  TNR,

Please start posting pictures of the authors when you post a criticism of something this bad.  That will allow us to recognize the person on the street so we can point and laugh at them.

Anonevent - you don't need a photograph - just point and laugh every time you a sanctimonious, intellectually-dishonest, intellectually-challenged, overpaid, witless polemicist  and you'll hit Goldberg eventually.  

"Massuh," said the Princeton sophomore to the senior center volunteer coordinator, "I be done wit my woik heah today, so's if it be awright wit you, I bess be movin' along--"

"Don't you move your no-good uppity ass one inch!" the volunteer coordinator bellowed. "You Princeton students are all alike--lazy, shiftless thieves. All you think about is eatin' and screwin', ain't that right, boy?"

"Why no, massuh, we be tinkin' 'bout all sorts a tings--autosegmental phonology, subatomic particle acceleration, the role of HER2/neu in breast cancer pathogenesis--"

"Don't get smart with me, boy!" yelled the volunteer coordinator. He grabbed a bullwhip leaning against his office wall. "Don't make me use this again!"

"Oh no, massuh, not da whip! I'll stay! You jes tell me what to do, and I be doin' it! You want me ta play cribbage wit dat nice ol' lady wit da drool bib? Hand out da apple juice an cookies to da folks in da Alzheimuh's rec room? Tell me, massuh!"

"That's better," said the volunteer coordinator, setting the whip back against the wall. "Get the cribbage board."

The Princeton student shuffled from the room, head bowed. The volunteer coordinator leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. "Hmmm," he thought, "maybe these people ARE capable of learning..."

Doesn't Jonah have anyone in his life to tell him that he is making an ass out of himself? When he used to do "what's your problem?" with Beinert he was always reasonable and made many excellent points because he knew if he talked rubbish he would be challenged and beaten.

Rhubarbs: A draft may  have a constitutional problem with the 13th, but stop-loss  and callback are not involuntary - when you join the military you sign a contract in which you agree to extend your service or be called back under specific conditions under control of the military.  If you don't like the terms, you can not join.

Requiring 100  hours a year of college students is requiring a lot. Many already work one or two jobs to make ends meet, plus internships that pay nothing. It may not be slavery, but it is a kind of forced labor to require them to volunteer. And to make their federal aid contingent on this service -- a little regressive, no? Great message: only the non-rich need participate.

I disagree, slightly. Obviously, there is no moral equivalence between what Obama is proposing and slavery. But forced servitude is forced servitude, and I'd rather we avoid it altogether, however innocuous a form it may take. As a college student myself, I'll be honest and say I really would rather not do 100 hours of service. Cynic that I am, I usually feel that these sorts of things are more designed to make me feel good about myself (alas! I already do!) than to fix any of society's problems, which are so often structural. I do not buy the modern lie that work is ennobling, or sets us free. I'd like to help people, but I really doubt that the way to do it is require everyone to do 100 hours of something. The program is designed to reform me, not for me to reform something else.

That said, I'm not sure how different this is from all sorts of things we do accept, such as mandatory secondary education (do we have this?) or the draft. I like mandatory secondary education; I don't like the draft but could see how the state would find it necessary on occasion. Then again, I'm an individualist and not a statist, so I don't really care what the state finds necessary.

sdemuth, if you don't like the terms of a required service agreement, you can not take the government scholarship or loan.

I'm not saying the college service thing is necessarily a great policy, but an argument that such a contingent service requirement is unconstitutional would also apply equally to any other contingent service requirement.

$4 k for 100 hours is damn good pay in its own right, some servitude.

I don't know.  Goldberg's comparison to slavery is obviously ridiculous, but I don't necessarily think this is good policy.  As dkrieger points out, a lot of college students have to work 1 or 2 jobs in addition to their schoolwork, and the extra requirement might push more people to just conclude that they can't realistically afford it.  I liked Obama's earlier idea about expanding college grants for people who do a year of national service.  I'd have to see some more details about how this one would actually work (I'm damn sure not taking Jonah Goldberg's word on it).

Wouldn't college students NOT have to work real jobs as much if they were getting $4000 for what amounts to two hours of work a week?  I mean, thats a much better wage than you'd get working anywhere.  That amounts to les than a full college course time-wise.  If anything, it would give them more free time rather than less.