“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 1961

These words, a clarion call to collective action, have inspired generations of Americans and still do. President Kennedy founded the Peace Corps within weeks of taking office, a volunteer organization that sent Americans around the world with a mission to bring help where needed and to foster mutual learning and understanding among nations.

President Kennedy also had a goal for our country’s space program, and just a few months into his presidency he spoke before a Joint Session of Congress and laid out his vision for “…landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade.¹

When we speak today of public service, of the American people coming together to achieve a common goal, of our youth learning what it means to sacrifce for our country outside of war, it seems like an impossible dream, given the fractured nature of our discourse—but one that we must pursue if we ever hope to achieve anything as a country again.

Just last Sunday, I wrote about the fading concept of The Common Good, specifically in the context of public health: there are way too many Americans who think that it’s not their personal responsibility to help stop a pandemic that has killed over 680,000 Americans, for example. In that post, I offered the idea that either a voluntary or compulsory call for our youth to participate in some form of public service might be one way to eventually bring our country together, to demonstrate to our youngest generations that we’re in this together as a country. And in fact, noted that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called for this very program during his 2020 Presidential Campaign.

I’d like to share a few pieces having to do with the idea of a national public service in this country, some debating whether the idea itself is “un-American” to whether it should be voluntary or compulsory. It’s a discussion that’s been around since the 1800’s, but found momentum with federal direction under President Roosevelt in the early 1930’s and continued with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the creation of the National Community Services Act under President Bush in 1990 and Americorp by President Clinton in 1993.

— To get you started, here’s a brief history of our country’s national service laws and initiatives.

https://www.govinfo.gov/features/national-service

—This 2019 piece from NPR discusses whether national service for our youth should be compulsory .

Joe Heck, Chairman of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service said: “An overarching goal of the commission, Heck said, is to ‘create a universal expectation of service’ in which ‘every American is inspired and eager to serve.’ ”

Heck also mentioned “…the national day of service that many people perform to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and [ Heck] quoted King's statement that “ ‘Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?’ ”

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/23/687715869/should-young-americans-be-required-to-do-public-service-federal-panel-says-maybe

— A discussion from just this summer from Brittanica ProCon.org lays out the top three reasons for and against compusory national public service—it’s a must read if you want to understand this topic.

“Public opinion on mandatory national service is split: 49% favored one year of required service for young Americans in a 2017 poll, while 45% were opposed. Among adults ages 18 to 29, who would be required to complete the service, 39% were for the proposal and 57% were against.”

https://www.procon.org/headlines/mandatory-national-service-top-3-pros-and-cons/

— Another recent opinion piece, this one from The New York Times and written by Jonathan Holloway, a historian and current President of Rutgers University, emphasizes the need for a mandatory national service to unite the country.

“A sensible system of compulsory national service would build bridges between people and turn them into citizens…and would reveal the enormous collective possibilities when we pull together instead of rip apart.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/opinion/compulsory-national-service-america.html

And finally for this evening, an opinion piece published in U.S. News and World Report in 2010, stating that “Government-directed “volunteerism” belittles authentic volunteerism.”

Here is a fuller explanation: “Such government-directed "volunteerism," by encouraging individuals and associations to look to the state as the provider of assistance, belittles authentic volunteerism, the process by which individuals choose without economic benefit to help their neighbor.”

Isn’t this like saying that same-sex marriage belittles heterosexual marriage?

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/10/19/compulsory-national-service-would-undermine-the-american-character