“Voluntold” to Serve?

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Public prosecutors, accounting specialists, military personnel and law enforcement officials are just a few of the public services jobs filled by voluntary citizens from all walks of life, but what if a two year service of this kind was mandatory for all high school graduates? It could be said that this would bolster public services with an influx of personnel to provide a more robust service. Would the reasons to implement this type of service outweigh the consequences? I don’t believe so. In fact, I believe that compulsory public service would only serve to weaken the military, increase government spending and would be a direct violation of the United States constitution.

Admittedly, public service could instill a sense of patriotism and civic pride while bringing a broader skill set to the playing field, but if people didn’t want to serve, many complications would also arise. For example, negative attitudes that develop from being forced into service could lead to disciplinary issues, loss of productivity and lower quality of work. This is already happening on a smaller scale with volunteer individuals who enter the military only to find out that it doesn’t meet their expectations. These personnel sometimes become disgruntled and inappropriate or bad behavior is frequently a result. As it stands, one of the most extreme consequences for this behavior is expulsion from the military with a “Bad conduct discharge” (Powers, 2011). When an individual’s desire is to be removed from service, however, that consequence is undermined and the resulting situation becomes contrary to the good order and discipline that is essential to the functionality of the military. In addition, the process of separating someone is not immediat...

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...rojections2018/tables/table_24.asp

Congress. (1865, January 1). Retrieved from National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/13th-amendment-l.jpg&c=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/13th-amendment.caption.html

Hall, E. (2011, June 22). U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK. Retrieved June 24, 2011, from http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Khomar. (2009, October 13). Daily Paul. Retrieved from http://www.dailypaul.com/110712/interesting-conversation

Powers, R. (2011). About.com. Retrieved from http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/l/aadischarge1.htm

Powers, R. (2011). About.com. Retrieved from http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/l/blbasicattrit.htm

Supreme Court. (1918, January 7). Findlaw. Retrieved from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=245&invol=366

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