To the Editor:
I've noticed a rather disquieting tendency among so-called "progressive thinkers" to begin their proclamations with the words "We should" or "We ought." I get even more nervous whenever a liberal starts a thought about social policy with the words "Wouldn't it be nice if ...." The very idea that a single individual, sequestered with his studies and his idealism, fundamentally removed from the world he is pondering, could, with a straight face and all seriousness, give a national imperative should send a cold chill down the spine of every last freedom-loving American.
This is exactly the case with Edith Mulhern's supplication ("A year of service," DP, 9/16/05), wouldn't it be nice if we all had to perform a mandatory term of service to society? While she, herself, concedes that social policy like this might run up against little things like the 13th Amendment and "some people's" notions of liberty, the subsequent zeal with which she tries to wind a way around these pesky little thorns is appalling.
Here she is, proposing the top-down imposition of a fundamental change in American society, probing for ways to subvert and circumvent the culture of individual liberty that grew out of the very ideals this nation was founded upon, and she declares that such a radical transformation, one that would wreak havoc with so many of our deeply-held traditions and beliefs, might be "fun."
The fact of the matter is that any nation that imposes this kind of servitude upon its citizenry is either in the dire straits of a labor shortage, the Military in Israel, for instance, or has a long and proud tradition of disregarding the personal freedoms of its people, like Nazi Germany, or the former Soviet Union.
So what Ms. Mulhern has is, indeed, not a "well-formulated policy recommendation," rather it is an example of the kind of thought not too far removed from the ideology of every oppressive and totalitarian regime that has graced the face of this earth. Any implementation of that ideology will take the form of nothing other than just another instance of totalitarian, despotic, Communism.
Roman Geyhkman,
Engineering '07
