When my birthday comes around, do you know what gives me a tingly thrill of joy? Receiving my birthday presents. Not because I might get something I desperately want, but because the people who gift me have decided to do so. They thought of me, and although they didn’t have to buy or make anything for me, they chose to. Heartwarming, isn’t it? And the most thoughtful and freely given of all presents is always that which has involved the least compulsion and sense of duty.
So, then, how do you think that we might encourage young people to become generous and giving members of society? Perhaps – and this is just a guess – it’s NOT by making national civic service compulsory for all young people. Sadly, that’s just what James Crabtree was suggesting on the Today programme yesterday morning.
Sigh. First Dr Alan Maryon Davis (seriously confused libertarian extraordinaire) - and now this. If I wasn’t so much of an advocate for free speech I would have been on the phone to Radio 4 complaining that their choice of interviewees was seriously starting to spoil my morning coffee.
Does Crabtree really think that forcing young people to give up a proportion of their time to contribute to society is in any way effective or strategically minded?
Is it actually rather likely that making civic service compulsory actually places fulfilling activities such as helping others in the “punishments to be avoided in future at all costs” filing section of many young people’s minds?
Is there a particular reason for this authoritarian nonsense being confined to children? Perhaps because any sane adult would rightly set about defending their human rights at the very mention of do-gooders prescribing the exact manner in which they were to spend their precious “free” time?
And finally, my most burning question. How dare Crabtree feel that he – or the state - has the right to step in and parent my 16 year old on my behalf? Am I forbidden from exercising my right to be a responsible and accountable parent to my own child and raise her as I – and not James Crabtree – see appropriate?
I really don’t give a turd whether two thirds of the public, including young people, have declared that this is what we “need”. One of my main daily activities is avoiding at least two thirds of the public, those who are completely ignorant and uninformed but persist in telling me what to do and how to do it, because that’s what they have been told (normally by a health visitor, a TV ad or a nice man in Nigeria who wants to pay money into their bank account).
These idiots are blindly clopping along towards complete dependency upon a paternalistic state that is intent on governing their every thought, as well as their every action. We’ll all be living in government-maintained test tubes before the end of the century. If two thirds of the public think that something is a good idea, I am fairly inclined to assume that it is, in actual fact, a really fucking stupid idea that I want no part of. And lo! I am correct – compulsory national service for 16 year olds: The most lunatic suggestion of the month.
What Crabtree is saying is a great crowd pleaser for the unpleasant segment of society who persist in believing that coercing “undesirable” people (according to their own subjective definition - in this case 16 year olds, naturally) to do “good” deeds is a sensible or successful way of encouraging long-term positive societal behaviours. But coercion can never be used as sustainable long-term strategy, because it relies on maintaining conformity and dependency – which then requires additional intervention and resources to achieve, ad infinitum.
So using it to achieve any outcome is short-sighted, lazy, utterly arrogant and doomed to failure. And so I really resent David Crabtree telling me that it’s going to cost billions of pounds of our money, but that it’ll be worthwhile. If I can take full responsibility for my child and actually achieve the long-term outcomes he describes without costing the taxpayers (or us) a penny, then so can every other parent – if the government ever deigned to allow it. We don't need do-gooders making us do things and we don't need them doing things for us. We need a complete paradigm shift towards freedom from dependency, informed choice, personal responsibility, and complete accountability. Now that’s a sustainable and worthwhile approach.
