So as I read this right wing slant on mandatory service proposals one line struck out at me and all I could think of was South Park and operation get behind the darkies.
This picture blanketed my mind and I could not let it go. The image of Sarah Palin strapped to the front of a tank like a ships mermaid as the Fox News Corp lined a dank and muddy World War II trench. Complaining of trench foot, and the horrible food they were subjected to by their MRE's. Their mouths salivating as they thought of expensive caviar and foie gras as a nuclear warhead penetrates their consciousness Bill O'Reilly declares, "Well, guess I should have seen that one coming."
I personally don't think there is anything wrong with mandatory service, if it just means you hold a government job for two years. Frankly I've already done that. Most people probably have worked for the government at one time or another and may not have realized it. If you have ever been a summer camp counselor for a city park you have worked for the government. If you've ever been a poll worker for an election, you've worked for the government. I think the fear of going to war is the reason people are afraid of this notion, but the reality is if you have never worked in an industry how can you possibly understand it.
When I first started acting in Hollywood I put my hand in everything. I did PA work, I did wardrobe, I interned at an agency, did casting director workshops, assisted in casting session you name it I did it, because I needed to know all aspects of my industry in order to be successful in it.
People constantly complain about government and the way things are run without having any knowledge of bureaucracy. The process is almost unbearable, it is slow and it is ridiculous. Everyone feels like they need to put their stamp on every little thing, to feel important and there are institutions within the institution to protect employees from retaliation, discrimination and themselves. The problem is that while honest hard working employees can benefit from these services there are just as many or more employees that utilize these systems to obtain job security and make it nearly impossible to fire them. When I worked for LA Parks and rec we had people who blatantly abused the system and it would take years to get rid of them. Policy is the same way, if not worse because their are lobbyists and special interests groups who will fight against or for policies that don't benefit them.
It seems to me that if more people worked for the government or at least had a summer internship they would understand what they were fighting for or against. It tends to be those who have no working knowledge of the system that are its biggest detractors, and those who I would classify as greedy, money hungry capitalists that tend to hate anything that resembles socialism or communism. The reality is that capitalism doesn't work, and communism doesn't work. Capitalism creates two distinct classes the haves and the have-nots, and the longer this system continues the broader the space between the two becomes. Communism on the other hand requires that the world is not populated with self-serving assholes, which any of VH1's reality programming will show you that is not the case.
Soap box, retired.
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