I knew there was a reason I gave up on Time magazine a few years ago. With voluntarism at all time highs based on frustration with Government and it's unresponsiveness, some writer's at Time would tie the future of the Republic to the sentimental journey of national service often cited by crotchety callers on talk radio. While claiming that no compulsory element would exist in their grandiose outline, one can't help but look even farther out into the Empire's grip on the Century and wonder whether the Draft would be next. 
Poised as a future benefit to young Americans, the current liability beyond the trillions already created by war and entitlement theory would be just another 20 billion a year. When couched against the current rate of spending on Iraq, it seems like a bargain. The founders of the Republic expected individual rights and prosperity to be protected from king like ambitions of politicians and partisans. Perhaps if they didn't make the Electoral College so republic like, we'd be in better shape. So for every one of you who ever was a volunteer fireman, attended PTA meetings, or otherwise contributed to your community or country, the folks at Time would have you additionally taxed and stuck with another bureaucracy that would ruin what seems to be a good thing.
Fair ballot would access would do more to preserve the Republic than any plan to germinate public civics in the breast of every non-white inhabitant that dilutes the Great White Guy Syndrome that writers from Time suffer from.
Today the two central acts of democratic citizenship are voting and paying taxes. That's basically it. The last time we demanded anything else from people was when the draft ended in 1973. And yes, there are libertarians who believe that government asks too much of us -- and that the principal right in a democracy is the right to be left alone -- but most everyone else bemoans the fact that only about half of us vote and don't do much more than send in our returns on April 15. The truth is, even the archetype of the model citizen is mostly a myth. Except for times of war and the colonial days, we haven't been all that energetic about keeping the Republic.
Madison made a mistake in his desire to quell factions. He always thought a noble citizen like Washington would spring forward at every time of crisis or representational need. The fact that libertarians bemoan the coercion of taxes has nothing to do with the fact that we have few choices at the ballot box. Perhaps if we sent our returns in as a single check on April 15th we would also have a greater turnout at the polls.
Why mess with people who go out and do good voluntarily ? The answer is that every writer elite has drank the cool-aid of their education and generation. The reason health care and education are so bad is precisely because government is involved. Yet the glory of FDR never seems to be diminished by the failures of the Great Society. Nope apparently they want a JFK ask not what your country can do moment. Pure naive nostalgia when the message is that youth are bypassing the failed past of their elders.
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