29-03-2009, 12:55 PM
"National service" is just that -- indentured servitude.
I reject out of hand the notion that I owe service to the political state in which I happen to reside.
Here's my deal with America: I obey its just laws, pay its just taxes, participate in what's left of its economy. Period.
In return, and in theory, I receive benefits under the force of this nation's just laws -- most significantly, protection against all efforts to curtail and/or deny my inalienable rights not as an American, but as a human being.
I am obliged, as a thinking, moral being, to treat my fellow humans -- and indeed, all higher life forms -- with respect, consideration, and compassion regardless of where they happen to live.
I am under no moral obligation whatsoever to serve the aims of this or any political state, and neither are you.
I reject out of hand the notion that I owe service to the political state in which I happen to reside.
Here's my deal with America: I obey its just laws, pay its just taxes, participate in what's left of its economy. Period.
In return, and in theory, I receive benefits under the force of this nation's just laws -- most significantly, protection against all efforts to curtail and/or deny my inalienable rights not as an American, but as a human being.
I am obliged, as a thinking, moral being, to treat my fellow humans -- and indeed, all higher life forms -- with respect, consideration, and compassion regardless of where they happen to live.
I am under no moral obligation whatsoever to serve the aims of this or any political state, and neither are you.
Charles Drago
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene