|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Does the Government Own Your Life? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Alex Epstein
Email: larryb (nospam) aynrand.org (unverified!)
Phone: (310) 306-9232 ext. 213
Address: 4640 Admiralty Way, Suite 406, Marina del Rey, CA 90292 |
24 Jan 2002
Modified: 25 Jan 2002 |
|
The movement to require “national service” from our youth contradicts the principle on which America was founded, said Alex Epstein, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. |
DOES THE GOVERNMENT OWN YOUR LIFE?
MARINA DEL REY, CA--The movement to require “national service” from our youth contradicts the principle on which America was founded, said Alex Epstein, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
The Call to Service Act, recently introduced by Senators McCain and Bayh, is one example of the increasing demands to require national service from young Americans. This bill would force universities to increase student participation in community service programs and would dramatically expand the government's AmeriCorp program, which sponsors volunteers for charitable activities like building houses for the homeless. President Bush, in his upcoming State of the Union address, plans to endorse the
“national service” movement.
“But this movement is un-American and immoral,” said Mr. Epstein. “America was founded on the idea that each individual is a sovereign being with the moral right to his own life and to the achievement of his owngoals. This is the basis of the political idea that the individual possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American individualism and freedom are incompatible with the notion that people are servants who owe their lives--or any portion of them--to the state.”
“The collectivist belief in the supremacy of the group over the individual is the foundation of the national-service ideology, which regards the individual as a servant to the nation,” said Epstein. “Every totalitarian society in history,” he warned, “has rested on the premise of
man's alleged duty to the state.”
“The attacks of September 11,” concluded Epstein, “should remind Americans of what makes our country great--its proud devotion to individualism and freedom. To defend America, we must embrace not the subjugation of the individual to ‘national service,’ but his sovereign right to the pursuit of his own happiness.”
### ### ###
Ayn Rand Institute executive director Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews on this topic.
For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view go to ARI’s Web site at www.aynrand.org/medialink.
Founded in 1985, the Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, athor of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. |
See also:
www.aynrand.org/medialink
|
|
Not For The Draft, But... |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 Jan 2002
|
To describe the current state of government in the U.S. as "collectivist" indicates that the the Ayn Rand Institute is probably further from the truth than a typical Pentagon press conference.
I seriously doubt that very many children of the rich will ever serve under any such plan adopted under Bush. After all, HE didn't have to go to Vietnam (supposedly "serving" in the National Guard, but only rarely showing up for duty.) Why should any other rich kid under Bush have to suffer the indignities of the draft? Now that's the American Way, as it stands. That hardly describes a collectivist approach to government. |
|
Does Ayn Rand own your life? |
by JF
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 Jan 2002
|
|
Objectivists are always saying what Ayn Rand would want them to. This selfless service to her is un-American and immoral! |
