Service Nation *Retches*

Others have already discussed this one at length, but the idea of "Service Nation" is so abhorrent to me that I cannot help but throw my thoughts into the arena as well.

The plan is this: make young people work for the state. Since, y'know the state has given them such a fantastic education. It is, as DK puts it, "state slavery", even if those deluded, dangerous dickheads who are proposing the policy don't agree:

David Lammy, the minister for innovation, universities and skills, said the ideas should become Labour policy: "In a consumerist age, young people need more opportunities to develop an ethic of service to others. For a more altruistic, less parochial youth culture, we need a national civic service."

The concept that you can force altruism on others would be laughable if it wasn't come from the mouth of someone with considerable power in this country. But seriously, what the fuck? Does this moron actually think that by forcing the youth to work for the state for free he will actually be creating a more altruistic youth culture? Because I reckon what will happen is that many members of the youth forced into this "opportunity" (NB: it is not an opportunity if you are forced to take it up; that is better defined as an order or diktat) will actually come to resent both the state that makes them into de facto slaves and also the community they are meant to be serving. You can't make people be altruistic any more than you can make them be charitable.

Besides, does this really create an "ethic of service to others" or rather create an idea that, from an early age, that the state can demand from its citizens pretty much what the fuck it wants when it wants it? Because the real people who will benefit from this will be the likes of Lammy, who will have access to a large, unpaid pool of labour. Just imagine if a large corporation demanded free labour from the youth of this country. There would be absolute outrage. Well, this is pretty much what is happening here; except that the government is also using this as an opportunity to indoctrinate the people from and early age with the idea that serving the state is something that should be done by all. It demands us all to be grateful to the monolithic, bureaucratic and increasingly dictatorial state. Which is something that makes me feel physically sick.

As does this:

She (some Demos piss midget) said it was fair to ask students to pay for the scheme. "The interest raised would be a fair levy on those benefiting from state-subsidised university education. Those who have gained most must also give something back."

Yeah, give something back... like, I don't know, substantial percentages of their salaries throughout their working lives as demanded by the current taxation system? Surely that is giving something back. And let us remember who is subsidising universities to a large extent, good reader. It is the parents of the students. Not only are they paying for their students to attend university, but it turns out that they are also selling their kids as free labour to the state as well when they walk into those hallowed halls of learning.

But all of this pales into insignificance next to the idea that students are going to be expected to fund their own periods as effective slaves of the states. It is like demanding that someone buys you a flick knife, and then using that flick knife to mug them.

Ignore the neutral language of the Nu Labour drones. Don't be fooled. This policy is absolutely abhorrent in any society, let alone one claiming to be a liberal democracy.