Jan. 23, 2002

MARINA DEL REY, CA--The movement to require ³national service² 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 ³national service² movement.

³But this movement is un-American and immoral,² said Mr. Epstein. ³America 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 own goals. 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.²

³The 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,² said Epstein. ³Every totalitarian society in history,² he warned, ³has rested on the premise of man's alleged duty to the state.²

³The attacks of September 11,² concluded Epstein, ³should 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 Œnational service,¹ but his sovereign right to the pursuit of his own happiness.²