The multi-talented and multi-blog author Norm Leahy takes a swipe at mandatory volunteerism:
Compulsion is compulsion — there are no special cases. That is why sensible Republicans have shied away from the issue and left it to Democrats — who are for all sorts of additional compulsions, including the mandatory purchase of health insurance. The state already makes several demands on an individual’s time — primary and secondary schooling being the most obvious. Why does it need more? To serve in the chosen means, and for the specific ends, of the government? That is neither defensible nor acceptable. It is the sort of interference that, in any other column, MacKenzie would decry as petty tyranny.
Leahy is responding to an article in the RTD. Good reading on both sides.