Anything Goes

Anything Goes PRINCIPLES (P HERESIES Frank 5. Meyer

I+ USED TO BE CALLED raison d état. Translated into American, it means: anything goes if the government wants it. This would seem to be the ration- ale of Secretary McNamara’s Montreal address to the American Society of Newspaper Edi- tors. That, at least, is all that one old- fashioned enough to care about con- stitutional prin- ciple can con- clude from his call for universal serv- ice in non-military activities by all young people not in the armed forces. It is true that Mr. McNamara did not dot his i’s and cross his t’s as to what he meant by “asking,” when he proposed the government’s “asking every young person in the United States to give two years of service to his country—whether in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volun- teer developmental work at home or abroad.”

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

Anything Goes PRINCIPLES (P HERESIES Frank 5. Meyer

I+ USED TO BE CALLED raison d état. Translated into American, it means: anything goes if the government wants it. This would seem to be the ration- ale of Secretary McNamara’s Montreal address to the American Society of Newspaper Edi- tors. That, at least, is all that one old- fashioned enough to care about con- stitutional prin- ciple can con- clude from his call for universal serv- ice in non-military activities by all young people not in the armed forces. It is true that Mr. McNamara did not dot his i’s and cross his t’s as to what he meant by “asking,” when he proposed the government’s “asking every young person in the United States to give two years of service to his country—whether in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volun- teer developmental work at home or abroad.”