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Conscription of America's young people is now a Presidential priority

From the Obama Transition Site:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.


I know there will be people who stand up proudly and say, "There's nothing wrong with requiring our young people to 'give something back' to their community." I will grit my teeth here and not call them idiots. Not call them fascists.

Notice, however, that we're not encouraging young people to service, we're not creating a culture of change, we are requiring young people to provide a certain number of hours of work for the State whether they like it or not, whether their parents approve or not.

This has generally, in history, been called by several different names: corvee labor, tax farming, indentured servitude, serfdom, or slavery.

So when the administration says, "I will call on Americans to sacrifice," does it really mean, "I will use to force of law to require Americans to sacrifice."

The Greatest Generation would be so proud.

Comments

Tacking close to Freeperland, aren't we?
tom said…
And this is just as appropriate now as it was 37 years ago:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they were all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

Yeah!

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss...
Brian Shields said…
I can see trading a certain number of community service hours as a way to to qualify for your federally subsidized loan.

..but to require students attending private institutions to work for free because the government says so... that strikes me wrong in many many ways.
cindy25 said…
keep telling everyone about this.

this will be the issue we will take back Congress with in 2010
According to this, the "required" aspect of this has been discreetly removed from the site and it is now "encouraged".

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/president-obama-to-bring-back-slavery

Still and all, the proof will be not in what is spouted on a website, but in the nitty gritty of any legislation that may be introduced.
Anonymous said…
Obama appears to have backed off on the 'required'. I can see enhanced interest in young people in universities that do not require a High School Diploma for admission, which mine did not when I went there. (Indeed, one of my classmates did not have a diploma, because he lacked a required quarter unit of gym class when he left a year early to go to university.) On the other hand, the current mandatory calculus for admission as an undergrad does set a decently stiff academic expectation.

100 hours for a $4000 tax credit is $40 per hour, or $80,000 per year at a traditional per hour working year.
Selock said…
I don't think Obama "backed off the required"...that was proof of nothing but an errant copywriter on a brand new website.

The call to national service has always been one of my favorite parts of the Obama plan - and I have never seen him describe it in speeches or elsewhere as a compulsory proposition. Much more like the military, of course. And with such civil service given a similar level of respect. As well as being similarly highly incentivized and rewarded. What's wrong with that?

I think it's good though, that the website allow us all to monitor for such foibles and voice dissent before it's too late. Nothing's more free than that. This is his whole intention.
Hube said…
The question will be "What KIND of service will be permissible" for all those great Obama admin. giveaways?
Anonymous said…
Hey, why not add mandatory participation in the President's Physical Fitness Challenge? Fat people burn more fossil fuels per mile traveled than do fit people, and their increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, etc. will drive up our (collectivized) health care costs. Come on, fatty, lose ten pounds for "the common good!"

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