Friday, November 07, 2008

Here It Comes

Obama has called for a "draft" to force young people to do compulsory service:

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.

Wow. Obama gets elected and the first big idea he floats is forced labor. I don't know what is more stunning, Obama's plans or the fact that America just shrugs and yawns like a nation of sleepwalkers. The state forcing people to work? No big deal. What's on TV tonight?

Well, Michelle Obama did say, "Barack Obama will require you to work." We can't say we were not warned.

Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has called for compulsory service in a book he co-wrote:

It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

J.D. Tuccille goes on to note,

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

Emanuel does not seem worried that Democrats will squeal.

I'm not so sure many Republicans these days will squeal at Obama and Emanuel's dream of enforced servitude. I told my Christian friend, who is certainly no liberal, that Obama wants compulsory service for young people. He thought it was a great idea, that all young people should have to do time serving our country and learning good values in the process. The conservative loon Michael Savage thinks it's a great idea. William F. Buckley thought it was a great idea.

So now, finally, we know what change means. Change means bringing slavery to America.

16 comments:

mtnrunner2 said...

I find Obama truly scary, which is why I had such a hard time voting for him (I didn’t vote for either candidate).

It’s one thing to vote Democrat to avoid more Republican disasters, or to fight against a move towards a Christian fascist government. But I honestly felt like I’d be voting a murderer into office. Maybe it's simply that I believe he means what he says, and what he says is frightening.

Chuck said...

And did you see the quotation that precedes that paragraph on compulsory service on the original webpage? It's even worse. It is a moral inversion of the "pursuit of happiness" phrase. Obama makes it "the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans."

I've never seen anything so disgusting in my life, from a US President.

Anonymous said...

No, no, no. It's no longer a requirement, it's a goal. You crazy freedom lovers, always misremembering things.

Myrhaf said...

Winston Smith strikes again, eh?

Ryan said...

Both my parents think that it's a great idea too. It's frustrating because national servitude is probably my least favorite potential government program. They just go on and on about how they think it would be a "good experience" for the kids. To be fair, they are public school teacher and they get to deal with the worst that the lower grades produce. You'd think that they'd learn from that though.

Myrhaf said...

I don't see how enduring 50 hours, 100 hours, three months or, once they work up to it, two years of tedious make-work at the behest of the state will be good for any young person's character. All it will do is beat independence and individualism out of a person, and tell them they are slaves to the collective.

Free countries do not force their citizens to labor. We used to understand that in America, but we have lost that understanding.

Anonymous said...

Hey, does community theatre count?:)

-SM

Myrhaf said...

It probably will someday. A bunch of actors paid by the government to perform modern plays in empty theaters while Americans sit at home watching Survivor...

Galileo Blogs said...

Myrhaf says, "I don't see how enduring...tedious make-work at the behest of the state will be good for any young person's character."

I have two anecdotes supporting that.

The first is a lesson about government work from my older cousin that I have never forgot. When he was a teenager he got a summer job working for the city government mowing the grassy medians on the sides of highways.

On his first day, he was gung-ho and mowed aggressively and competently. The rest of his crew disabused him of that ethic pretty quickly. They told him, "Slow down... Make it a day, make it a day." [I've never forgotten that phrase. I picture those workers saying that when I think of government workers.]

Just what values did my cousin learn that summer? And that was a voluntary job. Imagine the values young people will get from compulsory make-work led by some unkempt "youth leader" who is unemployable in the private sector.

That leads to my second anecdote. Over the past year or two, I have witnessed something new here in New York City. I see gangs of teenagers running around wearing brand-new identical T-shirts and carrying brand-new (basically unused) tools. They conduct cheers in the mornings in the city parks and then go through half-hearted motions of cleaning up the parks or performing some other form of "community service." I forgot what group their T-shirts identify them as, the "Municipal Youth Brigade" or some such nonsense.

None of it is real work that has any economic value, as evidenced by the absurdity of buying new tools and t-shirts for each crop of kids.

Just what do these kids learn? They learn that they are property of the community and the community's master, the state. They also learn hypocrisy as all of their stupid slogans of community "service" are meaningless since they can see for themselves that what they do has so little value, at least in terms of useful work.

New York City appears to be ahead of the country on the issue of community service, as it is (unfortunately) on so many other issues, such as banning smoking, trans fats, etc. I see what it looks like here in New York. It isn't pretty. These unsightly youth brigades are poised to spread across the land.

Anonymous said...

Any word on what happens to those who refuse?

Looks like we're about to get a "Europe 2".

L-C

Chuck said...

Update: learned from Little Green Footballs that the statement has changed from "requiring" community service to "setting a goal" of so many hours of community service.

Still appallingly bad, but not as bad. LGF and the blogging community seem to have real influence.

Anonymous said...

Chuck said...

> LGF and the blogging community seem to have real influence.

... for now.

But listen to all the talk of re-instituting the "Fairness Doctrine," the claims that opposition to Obama's ideas and policies are motivated by "racism," and the calls to censor "hate speech."

Free speech is the only thing standing between us and real dictatorship. That is where I have chosen to take my stand and fight.

Anonymous said...

America wake up. You were the greatest country in the history of the world. You were so much better than this collectivist crap. What's going on? Don't listen to Europe. Don't listen to Asia or Africa or South America. Don't look at Europe and say 'we want to be more like them'. To hell with Europe - it's rotten to the core. You are the land of freedom and human rights and Capitalism. That's the reason you are as well of as you are in America. But it can all go away so easily. Freedom is so very fragile, and our history is filled with examples of great nations who fell and crumbled. It doesn't take very long or very much for it to happen.

Wake up America! Believe in yourself. Stand up for your rights. Don't let Oprah and the media and Obama and the church and the Republican party run your lives. Tell them to go to hell and live your own lives!

The Motor said...

I'm not sure if Obama would ever be able to actually go through with a lot of this. It all depends on how radicalized you think the Democratic party as a whole is right now. However, it would be a cruel irony if Obama re-instilled Slavery....I doubt that will be the result. I imagine we'll begin to look more and more like Canada.

Perhaps that is a fate worse than death? :)

Anonymous said...

"I told my Christian friend, who is certainly no liberal, that Obama wants compulsory service for young people. He thought it was a great idea..."

Any Christian who thinks that compulsory service is a great idea needs a good bible lesson. I truly hope Obama's compulsory service and (un)fairness doctrine plans never come to pass.

madmax said...

"Any Christian who thinks that compulsory service is a great idea needs a good bible lesson."

Nonsense.

The Bible offers justification for slavery in both the Old and New Testaments. In fact, slavery is in nowhere challenged anywhere in the Bible. Judaism and Christianity (and of course Islam) offer no protection whatsoever against compulsory service which could itself be easily justified on Biblical grounds just as slavery was for 17 centuries.