I never thought our first African American President would be the one to bring back slavery. But obviously I’m no psychic.
In a hideously underpublicized clause of Barack Obama’s plans for his first term, one I wasn’t even aware of until yesterday, there is word of a mandatory service initiative, a “calling on” of all American citizens to donate a certain amount of time per year to community projects. Every middle and high school student will be required to do 50 hours, and every college student will be required to do 100 hours per year of enrollment. Retiring citizens, age 55 and over, will be “encouraged” to serve in programs appropriate for their age group, and all other citizens will be pushed to join one of the many programs Obama wants to either grow or start up, namely the Peace Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veteran Corps, Head Start, and Youth Build.
Note that I am not anti-community service. I have done a decent share of it throughout my life, starting with making layettes in my dad’s Crisis Pregnancy Center office to participating in Walk for Life to giving 17 inches of my hair to Locks of Love to tutoring, and I don’t plan on being an stingy, uncharitable adult in the years between now and my death. Charity is good. Community service is good. People should do it.
But requirement? Not only does this completely contradict the very heart of charity, it is borderline slavery. The government cannot control our time and our good deeds. We are not indentured by our citizenship. If a legal adult does not want to do community service, that’s a legitimate choice. It is none of anyone else’s business. We’re being treated like criminals, but instead of a court-ordered service to compensate for a misdemeanor, it’s a government mandate to further a socialist, false utopian agenda.
Did I mention the bribery involved? Obama is offering a $4,000 tax credit to be applied directly to a college student’s tuition should he or she complete the 100 annual hours of community service (overall, $1,000 per year for the average student). This promise 1) negates the term “charity” and 2) forces American taxpayers to shove out payment for work that would have otherwise been done by true volunteers at no cost. Even as a college student who could certainly use an extra 4k in my UNC account, I think this idea is ludicrous and backwards.
While change.gov has made some slight alterations to the careful wording of the “Service” paragraph, eliminating the word “require” that appeared frequently in the first published draft, the principle is the same, as is the underlying problem: we are being turned into the government’s slaves.
Time to re-excavate the Underground Railroad, huh?
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7 comments:
Kelly--Let me caution you about using the term "slavery" in this context. While this is a ludicrous at best and a totalitarian concept at worst, it is not truly slavery and it may offend those who have been actual slaves. It is one of those words like "Nazi" or "love" that we must be careful in throwing around too blithely lest it lose its meaning.
Please hear me: I agree that this is but one example of the Obamanation in store for us; this idea, as well as most of Obama's ideas, are Socialist,Totalitarian, Communist to the max--but let's not equate this with slavery. Let's think of a better word. Any suggestions?
I agree with the concept of slavery. In fact I really don't have a problem with compulsory service. Isreal requires both males and females to serve in the military. I think that the draft in the U.S. helped develop a cultural unity and patriotism that existed until the Vietnam war. Even those who served honorably during that time (not the cowards who burned their draft cards and moved to Canada) still maintain that patriotism.
That being said however, I am not certain that Obama's plan will engender the same sense of patriotism. His plans for service seem closely linked to many of his liberal causes. His plan looks remarkably similar to a historical compulsory "service" that led to dire consequences.
In 1926 a group of 300 volunteers formed a group to support the new incoming leader of their country. By 1940 this group had grown to nine million, because it had become compulsory for all young people to belong. The young men were trained for military service and the women were trained for children, church, and kitchen. After all, they were required to give birth and raise a future super generation of young people. These of course are the "Hitler Youth Squads."
So Jackiemae, maybe that better word should be the "Obama Youth Corp!" HEIL OBAMA!!!!
Revision to my comment: My first line should read "I agree with Jackiemae concerning slavery." After the post I realized it sounded like I was agreeing with Kelly about this being slavery.
I agree that I was perhaps too extreme in my use of the word slavery. I just wanted to draw the correlation between how far everyone is saying we've come from those days in electing our first African American President and the fact that he's trying to bring back mandatory service. It seems a little ironic and hyprocritical to me.
Kelly, I agree that coming from Obama, this concept wreaks of more government control over the freedoms of the citizens of the US. It is in the same vein as "spreading the wealth" with our money--and now he wants to spread the wealth with our time. It is quite obviously another cog in his plan to turn us into a socialized nation.
But I see the irony of which you speak.
Okay, as an active democrat, this makes me nervous.
My high school required over 100 hours of community service, and I do wholeheartedly see benefits in doing Community service. If I hadn't done so much community service, I definitely would not be as inspired to enter the field of youth counseling and psychology.
However, I'm very worried at the idea of forcing this upon everyone. It does seem sort of 'socialist'. Let's just hope the checks and balances in our government can revise this to not be mandatory.
I would however, absolutely love to see that 4,000 tax benefit for those community service hours. That's a great idea. However, if we want to make the benefits of community service clear, we need to keep it optional.
Again, Obama just can't single-handedly just turn us into a socialist country like many seem to think will happen. We still have checks and balances, and I seem to think that they'll work.
thanks for the heads up, though. keep up the good work.
Brandon:
I agree that the check and balances have done well but with the Senate and House full of Democrats and the Supreme Court eventually being that way... I don't see much checking or balancing in the future.
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