Obama: Pro-Slavery. ::cough:: I Mean "Compulsory Volunteerism" ?? WTF ??

DriftingByTheStorm

Forced servitude in America?
The U.S. already has high rates of volunteerism, but that's apparently not good enough for our presidential candidates.
Jonah Goldberg
July 8, 2008


There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

For those who don't remember, the 13th Amendment says: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime ... shall exist within the United States."

I guess in Obama's mind it must be a crime to be born or to go to college.

In his speech on national service Wednesday at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars. If you don't make the kids report for duty, he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose. In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory.

It's funny that, when the right seeks to use the government to impose its values, the left screams about brainwashing and propaganda. When the left tries it, the right thunders about social engineering. But when left and right agree -- as seems to be the case on national service -- who's left to complain? As ever, the slipperiest slopes are greased with the snake oil of "bipartisanship."

After all, Obama's hardly alone. Sen. John McCain is a passionate supporter of Washington-led (and paid-for) "volunteerism," as is President Bush. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John Edwards both campaigned for the presidency on compulsory national service.

Perhaps thanks to the JFK cult, which sees the refrain "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." as an all-purpose writ for social meddling, even the idealistic hipster crowd is on board. Devotees of Rolling Stone and MTV, who normally preen like cats in a pool of sunshine over their alleged libertarianism when the issue is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, see nothing wrong, and everything right, with involuntary servitude -- as long as we just call it "voluntary."

Volunteerism is good. But why does every good thing need to be orchestrated by government? Most people think that churchgoing is a good thing. Does that mean the government should fund churches? That's what they do in Europe and -- surprise! -- most pews sit empty.

Americans are vastly more generous with their time and their money than Europeans. According to social demographer Arthur C. Brooks, in 1995 (the last year international comparative data on giving was available), Americans gave 3 1/2 times as much money to charities and causes as the French, seven times more than the Germans and 14 times more than the Italians.

In 1998, Americans also volunteered 21% more than the Swiss and 32% more than Germans -- two countries with compulsory national service. And yet we're continually told we should emulate them so that America too can have a "culture of service."

But we already have a healthier culture of service without -- as Obama would do -- doubling the size of the Peace Corps or pushing another 250,000 into AmeriCorps.

Indeed, there's ample evidence that countries with intrusive and expensive welfare states stifle their citizens' spirit of charity and volunteerism precisely because people conclude that every problem should be solved by government. Merely paying your taxes substitutes for charity, and cleaning up roadside litter for two years absolves you from doing anything more.

Time magazine's Richard Stengel speaks for many who insist that American government must consecrate everything. "The reason private volunteerism is so high is precisely that confidence in our public institutions is so low," he wrote last year in praise of universal national service. "People see volunteering not as a form of public service but as an antidote for it."

Really? I would have thought that the world's most charitable and voluntaristic nation -- one with a tradition of service that predates the decline of confidence in public institutions by generations -- might see volunteering as a good in and of itself.

This is the real problem with national service mania: It seeks to fix what ain't broke. No, national service isn't slavery. But it contributes to a slave mentality, at odds with American tradition. It assumes that work not done for the government isn't really for the "common good."

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society," Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed. "The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

Moynihan was right, of course. But politics can change a culture for the worse too. Indoctrinating an entire generation with the idea that public service is something you do at the government's behest would not only steamroll the culture, it would help fewer people in the process.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

angelica

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

Forced servitude in America?
The U.S. already has high rates of volunteerism, but that's apparently not good enough for our presidential candidates.
Jonah Goldberg
July 8, 2008


There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

For those who don't remember, the 13th Amendment says: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime ... shall exist within the United States."

I guess in Obama's mind it must be a crime to be born or to go to college.

In his speech on national service Wednesday at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars. If you don't make the kids report for duty, he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose. In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory.

It's funny that, when the right seeks to use the government to impose its values, the left screams about brainwashing and propaganda. When the left tries it, the right thunders about social engineering. But when left and right agree -- as seems to be the case on national service -- who's left to complain? As ever, the slipperiest slopes are greased with the snake oil of "bipartisanship."

After all, Obama's hardly alone. Sen. John McCain is a passionate supporter of Washington-led (and paid-for) "volunteerism," as is President Bush. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John Edwards both campaigned for the presidency on compulsory national service.

Perhaps thanks to the JFK cult, which sees the refrain "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." as an all-purpose writ for social meddling, even the idealistic hipster crowd is on board. Devotees of Rolling Stone and MTV, who normally preen like cats in a pool of sunshine over their alleged libertarianism when the issue is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, see nothing wrong, and everything right, with involuntary servitude -- as long as we just call it "voluntary."

Volunteerism is good. But why does every good thing need to be orchestrated by government? Most people think that churchgoing is a good thing. Does that mean the government should fund churches? That's what they do in Europe and -- surprise! -- most pews sit empty.

Americans are vastly more generous with their time and their money than Europeans. According to social demographer Arthur C. Brooks, in 1995 (the last year international comparative data on giving was available), Americans gave 3 1/2 times as much money to charities and causes as the French, seven times more than the Germans and 14 times more than the Italians.

In 1998, Americans also volunteered 21% more than the Swiss and 32% more than Germans -- two countries with compulsory national service. And yet we're continually told we should emulate them so that America too can have a "culture of service."

But we already have a healthier culture of service without -- as Obama would do -- doubling the size of the Peace Corps or pushing another 250,000 into AmeriCorps.

Indeed, there's ample evidence that countries with intrusive and expensive welfare states stifle their citizens' spirit of charity and volunteerism precisely because people conclude that every problem should be solved by government. Merely paying your taxes substitutes for charity, and cleaning up roadside litter for two years absolves you from doing anything more.

Time magazine's Richard Stengel speaks for many who insist that American government must consecrate everything. "The reason private volunteerism is so high is precisely that confidence in our public institutions is so low," he wrote last year in praise of universal national service. "People see volunteering not as a form of public service but as an antidote for it."

Really? I would have thought that the world's most charitable and voluntaristic nation -- one with a tradition of service that predates the decline of confidence in public institutions by generations -- might see volunteering as a good in and of itself.

This is the real problem with national service mania: It seeks to fix what ain't broke. No, national service isn't slavery. But it contributes to a slave mentality, at odds with American tradition. It assumes that work not done for the government isn't really for the "common good."

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society," Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed. "The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

Moynihan was right, of course. But politics can change a culture for the worse too. Indoctrinating an entire generation with the idea that public service is something you do at the government's behest would not only steamroll the culture, it would help fewer people in the process.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

We have forced volunteerism here in Ontario Canada, where it's compulsory for a high school diploma. It's so silly.

article wrote:

Perhaps thanks to the JFK cult, which sees the refrain "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." as an all-purpose writ for social meddling, even the idealistic hipster crowd is on board.

This quote is needed in another thread.....

DriftingByTheStorm

And less yah think Obama is a genuine kind of guy who gets his inspiration from the divine, here is an article from Time, published months ago:

The Case For National Service

Its a disgrace of an article, which somehow tries to link forced service to the saving of the republic !?!

WTF !??!

These are the same pieces of shit that hijacked the Zapruder film and hid it from the world for years.

Point being, Obama's "ideas" are really those of a higher mind. A mind that wants you to work for free, to the benefit of some faceless multinational, wrapped in the American flag.
:cool:

---

PARTIAL PASTE OF ARTICLE

---

A republic, if you can keep it. The founders were not at all optimistic about the future of the Republic. There had been only a handful of other republics in all of human history, and most were small and far away. The founders' pessimism, though, came not from history but from their knowledge of human nature. A republic, to survive, needed not only the consent of the governed but also their active participation. It was not a machine that would go of itself; free societies do not stay free without the involvement of their citizens.

Today the two central acts of democratic citizenship are voting and paying taxes. That's basically it. The last time we demanded anything else from people was when the draft ended in 1973. And yes, there are libertarians who believe that government asks too much of us — and that the principal right in a democracy is the right to be left alone — but most everyone else bemoans the fact that only about half of us vote and don't do much more than send in our returns on April 15. The truth is, even the archetype of the model citizen is mostly a myth. Except for times of war and the colonial days, we haven't been all that energetic about keeping the Republic.

When Americans look around right now, they see a public-school system with 38% of fourth graders unable to read at a basic level; they see the cost of health insurance escalating as 47 million people go uninsured; they see a government that responded ineptly to a hurricane in New Orleans; and they see a war whose ends they do not completely value or understand.

But there is something else we are seeing in the land. Polls show that while confidence in our democracy and our government is near an all-time low, volunteerism and civic participation since the '70s are near all-time highs. Political scientists are perplexed about this. If confidence is so low, why would people bother volunteering? The explanation is pretty simple. People, especially young people, think the government and the public sphere are broken, but they feel they can personally make a difference through community service. After 9/11, Americans were hungry to be asked to do something, to make some kind of sacrifice, and what they mostly remember is being asked to go shopping. The reason private volunteerism is so high is precisely that confidence in our public institutions is so low. People see volunteering not as a form of public service but as an antidote for it.

That is not a recipe for keeping a republic.

Another reality the founders could not have possibly foreseen was that a country that originally enslaved African Americans would be a majority non-white nation by 2050. Robert Putnam, the famed Harvard political scientist who wrote about the decline of civic engagement in Bowling Alone, recently released a new study that showed the more diverse a community is, the less people care about and engage with that community. Diversity, in fact, seems to breed distrust and disengagement. The study lands in the midst of a rackety immigration debate, but even if all immigration were to cease tomorrow, we would still be diverse whether we liked it or not. Yet the course of American history, Putnam writes, has always given way to "more encompassing identities" that create a "more capacious sense of 'we.'"

But at this moment in our history, 220 years after the Constitutional Convention, the way to get citizens involved in civic life, the way to create a common culture that will make a virtue of our diversity, the way to give us that more capacious sense of "we" — finally, the way to keep the Republic — is universal national service. No, not mandatory or compulsory service but service that is in our enlightened self-interest as a nation. We are at a historic junction; with the first open presidential election in more than a half-century, it is time for the next President to mine the desire that is out there for serving and create a program for universal national service that will be his — or her — legacy for decades to come. It is the simple but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.

In 2006 more than 61 million Americans dedicated 8.1 billion hours to volunteerism. The nation's volunteer rate has increased by more than 6 percentage points since 1989. Overall, 27% of Americans engage in civic life by volunteering. Dr. Franklin would be impressed. The service movement itself began to take off in the 1980s, and today there is a renaissance of dynamic altruistic organizations in the U.S., from Teach for America to City Year to Senior Corps, many of them under the umbrella of AmeriCorps. In a 2002 poll, 70% of Americans thought universal service was a good idea. And while it's easy to sit back and say this to a pollster, the next President can harness the spirit of volunteerism that already exists and make it a permanent part of American culture.

[cont at link]

HailHailVitalogy

i mean i agree that there should be some volunteerism to middle and high school students but the amount of hours is unnecessary...college students 100 hours? as a college student with the school load, part-time job, my fraternity, and partying, thats a bit much...but i do agree it should be done in high school

DriftingByTheStorm

HailHailVitalogy wrote:

i mean i agree that there should be some volunteerism to middle and high school students but the amount of hours is unnecessary...college students 100 hours? as a college student with the school load, part-time job, my fraternity, and partying, thats a bit much...but i do agree it should be done in high school

You agree that everyone should be FORCED to "VOLUNTEER"?

Can you explain that a bit further to me?

More importantly, can you explain how that jives with the ideals of our Republic and the root princple of "FREEDOM" ?

[edit: Angelica: You stole my tttthunder]

angelica

HailHailVitalogy wrote:

i mean i agree that there should be some volunteerism to middle and high school students but the amount of hours is unnecessary...college students 100 hours? as a college student with the school load, part-time job, my fraternity, and partying, thats a bit much...but i do agree it should be done in high school

you agree that "volunteering" should be forced?

angelica

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

You agree that everyone should be FORCED to "VOLUNTEER"?

Can you explain that a bit further to me?

More importantly, can you explain how that jives with the ideals of our Republic and the root princple of "FREEDOM" ?

edit: and Drifting, you stole it back by editing quicker than my lol-face!

angelica

I'm not sure what's happening here...is it that people don't get it, and they agree.....

or is it that people do get it and they agree?

Rhinocerous Surprise

angelica wrote:

I'm not sure what's happening here...is it that people don't get it, and they agree.....

or is it that people do get it and they agree?

All the better, I say. Keep them snotty-nosed kids off the street.

DriftingByTheStorm

angelica wrote:

I'm not sure what's happening here...is it that people don't get it, and they agree.....

or is it that people do get it and they agree?

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” -- Alexis de Tocqueville

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -- Winston Churchill

"Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master” -- Henry Louis Mencken

"All socialism involves slavery” -- Herbert Spencer

"Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." -- Ayn Rand

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C.S. Lewis

angelica

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

All the better, I say. Keep them snotty-nosed kids off the street.

angelica

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -- Winston Churchill

I'm going to add my take here. Socialism as a philosophy is not a failure, in the sense that I see it.

Socialism the philosophy, as I see it, is voluntary. When humans are actualized enough that they realize self/other to be one in the same, they also recognize that the only valid option is to be cooperative. Until this human developmental level is reached widespread, flawed humans will continue to distort the underlying value of socialism, by making it be about violence, force, infringement and other anti-life actions. In that sense, where inherent contradictions remain and are 'justified', I agree with you, my friend.

DriftingByTheStorm

angelica wrote:

I'm going to add my take here. Socialism as a philosophy is not a failure, in the sense that I see it.

Socialism the philosophy, as I see it, is voluntary. When humans are actualized enough that they realize self/other to be one in the same, they also recognize that the only valid option is to be cooperative. Until this human developmental level is reached widespread, flawed humans will continue to distort the underlying value of socialism, by making it be about violence, force, infringement and other anti-life actions. In that sense, where inherent contradictions remain and are 'justified', I agree with you, my friend.

i think we share some of the same sentiments, but i disagree that socialism is a necessary mechanism for achieving either such actualization, or "cooperation".

A Democratic Republic, practicing a less corporatized verision of capitalism, could certainly exist wherein its members still participate in competition, but in a creative, productive, and mutualy beneficial fashion.

Without competition, even the "friendly competiton" in which i advocate here, society has a tendency to devolve due to the natural aversion of man to work. We are talking about the same simple principle by which, if a teacher consistently rewards C students by giving them B's -- attempting to reward their "efforts" -- then the A students -- becoming discouraged by this grade redistribution -- will gradualy cease to perform as well, becoming B students themselves, until finaly they realize -- along with all of the actual B students -- that the path of least resistance dictates that they should simply ALL become C students, given that the teacher will upgrade them all to Bs on principle.

:(

Anon

so the schools will have the responsibility to integrate this into their current education program and work with the students, during school hours to achieve this?

you invest in america and america invests in you.....

i don't have a problem with it.

Finally, we need to integrate service into education, so that young Americans are called upon and prepared to be active citizens.

Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously. Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/02/text-obamas-speech/

keeponrockin

We have to do 40 hours of Volunteer work OUTSIDE of school hours during High School.

Right idea, but forced volunteering is stupid, I don't think evil, but stupid.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

It's part of the change plan ideology.

change can mean absolutely anything...

but you know...keep the faith... 8 years of crap and that's all there is...cross the fingers and hail mary...

Anon

maybe i just look at things differently. when i was at school in australia, i was forced to study italian for 4 years. 4 lessons a week of an hour. absolutely hated it. what did it teach me? how did it help me become a better person? it didn't. i would much rather have spent those 600 odd hours on something community based like obama is proposing. i guarantee i would have learnt a whole lot more.

Kel Varnsen

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

You agree that everyone should be FORCED to "VOLUNTEER"?

Can you explain that a bit further to me?

More importantly, can you explain how that jives with the ideals of our Republic and the root princple of "FREEDOM" ?

[edit: Angelica: You stole my tttthunder]

When you are in school you are forced to do your homework or you fail. I don't see how being forced to help people is any different then that, and last time I checked homework isn't considered slavery. Personally I think it is a good idea, at least for high school kids.

Nevermind

Kel Varnsen wrote:

When you are in school you are forced to do your homework or you fail. I don't see how being forced to help people is any different then that, and last time I checked homework isn't considered slavery. Personally I think it is a good idea, at least for high school kids.

Would you rather do homework or build trenches?

blackredyellow

Or you can actually read what he said instead of how some op-ed portrayed his remarks.

From his speech at the University of Colorado on 7/2/08
"Finally, we need to integrate service into education, so that young Americans are called upon and prepared to be active citizens.

Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously. Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century."
from :http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/02/text-obamas-speech/




No one is making "service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory". He is proposing to make funding conditional for middle and high schools to develop programs.

And for college students, he is giving a tax credit for community service.

DriftingByTheStorm

blackredyellow wrote:

Or you can actually read what he said instead of how some op-ed portrayed his remarks.

From his speech at the University of Colorado on 7/2/08
"Finally, we need to integrate service into education, so that young Americans are called upon and prepared to be active citizens.

Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously. Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century."
from :http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/02/text-obamas-speech/




No one is making "service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory". He is proposing to make funding conditional for middle and high schools to develop programs.

And for college students, he is giving a tax credit for community service.

So you're saying that HE is saying that school children will have the OPTION of this service? only that schools will be forced to offer teh OPPORTUNITY?

If that IS true, then i have less of a problem with it.
However, i notice he failed to define the term "service programs" and if they would be compulsory or not.