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

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  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,889
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    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.

    That's how I read it, but who knows... I'd rather wait until the program is actually formulated to debate that.

    But even if it is compulsory at the high school level, I really don't have a problem with that at all. I can think of a lot of worse things that a high school student could be forced to do as part of a graduating requirement. After all, we are talking about 50 hours out of a 9 month school year.
    My whole life
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  • slightofjeff
    slightofjeff Posts: 7,762
    blackredyellow wrote:
    That's how I read it, but who knows... I'd rather wait until the program is actually formulated to debate that.

    But even if it is compulsory at the high school level, I really don't have a problem with that at all. I can think of a lot of worse things that a high school student could be forced to do as part of a graduating requirement. After all, we are talking about 50 hours out of a 9 month school year.

    Screw Spanish class! Come paint the principal's house!
    everybody wants the most they can possibly get
    for the least they could possibly do
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    slightofjeff wrote:
    Screw Spanish class! Come paint the principal's house!

    actually,
    what i most have a problem with is the very fact that this is outside of school hours.

    we are no longer even talking about trading class time for forced labor.
    we are talking about infringing on basic constitutionaly enumerated and inherently assumed rights.

    one thing liberals sure seem to never concern themselves with is the setting of the precedent which allows for an even further, more egregious violation of fundamental liberties simply because the original transgression provides for a "public good" (which by the way is a value judgement).

    Here.
    I'll make this excrutiatingly simple:
    wikipedia wrote:
    The word "liberal" derives from the Latin liber ("free, not slave").
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 11,175
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    actually,
    what i most have a problem with is the very fact that this is outside of school hours.
    where are you reading that? either way i don't have a problem with it, for the reasons i have already mentioned, but where does it say outside school hours? i can't see it?

    'outside the classroom', doesn't necessarily mean outside school hours.
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    Pj_Gurl wrote:
    where are you reading that? either way i don't have a problem with it, for the reasons i have already mentioned, but where does it say outside school hours? i can't see it?

    'outside the classroom', doesn't necessarily mean outside school hours.

    no school in their right mind would ever sign on to a program which cost them the fortune of assuming immediate liability for the health and saftey of hundreds of underage volunteer workers.

    just think about it.

    come to think of it,
    i bet parents will even be forced to sign "release" forms to waive liability.
    well, okay, they won't be "forced", it's just, little timmy will be getting a C instead of a B.
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 11,175
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    no school in their right mind would ever sign on to a program which cost them the fortune of assuming immediate liability for the health and saftey of hundreds of underage volunteer workers.

    just think about it.

    come to think of it,
    i bet parents will even be forced to sign "release" forms to waive liability.
    well, okay, they won't be "forced", it's just, little timmy will be getting a C instead of a B.

    drifting, in australia, they have for years had 'work experience programmes' running, where the kids go out for 1-2 weeks a year and do volunteer work, without pay. it's organized through the schools. that 1-2 weeks amounts to 75-80 hours work, just for that alone. most of the kids absolutely loved it. from memory my parents did have to sign a waive liability form for that. the same as they had to for EVERY school field trip we went on. even the beach, museum. pretty much everywhere we went.
  • Rhinocerous Surprise
    Rhinocerous Surprise Posts: 4,423
    Pj_Gurl wrote:
    drifting, in australia, they have for years had 'work experience programmes' running, where the kids go out for 1-2 weeks a year and do volunteer work, without pay. it's organized through the schools. that 1-2 weeks amounts to 75-80 hours work, just for that alone. most of the kids absolutely loved it. from memory my parents did have to sign a waive liability form for that. the same as they had to for EVERY school field trip we went on. even the beach, museum. pretty much everywhere we went.
    In my school, there was something similar, except you do the work experience as part of an optional extra year, which is more focused on extra-curricular work anyway. I think that's the best system for something like this.
    Smokey Robinson constantly looks like he's trying to act natural after being accused of farting.
  • angelica
    angelica Posts: 6,038
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    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".
    I definitely didn't say it's a necessary mechanism. I can't say whether it's necessary or not.
    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.
    Possibly.
    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.
    Again, this takes me back to that when humans are actualized, they no longer have a "natural" aversion to work. This aversion is due to mutations of human potential, in our rigid human-made systems.
    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.

    :(
    The whole school system along with basically all of our human-made systems suck, frankly. And do not reflect the natural laws that govern us. Therefore our perceptions of reality have been distorted. We've not been raised in systems which nurture and actualize our human potential (despite our lipservice to doing so). Rather we're crippled. Therefore gauging humans based on the crippling programs that 'run' us, reaps distorted results. Self-actualized people must operate from potential. And they must operate based on what the inner potential dictates. ie: a painter must paint, a musician must make music; a logician must.......be logical.....
    "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr

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    Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    Pj_Gurl wrote:
    drifting, in australia, they have for years had 'work experience programmes' running, where the kids go out for 1-2 weeks a year and do volunteer work, without pay. it's organized through the schools. that 1-2 weeks amounts to 75-80 hours work, just for that alone. most of the kids absolutely loved it. from memory my parents did have to sign a waive liability form for that. the same as they had to for EVERY school field trip we went on. even the beach, museum. pretty much everywhere we went.

    are they lawsuit happy down under?
    because over here, a kid spraining his little toe can send a school in to financial ruin.

    either way, i don't like this.
    perhaps, living in australia, you don't really understand what the basic rights and liberties written in to our constitution mean, or how allowing transgressions against it can mean the death of it. it's not a knock against you, i'm just saying perhaps, given your location, that you aren't aware of how fragile the fabric of our "supreme law of the land" already is.

    in the united states, and in my opinions, forcing kids to work is pretty close to the end of any sort of constitutionaly asserted rights -- regardless of any benefit provided.
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:
    In my school, there was something similar, except you do the work experience as part of an optional extra year, which is more focused on extra-curricular work anyway. I think that's the best system for something like this.

    THIS,
    i am\would be all for,
    although the idea of "optional" and "publicly provided" are somewhat at odds with eachother.
    this gets away from the "provide for the general welfare" clause in the US constitution.

    it means the government has gone from (and it already has) providing for the equal welfare of EVERYone, and affording the privelaged advancement of SOME. and again, regardless of intent or perceived benefit.
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • Kel Varnsen
    Kel Varnsen Posts: 1,952
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    in the united states, and in my opinions, forcing kids to work is pretty close to the end of any sort of constitutionaly asserted rights -- regardless of any benefit provided.


    But kids are being forced to work as it is anyway. How is "you have to go home and help out a charity" different from "you have to go home and write this paper"? Both are work and both are being forced, is homework infringing on anyones constitutional rights?
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    Kel Varnsen wrote:
    But kids are being forced to work all ready. How is "you have to go home and help some poor people" different from "you have to go home and write this paper"? Both are work and both are being forced, is homework infringing on anyones constitutional rights?

    the very notion of public school is,
    if you want to push the issue.
    ;)

    this is a case of "just because its bad, doesn't mean you should make it worse".
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 11,175
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    are they lawsuit happy down under?
    because over here, a kid spraining his little toe can send a school in to financial ruin.

    either way, i don't like this.
    perhaps, living in australia, you don't really understand what the basic rights and liberties written in to our constitution mean, or how allowing transgressions against it can mean the death of it. it's not a knock against you, i'm just saying perhaps, given your location, that you aren't aware of how fragile the fabric of our "supreme law of the land" already is.

    in the united states, and in my opinions, forcing kids to work is pretty close to the end of any sort of constitutionaly asserted rights -- regardless of any benefit provided.
    i don't think they are as lawsuit happy in australia drifting :)

    i was born and raised in Australia yes, but now my heart and life lies with the US. this is my home now.

    but i get what you are saying, about not living my whole life here, but i don't have a problem with obamas vision. i see positives in it.
  • DriftingByTheStorm
    DriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    Pj_Gurl wrote:
    i see positives in it.

    there were positives all over the place with JFK too,
    but at the end of the day he still seemed to think subjugating us to absolute control under the United Nations was somehow healthy.

    My point here is that people must divorce themselves of the logic that says ANY perceived benefit is worthy of a constitutional infringement.

    It is the very reason we are in the current mess to begin with!

    [and i didn't know you'd "joined us". ;) welcome.]
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • Kel Varnsen
    Kel Varnsen Posts: 1,952
    DriftingByTheStorm wrote:
    the very notion of public school is,
    if you want to push the issue.
    ;)

    this is a case of "just because its bad, doesn't mean you should make it worse".


    Making kids go to school is against their constitutional rights? I suppose government run highways are against people’s constitutional rights because they don’t give you the freedom to choose the route you take to get from town to town. You are forced to use the routes the government chooses and builds highways on. What about government food inspectors, are they infringing on your constitutional right to buy and eat bad meat?
  • RainDog
    RainDog Posts: 1,824
    blackredyellow wrote:
    Or you can actually read what he said instead of how some op-ed portrayed his remarks.
    But it's Jonah Goldberg. There's no way Jonah Goldberg would purposefully misrepresent anything Barack Obama would say. I mean, it's not like Jonah Goldberg is a partisian hack or anything.
  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,889
    RainDog wrote:
    But it's Jonah Goldberg. There's no way Jonah Goldberg would purposefully misrepresent anything Barack Obama would say. I mean, it's not like Jonah Goldberg is a partisian hack or anything.


    That's what annoys me... The only thing that this article is, is a fear-mongering, political hit job. You take a few sentences of a 40+ paragraph speech, mis-represent it, and add words/phrases like "slavery" or "forced servitude" to scare people.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,701
    Tying compulsory community service to federal education grants or loans is not slavery. It's the willful exchange of service for value, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. So long as people have the ability to willingly opt out of these systems without being criminally liable, it's not slavery or even akin to slavery.
  • Vince
    Vince Posts: 174
    I have no issue with people serving. More people should serve whether it's in the military, Ameri-Corps or non profit. Comparing Barack's comments to slavery only fuels the flame for conservatives calling leftists whack jobs. Clearly you have no concept of term or what it entailed.
    “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.”
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,701
    It's important to note that slavery begins with one person or body assuming upon another a default obligation to work for the former's betterment, regardless of the latter's will. The enslavement of blacks in America, for instance, began with whites assuming that blacks had no rights and therefore could be assigned to their nature an obligation to work against their will for the betterment of white America.

    We see many other instances of slavery in modern America, though few are as severe. Forced prostitution, forced labor (particularly of immigrants), the military drafts up to the 70s, assumed citizenship, japanese internment in the 40s, jury duty, imprisonment and taxation are all arguable forms of slavery, among others. Tying public service to public benefits that are not required and revolve around willful participants, however, is certainly not one of them.

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