President-Elect Obama Plans Introduction of a Draft
President-Elect Obama is literally bringing back a type of draft:
“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.”
This is truly unbelievable and so ominously indicative of what other steps he may take down the road to serfdom.
HT: Great Mankiw
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I’m for it. This gets kids off the computer, away from the television, and out doing beneficial things for society.
School is compulsory, as is jury duty…why not some light community service?
I’m moving farther and farther away from libertarianism. If we all had to fend for ourselves after Hurricane Ike without some sort of organization keeping order and fixing up the city, then it would’ve been a mess. There needs to be order and structure. When all the traffic signals went down, traffic was chaotic and congested. Laws and government can’t be neglected in order to have a broadly peaceful and fair society.
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Hey Tyler why don’t we just bring back the army draft as well comrade?! People should have a right to decide whether they wish to participate or not. You can not call this a free society and have mandatory labor required. The justice system is an exception of course because we all know that having trial is a universally beneficial institution even if we never get called into court. Community service may or may not be seemed as virtuous to some. Furthermore, it destroys the institution of community service. It destroys the virtue of wanting to give back to the community voluntarily for the intrinsic reward of self gratification. This is the reason that charity levels are so much lower than they were pre-new deal because charity was taken out of the hands of the virtuous and given to the government. All this does is devalue and cheapen the volunteer experience which actual does make our community great.
Not to mention all the loop holes that would result from this garbage.
Anyways it doesnt matter; obama has already changed the web site. Looks like the blogs with again.
I agree with you, Sean — this is an ominous sign to say the least. People think the struggle between the free market and socialism ends at where and how income is distributed; it is much more than that. Socialism is not possible without a police state, and this seems to be the first step in that direction — mandatory community service. Did you ever think you’d see the day when charity was mandatory? How long will it be until we are forced to use no more than 10 gallons of water a day because of shortages?
Forget “Change”, it is almost time for a revolution.
we have tried to make charity mandatory through progressive taxation. all it has done is severely weaken the institution of charity. many people no longer experience the joy and satisfaction of it because they feel the government has assumed the role of charity- needless to say has done a rather poor job of it.
If service becomes mandatory it takes the whole “service” aspect out of it and the meaning from doing it. The idea of service is that you are giving up something and sacrificing something whether it be time or money to serve others. If you are forced into service, you are doing essentially sacrificing nothing since it is compulsory.
Tyler, libertarianism is not the same thing as free market anarchy. Libertarianism still calls for organizations such as a police force and a judicial system. It is a complete miss-characterization of libertarianism to say that in a libertarian society there would be no force controlling power. Libertarianism is not the absence of government it is simply the prudent use of a non-restricting and non-oppressive government.
Donald, very well said.
Tyler libertarian, rather constitutional government recognizes government. It is just which government. States sovereignty and not Federal rights granted to them by the Supreme Court against the will of the Constitution starting in 1930.
That allows a state to do as they see fit for their people and other states not to pay for their mistakes or social programs, or whatever it may be.
An excellent example is how Federal government build levy’s up and down the Mississippi River. The states could not do this because of liability reasons. Mainly answering to the people of their state both financially and when the levys broke. The levy’s broke and killed and destroy property time and time again. Ohio is another example they get aid almost yearly for the river breaking its shores and people move right back with government aid.
Now should I pay for this in Minnesota or Colorado, or Wyoming? If the state pays for it. Do you not think better decisions would come out of it by the money being closer to the responsible party?
Another point is that the Federal Government often does not have money and they print it. The disaster of that affair is going to be felt over the next few years like a Tusami, but has happened in smaller degrees 18 times since the Great Depression robbing Americans of their wealth.
Thirdly and most important. Who died and makes anyone God? Your statement is typical of government or other organizations that lobby congress pushing their will on to you. That is I decide what is good and I implement what is good for you. So the question becomes who decides what is good for me? Who judges(God) and jury over what is right and what is wrong for me? Individual Liberty is for me to make my choices and pay the consequences myself and not involve everyone else. Or you can let some hierarchy which you have little say in. Be God and do what is right for you, in their opinion.