The latest column from Jonah Goldberg, which raises the question of whether Barack Obama’s national service plan is involuntary servitude, has attracted the typical screechifying of the proggosphere — despite the fact that Goldberg concludes that it is not involuntary servitude, just creepy to the degree that it cultivates a slave mentality.
Unsurprisingly, every “progressive” reaction to Goldberg I read avoided the real nut of his argument:
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.”
Attaching strings to federal education dollars does not create involuntary servitude. However, it has been the Left that has complained that such strings are coercive when the subject is requiring colleges to allow military recruiters on campus or prohibiting federal aid recipients from abortion counseling.
For all of their pretentions these past few years to be guarding our civil liberties, the proggosphere’s inability to recall, let alone defend the claim that federal strings may be coercive is a tribute to how statist they really are. Their primary — and perhaps only — true concern is in wielding the power of the state, not in restraining it.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
I’m surprised the right is getting so excited by Baracky’s Socialist Youth Happy Squad. Creepy-assed society you got there, America.
I think I want to become a curmudgeon. I’m just tired of fighting it all the time.
I wonder what exactly it was Baracky did to work his way through college. Still, booze deliveries to seniors prevents them crashing through convenience stores.
Some how this all seems like a page from the history of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. .. or maybe Fidel Castro.
The leftists weren’t too happy when it was suggested that welfare dollars be attached to service work.
Look. It’s McCain doing “Imagine”.
TO WHAT END, BARACKY? TO WHAT INFERNAL END?
That’s all I want to know.
Oh good green jobs.
Comment by dre on 7/8 @ 4:05 pm #
Oh good green jobs.
Yeah, it used to be called “lawn mowing”.
He just wants to order around white folk.
I hate him.
Will they have uniforms? Please tell me they will have uniforms.
Probably “brwon shirts”
“The guys get shirts!”
I just want to know how many proggs will move to Canada to avoid service.
Comment by kelly on 7/8 @ 4:18 pm #
“The guys get shirts!â€Â
With sexy name patches!
Cute proposal by the Obamessiah: Set up a compulsory “Reichsarbeitsdienst” that he himself wouldn’t have dreamed of joining if it had been around in the early 80’s.
Involuntary servitude is exactly what it is. If one is enough of a slack-jawed, fucking moron to argue that education is a “luxury” bestowed by the overlords of the federal government, then perhaps one could call it voluntary. The honest among us need to call it what it is……slavery with a pretty name.
It is an evil idea and it is nakedly corrupt. Just what do you think this crop of slaves will be required to do in order to get credit for their “service”? They will be coerced into boosterism for the democrat party. Its an inherently evil scheme.
Hitler youth, anyone?
All the Dems lining up in favor of this should take one step back and think “Would I have railed against this 30 years ago if Nixon had wanted to do it?”
I think we know what the answer is.
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
As long as he’s providing the weed and ecstasy, I’d say “winner”!
Enjoy this coming election. Probably won’t be many more afterwards.
He turned his own daughters out today. Sick fuck.
“Attaching strings to federal education dollars does not create involuntary servitude. ”
True but the elites get to opt out of this “Community Organizer™” scheme.
What I want to know is, will he get the searchlights for the event at the stadium?
Regards,
Ric
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
I would much rather see him attach strings to the parents for Federal education dollars, S-CHIP dollars, and welfare programs.
Make the parents report for duty, and let the kids study and make money at a summer job while benefiting from an involved parent.
What sense does a HS service requirement make in a city like Detroit where getting kids to graduate at all is a huge challenge?
And why is it ok to make students have service hours if you can’t make the adults do it?
I really think making adults volunteer to get services for themselves or their kids makes a lot more sense, and is one that may benefit the kids in the long run.
MayBee!!! Yay!!! You’ve been a lot missed. For real. You have no idea how tedious these people are when you’re not here.
Thanks a lot, hf.
Ha!
#24 dre – True – but if you take the King’s shilling, you do the King’s bidding. The G.I. Bill, as it now is, requires service before you take the benefit.
To do this to anyone who does not have the choice of rejecting the benefit IS akin to slavery. If a public school system is required to have its students do this without the student having a say one way or another is akin to slavery.
“Hi! We have accepted federal dollars to fund this school. So you all have to go out and work. No, don’t thank us, we’re just doing what is required. What’s that? Thirteenth Amendment? Young lady, go wash out your mouth; this is no way involuntary servitude, we volunteered you. Don’t you understand that you ungrateful whelp? Where do these kids get these ideas? Government class? Hmmm, have to do something about that!”
“Comment by Mikey NTH on 7/8 @ 6:31 pm #
#24 dre – True – but if you take the King’s shilling, you do the King’s bidding”
Me get the feds out of the education business. Reality freakin’ Dem land.
I was just kidding about the tedious, but where’s datadave person?
Did I miss a few weeks of datadave-less comment threads? How sad for me!
If it was like the GI bill then the kids (parents) would get vouchers to use at any school they want.
Since the school employees do the volunteering they should also do the service. The kids are the customers not the employees.
Now there’s a concept that’s lost on the NEA.
dre – I wasn’t really being critical, as the rest of my comment (I hope) showed. There is a big difference between a volunteer for the US military and a high school student “volunteered” because the district decided to take certain funds.
Now, if the school board was required to do something…that would be very educational.
Progressive Labor Battalions? Young Pioneers? Joy Through Work Cadres?
This is just gonna confuse the little bastards I think. I mean, community service is what the judge gives them when they get caught drinking too many beers in the park, and now they are just gonna be like “what the hell did I do”.
Plus won’t someone think of the judges? A man (on the bench) cannot live on fines and jail time alone.
Young Johnny opens up his Young American Volunteer manual.
He surreptitiously looks around at the other teens, identically clad in their ill-fitting khaki colored cotton four pocket blouses.
He raises his hand.
“I don’t any of us in here read Chinese, ma’am.”
AAARGGH….
“I don’t THINK any of us in here read Chinese, ma’am.”
And goodnight.
Comment by Neo on 7/8 @ 4:15 pm #
“Probably “brwon shirts—
naaa, moveon blue.
Back in high school (which was a sadly long time ago), we had a freshly graduated teacher who was an unabashed lefty. Since she was the civics/history teacher, she required us to “volunteer” to work on political campaigns. I hated it then, and I hate the idea even more now. Mandatory “volunteering” is forced labor, plain and simple. The impulse that lies behind it is either idiocy (“elite colleges like to see community work outside of school on applications, therefore if we require everyone to volunteer, they’ll all have a leg up!”) or blatant opportunism (hey, free labor for the “right” causes!).
(About the only positive aspect of the “volunteering” we had to do is that I volunteered along with a couple of the cutest cheerleaders in school.)
I think it’s fair to assume that in Barak Obama’s vision of America liberal and leftist bureaucrats will decide whether a community service organization passes an ideological purity test.