You Know Who Else Liked Government Sponsored Youth Activites?

I just finished reading Jim Lindgren’s article on one of Obama’s more interesting campaign points - universal community service for middle and high schoolers.  An excerpt from Obama’s campaign site:

BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN FOR UNIVERSAL VOLUNTARY CITIZEN SERVICE

–Pause–

Okay, let’s stop at the title:  How is it possible for voluntary citizen service to be universal?  Don’t universal things tend to require that everyone participate?  Very curious - let’s see how Obama overcomes this semantic trouble.

Obama believes the American people are ready to serve their communities, but not enough have been asked or know how. His presidential campaign has been at the leading edge of citizen engagement. Campaign supporters have performed more than 6,400 community service events such as tutoring, building playgrounds, and volunteering at shelters, using the organizing tools at My.BarackObama.com. As president, Obama will work to inspire Americans from all walks of life to serve and will help build the architecture for them to do it. Obama’s plan will:
•   Encourage national service to address the great challenges of our time, including combating climate change, extending health care, improving our schools and strengthening America overseas by showing the world the best of our nation.
•   Expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and double the size of the Peace Corps.
•   Integrate service-learning into our schools and universities to enable students to graduate college with as many as 17 weeks of service experience under their belts. (Emphasis mine - DC)
•   Provide new service opportunities for working Americans and retirees.
•   Expand service initiatives that engage disadvantaged young people and advance their education.
•   Expand the capacity of nonprofits to innovate and expand successful programs across the country.
•   Enable more Americans to serve in the armed forces.

Before we dig into the bolded part, I’d like to point out that, as far as that last item goes, I don’t think the problem is that Americans are insufficiently abled to serve in the armed forces.  On the contrary, last I checked, each branch of the military is actively looking for new recruits.  So, it’s not like they’re really pushing people away at the moment.  Perhaps Obama will increase their recruitment budgets?  That would be nice.

Now, about that “service-learning”… would you like to know more?

II.     INTEGRATE SERVICE INTO EDUCATION
Barack Obama calls his years working as a community organizer in Chicago’s South Side the best education he ever had. He believes that all students should serve their communities. Studies show that students who participate in service-learning programs do better in school, are more likely to graduate high school and go to college, and are more likely to become active, engaged citizens. Schools that require service as part of the educational experience create improved learning environments and serve as resources for their communities.  Obama’s plan sets a goal for all students to engage in service, with middle and high school students performing 50 hours of service each year, and college students performing 100 hours of service each year. Under this plan, students would graduate college with as many as 17 weeks of public service experience under their belts.

This would be the universal part of “voluntary” service.  See, nothing says “voluntary” like forcing people to do it in order to get an education. Education in the United States, you see, is compulsory.  By tying “voluntary” community service to compulsory education, you are not making the community service “voluntary” anymore.  That said, let’s pretend for a second that it didn’t matter - let’s pretend that it didn’t matter one whit that Obama is talking about forcing parents and students to do one more government-mandated activity on top of their regular lives.  Let’s pretend that Obama isn’t talking about requiring adults who happen to go to college to engage in unpaid federal labor for a bit.  What would this community service program give us?

1. If you’re poor, would you be better off getting a paid job, or getting an unpaid job?
2. If you’re poor, would you be better off if your children got paid jobs, or were doing federally mandated unpaid community service?
3. If you don’t like going to school, will you like it more if you have to attend more government-mandated functions in order to finish it?
4. Is it legally possible, in a Constitutional sense, for the federal government to require adult citizens to engage in any civil service that doesn’t involve the draft?
5. College students are a very supportive demographic for Obama.  How would college students feel about having 100 hours a year taken from them that could be better served by working, in order to keep their student debt load at a minimum, or by studying, in order to maximize their college education?

Look, I don’t like McCain by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he’s not talking about drafting everyone over the age of 11, which is pretty much what Obama is talking about here.  Sure, Obama’s not sending everyone off to die, which is fine and great, but he’s still saying that, on top of the taxes that everyone has to pay, every parent will have to make sure that their children get to their government-mandated community service activities and that every person between the ages of 11 and 18 give the government 50 hours of free labor a year.  Oh, and if you happen to be interested in furthering your education, you’re going to need to chip in another 100 hours of free labor each year.

To summarize:

• College students - Obama is bad for you guys.  Really bad.  You don’t need more time taken out of your already busy lives by a politician that thinks he knows better than everyone.
• Parents - Obama is bad for you, too.  See above, only your time is going to be nuked by having to provide transportation for each of your kids’ mandatory 50 hour community service blocks.  Good luck with that.
• Working people - Obama is bad for you, as well.  Guess who’s paying for these government-funded community service projects?  That’s right - everyone that pays taxes.  That would be you…
• Rich people - And you.  Then again, you weren’t voting for him, anyway.

This message was paid for by the Committee to Elect Anybody But Obama.

1 Comment

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  By Cardoza, August 29, 2008 @ 9:38 am

  Day’s neva’ finished, ‘Bama got me workin; someday massa set me free…

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