Obama to bring back slavery

Rather ironic that the nation's first black president wants to bring back slavery. But there it is on his website:

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.

People will be forced to work for free. It worked well for plantation owners in the pre-Civil War South, so why not for liberal Democrats?

UPDATE

The text at the link above has changed since this morning when I copied it. Obviously, it was changed in response to reaction in the blogosphere.

A certain commenter accused me of dishonesty and lying. Sorry, I copied what was on the page, no dishonesty here. Maybe the Obama transition team is being dishonest.

UPDATE II

Someone left a link to a screenshot of what looks like the original page.

Is the real desire of Obama to draft all young people into service for Marxist causes, but he knows that won't fly, so he has to tone it down until people are ready to accept living in a proper communist country?

Comments

[slwerner]

"...require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year."

Will their be a way for the children of rich liberal elites to pay an undocumented worker sub-minimum wage to do their community service for them?

[slwerner]

Say,

Obama didn't happen to mention what he's planning to have his daughters do for THEIR 50 hours, did he?

[Brutus]

Boy, I wish I were as smart and as talented as Obama. He dah best.

[Track this Back]

Only those received subsidized government loans for educations would be required to commit to community service. There are exemptions for military personel, disability, etc.

[slwerner]

Track this Back - "Only those received subsidized government loans for educations would be required to commit to community service."

I looked at the linked page, and, I didn't see this part anywhere. What I did read was this:

"require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school"

So, which middle and high schools do students receive subsidized government loans to attend?

[roissy]

will border patrol count as community service?
i'm guessing not.

[The Engineer]

"Hey Kids, thanks for all your votes. Now get out there and wash my Prius".

[slwerner]

roissy - "will border patrol count as community service?"

I'm guessing that serving ACORN and registering the likes of Micky Mouse to vote will count double.

[anonymous_coward]

This program is disturbing, representing a new government intrusion into private life cloaked in the patriotic rhetoric of "serving America," and a crowding out of private enterprise by government-created programs using forced labor.

[Bruno Brazil]

Wouldn´t it be a great way to justify welfare and unemployment insurance?

If people did such work for welfare or unemp insurance, no one could say that the class that takes welfare is society´s moocher.

[Stopped Clock]

100 hours is actually quite a bit when you're a student ... there are 36 weeks in a school year, so that's 3 hours a week. My schedule's pretty tight already ... okay, sure, I have time left over to post here ... but I would not want to add 3 hours of anything to every week whether I was getting paid for it or not.

[IC]

sounds a lot like the volunteer service that everyone performs for the homeland in Cuba

[Turambar]

Boy he really is bring in Chicago politics. You get the patronage jobs and then people are required to kick back to you for giving them the job.

And wont he need a PaperworkCore to process the extra 50 million people he now has working for the Federal government and need to have their time logged and credited properly?

[Tired of Smoke Rings]

"If people did such work for welfare or unemp insurance, no one could say that the class that takes welfare is society´s moocher."

The joke in the Soviet Union was:

We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.

Expect a similar attitude in Uncle Obama's USSA.

[whiskey]

Here's a great way to get MALE HS students to vote Republican: Obama will take away your part time job thus your car and ability to get girls.

Even more powerful aimed at College guys. Having a car is a HUGE deal -- it separates guys who can date from those who cannot. Simple as that. No car = no dates.

Cars require money -- gas, insurance, registration. Which means, realistically, a part-time job and making money.

You could do a powerful series of commercials -- some Obama looking guy zooms past a guy picking up trash by the side of the road in a fancy convertible with the guy's ex-girlfriend. Voiceover: Johnny lost his car and his girl when Obama forced him to give up his part-time job to pick up trash from the road.

Put the guy in those icky orange vests, have the girl laugh at him, it's a powerful and simple message: Obama takes your money and thus your girl.

[Stopped Clock]

re: the thing about it only being for students working on government grants: eh?? Are there students who take government grants to go to middle school?? That doesnt really make sense. I sure hope he isnt planning on sending EVERY kid out there to do 50 hours of community service; that's outrageous. Like I said, it may not sound like a lot of hours but I think it really actually is.

Have liberals gone nuts over this yet? I can only imagine if a Republican proposed this...

[Stopped Clock]

Heck, added up over seven years of school, that's more than some penalties for pretty serious crimes.

[CC01]

One thing we need to look out for is Obama's attempt to make "civilian service" equal to military service. IOW, they'll start giving out GI bills to people tutoring "underperforming" ghetto kids.

[Patrik]

[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.]

I wonder if these national 'service programs' will promote and benefit Lefty causes....nah....

[as]

This reminds me of something that Steve Sailer wrote about community organizing/volunteering in various Chicago neighborhoods.

Communities which are more or less well behaved organize themselves.

Badly behaved communities have professional organizers.

[sabril]

I thought national service was a dumb idea when I was a teenager, and I still think it's a dumb idea.

The only time it's arguably justified is military service for men for purposes of bona fide national defense.

Let's start with mandatory service for people who live in Section 8 housing.

[sabril]

"Let's start with mandatory service for people who live in Section 8 housing."

Oops, I forgot. The point of new liberalism is to punish the middle class for the sins of the underclass.

[tommy]

This cannot possibly be mandated. If it is, then all I can say is "Welcome to the Neo-Marxist Plantation!"

Really, this sort of proposal is a natural extension of liberal thinking: the money you earn doesn't belong to you, so why should your time and effort belong to you, either?

[APH]

Economics distilled to its simplest tenant: Incentives Matter. Liberals never understand that...

[Brutus]

Here's the juice on BO, hep cats. He's an empty suit--and he's smart enough to know it. This stupid program is his way of competing against the overrated Irish mediocrity, JFK>

[Brutus]

Let's start with mandatory service for people who live in Section 8 housing."

Oops, I forgot. The point of new liberalism is to punish the middle class for the sins of the underclass.

Posted by: sabril | November 07, 2008 at 06:46 PM

I 2d that. What about forcing felons to pay bach the cost of their incarceration?

THAT'S CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN

[Rain And]

Holy Shit, this really fucking is slavery!! Unbelievable.

See the Volokh series on "Service Nation" slavery:

http://volokh.com/posts/1216794178.shtml

These Marxist fucks are trying to hoodwink the American public with this. Before Obama was elected they were very careful to only IMPLY this "community service" would be mandatory. When forced into a corner about it, they always denied it was a mandatory plan. But now that they're in power it's bait and switch slavery for the masses.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_07_20-2008_07_26.shtml#1216927129

[Brutus]

Something else we can look forward to from the BO:

100% denial of racial differences. Obama will call for massive education spending on the dolts. Check please!

[Richard H]

I remember seeing this idea on the cover of Time Magazine and an editor of the magazine on the Chris Matthews Show promoting it. It's unbelievable. The arrogance of these liberals. Luckily I graduate from college this year. It serves the young idiots who supported Obama right.

[Brutus]

Yes, Obama plans to bring back slavery. Think about what a "tax" is--it's "taxing." And BO wants to tax/enslave the productive to cosmetically enhance the dolts.

[Brutus]

Yes, Obama plans to bring back slavery. Think about what a "tax" is--it's "taxing." And BO wants to tax/enslave the productive to cosmetically enhance the dolts.

[Vim]

I know some people have to attack Obama just for being a Democrat but ...

1. I didn't see any language where he was forcing anybody to do anything. "... developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit"

2. I would have thought at least some of you would be social conservatives and approve the idea of (a) a tax reduction (b) community service

3. One thing that came to mind was that Israel forces you to be in the army whether you want to be or not. And I don't think Israel is practising slavery.

4. Minorities disproprotionately would need government help and would be more likely than whites to need to do this service.

[Interloper]

From the Obama website:

"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."

The Obama plan would encourage volunteerism for those who want to participate. High school and college students would be able to accrue service hour credits as a form of currency. The consideration for their service would be tuition of as much as $4,000 being reimbursed by the government.

"Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free."

Slavery is when people are forced to work without pay to enrich others. In American slavery, people where deprived of all rights of citizenship for their entire lives, their children were born as chattel and they could be ill-treated or killed without legal recourse. Even Sarah Palin should be able to tell the difference between encouragement to volunteer, or perform national service for a tax credit, and slavery.

[anonymous_coward]

I note with interest that the text of the text of the website has changed (Hope and Change...our position on the issues!). It now says:

"Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. "

HS & others here calling this slavery - Did you not read the full proposal or is your argument that it is slavery to offer a tax credit to students who choose to do community service?

I'm not an Obama fan, but I don't really see how this would qualify as slavery.

[anonymous_coward]

@the previous commenter: note that he silently shifted his position on the issue.

Grants contingent on community service, while still a matter of government taking money from taxpayers to entice others to do things, is an easier sell. But this program will offer $40/hour wages, enticing students away from good resume-building activities to government make-work jobs, and the proposal may well lead to tuition inflation based on simple supply and demand. (Note that in this case the rich will be better able to afford lower-paying but better resume-building internships - a way for Democrats to play to their Upper West Side faction.)

And for secondary school the ploy will be even more coercive. He talks about "setting a goal" to force kids to volunteer. But how will that be accomplished? By the only means that the federal government has - public schools will have their funding cut unless they force their students to perform 50 hours of service a year.

[zzz]

>>Let's start with mandatory service for people who live in Section 8 housing.<<

This is typical knee-jerk, reactionary conservative rhetoric from...well a poster at Half Sigma, aka Ratland! Conservatives are the ones advocating class warfare; pitting one group against another for political advantage - whites against minorities, the poor against the middle-class, and the rich against everybody who isn’t.

Rats like you have fueled their divisiveness with violent, eliminationist rhetoric and a relentless “blame the victim” ideology aimed at promoting guilt-free greed and self-supporting selfishness. You chant: “The poor are poor because they’re too lazy to work!" while radicals and extremists turned the GOP into a rabid dog, an authoritarian nightmare that thinks the Constitution is a “quaint” document.

Oh yeah, and spying on the citizenry is perfectly acceptable.

I say the trust fund babies ought to be drafted!

[Interloper]

The text on the Obama website has not changed. What has happened is that it has become a meme in the Right blogosphere to misrepresent the service plan as mandatory. (Today's other equally insidious meme, from talk radio, is to claim President-elect Obama is causing the stock market's volatility.)

Sen. Obama, reportedly an excellent professor of constitutional law, is certainly sensitive to any form of government action that is imposed. Even his health care plan is opt in, not opt out.

[tommy]

Can someone provide me with more details about Obama's health plan? I read a lot about reducing costs, providing tax breaks, and expanding coverage (including to those with potentially expensive pre-existing conditions), but I don't I see much analysis on where the money is supposed to originate or how much money can be expected to be realistically saved from the proposed measures.

[anonymous_coward]

Postscript: The original note was changed to its current stage without fanfare, retraction, or acknowledgment. Now politicians do this all the time, so it's not much of a criticism of the Obama administration to point this out. It is, however, a small rebuke to those who believed that his election would somehow lead to a quantum leap in political transparency and integrity.

[Interloper]

Furthermore,

• There is no evidence that the wage scale for service work by students would be $40 an hour or any other figure. Common sense suggests such a program would have the modest compensation of work-study, which it is similar to.

• There is no evidence that federal funds would be withheld from schools unless their students volunteer. Nor is there any legal basis for such a requirement. And, it would go against the goals of the Obama administration, which include increasing educational resources.

Why do some people make things up out of thin air?

[Peter]

If this ever came to pass, I'll bet that most of the community service would be meaningless, make-work crap.

[anonymous_coward]

Interloper, try some simple math on $4000 for 100h of work.

[tommy]

If AmeriCorps is the model, you can expect the program to be massively wasteful:

"According to a 1998 report from Citizens Against Government Waste, AmeriCorps' operational cost amounted to $27,000 per "volunteer" per year."

It will also be massively oversold:

"In 1999, President Bill Clinton claimed that AmeriCorps members have "taught millions of children to read." However, in an article by libertarian pundit James Bovard, one unnamed official said the real number is probably less than a dozen, and Robert Sweet, the former director of the National Institute of Education, labelled it "a "fraud." Bovard noted that some AmeriCorps volunteers are themselves GED students and welfare recipients, but did not say if any were found tutoring children in reading. One reading tutor did tell Bovard, "We're not teaching them to read... You just want them to think they're doing a good job." Much of the time where literacy teaching was supposed to be taking place was instead spent putting on puppet shows."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmeriCorps#Criticism

[tommy]

Of course, if AmeriCorps is the model, ObamaCorps will likely be used to benefit left-wing community racketeers:

"In 1995, AmeriCorps gave a $1.1 million grant to an organization called Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The grant eventually had to be returned."

"Articles suggest that AmeriCorps volunteers assist citizens with applying for welfare, food stamps, and public housing, and one organization who works with AmeriCorps also lobbies the government for more rent control and public housing."

"AmeriCorps gave a grant to an organization called Mississippi Action for Community Education, or MACE, which is located in Greenville, Mississippi, one of the poorest cities in the United States. Bovard described MACE's headquarters as "one of the fanciest buildings in town. The plush leather chairs in the waiting room were in stark contrast to the shabbiness of the neighborhood. Uncle Sam has obviously been good to MACE, which has received money from several federal programs over the years."

"The Los Angeles Times reported in 1994 that AmeriCorps funded a project that used the program's recruits to protest "third-strike" legislation. AmeriCorps gave a grant of $2.5 million to the Casa Verde Builders Program to build energy efficient homes in Texas. At that time of writing, only 23 of the 64 AmeriCorps members who signed up completed their work. However, the Casa Verde Builders Program was still allowed to keep the entire grant for its ongoing program, and is still active and recruiting volunteers today."

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Meanwhile, in spite of the glorious coming of the Messiah, the NYSlimes gently weeps because NAMs continue to produce nothing whatsoever of value - and will continue to produce nothing regardless of whatever the One does:

Racial Imbalance Persists at Elite Public Schools

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/nyregion/08specialized.html?hp

Recent efforts to get more black and Hispanic students into New York City’s elite public high schools have fallen short, with proportionately fewer of them taking the admissions exam and even lower percentages passing it. The performance gap persists even among students involved in the city’s intensive 16-month test prep institute, designed to diversify the so-called specialized high schools, including the storied triumvirate of Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech.

- snip

[Ivan B]

I was in a government funded volunteer travel program the summer before college many years ago. I thought it would be a good opportunity to advance my resume; boy was I wrong. One of our assignments was working for a film festival (where the rich kids play) that was being bankrolled by an NEA grant.

We were supposed to be there to help any handicapped film goers but the plans changed. Instead, our careerist jerk manager made us carry and lift sharp, dirty, heavy objects and paint warning markers on electrical equipment in the hot sun for hours. When I would take a break because I simply couldn't handle the work, he would call me lazy and threaten to call my project leader.

We were clearing out a stage area for the festival concert and this place was a total DUMP beforehand. We had to clear the land, dig weeds and everything. While working there, I met a guy who was there doing community service for some small theft crime (another unpaid slave).

The night of the festival, I tried to go backstage and talk to some people and I was not permitted there. They charged $25 a ticket and over 1000 people showed up. I was treated like a convict and I felt very exploited. When I signed up for the program, we were working non for profit organizations backed up by the government. But there is no doubt in my mind this organization was pocketing most of the profit.

Ever since that time, I've been adamantly against so called "community service". The sound of the phrase just sickens me.

And the community service that Obama mandates for college students? Is it going to be useful community service like picking up trash from our nation's highways or setting up film festivals for snooty brats?

[ResidentCynic]

Note to everyone: Half Sigma's "quote" doesn't exist on the linked page. It is complete bullshit.

Half Sigma, you are outright LYING and you should be ashamed. I bust on you a lot because I think many of your ideas are stupid, but I at least thought you practiced intellectual honesty.

From Karl Rove to John McCain, this lying seems to be a core part of the "Republican" agenda. More reason I'm glad these guys lost...

Really Half Sigma, if your ideals were so strong, you wouldn't have to lie to defend them.

[Half Sigma: I copied it from the website. I went back to the website, that old text is no longer there.

Obviously the text was changed after the reaction in the blogosphere.]

[Interloper]

The maximum tax credit for college students is proposed at $4,000. However, that is not setting a wage. It is likely that it will take more than 100 hours of service to get the maximum tax credit.

Nor are claims about Americorps or anything else from extreme Right groups or sources convincing. Why do people even bother citing them?

[tommy]

"Nor are claims about Americorps or anything else from extreme Right groups or sources convincing. Why do people even bother citing them?"

I certainly find the claims of Bovard more convincing than the claims of Clinton.

[black sea]

According to interloper: "The text on the Obama website has not changed. What has happened is that it has become a meme in the Right blogosphere to misrepresent the service plan as mandatory."

This is a lie.

The text below was copied and pasted onto my site, verbatim, with absolutely no additions, subtractions, or alterations, as of Friday, November 7.

"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."

If interloper is simply guessing that the wording had not changed, he should say so.
Regardless of his guesstimate, or impression, or falsehood, the wording on the Obama website has been changed within the past 24 hours. No doubt, the site administrators caught wind of the fact that this particular post was being heavily linked to, and put two and two together.

But to claim that the website never said that this program would "require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year" is a deliberate misrepresentation of fact, which is to say, a lie.

[tommy]

More on Bovard's investigation of AmeriCorps:

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1000americorps.htm

As you can see, unlike Clinton, he actually provides citations for his claims.

[James]

HS, are you trying to sound comically biased? Countries/people have always made youth do all kinds of community service work, it would only be called "slavery" by some 15 year old punk.

[jones]

so what if community service is required. whatever happened to "country first"? Slavery, do you really want to talk about slavery or dare to equate this to slavery? come on people. you guys work yourself up into such an ideological frenzie you can't see or think straight.

[tommy]

"so what if community service is required. whatever happened to "country first"?"

Country first, not government first.

[CC01]

One of the major differences between the right and the left is the left will go into the streets and intimidate people while the right is always trying to be polite.

Many of you may have seen how leftest students disrupt speakers in colleges or just plain attack people they disagree with. I thinks its past due that the right forms a defense force to defend speakers and businesses from criminal leftests.

These defense forces will also be important when the next African or mestizo riot breaks out. When a group like "ACORN" goes to the house of a banker, the defense force can be there to help keep the family safe. When punks try to bust up the central business district in Seattle, the defense force can help clean the city up.

These defense forces would be funded by donations, the same way ACORN is. These defence forces will be unpaid, and similar to volunteer fire-personal. This could be another way people could volunteer for America. The "Minutemen" idea could also be a role for the defense force.

[HS defender]

A screenshot of the original:

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1it1.png

[speedy]

You've entirely missed the point.

It's not about slavery, it's all about forcing community work on young people's resume. Before, this was reserved only to upper-middle class students and taken heavily into consideration when they applied to Ivy League colleges. If every student has community work on the resume, then there would be much harder for the upper-middle class to retain their status. Simply put, it's a blow against the upper-middle class.

Obama is cunning, and his policies are to undermine the class status quo in America. He does this by doing more than raising the taxes only to the upper-middle class who generally fall into the top 5% of income. He knows that at the basis of the upper-middle class power, it's the education.

There should be some interesting 4 years. My guess is that the Republican party will reinvent itself, and also the population will bounce back towards more conservative values in 4 years.

[ResidentCynic]

Thanks for clearing that up Half Sigma. As I mentioned, I never consider you an outright liar (unlike many in blogosphere...some who link here) and such an action would be way out of line for how you normally act.

Anyway, Obama added a Jew who supported the Israeli Army as his chief of staff. Probably safe to say that whole second Holocaust isn't gonna happen soon unless he purges his staff of all the Jews.

[sabril]

Re: class warfare

As usual, it will be the middle class which pays for this nonsense. Wealthy people will just pay the extra 4 grand so that their daughters won't be picking up trash on the freeway with some "community organizer" staring at their asses.

People in the underclass couldn't care less about a 4k grant for college.

[Rain And]

This is super creepy. The Obama camp took the word "require" off the web page, without appending any sort of correction note. This is exactly the kind of suspicious tom foolery that happened over at Volokh when they were trying to get to the bottom of this.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_07_20-2008_07_26.shtml#1216927129

The people who cooked up "service nation" slavery, obviously DO want it to be mandatory, and have a vision of drafting the American population into forced labor for Marxist causes [as roissy points out, we can be sure the "service" American youth will be channeled into for 100s of hours won't be rounding up illegal immigrants and patrolling the border].

But they keep realizing how radical their plan is, and covering up their agenda whenever pressed on it. At least until the time Obama can abuse his executive power and spring the mandatory service on us, which is his ultimate plan for making "change" happen.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-2001-redistribution-of-wealth.html

[Gil]

". . . on young people's resume . . ."

Actually 'resume' is spelt: résumé.

Hence when Homer Simpson interviewed Karl Whatshisname in an early episode he said "your rezoom seems to be in order" instead of "rezyoomay".

[Vim]

ResidentCynic:

"Anyway, Obama added a Jew who supported the Israeli Army as his chief of staff."

In Israel, they already have 'community service'. There is mandatory military service of 3 years for men and 2 for women.

[Vim]

Rain And:

"This is super creepy. The Obama camp took the word "require" off the web page, without appending any sort of correction note."

1. Nope. It's pretty typical. For instance, when my bank, cell phone company, university, etc changes some policy on their website, I almost never get notification.

2. Your comment is particularly strange because the Bush administration would never do such a thing as append an explanation of a mistake.

3. It's a pretty short statement. An explanation of previous information would probably be almost as long as the actual statement.

4. Do you recommend appending a comment for every bit of wording changed between now and January? What if a particular bit of text has been changed 20 times? Should all the changes be listed? That seems like it would defeat the purpose of the site: to inform. Unless you think the purpose of the site is to fully document evidence in support of more effective conservative nitpicks of the candidate ...

5. It's quite possible (and I know you will consider it a stretch) that this current statement is what they actually meant to say and the previous statement was badly worded. I'm assuming that Obama didn't write all the wording on the website himself and it's possible there was some sort of miscommunication.

[Rain And]

Vim, don't be an idiot. Fuck off with that tu quoque childishness. Bush has nothing to do with me or this issue.

There was no "mistake" but an active pattern here in trying to deceive the public and push a much different plan in under the radar.

See the Volokh link above. Talking out of both sides of the mouth on "service" being mandatory are a defining trait of this policy.

If your bank kept coyly suggesting interest rates would be replaced by a customer charge.. and kept denying such a plan whenever you nervously inquired about it.. and then put up a statement on their website saying they were going to do just that.. and then took the statement down.. and again denied the plan when you nervously inquired about it..

Well you be justifiably concerned about your bank's real plans.

[Rain And]

"Well you _would_ be justifiably concerned.."

[Uptown Brown]

"Oh yeah, and spying on the citizenry is perfectly acceptable."

I seem to recall a Senator who voted for the Patriot Act who ran for President and has since won the election. Now who could that be? It was in the papers and everything. Annyone know?

[M]

Welcome to the new right-wing melodrama! Communism! Slavery! Darkies taking over! ZOMG!!!!!

What we're talking about is a suggested additional graduation requirement: an hour or two a week of civic involvement, for which will be awarded a generous tax credit. Calm the fuck down. I don't think it's the best idea either, but when you call it "slavery" or "communism" you just look ridiculous.

[true liberal]

This is being blown way out of proportion. Not everyone will be required to do community service.

Only ideological enemies, as part of their reeducation.

[Ingrehopper]

Obama is a scuzz flash in the pan. All he can do is give speeches with vague platitudes. He can't lead he can't do anything but talk.

The morons who follow BO? Don't get me started....

[ResidentCynic]

vim:

"In Israel, they already have 'community service'."

Israel has SLAVES?!!!! After all that time in Egypt, you'd think they'd know better.

[Jun]

"Imagine an America in which the most commonly asked question of citizens is: 'Where are you doing your service?'"

http://www.bethechangeinc.org/

Bloody hell! :-/

[Rain And]

"What we're talking about is a suggested additional graduation requirement: an hour or two a week of civic involvement"

That's not "what we're talking about" if we believe what the quoted section plainly said. And we should believe it, as evidenced by the Volokh links.

"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. "

That's 350-1000 hours of forced labor over 10 years of life.

Vim- you cant go the whole administration trying to defend everything.

In this case the two web pages define totally different programs.

This isnt a "typo". Its someone, maybe not Obama, who had a ridiculous, over reaching plan. Forcing labor from people especially children is unsavory.

And Israel, in case you dont know, was founded as a socialist country. And they are at perpetual war with their neighbors. They are not a good model for the United States.

[M]

"That's not "what we're talking about" if we believe what the quoted section plainly said. And we should believe it, as evidenced by the Volokh links."

What are you talking about? That describes exactly what I said, to quote: "a suggested additional graduation requirement: an hour or two a week of civic involvement."

How is it not that?

[roissy]

"What we're talking about is a suggested additional graduation requirement: an hour or two a week of civic involvement, for which will be awarded a generous tax credit."

leftists have realized power from their long march through academia. a mandatory graduation requirement would almost certainly entail civic involvement of the sort that liberals heartily approve and for which leftist profs would cheerlead. such leftwing chicanery would further entrench their propagandization of the next generation of voters.

[M]

So in other words, the nightmare indoctrination scenario you're all imagining is just that: in your imaginations. Just like your collective outrage over who you IMAGINE Obama will appoint to his cabinet. Wake me up when any of this stuff actually happens.

[Vim]

"Vim- you cant go the whole administration trying to defend everything."

He doesn't even really have an administration yet. That's why this all seems so silly. These are words changing on a page. Nobody is acting out anything. The fact that they changed it suggests they are responsive to outside cricism. That is definitely a step up from Bush.

This program sounds pro-family and pro-social and is combined with a tax-reduction. I am not getting what particular conservative principle is being violated here. If you accept that the government has the right to force parents to send kids to school then how is 1-2 hours a week of contributing to society 'slavery'? The costs of educating a child are far greater than the potential wages of 100 hours per week. I don't get it.

[Dragon Horse]

This is not slavery, most Western European nations have similar programs. It's called citizenship and patriotic duty...did you forget you are a citizen of a nation and not just an individual on an island??

[Vim]

I mean "100 hours per year".

"That's why this all seems so silly."

Well of course it is "silly" now, but not 3 comments ago. I'm actually pretty disappointed by this mistake on Obama's website. After all, as you informed us not very long ago, he had 300 advisors accompany him on his trip to Europe. Maybe 2 or 3 of those people could have been delegated to look into the website?

"The costs of educating a child are far greater than the potential wages of 100 hours per week."

According to you, Barack Obama, or somebody who actually needs the money?

[GMR]

I would imagine that churches would be against this program. Community service with church groups almost certainly would not count to the requirement due to the separation of church and state issue that will be pushed. So teenagers and college students that currently volunteer for church groups would now have to do their volunteer work through official government programs.

Believe me, with the government forcing this, we're going to have a whole bunch of court fights about what type of service is proper. Is being an intern for ACORN acceptable? How about being an intern for Cato or Heritage or even Brookings? What about the salvation army, knights of columbus or other service groups with some religious connection? Or would these government "Corps" programs be the only acceptable endeavours?

What about part time college students, or grad students, or part time grad students, like evening MBA students. They going to have to do this stuff too?

[Interloper]

The material some nitwit keeps citing from the Volokh blog is NOT from President-elect Obama's website. It is from a group that encourages civic involvement. The group is not saying people should be forced to volunteer, either.

Perhaps if white supremacists were capable of understanding what a horror slavery really was, they would not be white supremacists.

[Simon LeGree]

"The material some nitwit keeps citing from the Volokh blog is NOT from President-elect Obama's website. It is from a group that encourages civic involvement. The group is not saying people should be forced to volunteer, either."

Best to ignore Obama's website and the fact it was changed. Nice try...

"Perhaps if white supremacists were capable of understanding what a horror slavery really was, they would not be white supremacists."

Oh yes, if only! Let me go wring my hands! Seriously, that's the best you've got?

[Turambar]

"He doesn't even really have an administration yet. That's why this all seems so silly. These are words changing on a page."

Reminds me of the recent Onion headline- "Black man given worst job in country".

Its his own web site! Why isnt it fair to hold the guy accountable for what shows up on his own site?

I am assuming that the interns arent authorized to put policy proposals out there so it has to have come from someone pretty senior. And the difference between a required program and a voluntary program is enormous. Thats not a simple mistake.

Are you part of the ApologeticsCore?

sfasdf

[Bruce Sterling]

Get ready for the Obo-Zombies to attack, the Obama youth oooooh. They gonna get you for bein' mean to da messiah. He da one and his boys gon' knock you clean off da stoop.

[tommy]

Even in the best of circumstances, this proposal is just plain dumb. Obama wants us to spend our time volunteering for demonstrably useless programs like Head Start.

Look, it's just four years of listening to a mutt in the White House until an Islamic nuclear bomb wipes out liberal-Democrat New York City. That's about 10-20% of the Democratic Party, along with CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Columbia, NYU, the publishing industry, the UN, SNL, Tina Fey, and everything else that is leftist and annoying in New York. Obama's administration will implode, the military will take over, and a hard, right-wing dictatorship will busily send the rest of the left into oblivion.

This is just a phase...like David Dinkins and Jimmy Carter.

[Dan Morgan]

The Undiscovered Jew writes: "NAMs continue to produce nothing whatsoever of value - and will continue to produce nothing regardless ..."

Come on, this is ridiculous. Are you typing while sitting in a KKK robe? And you know, people say equally nasty things about Jews. Do you think that is okay too?

[Gil]

Talking of 'Obama to bring back slavery' is rather funny. "Oh no! "Blackies are going to enslave whities so that whities get to feel what blacks endured!" Wasn't there a similar argument about the Yellow Peril? Part of me says "so what?" So? The rest of the world had to endure the White Peril? Blacks had to endure racially-biased slavery. Then again, what if blacks had access to Roman-style slavery? If so, then some blacks would have been able to buy their freedom and go to the various slave emporia and choose between white slaves, black slaves, Asiatic slavers, etc. If American slavery wasn't racial and whites people could have been enslaved by white masters (just as in Roman times) then Progressives couldn't play the 'race card' and we'd still have slavery! It'd probably be stronger due to Social Darwinist arguments. "Low IQs deserve to be enslaved by High IQs regardless of the racial type of either the slave or master." ;)

[Saladman]

Never forget that Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky. In other words, an idealogical leftist committed to gradualism as a strategy. I have no doubt Obama will dial this back to some kind of voluntary program, modest enough to get past mainstream America. He'll be patient enough to see it grow over time.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Posted by: Dan Morgan | November 08, 2008 at 10:18 PM"

Ok, sorry.

Btw, I am actually half Jewish, but call myself the Undiscovered Jew because it sounds better than the Undiscovered half Jew.

:)

[Obamesque]

Slavery is not so bad as long as you've got the right people as masters and the right people as slaves. Vim's suggestion that black people should enslave whites, hispanics, and asians sounds about right. That's what I'm talking about when I propose enlightened slavery, or community service.

All you white people objecting to this, you are simply racists. I'm putting token white lawyers, politicians, judges, professors, and journalists in place as trustees of the slave yard. They're meant to keep you people in your place. Mind them, hear?

[Vim]

Obamesque:

"Vim's suggestion that black people should enslave whites, hispanics, and asians sounds about right."

You know what? Who gives a crap if you believe Obama's going to 'enslave whites' or not? I'm not white. I certainly don't care. So either he does it and I get to benefit from some (more) free labour and tax dollars out of whitey or he doesn't and I'm right. Personally, I'd rather get free stuff than be right.

[Patrik]

We have already had many a precedent for this.

Communism.

As children in the former Eastern Bloc, my parents were forced to go to, er, 'voluntary' summer service camps in the name of national unity, spirit and service where the camp service leaders did their best to further indoctrinate them into Communism as they worked at realizing Commie 5-year production plans and such...

If you think that BHO's plan is somehow different, you are a fuckin' moron of the Nth-order

"So either he does it and I get to benefit from some (more) free labour and tax dollars out of whitey or he doesn't and I'm right. Personally, I'd rather get free stuff than be right."

Inside the mind of a NAM. Basically, "Gib me a dolla!"

[MikeCA]

So back when we had the military draft that was actually slavery?

I think someone needs to look up the definition of "slavery".