TheAgitator.com
Rahm Emanuel’s Universe
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Jim Lindgren reads from the manifesto of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s reported new chief of staff, and finds a man who wants, among other things, "universal college access," to cut gasoline use in half, and "universal retirement savings." But far more creepy is the centerpiece of what Emanuel simply calls "The Plan:" universal citizen service.
From Emanuel’s book:
John Kennedy was right: A nation is defined not by what it does for its citizens but by what it asks of them. If your leaders aren’t challenging you to do your part, they aren’t doing theirs. We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing for the first time an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft, nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of a natural disaster, an epidemic or a terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.
Obama’s service plan is just as troubling. He wants to mandate 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students. And he’s offering a $4,000 federal-funded tuition credit in exchange for 100 hours per year from college students. For most students, the latter will become a mandatory part of getting a degree, as colleges will merely raise their tuition to compensate for the vouchers.
So who gets to decide what constitutes "community service"? Who gets to decide which causes and organizations will be credit-worthy, and which ones won’t?
Something tells me that you’d be more likely to get one of Obama’s vouchers by going door to door for one of ACORN’s living wage campaigns than, say, volunteering for a libertarian nonprofit organization that advocates against things like government-mandated community service.
you got to love plans that focus on conditioning kids to an ideal. Works out great every time
Legislating morality has worked well in the past, why not legislate patriotism!
18-25!!!! Our first year MD residents will be 47 years old!
“Promote College Serve-Study: Obama and Biden will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.”
I read this as cutting out paying jobs and/or lowering wages for studants in order to bus them to non-paying community service. Isn’t that the exact opposite of creating more jobs for people?
Just re-read it. A mere 3 months between 18-25; now, I agree with the Dear Leader. :)
I thought this is what you wanted?
Hell, if I could work for 2 weeks and make $4000 to pay for college I would. It’s not like I ever made that much with a real job during my summer break. Seems like a pretty good way to get young people out there helping the community and also helps with college costs. Not sure why that is so bad…
He’s right. It’s slavery.
The legacy of a black President will be to bring back slavery
Blurm,
College costs will likely rise by $4k to compensate. There are only so many enrollment openings and if price can’t used as a discriminator, then queues will be.
It’s forced labor, i.e., slavery. Do you know why that is bad?
Not sure why that is so bad…
First of all, it gets young people out there doing jobs no one is actually willing to pay them to do. And it doesn’t help pay for college, because when everyone has to do it college costs will just balloon by approximately the same amount. (Just like with student loans…)
Seriously, why is this such a fad lately? How is “universal citizen service” not a draft—and not completely morally repugnant? To steal three months of people’s lives is indefensible to my mind, and yet somehow “patriotism” and “a cause bigger than oneself” make it all okay.
The only possible benefit of universal national service is if it was actual military terms with virtually no deferments. As a nation we would probably be less likely to rush into increasingly costly/foolish wars if it was not largely the poor fighting them.
Even then there is no justifiable reason for such an expansion of the military. If anything military spending could be cut 10% and democrats could get most of their current wish-list without driving the government perilously close to bankruptcy.
Blurm? Are you fooling around? Do you really not know why this is so bad? Price distortions? Misallocation of resources? Tuition rising to capture the government handout? Anything ring a bell? Shenanigans while lobbying to be put on the list of approved community service activity employers? A new federal agency to administer this whole mess? Then the aforementioned problems occur and the agency gets bigger to squash those problems creates a new set of unintended consequences? Nothing yet?
They want to ‘train’ youngsters to be citizens (with the ‘proper thoughts I’ll wager)? Universal college and I’m sure health are are in the mix.More lies about being ‘addicted’ to fossil fuels,which is like being addicted to food and more ‘pay their fair share’ even though the top earners pay most of the taxes.Tell me again why this guy’s election was such a great moment?
“The only possible benefit of universal national service is if it was actual military terms with virtually no deferments. As a nation we would probably be less likely to rush into increasingly costly/foolish wars if it was not largely the poor fighting them.”
The last time I looked at the data (several years ago), the majority of people in combat arms occupational specialties were not the poor, but comfortably middle class or higher. If you join the military as a “way out,” you don’t go into combat arms because there is no useful skill training to be had there. Sorry to rain on your Marxist parade.
If you have more recent data, I’d love to see it.
“majority of people in combat arms occupational specialties were not the poor, but comfortably middle class or higher.”
The surveys I’ve seen making that claim show that the individual service members come from *areas* with middle class average incomes, but few (if any) of the surveys capture the actual family income of the service members. Since even in fairly well-to-do zip codes there can be a high income variability, and that hasn’t been addressed, the surveys are probably flawed.
From an anecdotal standpoint, in my service I met very few members who classified themselves as either solidly middle class or higher. The vast majority considered themselves lower middle class or lower before enlisting. True, that is anecdotal, but it makes me just as skeptical of the surveys you cite as any methodological concerns could.
Oh my you are soooo right! F*ck everyone I’m heading for the hills get me my gun! I AM JOHN GALT!
So doing something to help society possibly is slavery? Wow. I’ll be sure to never donate my time to anything so that I avoid the Gulags. It’s good to see that the primary driving force behind these arguments is greed. I feel like I’m reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ again. I like to think that this country can do better than that.
Or working for a church-affiliated charity, especially one related to counseling for women considering abortions or who need help in order to avoid one.
Blurm,
No, being forced to provide labor under penalty is slavery. The benefit to society (which is questionable at best) is irrelevant to whether or not an action is slavery.
Strawman? You are free to donate your time in any way you see fit. By definition, forced community service is not volunteer work.
Where was greed even mentioned?
There’s no such thing as a country. It’s just a conceptual name for a grouping of people. We’re all individuals, here.
The one positive aspect of an Obama administration is the possibility that conservatives will rediscover the ability to say, “No, I won’t. What are you going to do about it?”
I’m not holding my breath, though.
while it is a nice sentiment, not everybody is capable of getting a college degree. some people just are not interested or don’t have the intellectual capacity. all this plan will do is overcrowd colleges and reduce the quality of college education in america. soon after they will implement a ‘no college student left behind’ act that will cause colleges to lower their standards and give people degrees who don’t deserve them and shouldn’t have them. you gotta love obama’s new age socialism!
“Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.”
Hitler had the same idea. And so did a lot of neo-cons. If this is what our first black president is advocating, you’ll have to excuse me for NOT feeling proud to be an American. I haven’t felt that pride in a while anyway, so its same as usual.
Blurm,
I’m not greedy, I just want to be unconditionally free. Mandatory anything is the antithesis to freedom. Keep your values out of my life.
Blurm, let me see if I can help you.
Being forced to do something to “help society” is morally repugnant, not because you might be helping society (always a question), but because you are being forced to do it.
Choosing to do something that you believe will help society is not something any libertarian would object to, since you are doing it by your free choice.
Free choice != force.
That’s the difference. If you think believing that difference is significant is “greed,” then you are, to put it kindly, a raving lunatic.
Gee, 2 days later and “Obama is a socialist” doesn’t sound like such a ’smear’ anymore, does it?
See you all in the mountains with the Freemen then kiddos! I’ll be here helping out when you come back.
If I don’t stop reading about Obama’s “plan” my head is going to explode. I hope his presidency is a massive failure, for America’s sake.
See you all in the mountains with the Freemen then kiddos! I’ll be here helping out when you come back.
I’m not going anywhere, Mister “love it or leave it”.
Blurm,
It’s sad to see you run from those who point out your cognitive dissonance. You ought to stick around and debate with us.
Radley, I really want to know your fark login. Cause this is going green from reason. Should be a wicked fun thread.
Service guarantees citizenship!
Would you like to know more?
Radley, I think you said earlier that you expected to be disappointed from the first day Obama takes office. It seems your expectations were a little high (or is that low)?
next thing we know Bill Ayers will be made Secretary of Education. Maybe we can call him an indoctrination czar.
And people think I’m crazy when I say “stock up on ammo”.
What? Love it or leave it? This is a joke, right? Listen, all I’m saying that that offering people a financial incentive to assist in paying for college by performing community service isn’t a terrible plan. When the guns come out and we’re all marched into the square for our civic duty time, then yes, that is bad. Considering this is all hypothetical to begin with, I think you are all going a tad over the top. Hell, if you don’t want the $4000, don’t sign up for it and get your own summer job doing whatever you want. Free country still folks. Considering the dude hasn’t even been sworn in, let’s maybe actually see what he does first. The thing that I’ve seen most during the last 2 years is that Obama actually listens to different ideas and thinks about the possible options before making any decisions and so far he’s done pretty well with that process. Who knows what will happen in the next 4 years but I think he’s smart and steady enough to not make things as terrible as you are immediately expecting them to be.
I do want the $4000, namely, I want to keep it rather than having it given to someone else to subsidize their malinvestment. Your point boils down to “if you don’t want other peoples money, don’t rent seek.” We are the other people.
Personally, I think Rahm Emanuel is an awful choice.
Most high schools already require a bunch of community service to graduate, although I am not in favor of making that federal law. That being said, I am not opposed to this 4000 a year voucher for community service, and there’s no reason to think colleges will raise the price of tuition to compensate. No one will being forced to do community service. They can get a job, do work study, get a grant, loan or scholarship.
Many federal agencies already offer full or partial scholarships in exchange for a couple of years after you graduate, as does the military.
And something tells me working for a think-tank falls under no definition of community service (even if you do good work there)
I wish I was amazed by the narrow mindedness of some of the people who visit this blog. This is the same narrow thought pattern that defeated conservatives and will continue to hold you back as a political bloc.
Would you rather those who take out of the system not put anything back in? I guess we live in an age where anything approaching common sense will be framed in a socialist light. Good luck with your inability to see anything from a viewpoint other than your own.
Edin,
You’re making the same mistake that was just pointed out. It’s not about not wanting to give something back, I’m sure many libertarians are happy volunteers for many causes. This is solely, only and just about using guns to make people do labor they wouldn’t choose to do otherwise. Making it about something else may make you feel more justified in your arrogance, but doesn’t relate to the arguments at hand in any material way.
Damn! Looks like the Kool-aid is starting to wear off. Shame it is too late. Look on the bright side, we still haven’t seen Obama’s birth certificate yet. Funny all of these people calling him “Our first immigrant President”, isn’t it?
My daughter has been excused from performing her “community service” school requirement as I have already written and received confirmation that it was not mandatory and that parents could opt out it they objected.
How is that symbolic nature of electing the first black man working for you now Radley? Too bad we got the wrong black man.
(And if anyone is wondering who would have been the right choice how about Walter Williams?)
This is solely, only and just about using guns to make people do labor they wouldn’t choose to do otherwise.
guns? What guns? Where is anything about SWAT teams kicking in your door for failing to serve?
I mean, seriously, where the hell do you get “guns” from?
I would rather that there was no system to begin with. The idea of a Social Contruct is a despicable idea put forth by statist/authoritarians. You cannot have a contract where one side has a loaded gun and is willing to use it and the other side is unarmed. Emanuel understands this which is why he wants to expand the power of the government under the false patina of some sort of mutually beneficial exchange. Go ahead and run to your masters with your leash in your mouth, I’m sure they’ll throw you a biscuit for being such a good little doggie.
Is this really much different than ROTC, and did that cause tuition to increase for those subsidies? Do all of you who think this is a terrible idea think that ROTC should be abolished as well?
I’m surprised no one has pointed out the most glaring hole in Emanuel’s thoughtless, feel-good “plan:” Individual Americans are already better at reacting to natural disasters, attacks, and epidemics than the government. We’ve proven, throughout our history, that the best thing government can do is not get in the way, as government responses have proven to be slow, heavy-handed, clumsy and exorbitantly expensive.
“guns? What guns? Where is anything about SWAT teams kicking in your door for failing to serve?
I mean, seriously, where the hell do you get “guns” from?”
The government has proven, for years, that it has no qualms about enforcing its decisions at gunpoint. Income Taxes, gold confiscation, suspension of the second amendment in New Orleans, drug laws; What makes you think they would be any less enthusiastic about enforcing this new regulation?
Okay, cute act being deliberately obtuse. But I’ll explain it to you. If you don’t do what the State wants you to do, they will use its coercive power to either make you do it or punish you. That is what is means when someong mentions “guns” in this thread. The State has the means to compell people to do what they otherwise would not do. That is the antithesis of freedom.
ROTC was mandantory? Or don’t you know what universal means? Universal means that everyone will do it. Since it is the government talking about this it isn’t simply that they will do it, but that they will be compelled to do it. Forced to do it.
libarbarian,
The guns come into play when you fail to pay your taxes. You get love-mail from the IRS, eventually a court date, and finally, an arrest warrant. If you resist your own kidnapping, you’ll be killed.
If something like a universal community service requirement were to pass, the penalty would likely be civil rather than criminal and so then you have fines to pay. If you refuse to pay them, etc…
There’s no physical gun in step one, but its eventual use is implied.
No, it’s not different. Yes, ROTC probably did cause tuition to increase. Yes, I’d be fine with getting rid of ROTC.
It is so easy to sit back and spout off about how it would be a good thing to get people involved community service and making society better and so on and so forth. While the world would be a better place if more people were willing to volunteer their time to help their fellow man, it would not be a better place if the people were FORCED to ‘volunteer’ their time for their fellow man. I can think of nothing that would generate more resentment of your fellow man than to be dictated to about how you are going to serve him.
And don’t think that if something like this mandatory service is instituted that the approved types of volunteer work won’t be an ongoing political brawl. You think it will all be blankets for the homeless and canned food drives? Balogna!
What about when the conservatives come back to power and those hours you were going to volunteer at a planned parenthood type of community service no longer qualify towards your ’service’ but going to Pro-Life rallies does? You don’t think that once the government is allowed to force community service on the people that they won’t make sure that service supports the agenda of the current party in power? You think you will get to choose how you will serve your community? Your list of choices will be very narrow.
A back-door draft, plain and simple. Here is where we witness Obama and the authoritarian left’s socialist inclinations, for the implied message is: your life is not yours, you are property of the state and we will do with your life as we please.
While I have never voted for the republicans (or the democrats for that matter), the irony here is this plan is being put forth by people who labeled Dubya and Cheney as fascist. How many here know what the symbol for fascism was under Mussolini or what is meant? well, we see it here in spades with this idea.
If the college students are getting something worth $4000 for “volunteering”, I hardly think it can be called “volunteering”. Getting paid to do something is a job. This type of proposal basically allows it to pay college students to do work for “charitable” organizations. There would be restrictions, of course. Certainly it would be a violation of the Establishment Clause for the government to pay, in essence, someone to work for a religious organization. And once the government starts making rules about which organizations qualify versus which organizations don’t, the potential for abuse arises (which means that sooner or later, more likely sooner, abuses WILL occur).
Furthermore, since this would be tax money, WTF can’t _I_ decide which charities I want to get my (please-don’t-take-even-more-tax) money and then the charity can hire whoever it wants to do the jobs that need to be done. Government involvement not necessary.
This is just a way to continue conditioning young adults to follow orders and to load them up with propaganda.
In the ’30s-40’s young German males also went through the same type of thing before being shipped off to military training centers. They did every thing from plowing or harvesting fields to painting fences, working on roads, cleaning up parks and so on.
It was all to generate or solidify the idea of a “socialist brotherhood”. It also got them used to working in units and following orders. So by the time they got to jackboot camp there was no way for them to conceive of another way of doing things. The individuality had been washed right out of them.
Collectivists like to collect people. Into armies, work camps, labor batallions, mass graves…..whatever.
Oh my GOD. So now we’re jumping from Obama saying that maybe we’ll do something like offer a $4000 tuition credit if you do 100 hours of community service to rounding everyone up into Nazi re-education camps. Ok folks this is where I get off the train. Look, I’m not expecting the Obama presidency to be a big rainbow colored orgasm of unicorns, nor do I expect to beforced into mandatory work gangs for the Great Glory of Liberty. C’mon folks, lets keep this realistic. Are there potential issues that could arise, yes. I’d like to see plans for what is being considered before I would want to agree/disagree with it. But to immediately jump on the crazy train and expect anything that comes up to be some ridiculous redistribution scheme and inevitable grind into forced labor is ridiculous. Hell all I was thinking is of the community service I did for nothing in college. Picking up trash along the highway. Fixing up parks. Is that non-partisan enough?
The is a difference between an administrative requirement and a crime or even civil violation.
Being denied a diploma is not force and not “coercion”. Do the police arrest you for failing to pass enough classes to graduate? No. You simply dont get the diploma. No fine. No jail. No coercion.
Let me know when there is any evidence that non-compliance will be classified as either a civil or criminal violation.
Right now, it looks like the only penalty will be the same for failing a required course – denial of a diploma or repeating a grade. I see no evidence for fearing anything else as of yet. Chill the hell out already.
Look, I’m not expecting the Obama presidency to be a big rainbow colored orgasm of unicorns
Good because I patented that and it will cost Obama an arm and a leg to get the rights away from me.
I mean, the chicks totally dig it.
lol. the ladies love your winged steed, even if it is a bit sticky
If you think people equating universal volunteerism with the Hitler Youth is crazy, then respond to the non-crazy comments. For instance: pushing $4k in federal money per volunteer into schools will raise the price of tuition for everyone. Do you think that’s a good idea?
I find it telling that people that would not want their children forced to say the pledge or pray in school[and I'm with them there]have no problem with forced community service. Charity comes from the heart , not the government.
as opposed to pushing it into the drug war? as opposed to putting it into the cost of so many other things that I don’t agree with that we have to pay for? Hell yes I think it is. I’d rather it go to assisting people to pay for college and hopefully increase the number of educated people in this country. Do you have a written affidavit from every school in the country saying that it will immediately raise tuition by $4000 if this goes through? Do you think that would be a real positive image for a college? That’s a great way to recruit students! “Come to Hofstra, We want more Government Payouts!”
I think we are seeing a phenomena closely related to “Argument Ad Labelum”.
People who have already labeled Obama a “socialist” are projecting concepts they associate with that label onto things Obama says and does:
Obama makes some vague talk about “universal service” + Obama is labeled a “Socialist” = Obama must be talking about some old-style socialist re-education program like those seen in the USSR and Nazi Germany.
Of course, in the REAL English language we use lots of terms metaphorically and “universal” does NOT always actually mean its literal meaning. I mean, this is the same Obama who used the term “universal coverage” to describe a plan that let people opt-out – making it hardly “universal” in a literal sense – so we KNOW that he does not necessarily mean it literally.
Yes. Thank you libarbarian.
This argument about money going to something you don’t like is a red herring.First the government’s broke and second,to spend because you hate other programs is not being honest.The federal government has no business running education in any form.That’s why I have such a hard time listening to liberals.They love to use tax money for feel good and good for you measures that are no more the government’s duty then drugs,gambling or farm policy.
Seriously,
A guy who doesn’t want to use force to compel participation in a National healthcare service wants to send kids to jail if they don’t do community service?
I suppose it’s theoretically possible, but so is the idea that Alien helps build the Pyramids.
I strongly suspect that, regardless of what the politicos do, Peak Oil will guarantee we wind up with gasoline use halved in 20 or 30 years.
In any case, the statism Emanuel proposes can’t be any greater in scale than the statism that’s promoted the car culture and suburban monoculture over the past seventy years or so. So it’s pretty hard for me to get very outraged, as if it were somehow the *introduction* of statism. It’s just countervailing statism.
Ditto for Obama’s welfare statism. I’d prefer not to have welfare statism at all. But if we’re going to have essentially the same level of welfare statism in either case, as we almost certainly are, I’m not exactly crying on my pillow about some of the welfare going to poor people for a change instead of just big business.
That’s why I’m skeptical of the kind of “free market” libertarianism promoted by people like Jeff Flake. For them, corporate welfare is kinda sorta bad, maybe, I guess, and we ought to at least tip our hats to getting around to doing something about it, maybe, one of these days, after everything else is fixed first. But welfare for the *poor*–why, dear God, that’s flaming red ruin on wheels!
No, but I also don’t have a written affidavit that gas stations will raise prices during a natural disaster. Yet they do.
I am waiting for the great collective pot farm that Obama will be opening to employ the masses and keep the people dulled for the coming revolution. That’s a five year plan I can get behind!
and when the prices go up, I shop around. If i looked and my son wanted to go to a school and because of this they jacked up their cost by $g’s, I would say no, don’t go there, go to this fine school that did not decide to screw us all. See, the free market at work!
Blurm,
It’s not about the NAZI’s specifically. It’s about this itch that collectivists, in general, have to order people about, and to try to change them. And when it fails, as it will, the punishments increase to the point people are being shot in the back of the head for being a Kulak, wrecker, middle peasant, etc.
Give people coercive power over others and bad things result, always.
Government of any kind and at any level cannot be trusted…ever.
“This is not a draft, nor is it military.”
So I can refuse, right?
I mean, without taking a bullet in the head, right?
If you give people money to help them buy something, they’ll buy more of it, driving up the price. Pumping government money into higher education makes it less affordable. It causes a market distortion, and you’re not going to allay it by “shopping around,” because there will be thousands of people just like you (some armed with an extra 4 grand) trying to find the best deal.
Wow. And to think I just wanted to help make my town a little nicer and maybe earn some credit toward my tuition costs, when in reality I am trying to bring about a *ism overthrow and break out my jackboots to take everyone else’s money for redistribution and then kill anyone who complains. I gotcha. I really need to keep myself in check. Thanks!
You know what they say about the road to Hell…
Unintended consequences are a bitch. Read the Road to Serfdom (here is the picture version), the first steps are always taken with the best of intentions.
Blurm, what part of “mandate 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students” do you not fucking understand? You’re trying to over-simplify the issue by acting as if this is ONLY about voluntary commmunity service for those in college who want the $4000. This is also about mandatory community service for everyone within a certain age group, whether they like it or not. Tell me, what do you think is going to happen if a person refuses the mandatory work?
” But if we’re going to have essentially the same level of welfare statism in either case, as we almost certainly are, I’m not exactly crying on my pillow about some of the welfare going to poor people for a change instead of just big business.
That’s why I’m skeptical of the kind of “free market” libertarianism promoted by people like Jeff Flake. For them, corporate welfare is kinda sorta bad, maybe, I guess, and we ought to at least tip our hats to getting around to doing something about it, maybe, one of these days, after everything else is fixed first. But welfare for the *poor*–why, dear God, that’s flaming red ruin on wheels!”
Please tell me why it is morally okay to take money from the middle class and give to those who are only qualified as ‘poor’ because they are by and large too fucking lazy to find a job and would rather live off of the backs of the rest of the country. (I am excluding people who have legitimate physical disabilities and are on welfare for this reason from this description, obviously.) If the government is going to decide that playing Robin Hood is the honorable thing to do, why not set up a social program that gives supplementary welfare to the working poor instead of a group of people who are by and large leeches?
A lot of people need to re-read the Road to Serfdom because it manifestly does NOT assert the kind of simplistic slippery-slope strawman that it looks like you are deploying.
Hayek explicitly dismissed this kind of pedestrian attempt to label all government-run social programs as the first-steps to inevitable totalitarianism.
dammit. It’s just like how the past 8 years have lead us into a fascist dictatorship right after we cleaned up all the re-education gulags from the Clinton years.
This was like reading “Atlas Shrugged.” Lets take an idea and take it to a wildly unrealistic end and then I’ll explain how the hero is good and right and the unrealistic consequences that I fear are possible, even if there is no way in hell they could happen.
Look, can you get past the people that are insisting this MUST lead to some kind of socialist revolution and address the most important thing, here? We have his fucking statement saying that there will be mandatory, free-of-charge community service for kids in middle school, up through high school. We have a statement from his chief of staff saying that all Americans between the ages of 18-25 should be forced to commit three months of free-of-charge community service.
Do you NOT see that there is something wrong with this by itself? Must it lead to further problems to be wrong in itself to force people to work for free, whether they want to or not, when they have not done so much as commit a crime that needs to be atoned for? Whether they will be fined rather than thrown in jail for refusing (or thrown in jail for refusing to pay the fine) is irrelevant to this. It is wrong in itself.
why are people who elected Obama so offended when he’s called a ’socialist’? did I miss where he changed policies?
Hey, at least the New master of the plantation is black, right? Doesn’t that give you warm fuzzies?
I assume I am “a lot of people” as I am the only one who mentioned The Road to Serfdom. I have said two things in this thread. First, I pointed out that merely not taking $4000 wouldn’t eliminate the problem, as the $4000 came from somewhere. Second, I suggested Blurm’s hyperbole may not be as far fetched as he thought. As evidence, I suggested Hayek as an example of how the best intentions of planners *can* lead to undesirable outcomes. Not sure what “simplistic slippery-slope strawman” you saw me employ. Hayek did dismiss attempts “to label ALL government-run social programs as the first-steps to inevitable totalitarianism”; I’m not sure this would put him on the pro side of the mandatory community service debate.
Thanks in advance for being direct and addressing my points when you next accuse me of employing simplistic or pedestrian reasoning. Better yet, take three breaths, actually read peoples posts, then respond.
That Blurm was deploying, and that Christian and I were responding to.
But it is still a form of punishment considering that getting into college is not as easy without a diploma as compared to having one.
It is not the same. Going to school and getting an education betters myself and improves my income earning potential. This universal service does neither of those two things. In fact, mandating that I do something basically takes my time away from me and gives it to someone else in terms of added services or commodities that they get to consume. It is basically another form of tax. Failing a class is not a tax, no matter how you try to rationalize it.
Welcome to the collective.
Christian,
I assume I am “a lot of people” as I am the only one who mentioned The Road to Serfdom
Yes, I was responding to you, but your not the first person to have triggered my “I think you need to re-read the guy you are citing” reaction about Hayek.
On the whole, I find Hayek and Clauswitz to be two authors who are oft quoted by people who, in my opinion, really don’t understand them but want an authoritative sound-bite.
Second, I suggested Blurm’s hyperbole may not be as far fetched as he thought. As evidence, I suggested Hayek as an example of how the best intentions of planners *can* lead to undesirable outcomes
1) If all you wanted to do was make a generic point about good intentions leading to bad results, you could have done so in many ways … its not exactly a controversial position.
Since you chose to cite Hayek and point to the internet comic, I thought you were saying something more specific and actually related to the kind of process discussed in RTS.
2) My point is that this “evidence” isn’t evidence at all because the subject under discussion is significantly different, in important ways, from the kinds of programs and ideas that Hayek discussed in RTS.
Thanks in advance for being direct and addressing my points when you next accuse me of employing simplistic or pedestrian reasoning. Better yet, take three breaths, actually read peoples posts, then respond.
If YOU re-read my post I said “looks like you are deploying” which implies that I understood that those looks might be deceiving.
Still, If you are going to express yourself in 2 simple sentences don’t be upset when someone doesn’t assume that you really were trying to say something more subtle.
Hitler had his youth retraining camps to turn them in to good little Nazi’s
wow. you people have all read a lot of books.
lets just keep it simple. JFK said “ask what you can do for you country …”
some how Emanuel translated that into “do what your country (govt) tells you to do …”
big difference. one is noble. the other is fascist.
[...] Radley mentioning the “national service” garbage that Obama & his future Chief of Staff reminds me of how during his campaign so much of the organization was decentralized & volunteer-based. Since I have an unfortunate habit of reading blogs and then clicking through to another one through their links and another one and another ad nauseum, at times it seemed like, despite there being roughly only 6 billion people on the face of the earth, there were 7 billion liberal blogger members of the Army of Hope. That kind of massive networking for a goal, and it’s repaid by effectively branding them — and, of course, the rest of us — lazy slackers who need a government gun to our heads in order to amount to anything? [...]
Hrm. I’d have traded 3 months of stupid “volunteer” work for a tax vacation from 18 – 25…
Oh, damn. This is on top of all the “free work” I do for the government’s benefit, isn’t it?
this is frigging ridiculous. the newly named chief of staff to the just 2 days ago elected president wrote an book 2 years ago with a list of things he hoped for, and now I’m the one with strawman arguments when you see this as a slippery slope to whatever terrible future you see running through your mind? What an effing joke.
#1 If it was that easy to do, the slope would have effing slipped a few decades ago and yet magically we’ve made it this long.
For some crazy reason, as flawed as it is in many ways, the constitution is also a really clever document that keeps pushing us forward.
I happen to feel that something like the idea of optional community service in order to receive tuition credits is not a terrible thing, and that maybe giving back to the community in a way that can help a kid go to college could help people. I do not see that as a possible precurser to mandatory service to dear leader at gunpoint. The reason I don’t see that happening is because even I, the crazy loon who can’t clearly see that doing this is a terrible thing, will see when it is going too far, and we as a nation with that kooky constitution, have the ability too every few years make pretty significant changes to the makeup of our government and the policies it will take. If it doesn’t and we’ve all been swept away by this slippery slope, I’ll be right next to you-all in the mountains with my guns and we’ll al be Wolverines taking on the Empire and all that and such.
Basically I have confidence that our country, while slightly stupid, is not completely suicidal and we’ll all be okay if we just suck ity up a little and see what really happens instead of immediately freaking out about the black helicopters and such.
WOLVERINES!
another issue I have with this voluntary labor is that we’re taking away from legitimate businesses, the same way these city rec plexes take business away from private gymnasiums. I’m not sure what kind of services they’re mandating, but if people are going into neighborhoods and painting houses and doing repairs on houses, that takes away potential jobs from real businesses.
real businesses shouldn’t have to compete against free labor, yet the govt is doing this with prisons and, soon, with this youth corp.
I’m really not seeing how forcing people to do chores for other people is part of the answer to curing our societal ills. We should be encouraging free will and innovation, not submission.
I thought “community service” was something prisoners did. I sit corrected.
blurm- you nailed it ‘this is ridiculous’.
you cite the constitution’s (the vastly weakened document that’s supposed to restrict the government) ability to protect us, but then you want to increase the federal government’s power.
you think government programs are easy to change if we don’t like them.
you ridicule people pointing out what the new chief of staff’s values are, the values he outlined in a recent book.
there’s already optional programs in place to help students with tuition- why create a huge bureaucracy? are there really that many students with no better options? just because you ‘like the option’ doesn’t mean others should be forced to support it.
instead of telling me to ’suck it up a little and see what really happens’, you could show me examples where something like this has worked before. History has repeatedly shown socialsim to be a failed idea.
[...] Hey Republicans, Want My Vote Back? Stand up to Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel’s assault on the 13th Amendment. [...]
Blurm, why do you continue to ignore the fact that Obama stated that he wants essentially the same thing in his plan, and that it will be mandatory?
Straight from his website: “Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year…”
Tell me, what does the word ‘all’ mean to you….?
Why does our morality stop at the border? How do Obama supporters say we “have to provide health coverage for everyone in America” without extending that morality to the kid three feet over the border in Mexico. Make no mistake, the premise is that there is a moral obligation to help the needy–as stated by numerous Democrats over the past decade that I’ve been asking them. If you believe that, you cannot stop at the border–without being a hypocrit.
At least Noam Chomsky fully admits that logically you cannot stop at your border and American wealth should be redistributed globally to better all of humanity. So, “I only help American kids” is darn right stupid.
Now, I of course disagree with both Obama and Chomsky.
Why does our morality stop at the border? How do Obama supporters say we “have to provide health coverage for everyone in America” without extending that morality to the kid three feet over the border in Mexico.
Why do you help friends and family in cases where you would not help strangers? Its easy.
Americans are my tribe. Mexicans and French aren’t.
If we’re going to apply arbitrary definitions like this ‘my tribe’ idea, we aren’t going to get anywhere and it will get ugly fast. Let’s say that I think ‘my tribe’ are the working poor and I am willing to pay taxes to support social programs aimed at supplementing their income (or allowing them access to food stamps) and refuse to support those who are on welfare instead. I will still be thrown in jail if I refuse to pay the portion of my taxes that go to those on welfare. So, how do we go about determining who ‘our tribe’ is and how do we implement it in legal terms? Does each person pay a set level of taxes based on whether a certain sector of the population of the US, neighboring countries, or the world is their tribe and choose between them voluntarily? Does whoever is currently president determine who the tribe is and who our money goes to whether it’s against our will or not?
Please try to come up with something workable based off of this tribe idea. If you could do that, the debate would be more interesting.
Hold it…….if we wanted people from the old Clinton Administration, wouldn’t the Dems have nominated Billary?
Somehow, I don’t think that was the change that people thought they were voting for………
If it is this easy to destroy America, why hasn’t it happened before?
Tribe argument doesn’t hold up. But, it is somewhat the argument most Americans I’ve talked to on this subject put forth. Except they don’t say “tribe”, they say “country”. And then their morality doesn’t sound so well-thoughout–even to them. THAT is easy.
Maybe it will help you understand if I explain that I help my family and friends often, but would resist being forced to help them by the government.
My tribe is the human race. When Kang and Kodos come, this will all be made clear.
I for one welcome our new Alien overlords.
Please try to come up with something workable based off of this tribe idea. If you could do that, the debate would be more interesting.
Look, I appreciate your response to my quip (and it was a quip, not a thesis or reasoned argument), but people have spent the last 10,000+ years differentiating between their tribes and other tribes without necessarily formulating logical or coherent theories about how to do so. Usually it was kinship, but it was almost never any immutable standard or written in stone – almost every society had way where a kin could be cast out of the tribe and a stranger could be adopted into it.
Ultimately I think it will always involve some degree of arbitrariness.
My tribe is the human race
There is no way to care “equally” for 6 billion people except in the most abstract sense where is largely becomes meaningless. When it comes practice, there will always be those you feel more closeness and connection to.
If I had a steak, I’d share with a starving African before a moderately-hungry American, but I’d probably help a starving American before a starving African. I’m not going to pretend that there is some objective moral standard behind this .. its very subjective.
I would hope that you make both of those starving kids clean up your yard at gunpoint before feeding them.
I know some of the details might be new, but he’s been mentioning service and volunteerism for a while now, so why is this only noteworthy now that the deal is done?
And, more generally, how is that Obama advocacy working out for you? He was your lesser of two evils, and the Congressional outcome was roughly predictible, so you’ve got to be happy with a one-party White House and Congress, right?
saladman, It’s been discussed before, but now it’s picking up momentum, probably because it’s a major part of Obama’s goals. A strong republican congress would probably restrict and challenge Obama enough that he’d become a fantastic president.
Blurm, It’s clear you’re a snarky douchebag. While I disagree with libarbarian, she’s intelligent and civil. This isn’t the start of the ’slippery slope’- we’ve been on the slope for quite some time. Empires implode- we’re still in the Phillipines over a hundred years after that war. These military abuses are perilous. Our kids are being randomly searched (many times by dogs), drug tested, have their freedoms of speech limited, and now, they’re going to be forced into serving this monstrosity of a govt. The drug war has eroded the 4th amendment to the point of never being relevent again. The fundamentalists and do-gooders in this country are turning this into a fascist nation. Hell, Mussolini used Woodrow Wilson as his template for fascism.
More govt programs and laws equal less freedoms. Now that they’re coming after our kids instead of just demanding our money and restricting our freedoms, I think people are waking up.
Hey, Blurm, stop spouting off stupid parodies of arguments your opponents aren’t making and justify your positions. Please tell me why it’s a good idea to force people to do labor and, at the same time, make college cost more. Yeah, yeah, I know… it’s just cleaning up parks and giving college kids a break. But the first is immoral… if you want clean parks, do it yourself, or hire someone to clean them, and the second doesn’t make any sense. You’re only going to make college cost more, and make it cost more for those who can least afford it: those who already have jobs to pay for food and don’t have time to volunteer.
No, I don’t think universal service programs are going to cause the end of civilization. Just because something doesn’t lead directly to fascism doesn’t make it a good idea, however. So defend your immoral and stupid universal service programs for what they are, not what you believe your opponents think they will be.
Librarian — Fair enough. All I’m saying is that we need something more than an arbitrary line drawn in the sand if we’re going to legislate based on the idea of one’s tribe, and we need a way to figure out how to do it that doesn’t cause serious problems – or avoid doing it. I’m not so strict about being arbitrary about personal decisions. :)
I happen to feel that something like the idea of optional community service in order to receive tuition credits is not a terrible thing
Blurm,
Did you miss the part where the service is mandatory?
I’ll say it again.
It is not optional.
It is mandatory.
MANDATORY.
M
A
N
D
A
T
O
R
Y
As in NOT OPTIONAL, but MANDATORY.
Do you get it? We are not objecting to the possibility of an opt-in program, we are objecting to the FACT that it is NOT OPT-IN.
If you use the phrase “optional/opt-in volunteer program” to describe Obama’s plan to quote “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” again, we will know that you are in fact a troll. So prove to us that you aren’t or stay away.
BTW: “developing a plan to REQUIRE” — source: http://change.gov/americaserves/ That’s the site of the President-Elect, AKA Obama.
For the record I don’t think anything like this will go through without some serious limitations. But the fact that it has a strong chance of going through, especially considering how much power the govt. has already taken from its citizens, indicates that we have been on the slippery slope for a long time–and it’s only getting slicker.
Yet another case in which the Founders got it right the first time. The only Constitutional “community service” is militia drill.
You show up once a month, with boots, rucksack, and rifle, or you don’t get to vote.
See, wasn’t that easy?
P.s. Which reminds me Radley, do you even own a “voting” (.30 cal. or greater) rifle?
I’m exempt from the requirement, being older than 45. I do keep handy defensive weapons by the bedside.
It’s good to see people read what they think and not what is written. You are so superior I cannot compete with your power. I feel awed by your impressiveness. Enjoy the destruction that is now at hand with Dear Leader in command. I will enjoy watching the streets eun red with the blood of the libertarians. Suck my balls.