TheAgitator.com
Frightening
Monday, November 10th, 2008Some of the comments in this Reddit thread on mandatory civil service.
They don’t seem to have contemplated the fact that should this be implemented, the same structure, rules, and bureaucracy will be in place when Obama leaves office. Whenever you’re ready to hand your party a new power, or cheerlead a new program your candidate is suggesting, take some time to think about how that new power or program might be used when your political opponents are in charge of it.
Hah ! That’s *exactly* the argument I’ve used in the past with my father when he disregarded my distaste for Bush & Cheney’s pushes for power – “How are you gonna feel when Hillary Clinton has this at her disposal?”.
The intelligent response is to limit all those government powers across, the board – then WHAMMO, you’re a Libertarian subscriber to Reason.
That is the typical Redditers response. Reddit seems to be filled with people in college. Digg seems to be filled with people in high school or people that never graduated from high school. Fark seems to be the place where people eventually go to after graduating from reddit and digg. The “arguments” are usually a bit more thought out and less idealistic.
I think everyone’s a Libertarian when it’s not their guy in office.
They’re typical, young Obama supporters. The man could be proposing to end our dependency on foreign oil through a process that converts everyone’s pets into biodiesel and they’d still give him the benefit of the doubt.
Ja, ja, ja…….Obama’s repackaged Clinton cronies vill have vays of making you verk………
One thing I am fond of saying to my lefty friends, especially after Bush II : “Be careful the big government you wish for, it just might get you.”
I get your point, Radley, but it’s sad enough that they think this is a good idea regardless of whom is in the office of presidency.
Yeah I dunno–I find the idea pretty dumb too (and I voted for Obama) but it’s hard for to work up much opposition to it. I had to do lots of stupid shit in high school–community service would have just been one more item in a long, long list.
As a university prof with 25 yrs on the job, it is my opinion that the vast majority of people on the planet are uncapable of thinking beyond the end of their nose. In his Letters from Earth, Samuel Clemens stated that not 1 in 5000 use their brains. Samuel Clemens was an optimist.
All american high school students should be required to go to some godforsaken impoverished third-world hellpit for at least 3 months to dig toilet holes. They should be required to live where the natives live, eat what the natives eat and wear what the natives wear. For at least 3 months. Digging toilet pits.
The next generation of Americans might then not be so world myopic and possession oriented.
Somebody may have been reading Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, but completely missed the point. As someone who read that book way back in my early teens, and took the lesson to heart enough to join a Civil Air Patrol search and rescue squadron and later the Army in the 1980’s, I find the idea of forced social ’service’ abhorrent and highly objectionable. Didn’t we fight the Cold War to prevent that kind of communistic BS from happening here?
Involuntary servitude is involuntary servitude, a.k.a. effing slavery, no matter how much perfume and paint you spray it with. And as quaint as it may sound, isn’t there an Amendment, (oh, say, the 13th?) that speaks to that issue?
You first, Ted.
“They don’t seem to have contemplated the fact that should this be implemented, the same structure, rules, and bureaucracy will be in place when Obama leaves office.”
How about being against it because it’s wrong?
Nemo, re the 13th Amendment, it did not outlaw slavery, it nationalized it.
“You first, Ted.”
Hey, all done, many years ago. My kids too. Now you?
But seriously, I was just kidding. I’d much rather the US grow yet another generation of self-absorbed myspacers. Who cares about the rest of the world? USA! USA!
Ted, I doubt anyone here likes selfish myspacers. However, we acknowledge the fact that it’s not the federal government’s job to see to it that kids grow up to be humble, worldly individuals. Nor should it be.
Instead of making my kids dig toilet holes, I’m trying to impress upon them some of the things I was made to do in high school — making them read and discuss Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, etc. Plus several other good books like Brave New World, etc. Then encouraging them to get a part time job. I kind of doubt that all the “join hands and sing Kumbayah” shit is ever going to replace learning to question authority and developing a strong work ethic as means for saving our sorry asses.
I kind of doubt that all the “join hands and sing Kumbayah” shit is ever going to replace learning to question authority and developing a strong work ethic as means for saving our sorry asses.
Hey, I said “dig toilet holes” not “sing Kumbaya”. And Wayne, what you are doing is fine, great even, but i would also suggest, if you want to raise “humble, worldly children”, that you take your kids to some third-world hell pit to see how the other half live. And why shouldn’t those without such wonderful parents as yourself have the same opportunity? Consider digging toilet pits in third world countries part of a solid american education.
Chris- see this is what i don’t get about the whole libertarian thing. Where do you draw the line? Do you not believe in public education? It’s not in our benefit to have an educated populace? Is investing in education on a national scale not a good thing?
Or all education should be private, no government funding, because education isn’t mentioned in the Constitution?
Income taxes are okay, right? They are in the Constitution.