Obama Calls For Mandatory Government Service
“Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it.” Those are the words of Barack Obama on the campaign trail just two days before Americans celebrated their independence. While he emphasized that loving your country means more than simply watching fireworks on the 4th of July, he went one step further and announced it was also our responsibility to change the country we love as well. This one word ‘change’, has been the cornerstone of Obama’s campaign since the primary season began, but what exactly would Obama like to change? It appears that as Americans prepared to celebrate their independence, Obama was looking for a way to strip some of that independence, effectively making young Americans indentured servants to our government.
Obama, an Illinois senator, touted a package of proposals he first offered in December that would expand AmeriCorps, the domestic service agency, and double the size of the Peace Corps.
He also would offer more service opportunities to retirees and set goals for middle- and high-school students to serve 50 hours a year of public service, and for college students to serve 100 hours a year.
Barack Obama is going down a slippery slope with his message of ‘change’ as he is beginning to reveal what it is he believes needs to be changed. Individualism and self reliance will no longer exist under an Obama Presidency, as young Americans will be taught that it is their duty to help others, and it is the duty of others to help them. It will be the duty of all young Americans to serve their fellow citizens, wether they want to or not.
Obama supporters have an inherent belief that it is George Bush who is a fascist, but it is clearly Obama who has read Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism which says “Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State,”
Obama’s call for mandatory government service is a statist approach, believing that government is the answer to all of life’s problems, and only through government service can we ‘change’ America into the country Obama believes it should be. Presumably Obama would ignore the text of the Thirteenth Amendment in order to accomplish this goal, as the Constitution strictly forbids ‘involuntary servitude’, which includes “threatened or actual state-imposed legal coercion” as defined by the Supreme Court.
Some Obama supporters may actually applaud such a statist approach to governing, while others will simply write this off as one of Obama’s many gaffes. After all, the government is supposed to serve the population not the other way around, so Obama was clearly speaking in jest when he called for mandatory servitude right? Not quite.
“This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program — this will be a central cause of my presidency,” Obama said. “We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges.”
While it is a wonderful idea to ‘ask’ Americans to serve, indicating that it would be akin to volunteering for to do charity work, Obama’s plan seems to imply legal coercion at the State or Federal level to mandate that service. If this is to be a “central cause” of Obama’s campaign, I look forward to watching John McCain being sworn into office in January.
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And precisely what government service did the messiah perform?
requiring mandatory service is definitely unconstitutional and just continues to expose obama as an airhead.
Kind of reminds me of Mrs. Obama’s remarks a few months ago - “Barack will not LET YOU” do this or do that and “Barack Obama will REQUIRE” you to be this or that. Good grief. If President Bush said things like that, the left would call him a Fascist Dictator. Such hypocrites. Sen. Obama is calling for expanding faith-based initiatives, and the left is swooning- when President Bush proposed the programs, he was accused of setting up a theocracy. If Sen. Obama is elected, we are in serious trouble.
Exactly, Bruce. What service has Barack Obama performed? His only service has been to himself for the sole purpose of putting money in his pocket. Well, he did request earmarks for big political contributors and for his wife’s employer after she got a $200,000 annual raise. Maybe that’s the type of service only elitist liberals like him can do.
You forgot to include a quote or cite any sources indicating these programs would actually be “mandatory”. This article is pure garbage.
Spud, the article I linked stated Obama would “set goals for middle- and high-school students to serve 50 hours a year of public service, and for college students to serve 100 hours a year.”
You do not set goals unless you intend on achieving them, and the only way this particular goal could be achieved is through government mandates.
Jul 7th, 2008 at 8:49 am
[…] Writing at “Constitutionally Right”, Charles Signorile suggests: Obama supporters have an inherent belief that it is George Bush who is a fascist, but it is clearly Obama who has read Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism, which says, “Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State.” (Emphasis ours.) […]