I hope those of you who voted for Barack Obama are happy your voluntary vote may result in involuntary servitude on the rest of us.
“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.”
Sounds great, right?
Now the details.
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 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. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
How long before “call on” and “encourage” become “require”? Sorry, I didn’t vote for the man, so this isn’t what I signed up for. All of you who voted for Barack Obama can answer his calls and encouragement.
We’ll see how long that lasts.
h/t Sher Z.
UPDATE: Here is the original text of the Barack Obama’s “America Serves” webpage. It was changed to the form you see a day or two before 2008/11/08:
America Serves
“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 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. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
h/t Ilion
“Remember kids – vote with your logic, not your emotion. When you don’t, we all lose.”
Dude… you’re asking libs to use their head instead of their heart. that is just not natural
Did you get that, kids?
All of you idealistic youth who voted him in just got used. And now you’ll get punished. And instead of waiting until retirement to find out that his Socialist programs really screwed up your savings, now you’ll get to see exactly what voting for a “good speaker” got you and you won’t have to wait at all.
It’s called indentured servitude, and despite what he wants it’s illegal in this country to do what he’s proposing. Got that? It’s illegal. You’d think that The Messiah would already know that, seeing as how he went to law school AND is about to be President.
But hey…”HopeAndChange”(tm), right?
Remember kids – vote with your logic, not your emotion. When you don’t, we all lose.
I saved ALL of the agenda topics before they were deleted…;) It turned out to be 71 pages. The “Integrate Service Into Learning” section of service was:
Integrate Service into Learning
Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation’s Schools: Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
Expand YouthBuild Program: Obama and Biden will expand the YouthBuild program, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to complete their high school education, learn valuable skills and build affordable housing in their communities. They will grow the program so that 50,000 low-income young people a year a chance to learn construction job skills and complete high school.
Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
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 think someone reminded this “constitutional scholar” that his plan violated the constitution.
And how long would it be before certain groups got “deferrments”: Johnny doesn’t have to do it, his dad is a Senator; Sam doesn’t have to do it, he’s from an “underprivileged” family; Ralph doesn’t have to do it, he has asthma; How’s Tonya gonna find a job if she’s doing volunteer work; and so on, and on.
So, in the end it would be us regular, working folk (and our kids) who get stuck with all the heavy-lifting, just like we always do.
People want the dream but with out the hard work. I have confidence this will never come to pass…
They did CHANGE it from required, when I read it last week, they were going to require everyone from 6-12 to do 50 hours a year, and college students to do 100 hours a year. But remember this is the campaign of CHANGE, if things are not in a constant state of CHANGE then what did people vote for?
Personally, working full time and trying to go to school, and serving my church 4 days a week (which I know will never count) I don’t have time as is for a 100 hours of service, so I guess school will be out of the question if I have to… People just didn’t think before they voted, and now we all have to suffer…
All I can say is remember to remind people, as they did with Bush voters, whenever someone complains about Obama and his policies, it is there fault and they have no right to complain.
Hey this is his brown shirts to force people to give up their money and guns for the better cause of spreading the wealth. How else was Mr. ayers going to kill off 25 millions Americans to instill this program.
This I gotta see! There are Volunteer Fire & Ambulance Services all over the USA that can’t get people to join, as they are “too Busy” or “don’t have time” or “Just don’t want to”. They don’t want to take a few hours a week to help protect their own & their neighbors homes & property. Due to OSHA regulations, they are required to attend a minimum # of approved training sessions per year. People just don’t seem to want to take time out of their lives to help someone else.
These are also the same people that whine & cry when their house or car catches fire or they need an Ambulance & none is available. I have even seen some bring law suits against Volunteer Services because they don’t think they got there fast enough. Obama is in for a big surprise when he tries to get Volunteers, lotsa Luck!
They seem to have a corps for every facet of our life. Now who does that remind me of…. Oh yeah, the Nazis. Under National Socialism, everything was organized, and everyone had a spiffy uniform.
It did used to say “require”, they reworded it.
Two years. The hell with his desires, I say two years. If I have to I’ll go as far John Galt as I can.