Most galling of all Obama thinks he and the government have a right to take decision-making out of students’, parents’, and professionals’ hands, and to insist that the government has a claim on their time because it knows best. Many people choose not to perform community service, but Obama does not respect that decision; rather, he believes that community service provides such great benefits to society that individual decisions not to participate have no legitimacy.

One of the benefits of voluntary community service is the opportunity to willingly help others less fortunate or to promote a cause about which one feels so passionate that he offers his most valuable asset — his time. In return, the volunteer can take great pride in knowing he has done something worthwhile.

But can psychic benefit be achieved if the person is forced to assist others, or forced to select a cause to promote? There is just as much potential to feel that the activity is punishment — as if the “volunteer” is a cog in nothing more than a glorified chain gang.

Slavery’s a great idea. I mean, doesn’t being part of a great nation require work?

They’re not asking, they’re requiring (or soon will be, rather).

Where did we ever delegate the authority to our President to tell us to perform community service, and even further, to mandate it? You may think that volunteering is a good idea (as do I), but introducing the element of compulsion nullifies any virtue that volunteering once had. The president is our employee, and I don’t recall him ever having been granted the power to tell me to serve others.

Or did I skip over that part of the Constitution?

I mean, the administration is not asking for that much with those amount of hours in a year. Also, they are not asking us to do something risky to our lives or well-being. They are just requiring that we do a little each year. Is that too much to ask?

Asked by Smith about the universal service plan and whether people would have to live in military barracks, Emanuel laughed before responding, “We’re going to have universal civil defense training, somewhere between the ages of 18 to 25 you will do three months of training….but there can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of what we call civil defense training or civil service in service of the country, in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.” (emphasis mine)

Thanks, Mr. Emanuel, for helping us remember what it is to be an American. I guess I forgot, somewhere around the time that Pres. Bush urged me to go shopping to cope with the devastation of 9/11.

“As much as people obviously hate giving back to the community, I have found it a good idea to have to give some service. It has been proven to make kids grow up – not everybody benefits from the youth programs of the churches. And, besides, it’ll give much-needed interactivity to people who would otherwise be sequestered from their peers.”

Providing service to the community does have great benefits for the server, and it does help kids grow up. But the government shouldn’t be in the business of requiring this service (nor does it have the authority to do so). If parents want to require that their children provide some service or other to help them grow up, that is their prerogative.

The idea that ‘community service has some great benefits, therefore the government should mandate it’ is a non-sequitur. Much like ‘following a nutritious diet has many health benefits, therefore the government should control the diets of all citizens’. It’s all for the greater good, right? Would cheesecake then be illegal? Just because some action has benefits, it doesn’t follow that the government should require it.

That the text has been altered as it has is evidence of the hesitancy of pushing an agenda that will meet resistance. Better to keep it under wraps until it can be rammed through Congress with appropriate pressure applied.

Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

First of all, our public education system is already heavily subsidized. Just look at the tuition discrepancy between public and private universities. Now, this is largely due to state subsidies but the federal government also subsidizes these institutions. The federal government subsidizes much more than this though – the interstate system, the industrial food production, and yes, welfare. I, too, am against welfare. When I do volunteer work, I specifically choose charities that do not give handouts because I believe that these charities try to help symptoms and not the root problems. Handouts should definitely be eliminated. If they aren’t going to be eliminated, and they are going to continue to be paid for by the people who don’t use them, then the people who do use them ought to contribute.

Agreed, so long as your word of choice remains “encourage”.

My point is that the government needs to stop rendering these services to people who don’t want to throw their fair share into the pot.

Or perhaps get out of the “services” business altogether?

Those that cannot pay their fair share in money should at least contribute in other ways.

I think the plausibility of this depends on what services you’re talking about. If somebody wanted to receive welfare (which I’d rather see eliminated), I’d have no problem with the government adding one more item to the list of requirements necessary to qualify, and thus require some community service in exchange for the money.

But mandating the service for all individuals, especially the youth, who may or may not ever need to use such services? Requiring every single person to do what Obama thinks is best? That I can’t stand for.

I think it is important to note the difference between compulsory service and service in exchange for service.

Aren’t we being taxed to fund these services? So the services are funded by our money taken from us, and then to be able to use some of that money, we must fulfill some service requirement?

Despite the many other problems I have with this policy, one thing trumps them all: the lack of Constitutional authority for the federal government to do anything like this. Where does Obama get the power to demand that I render service to others?

Why should it be wrong to make contributing service to take part in these services? It is the least we could do, especially those of us in the lower tax brackets.