Sole Morality

Volunteerism you can't turn down

Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with the outcome of Tuesday's election. Then again, I wouldn't have been thrilled even if John McCain was elected. I wasn't a big fan of either of them. Now, I am not going to sit here for the next four years and insist on seeing President-Elect Barack Obama as nothing but horrible. However, I refuse to adjust my beliefs for the sake of appearing "unified." I stand by my principles and beliefs.

When it comes to President-Elect Obama, many of my concerns revolve around his policies which favor big government and increasing government involvement in multiple aspects of the people's lives. This expansion of government power is in direct opposition to my increasingly Federalist beliefs around national government. Let the states govern the people and keep the Federal Government to the minimal role it was originally assigned.

President-Elect Obama and I differ on this. He seems to support expanding Federal powers. A prime example of this comes from his new website: http://www.change.gov. On the "America Serves" page, he outlines his intention to impose compulsory community service on the youth of America. I quote:

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.

This is a federal government site outlining his plans for his time as president. He will compel students to serve. Using the word "require" seems to indicate that this isn't an initiative to create motivation for people to do things on their own. This is a government mandate that he intends to impose.

How is it that he advocates the government be completely hands off with what a woman does to her own body regarding abotions (including the horrendous practice of late term abortions), but then feels that he can tell you exactly what to do with yours in the realm of how you spend your time and what you choose to do or not do to better your community?

The last concern I will raise about his compelled service initiative is the idea of where that service will take place. In the same paragraph, President-Elect Obama says that he is going to institute new national service programs including "Classroom Corps...Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps."* I'd bet that his hours requirements aren't going to be an on your honor system where you can volunteer where you like. You'll probably be required to volunteer in one of the "Corps" or in another approved program. And if some programs are going to be approved, others won't be and I wonder greatly who gets to decide what causes are worthy of the government's blessing for this service program.

The second problem I have with his thinking along those lines is that President-Elect Obama has chosen to start surrounding himself with like-minded individuals. Take for example, his first executive staff appointment: Representative Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.

The Examiner reports about the fact that Rep. Emanuel co-authored a book entitled The Plan: Big Ideas for America. In that book, he calls for compulsory national service by all Americans between the ages of 18-25. He calls for an elistment of all people among those ages for a three month "basic civil defense training." The report also highlights the fact that Rep. Emanuel insists that such service isn't "a draft" but that he then goes on to say that "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom."

I would certainly hope that more than just "some" Republicans would squeal about compulsory service and I am willing to bet that it would be more than just Republicans squealing as well. Sure the Chief of Staff can't propose or introduce anything directly, but the fact that this is the man President-Elect Obama wants adivising him and in charge of White House affairs should be very telling and very concerning.

I'm all for getting involved and serving. I've served my communities in the past and as soon as grad school is over, I plan on finding ways to serve the community to which I move. Our country was founded on the basis of everyone contributing to their community. But that was based on voluntary service. Never compulsory.

Everyone should get out and serve in some way. But becaue they want to, not because the government requires them to.

I think everyone needs to take a hard look inside him or herself and decide to what degree they feel comfortable alowing the government to mandate their activities, regardless of whether the cause is good one to help or not. And then they need to figure out how to work with others to draw a very firm, very deep line in the political sand.

*Huh, I wonder how those four new national programs will be funded, being that we are already operating at one of the highest rates of national budget deficit and at the highest state of national debt ever.

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UPDATE: Apparently, sometime during the night, the change.gov site was revised. They changed the section that I quoted above to remove "require" and instead said this:

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.

I find it hard to believe that the composer of the first content simply failed to detect the subtle, nuanced differences in "require" and "set a goal." I believe this is their attempt to mask the real intention of the program. For backup on President-Elect Obama's intentions, let me point out something his wife said in a speech back in February at UCLA:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Require. Demand. Never allow. Doesn't sound too voluntary to me.

Further, a 2004 estimate by the US Census Bureau puts the number of US college students at 15.9 million. And as for the $4,000 a year tax free for a hundred hours of service, that works out to $40 an hour. How many college students do you know that will turn that down? Let's say two thirds participate (10.3 million). That is going to cost the government $41.2 billion dollars. Or rather, it is going to cost $41.2 billion dollars in new taxes on the public. Before administrative costs, which will be substantial to manage tracking every student participating, verifying they are enrolled, determining who is elligible (full time, 3/4 time, part time?), tracking approved service opportunities, logging and verifying hours "served," ensuring people aren't starting college only to cram in service and then drop out, and so on, and so on. Not cheap.

And all this for what? Rebecca commented that service is a good thing and helping get people out from behind their computers and game consoles is a good cause. I don't disagree.

I disagree that this is the government's job. I disagree that we should allow the government to take this authority to demand service from it's people. They have no authority to do that. And when you open the door by allowing the government to demand certain people do certain things, you open the way for a host of civil rights issues and government abuse. The line must be drawn firmly or eventually the government will start requiring other things of its citizens like that everyone has to serve 100 hours a year or incur a tax penalty. Not a huge leap.

Pressing people into service is not teaching them to contribute. Especially when you are paying them $40 and hour for their "service." All that teaches them is that they should be reimbursed for everything they ever do. We already battle a "what's in it for me" attitude in today's society. How will this affect it?

Service is about serving, not getting. President Kennedy told us to ask what we can do for our country (and by extension, our communities), not what our country can do for us (like paying us to do some community service).

This is a step in the wrong direction.