Before Blogs Caught It,
Obama Site Told of Requiring Students to Serve
From WorldNetDaily.com
The official website of President-Elect
Barack Obama, Change.gov, originally announced that Obama would “require”
all middle school through college students to participate in community service
programs; but after a flurry of blogs protested 
children
being drafted into Obama’s proposed youth corps, the website’s wording was
softened.
Originally,
under the tab “America Serves” Change.gov read, “President-Elect Obama will
expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will
create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in under served 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,” the site announced.
The
language of requiring students to serve and the creation of a “Classroom Corps”
sparked a surge of criticism from bloggers for bringing back memories of the
much-publicized video of marching Obama youth and Obama’s “civilian national
security force,” which the candidate said in July would be just as powerful and
well-funded as the U.S. military.
Gateway
Pundit called Obama’s plan the “creation of his Marxist youth corps,” and DBKP
commented, “‘Choosing’ to serve should be approved by parents – not required by
the government. No amount of good intentions can sugar-coat words like ‘mandatory,’
‘compulsory’ or ‘required.’”
Following
the furor raised by bloggers, however, the website’s wording was changed. The
word “require” was stricken from the website and replaced with the phrase “setting
a goal” and now also lists tax credits toward college tuition.
The
original wording was as follows:
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.
The current website’s content now
reads:
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 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.
The
Specter of Nazi Youth Groups?
The
new wording is consistent with Obama’s campaign website, which also described
the college tuition tax credit and detailed “enabling” Americans to serve,
rather than “requiring” them to serve. Elsewhere on the Change.gov site,
however, it still describes the plan under the heading, “Require 100 hours of
service in college.”
J.D.
Tuccille of the Civil Liberties Examiner also points out, “Most public schools
depend on federal dollars. As Obama elaborated in a speech last December, ‘At
the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on
school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to
offer new service opportunities.’ So, it won’t be the nasty federal government
forcing your kids to donate their time to government-approved service, it’ll be
the local schools – but that requirement will be among the strings attached to
federal money,” Tuccille writes.
Obama’s selection of an advocate for mandatory civil service, Rahm
Emanuel, as his Chief of Staff has further worried 
bloggers
that Obama’s plans may be more ‘requirement’ than ‘encouragement.’
In
his book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America,
Emanuel writes: “It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot
in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American.
Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to
serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil
defense preparation and community service.”
Tuccille
comments, “Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist ‘this is not a draft,’ but
go on to write of young men and women, ‘the nation will enlist them for three
months of civilian service.’ They also warn, ‘Some Republicans will squeal
about individual freedom,’ ruling out any likelihood that they would let people
opt out of universal citizen service.”
Obama
has also yet to clarify what he meant during his July “Call to Service” speech
in Colorado Springs, in which he insisted the U.S. “cannot continue to rely
only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve
set” and needs a “civilian national security force.”
Obama
spokesmen have declined to return WorldNetDaily (WND) calls requesting an
explanation of what this security force would be or whether this force would be
‘required’ or ‘encouraged.’
Joseph
Farah, Founder and Editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the
issue and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking
questions about it. “If we’re going to create some kind of national police
force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces,
isn’t this rather a big deal?” Farah wrote. “I thought Democrats generally
believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their
candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police
force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put
together? Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force
bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he
mean?” Farah wrote.
Farah’s
call generated intense Internet discussions. The Blue Collar Muse blog
commented, “The questions are legion and the implications of such an
organization are staggering! What would it do? According to the title, it’s a
civilian force so how would it go about discharging ‘national security’ issues?
What are the Constitutional implications for such a group? How is this to be
paid for.… The statement was made in the context of youth service. Is this an
organization for just the youth or are adults going to participate? How does
one get away from the specter of other such ‘youth’ organizations from Nazi
Germany and the former Soviet Union when talking about it?”
Michael
Kinsley also commented generally on plans for enlisting America’s youth in
voluntary versus required volunteerism on Time’s
website: “Problem number one with grand schemes for universal voluntary
public service is that they can’t be both universal and voluntary. If everybody
has to do it, then it’s not voluntary, is it? And if it’s truly up to the
individual, then it won’t be universal.”
