Posted on 12/02/2008 8:59:01 PM PST by Kaslin
Most people on the left are not opposed to freedom. They are just in favor of all sorts of things that are incompatible with freedom.
Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you do not approve of. Nazis were free to be Nazis under Hitler. It is only when you are able to do things that other people don't approve of that you are free.
One of the most innocent-sounding examples of the left's many impositions of its vision on others is the widespread requirement by schools and by college admissions committees that students do "community service."
There are high schools across the country from which you cannot graduate, and colleges where your application for admission will not be accepted, unless you have engaged in activities arbitrarily defined as "community service."
The arrogance of commandeering young people's time, instead of leaving them and their parents free to decide for themselves how to use that time, is exceeded only by the arrogance of imposing your own notions of what is or is not a service to the community.
Working in a homeless shelter is widely regarded as "community service" — as if aiding and abetting vagrancy is necessarily a service, rather than a disservice, to the community.
Is a community better off with more people not working, hanging out on the streets, aggressively panhandling people on the sidewalks, urinating in the street, or leaving narcotics needles in the parks where children play?
This is just one of the ways in which handing out various kinds of benefits to people who have not worked for them breaks the connection between productivity and reward, as far as they are concerned.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Sowell ping!
Stand by...0bama has plans...for community service...and to quote his wife..”you will not be able to return to your life as you know it....”
“Stand by...0bama has plans...for community service...and to quote his wife..”you will not be able to return to your life as you know it....”
The Late, Great, Land of the Free...over my dead body...these people will not infest the US for long...after the so-called “change” we will see the great Awakening...
Where would our communities be without bums?
Don't answer that. BTT.
so much for other educational goals such as...trying to be #1 in the world for math and science.
Reading a T. Dalrymple column yesterday he quoted another writer to the effect that the world is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. Obama wants everyone to stop thinking and start feeling.
Interestingly it’s already compulsory in some Catholic high schools these days. My oldest son had to complete several hours in order to pass his sophomore year.
I don’t support the draft no matter how they package it.
People who think are a danger to socialism.
“People who think are a danger to socialism.”
Excellent!
I had to do a service project to graduate, but then I went to a Catholic high school. In this archdiocese, we are all required to do one, not just in high school, but at Confirmation. It’s part of religious formation.
Keeee-rect-a-mundo. People are taught not to consider how a group of people got in the sad condition in which they find themselves, and they are taught not to do something as evil as judging these people’s actions to be wise or foolish. They are to submit, serve, and smile and thank the great liberals for teaching them compassion.
Maybe Obama can ask Hillary to lend him a few of her secretly trained youths.
Bookmark
You have it backwards....
0bambi's public allies are all over the nation....
www.publicallies.org
Home school and colleges in Canada, Austrailia and NZ are the way around that unless there is a volunteer activity that your student truly wants to do.
Regarding Obama's "community service" idea concerning schooling, not only do the feds have no business in 10th A. protected state affairs as evidenced by the Constitution's silence about public schools, but the 13th Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime.
But also consider that I'm actually happy that Socialist Obama got elected president for the following reason. Speaking of "community service," the people will ultimately be forced to quit sitting on their hands and reconnect with the Constitution and its history. They will need to do so in order to protect themselves from constitutionally clueless Obama's misguided pen as evidenced by his constitutionally indefensible "community service" idea.
Both of my kids went to Catholic High Schools, and they did community service as well. I think it was part of their Religion class. I find this congruent with their Catholic education. Corporal Works of Mercy. I find it dictatorial and completely out of the realm of acceptability when it's done by the public schools.
I worked nearly full-time in high school and fully full-time in college. Does that mean I didn’t serve my community?
Face it, the people in charge don’t know how the world works. They think everything would be better if people stopped working for profit and started doing something else. They don’t know what else, exactly, only that it should be more in line with “social justice” (which apparently is something altogether different than traditional justice).
No, she really was training her own secret army.
No, she really was training her own secret army.
I realize that good works are in line with Catholic teaching, as is obedience. But I’ve always wondered why the students couldn’t shirk their duties and ask for forgiveness afterwards to avoid consequences. I mean, they’re supposed to be absolved, and who can say for sure who’s really contrite?
Every teenage I have showed this to says they won’t do it...it’s absurd.
Forced volunteerism is not volunteerism at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watchtv?v=l0B7dOQwKm0
Rahm Emanuel being condescending to a student asking about this “Force”.
The priest or nums would tune the student up until the duties were performed.
It does not always work out as the liberals believe it should. My daughter was subjected to mandatory community service in order to graduate from college. She came away with a strong distaste for “those lazy idiots who refuse to work but expect the government to give them food and shelter - and then complain about the quality.”
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
My school district is like that, or at least it was. Fortunately, if you scout around you can fairly easily find a friend or a friend of a friend who works at the library or a local park or a nursing home to write up a note for your kid.
Community Service is something the Judge includes in your sentence after you are convicted of a crime and the Probation Officer makes sure you complete before you get off probation.
bump for later
That’s why he spent $30,000 on that ring for her, to SHUT HER THE HECK UP FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS.
A friend signed up for volunteer work in distributing free smoke detectors to "the poooor". She found out that she just didn't hand the detector to whoever opened the door. She had to install it, and had to come back the next year to change the batteries.
Her final words on the subject were, "I didn't believe that someone was so poor that they couldn't buy a $7 smoke detector to save their lives. I also didn't believe that someone could be so lazy as to wait until someone else came by to change the batteries in this life-saving device." Now she believes.
Unfortunately, there are always newspaper reports that say "poor people die in house fire with smoke detector still in the box".
Now that I think about it, service projects have been going on in the Catholic schools forever. Around here, it's an accepted reality that it's done and has been for decades.
The public schools - I don't "feel" anything. It's more cognizant. I think the kids would get a lot out of it, but the concept of service not in a crisis is rather foreign to American development. It should be left up to the school districts.
Thanks for the ping, Huntress, this is an excellent piece by Dr. Sowell. I’ve already pinged the list to this column, though it was the same column it was titled differently.
WOW! I’m stealing that (with a small edit) for my new tagline!
Attractive graphic Phil
Our public high school had Key Club. It was an after school service club, and the kids would plan projects that benefited the community, like sponsoring food drives. It was sort of a jr. Kwanis Club. I have no problem with that. It’s a good idea. Now, that is a voluntary service program. Forcing kids to volunteer in order to get their diploma or as a condition for college entrance (or worse under Obama) is just wrong.
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