HR 1444: New Bill Calls For Congressional Commission on Civic Service

Barack Obama recently signed into law the HR 1388 GIVE Act that would require youth to sign up for a certain amount of community service.  This Act becomes much like the AmeriCorps and if we know anything as of late about that organization, we know that it is rife with corruption and government meddling (i.e. Walpin-Gate).  AmeriCorps and government funded “volunteer” organizations have always been vulnerable to becoming ideological arms of the parties which give the most or establish them.  This is no different than unions receiving kickbacks from Democrats and in turn voting for them.  There is a serious problem in our government regarding pay-to-play politics.

The GIVE Act was scary enough because it was reminiscent of what Obama had said on the campaign trail regarding a National Civilian Security force that would eventually be larger than the US military.  Many didn’t take Obama seriously at the time, but with the signing of the GIVE Act and the latest bill in the Senate, HR 1444, it keeps looking more and more like he was in fact telling the truth.

Here’s a reminder of what he said:

Here is what a columnist at the Denver Post has to say about HR 1444:

Little did I know he was serious. The first step was the passage of HR 1388, “The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act,” originally titled the GIVE (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education) Act before the Senate renamed it as a tribute to the “Lion of Liberalism.” It triples AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000. The second step is HR 1444, not yet passed, which would establish a Congressional Commission on Civic Service. The commission would “address and analyze” the effects on the nation and on those who serve “if all individuals in the United States … were required to perform a certain amount of national service” and “whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all young people could be developed.”

Whoa! It’s one thing, out of clear necessity and for purposes of national survival, to have a military draft when our nation is at war (hot or cold). But mandatory community service of up to two years? This is a preposterously intrusive notion and one that is surely unlawful under our Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits “involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime.” What crime have these young people committed?

The “audacity” — to use President Obama’s favorite expression — of such a sweeping mandate is a direct contradiction of our founding principles as reinforced in the Bill of Rights, which emphatically restricts the powers of government over the lives of individuals. The camel’s nose under the tent that has led some people to regard national mandatory community service as respectable public policy is no doubt the imposition of a similar requirement on students as a condition of graduation in our public schools.

Just what we need, more politicians using the constitution as toilet paper and youth having the government run their lives.

Look at it this way – blue will be the new “brown”

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838)

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