Opening post

The creation of this blog can actually be blamed on a friend. Evidently my thoughts amuse him and I will say, his amuse me, sometimes to the point of name calling, usually something either crude or it just degenerates into whatever political extreme we are arguing for the day.

For my first thoughts on this blog, allow me to present:

http://change.gov/americaserves/

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.

That paragraph, which is the article in question leads to several scary thoughts, at least in my mind. I read it and if I don't think about it, it all sounds very nice, but the more I think about it, the scarrier it becomes. Now maybe it is just the wording or it could be the thoughts behind it, but something starts coming through.

Think about it. Close your eyes and just let what you have read bubble a while. Words start popping up repeatedly Corps, Community, Community Service (mandatory), Senior Programs, Youth Programs, Toddler Programs.

So what. Well if you are any kind of a student of history, there should be a small part of you sounding a warning. We have seen this before, in the last century, in a couple European Countries and Russia. One led to Communism and the other to Socialist Fascism.

Sound alarmist? Well consider this then, if you re-read the paragraph above, you see that in order to graduate from High School and then get a Bachelor's degree you will be required to perform 500 hours of community service. We have to assume since they don't state it, that if you don't perform your services you don't graduate. So enforced service, but rather than beat you like they would in Russia at the time of Stalin, they just limit all your options.

Let’s look at all these Corps that he wants to create. Any time the government creates an organization it becomes a tool of that government. Don't believe me? Go read up on your German history from around 1929 to 1945. It is a small step to go from a uniformed organization with a nebulous idea to something like the SS. What is even more worrying is the thought of Children’s programs that are Government Sponsored. What a great way to ingrain some ideas, just ask the Hitler Youth Groups. What is wrong with Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts?

Perhaps the article is poorly worded, but whether that is the case or not, it is the ideas being presented that you need to think about.