Decius wrote:
One agenda item that remains up there is Obama's community service plan, which currently says:

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.

Previously this text said something else entirely:

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.

That bit of bald faced authoritarianism made a lot of people absolutely furious, myself included. If we have a bunch of people waltzing into the whitehouse who do not appreciate the full implications of the use of the word "require" by a policy maker we are in very serious trouble.

The question of exactly what Obama's agenda actually is has been somewhat difficult to nail down. If Change.gov was intended to help clarify things it is a complete failure at this point.

Mankiw scooped this as well as quoting a dissection of Kennedy's "ask not" speech.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-draft.html

I think people are going to get "change" alright.

Change.gov once said:

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.

Decius wrote:

That bit of bald faced authoritarianism made a lot of people absolutely furious, myself included. If we have a bunch of people waltzing into the whitehouse who do not appreciate the full implications of the use of the word "require" by a policy maker we are in very serious trouble.

While I wonder whether separating the act of service from any sense of agency defeats much of the purpose of the exercise, characterizing this proposal as "bald faced authoritarianism" is a bit over the top. The "Call to Service" is a time-worn transition idea. Perhaps President Bush's community service initiative was more to your liking?

In 2002, the USA Freedom Corps, a coordinating council and White House office, was launched to help Americans answer President George W. Bush's nationwide call to service.

Certainly one can question the necessity for, and appropriateness of, a federally mandated service-learning graduation requirement, but this idea has a long history, and in some school districts such programs are already in place. The federal government has been funding these programs for years now.

Here's a summary of the situation:

A 50-state policy scan conducted by the Education Commission of the States in March 2001 found that:

* Seven states (AR, CT, DE, MN, OK, RI, WI) permit community service or service-learning activities to be applied toward high school graduation requirements.
* One state (MD) includes service-learning as a requirement for high school graduation.
* Eight states (AR, CA, GA, ID, IL, LA, MT, UT) have policies regarding rules, regulations, and the creation or purpose of programs related to service-learning.
* Ten states (CA, CT, FL, IN, MI, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX) plus the District of Columbia encourage the use of service-learning as a mechanism for increasing student achievement and engagement.
* Six states (ID, MI, MN, NJ, NM, VT) include service-learning in the state's education standards.
* Six states (MA, MN, MS, NJ, NM, VT) have policies regarding the authorization of funding appropriations and the creation of service-learning activities and programs.
* Twenty-three states h... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]

noteworthy wrote:
Characterizing this proposal as "bald faced authoritarianism" is a bit over the top. Certainly one can question the necessity for, and appropriateness of, a federally mandated service-learning graduation requirement, but this idea has a long history, and in some school districts such programs are already in place.

To be absolutely clear, my problem begins and end with the use of the word require and what that word implies. There is a difference between encouraging and requiring and that difference matters when you are talking about the coercive use of government power. Lets change contexts to put this in perspective.

Exercise is good for you, right? Everyone ought to exercise every day. We have federal government programs that attempt to encourage exercise. Most high schools and colleges have some sort of fitness requirement for graduation.

So why not create a federal requirement that all Americans exercise? If its good for most people its good for everybody, right? Lets require 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise from each citizen once a day. No exceptions will be made. If you do not perform the required exercise you will be imprisoned for not more than two years and fined not less than $100,000.

Is that unreasonable? If you think the President's fitness challenge is OK but the sort of requirement I'm describing is not, there has to be a line that you'd draw where you would oppose these requirements. Why do you draw that line where you draw it?

You seem to want to have pragmatic reasons for drawing the line. I have structural reasons. I don't oppose a daily federal fitness requirement because I don't think it would be effective. In fact, I DO think it would be effective. I would personally be better off if we had it. I oppose it because I think its antithetical to a free society.

When the government taxes your time and your labor, this is something catagorically different from when it taxes your money. Thats where I draw the line. Its possible that an existential threat to the future of your country can put you in a position where you have no choice but to institute a military draft, but unless you have reached that point, the way I see it, you can either choose to be a free society, or you can choose to force innocent people against their will to give up their time to serve the interests of the state.

Generally speaking, I think the people who support these requirements know that they are antithetical to freedom, and that is why they do not and would not impose them on themselves or their peers. These requirements are generally imposed on minors. The adults who write these laws, enforce these laws, and vote for politicians who support these laws are not saying that they, themselves should be subject to a government requirement that they perform 50 or 100 hours of community service a year.... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]