Just because someone thinks its a good idea does not mean another does. That is why we live in a REPUBLIC so the majority can not hold down the minority. If you think its a good idea do it and try to get others to do it. Do not FORCE people to do it.

Ah, they changed it. This is good. It's a work in progress and they're listening to citizen feedback, which is part of the purpose of that site.

Let them know what you think about proposals: http://change.gov/page/content/americanmoment

You know I've looked over that page that he linked to and I can't find the word "required" or "mandatory" anywhere on it. Maybe I'm missing the part he quoted in the 2 paragraphs of text.

What ever happened to " Pro Choice " ? :Oh crap

They have changed the text and taken out the word "require" now.

:1orglaugh

google cache is a great thing

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us

I am sure that if a city or state wanted to offer those incentives no one would argue about it. Why does this have to be a federal thing?

I don't want my taxes supporting your volunteer fire department. :2 cents:

I had to do it in highschool, mandatory 40 hours of community service, seemed fair and was easy to do over 4 years. There was some stuff in the school you could do and all that and you could babysit and cut grass and stuff it just couldn't be replacing a paid person.

I think all high school kids should spend some time in the military. At the very least just to get them outside already.

How is that forcing people to do it?

Since the beginning of this thread Obama decided to change the wording. Google cache shows that when this page was first put up they used the words "require".

heres where it gets fun. LOL

how comes its usually military people who think this crap?

we know you guys love semper fiiing each other in the butt, please dont start trying to force children to serve in your wet dream military industrial complex

im on board its not required:thumbsup give him a chance like u did bush its like a war zone the employees like bomb victims their jobs are dead this country bush left a mess :2 cents:

YAY there's another step towards communism.

Whats next required "democracy" classes for all?

The biggest thing this country needs is to force the people who want to live off the system into JOBS. You don't work you don't eat!

"for the greater good" is the heart and soul of communist russia. America has always been about our own best interests.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/gol...lessness-wwii/

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv...49D9GL20081015

I don't think that would fly while we're in 2 wars. :2 cents:

its not required u can do it people are fukin lazy want shit on a platter 100hrs per year damn i do like 500 at my local food bank hope my kids can get something free lol

Just let me know, does it hurt?

Do I get Free Health Care if I do it?

My kids have all had to do community service as part of school. If you don't do it, you don't graduate. They have cooked/served at soup kitchens, gone into nursing homes and took the elderly in wheelchairs for a walk or read to them. My eldest daughter who is good with hair actually ended up doing a lot of the older ladies hair in rollers and the ladies felt like a million bucks.

Sometimes you have to force kids to give back to the community, but most of the time, once they do, they love the experience and many continue with it all their lives. My eldest daughter is always devoting her time to one thing or another for the greater good

I'm going to hold off commenting on the specific plan until more details are available. It's just one paragraph now and the speculation going on here is rampant.

I will say this though, alot of democratic countries have compulsory military service for young people. (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland etc)
This is really no different than that. Requiring young people to do something for the benefit of society as a whole is hardly totalitarian or authoritarian, and is precisely what the sniffling, whining, narcissistic punks whining about their freedom in this thread need.

Freedom comes with a price, if you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't deserve to be free.

i went to catholic school and had to put in at least 60 hours per semester towards community service. What is wrong with community service?

Nothing, as long as it is voluntary.

Ok, great, when does the price stop?

We pay taxes, probably more soon. We do mandatory community or military service. Then what do we do next? And then after that? And then after that?

And who makes that decision?

Never.

Money can't keep being borrowed.

If you live to retirement age you can crochet blankets to be sold somewhere.

Process your remains, ala Soylent Green.

Not you or I.


I still don't get the contention in this thread.

If anyone here believes this country would let legislation pass to force their children to do community service you have your head up your ass.

People are raised way to lazy and entitled.

We don't pay nearly the taxes that our grandparents or even our parents prior to 1980 paid.
People in every industrialized nation pay taxes, most of them at a far higher rate than we do.

YOU won't be doing anything, this program as I understand it is for young people. I'm sure, as with everything else, there will be lots of exceptions granted for people with hardships that have to work to help their families or as you mentioned earlier people in medical school with a very burdensome curriculum.

As for your second point, why does everyone always think a new program or policy is just the "beginning of something"? Why can't this program just be that, a program, not a first step towards whatever Orwellian thing you fear must be behind this?
Why can't we have a national health care plan without the doomsday sayers complaining about socialism and communism and now the government is going to take over everything?
The list goes on and on.

As for who makes that decision, you do and I do, indirectly, when we vote. The person who directly makes the decision is the person the majority of us voted for.

Whats wrong with that?

I understand what you mean, but if you don't look after yourself first the government isn't gonna help you your a citizen... They only help the non citizens and crack heads ....

So if looking out for yourself and own family is a crime so be it... Survival of the fittest!

Every time govt gets involved in a majority of social programs all it does is lead to waste, scandals, abuse, and shitty service.

Someone mentioned in this thread community service could do good things but should be limited to certain tasks and approved organizations. I say if you want to do 100 hours everyone should go do habitat for humanity for a weekend, red cross, or someshit that benefits american citizens directly.

Sounds good to me

congratssss to the winners

Fucking Republicans...
:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Me neither. The "moral outrage" over this is really something.

I didn't get a choice in whether or not we went to war in Iraq, I also didn't get a choice in how the war was conducted, or how much it would cost. I, and my children (probably mostly my children, and maybe even my grandchildren) still have to pay for it (and the interest on it) though.

Elections have consequences. :2 cents:

Yeah, it's a way for Obamas owners to "cloak" their most heavy indoctrination efforts. Mixing it up with seemingly innocent efforts. They can get away with a lot more now because Obama is black, and regular folks still think that elections are a *real* choice...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wOtGr1JFCnE

Because the beginning of every program is always "the beginning of something".

Income taxes were originally created in our country to pay for wars. The Civil War. It has gone back and forth since then about whether it is constitutional or not. The point being, the tax was created to pay for a war that was over 150 years ago and we are still paying it. The money simply got shifted somewhere else. Once you give something, you don't get it back. It's like dealing with a child... if you start letting them eat a cookie every night after dinner, they are going to want a cookie every night after dinner and it's going to take a lot to stop it.

I don't understand why people always compare the United States to "other countries" when trying to defend a point or an opinion. We aren't other countries. We are the United States. We have a lot of laws and policies that we create based on our principles and our ideas, other countries have a lot of laws and policies that they create based on their principles and their ideas. If our principles and our ideas are changing in a fashion that makes our policies change, that's fine. But benchmarking our policies with the policies of other countries really doesn't make sense.

A lot of other countries have mandatory military service. I certainly don't agree with that and will never push for that just because "other countries do it".

The outrage is because people are misinterpreting what was most likely intended. I highly doubt he is talking about forced community service.

Let's talk about community service in exchange for scholarships, other financial assistance, work while out of work, etc. etc. Any instance where people are getting "free money"... bring on the community service!

$4000 for 100 hours of work. That's $40/hr. Wish I was making that much when I was back in college. $40/hr to improve your community is good pay for a college student and it would probably cost the gov't a lot more with all the red tape to effect the same change. Brilliant idea. Win/Win

And if people realized that we live in a republic we would not have done any of those things. So in the mind of the left two wrongs make a right? :321GFY The brainwashed sheep of America you have to love it.

Don't many schools already require community service to graduate? Anyways, ask not what your country can do for you, what can you do for your country.

So they have to do whatever he says is for the best of the community, what if they dont agree and refuse? What happens then?

I love how people from other countries seem to think we should care what their opinion is.

The child would not graduate. I wonder if Obama would count protesting Obamas unconstitutional and illegal laws as part of community service?

Community service is a great idea. Some states or even colleges have it as a requirement for graduation. Were you protesting it before when it happened?

Perhaps. I think this whole thing is just a semantics issue and once the specifics are released it won't really be the thing everyone is making it out to be.

We already knew about the college thing...in order to qualify for the college tuition tax credit that Obama is proposing, community service would be required.
I think with the high school and middle school students it will most likely be part of their curriculum, not an after school or weekend or summer thing. It'll be a class full of kids going to a nursing home to read to old people or going to a soup kitchen to prepare and serve food.....no big deal, and a good character building exercise.

As for your remark about taxes and not getting anything back earlier....we've had lots of tax cuts over the last 30 years, and taxes are nowhere near their 1932-1979 levels today. So you do get things back sometimes.

Also, on the issue of compulsory military service, we had that here until Reagan. He wanted an all volunteer force because it would be a better trained force with higher morale.
It worked well so we've kept that in place.....but if we were ever in a situation where not enough people were volunteering to meet our national security needs, we would most certainly have a draft again.
That's something that governments around the world, democracy or not, have the power to do.

Pure speculation here based on how alot of other things in government work.

If you refuse and are a college student, you don't get the $4000 tax credit.

If you refuse and you are a middle or high school student (or your parents refuse on your behalf because they don't think the big bad government should teach kids a sense of service and community), my guess is you wouldn't pass your grade/class, you'd take an F in that course. (My assumption here is that it will be part of the student's curriculum in middle and high school)

Key word in the statement. STATE

Yes We Can! = YES YOU WILL

So now the government is GOOD that Bush is going out of office? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

So how long before you think your Obama god will pull troops out of Iraq? Or how long before your Obama god repeals the Patriot Act? Or how long will it be before your Obama god repeals the bailouts? Or how long before your Obama god repeals fisa?

If it should always be left up to the states, why are you raiding California over it's medical marijuana?