Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Obama's Universal Voluntary Public Service

Al Gore spoke recently to the National Youth Scholars in Washington DC during the inauguration festivities for Barack Obama. The audience included 3,000 children - our best and the brightest - including 12 year old fourth graders from across America. His message was frightening. Please tell me this doesn't send a chill up your spine?

Gore: "Parents try to tell their kids the right thing, you know, usually. I do."

Gore: "There are some things about our world that you know that older people don't know."

What do you think Al Gore was talking about? Yes, this was out of context in a lesson he was giving on the Civil Rights movement and his suggestion that while children were being taught to understand how prejudice was wrong, many parents didn't get it until the laws were changed. I could put the whole context here, but those two quotes above accurately express that underlying message he was making to the audience.

Was Gore telling these children to ignore their parents and believe others? Maybe to believe their teachers over their parents? Or perhaps government? Was he saying that their parents can be, and are often wrong? Is he saying that a 12 year old fourth grader, properly taught by our public schools, and correctly informed of crises like Climate Change or the need for redistribution and collectivism principles should stand up to the beliefs, knowledge, reason, and experience of their parents?

Here is how Glenn Beck reacted to it this morning:

Beck: "I'm trying to think where else this has been done. Soviet Russia, Nazi, Germany, Mussolini's Italy. In fact, the Nazis took an extra step. Not only did they indoctrinate the kids and tell them you're probably right, you know but your parents don't; in fact, here's the next step: Why don't you tell us what your parents are telling you. Are we having the new Hitler youth? Is that what this is? The new Hitler youth? I'm sorry, that's so politically incorrect. The new green guard. Man your station, 12-year-olds, your parents just don't know."

Now consider President Obama's calls for a civilian security force in America funded equally to that of the military, and how Gore's urging of children to ignore the reason of their parents would play into that agenda. Is Beck onto something?

At Wesleyan University not too long ago, Obama urged graduates not to pursue the American dream of success, but to serve others. But to serve who?

"You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should. But I hope you don't. Fulfilling your immediate wants and needs betrays a poverty of ambition."

Obama then brought it all together. "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

And what would this Obama "security force" do exactly? Something like an ACORN for youth? Promoting the ideals of the left using any methods available?

Last July at the University of Colorado Obama said, "We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges."

Yes, he said, "we will direct"! That will be direction on the priorities of government - Obama government.

Obama's stated plan is to "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

And what if they refuse to serve? Will this "voluntary" service be a condition for graduation? How many of your children now are already required to perform community service to graduate Junior High or High School? Your kids get to choose today what that service is, but not whether they have to perform it or not, right? What will you do when the type of service is directed by government? What would you do if your government demanded your children to serve in such a way that you objected, but your kids were taught to ignore your objections for some greater good?

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