::blink:: ::blink:: ::blink::
This idea was good enough for McCain to propose in 2001, before Obama proposed it. I have been repeatedly assured that McCain is a conservative. Was that somehow not the case?
How is it wrong when Obama proposes national service, but right when our presidential candidate did it?
Putting the "National" in National Service "AmeriCorps works. In the wake of Sept. 11, it is time to make the national service program bigger"(^), by Senator John McCain.
It looks like McCain wanted to make it mandatory, too:
FTA: If we are to have a resurgence of patriotic service in this country, then programs like AmeriCorps must be expanded and changed in ways that inspire the nation. There should be more focus on meeting national goals and on making short-term service, both civilian and military, a rite of passage for young Americans.
It seems to me that the time to complain about this was before we ran a candidate who espoused the same beliefs.
Hey mountainbunny.
I'll complain about it now. If you don't like it then you can hop-off that mountain you are on.
Okay?
Thanks.
“How is it wrong when Obama proposes national service, but right when our presidential candidate did it?”
McCain has a plan for national service? That’s news to me. Saying that people should consider helping others through the already existing religious and secular institutions isn’t a “plan” in any meaningful sense of the word.
Therein lies the difference between the two.
Spitzer at volokh.com writes:
“The difference between the McCain and Obama proposals is simple: McCain’s service is voluntary and uncontrolled/undirected by the government, whereas Obama’s is compulsory (in effect) and subject to the control or direction of the government. The former type of service may strengthen communities but does not aggrandize the government, whereas the latter empowers the government without necessarily helping the community. Put another way, one talks about Burke’s “little platoons” while the other emulates the work gangs and political action youth committees more commonly found in totalitarian societies.”
The Federal Government is BROKE. They have more programs than they can afford. Obama is proposing more and more programs, but the money doesn’t exist to pay for them. What about the issues of millions of very part-time volunteers and the supervision they would require? And the paperwork necessary to track it—from schools that can barely meet the no-child-left behind requirements? And the additional employees needed to track it all?
“We” here at FR didn’t nominate McCain. Rinos, democrats and independents did.
“We” did try to defeat Obama by voting for McCain/Palin. Rest assured if McCain had won and tried to push this crap, it would have been opposed to most long term Freepers just as Bush/McCain amnesty was.
Well McCain was wrong too. Sorry - I can’t keep up with everything those d@mn fools in Washington DC come up with.
A “rite of passage” is a literary term of art. It doesn’t mean McCain wanted to make it compulsory.