GOVERNMENT???

GOVERNMENT
“There’s a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery. For those who don’t remember, the 13th Amendment says: ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime... shall exist within the United States.’ In Obama’s mind it must be a crime to be born or to attend college. In his speech on national service... at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would ‘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.’ He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars. If you don’t make kids report for duty, he’s essentially telling schools and college kids, you’ll lose money you can’t afford to lose. In short, he’ll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory. ... This is the problem with national service mania: It seeks to fix what ain’t broke. No, national service isn’t slavery. But it contributes to a slave mentality, at odds with American tradition. It assumes that work not done for the government isn’t really for the ‘common good’.” —Jonah Goldberg