Community Service, a really scary concept, REALLY SCARY ! ! ! !

[Dis]

Obama's website, change.gov, changed the wording from "required" to "encourage."

Ah.. So he's going to "encourage" it by "requiring" it, by putting into effect "consequences" if you don't allow yourself to be "encouraged"..

Kinda like the healthcare thing.

Neat.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Ah.. So he's going to "encourage" it by "requiring" it, by putting into effect "consequences" if you don't allow yourself to be "encouraged"..

Kinda like the healthcare thing.

Neat.

That would be my guess.

 

[Dis]

That would be my guess.

Well, gee.. I can't *possibly* imagine why this would piss people off or anything..

 

[Gunny]

Since when does "incourage" mean "require"? The truth is, many retired folks ARE looking for activities to occupy their time without necessarly going back to work. Websites like retired.org offer something similar to this. What I believe Obama is trying to get at is that the American dream is not working one's entire life just to slowly die after retirement. What he's saying is that one is never too old or too young to contribitute to society. At least that's the impression that I get, and frankly that is a welcomed attitude.

That sure is painting a nice little picture to support an agenda. "The American Dream is not working one's entire life just to slowly die after retirement."

Never too old to be squeezed by the government for that last drop of blood, huh?

 

[DiamondDave]

Since when does "incourage" mean "require"? The truth is, many retired folks ARE looking for activities to occupy their time without necessarly going back to work. Websites like retired.org offer something similar to this. What I believe Obama is trying to get at is that the American dream is not working one's entire life just to slowly die after retirement. What he's saying is that one is never too old or too young to contribitute to society. At least that's the impression that I get, and frankly that is a welcomed attitude.

Nobody is every too young or too old to VOLUNTARILY contribute to society... without pressure of withholding things such as retirement benefits, graduation, etc...

What Obama is trying to get at is owing to the state... having the government have to power to call upon service by the government controlling things such as health care... once something is controlled, it can be rationed for power

 

[Skull Pilot]

Since when does "incourage" mean "require"? The truth is, many retired folks ARE looking for activities to occupy their time without necessarly going back to work. Websites like retired.org offer something similar to this. What I believe Obama is trying to get at is that the American dream is not working one's entire life just to slowly die after retirement. What he's saying is that one is never too old or too young to contribitute to society. At least that's the impression that I get, and frankly that is a welcomed attitude.

A perfect example of why I don't think forced volunteerism is a good idea.

Maybe if these kids were encouraged to, I don't know, learn to spell the community would be better off no?

 

[Contessa_Sharra]

Yeah, but then most of those people who believe "It takes a Village" to raise a child are the first to complain when you yell at their kid for doing something wrong.

When I was a child I lived in a New England Village. It was as a matter of real fact quite "old style" Republican. One thing that all the children knew was that if they were out and about and did not behave well, some one of the adults would definitely let parents know. We mostly were pretty decent, and I cannot think of even one instance of an adult misusing that system and lying. Some adults let us know with a "Do you think you ought to be doing..." whatever it was and we backed off. And we sure as hell knew if a parent got the word we were in for it. Combination of the misbehavior and the community "shame." It all worked. That village system did raise some good children.

In that village system, too, and this is even more important, we children could knock on just about any door if we needed help. Sometimes we just went and "visited." The village could be trusted, nearly all of the time. Even the police could be trusted!

 

[Contessa_Sharra]

A perfect example of why I don't think forced volunteerism is a good idea.

Maybe if these kids were encouraged to, I don't know, learn to spell the community would be better off no?

I thought they were REQUIRED to learn certain things in order to graduate.

 

[DiamondDave]

I thought they were REQUIRED to learn certain things in order to graduate.

They are required to achieve certain things and at a certain level in their efforts during school

but... I do not thin this 'plan' of forced servitude to a program outside of school, will take place during school hours... this would be invading onto the personal time/freedoms of the students and the parents

Not to mention the scary aspect of the control to be exerted over the retired.. where they are "encouraged" to do Obama's bidding, while having their benefits held over their head... it'll be great to see how Great Grandma who cannot move on her own or leave her house is able to do her "encouraged" volunteer time

 

[Skull Pilot]

I thought they were REQUIRED to learn certain things in order to graduate.

Well considering the fact that most recent high school graduates I have had experience with can't seem to spell, speak very well or do basic math, it seems they're not required to learn anything to graduate.

 

[matty]

OK when does it stop?

First the government orders you to work for free for 2 and a half weeks, then what a required salary reduction for charitable donations?

And really how good does volunteering look on a college app when the kid was forced to do it?

That's like putting "My mom made me clean my room and take out the trash", on a resume

IMHO Obama has a vision of the country where everyone is a municipal employee

I wanna scream bloody murder about it because it's plain wrong and easy to see that, not mentioning the angle you add here. What the hell does it say if you had to force them? That'd actually detract from it's value to any college. As if having forced comm-service=you're a better, proper individual now. Gimme a break. Anyway, it may also take away from charitable nature itself, we always want to do what's forced on us less and especially at that age. DUH Simple math here. A parent has to lightly salt these values in. How fucking far have we turned our backs on responsibility ourselves here in this duty to our kids and so doesn't that make it entirely ironic then that we want to force civic duty upon them??--LMAO!@#

I read about this, it's utter bullshit.

You don't do anything that can possibly invite more government control in unless it's absolutely necessary, plain and simple; it's common sense and not the coddling someone else earlier in the thread depicts.

People have waay too much trouble looking beyond just the surface for such interest in what another person's kids'r doing. And apparently too much time on their hands, maybe it's they who need to take a closer look in the mirror.

I'll teach my own children about where real values lie. And if more parents did that and hadn't dropped the ball decades ago now, we wouldn't be having the problems with them we do. This action uses skewed logic at best and totally dodges the source of a problem of epidemic proportion that goes virtually unaddressed.

Parents have gone to shit, we have no [responsible] business taking penalty to our children for sins of our own. A more positive move would be to implement more ways to educate parents about the kind of radical change we've seen in youth, bring them up to speed and more aware of the actual digression that's gone on here.

Accountability begins in the home and by mere logic, then, first sits with the parents who run it.

 

[matty]

Maybe if these kids were encouraged to, I don't know, learn to spell the community would be better off no?

Yeah, if because parents haven't even gotten them to a point they can spell the word community in the first place, it may be a direct indication of a much larger problem coming from a much more accountable source.

Fucking moronic.

 

[matty]

Well considering the fact that most recent high school graduates I have had experience with can't seem to spell, speak very well or do basic math, it seems they're not required to learn anything to graduate.

And that's speaking from yrs of knowing teachers and having one in the fam. Actually across the board here, the word is they're very upset by parents', PARENTS' lack of concern.

 

[matty]

I believe fat people need to get in shape. See where this can go?

You always cut thru that fat and staight to the quick, Gunny, bravo.

There needs to be an education on parenting before it happens, we virtually send our youth out into the world to marry and have babies on nothing but maybe a home-ec elective where they had to carry a babydoll around for a week, whoopee, some vision of truth.

Trouble is, your parents today are already lost to it and don't give a shit, but we could stop the madness here, at least, you'd think.

Time to regroup, eh?..

 

[matty]

And opposed to those like you, there are some who actually understand "community."

The mere idea of community conjures a sense of people working together as a whole to the betterment of all and by charity and selfless, giving involvement. Forced anything, then, is in direct contradiction with that image.

That is not community, sweetheart, but, instead the call of Big Brother and if you can't distinguish the two, I dare say you may need to widen your world view just a smidge.

My community would never presume to Force me to do anything. They post needs in the paper and more than thankfully take charitable gesture as it comes.

Where do you live?

 

[matty]

Sometimes kids need to be pushed a little to do the right thing, rather than being encouraged to believe they are owed everything.

I'll be responsible for mine, but if you really wanna help me, I could use a dishwasher on occasion when I have more enlightened things to do and I won't even call you my bitch.

~The singular truth in the statement you give here, that they're being encouraged to believe they're owed everything doesn't suggest to you a problem beginning with the larger scope of upbringing in it's entirety, then?--HELLO!!! Anybody home?

 

[chloe]

Obama's ruling with an Iron Fist !

 

[Neubarth]

I think community service should be encouraged but never made mandatory. For people to participate, sometimes there needs to be structure to the service. I know I will be a participant when I can. Being active adds to life.

When I was young, I left home at the beginning of my Freshman year in high school and lived by myself as a night watchman/office manager of a trailer park in southern California. Most of the people in a park like that in 1963 were elderly. I interacted with them for my four years of high school, and could write a whole book about just those experiences. One thing stuck out in my observation of their lives.

That was that the men who stayed active kept on ticking. Those men who retired to watching soap operas with their wives had their tickers quit on them first in almost all cases.

Moral to the story. Stay physically active and live longer.