I started this yesterday morning. It depressed me and I stopped. The subject has since been all over the intertubes - thank the gods - and addressed by sharper scalpels than mine, but I'll add it for posterity's sake.***
Jonah Goldberg probably felt very clever and not-at-all-racist (wink wink) when he wrote today that Barack Obama's call for young Americans to volunteer 50 to 100 hours a year a form of slavery. The column starts with this:
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.
Goldberg said "Barack Obama" and "slavery" in the same sentence. Get it? Get it? Cuz Obama's black. Get it? Does Goldberg actually believe that Obama's idea for offering college students tuition money in exchange for entering volunteer programs would violate the 13th Amendment? Of course not. He just wanted to say "NIGG**" really bad but couldn't.
It's followed by this:
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."
I guess in Obama's mind it must be a crime to be born or to go to college.
In Jonah Goldberg's World Full-o-Stupid, volunteering is the same as involuntary servitude. Next:
In his speech on national service Wednesday 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 the 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 painful and troubling stupid. This is a man who has a column in the Los Angeles Times. These exact words appear in todays LAT. They should have air pollution and Jonah Goldberg column-warnings in L.A.
First: " If you don't make the kids report for duty..." My God. Who exactly is the "you" referring to here? Who "makes" the kids "report for duty"? (Nobody of course. It's a program that college students sign up for if they want to. My god.)
Second: "...he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose." What? This is telling colleges something? Anything? It's telling them that they're going to "lose money"? No, it's not. If it's telling colleges anything, it's "You're going to be getting a lot more money because this is going to enable more people to go to college. And pay you money."
What a fucking idiot.
And it's somehow telling students they're going to "lose money"? Again: what a fucking idiot. Offering students money is telling students they're going to lose money. Jesus. We plod on, as through chin-deep snow:
It's funny that, when the right seeks to use the government to impose its values, the left screams about brainwashing and propaganda. When the left tries it, the right thunders about social engineering. But when left and right agree -- as seems to be the case on national service -- who's left to complain? As ever, the slipperiest slopes are greased with the snake oil of "bipartisanship."
Let me see if I understand this: Jonah is not somebody on the Right "thundering about soacial engineering," he's merely a sage on a mountaintop offering his wise council about this tax-credit for volunteering program which the Left and Right agree on.
Okay.
But it's really just the opening lines of a journey into neverland. Witness:
It's funny that, when the right seeks to use the government to impose its values, the left screams about brainwashing and propaganda. When the left tries it, the right thunders about social engineering. But when left and right agree -- as seems to be the case on national service -- who's left to complain? As ever, the slipperiest slopes are greased with the snake oil of "bipartisanship."
After all, Obama's hardly alone. Sen. John McCain is a passionate supporter of Washington-led (and paid-for) "volunteerism," as is President Bush. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John Edwards both campaigned for the presidency on compulsory national service.
Perhaps thanks to the JFK cult, which sees the refrain "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." as an all-purpose writ for social meddling, even the idealistic hipster crowd is on board. Devotees of Rolling Stone and MTV, who normally preen like cats in a pool of sunshine over their alleged libertarianism when the issue is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, see nothing wrong, and everything right, with involuntary servitude -- as long as we just call it "voluntary."
I honestly feel kind of lost. In an article in which he seems to be railing against the commie hippie Democrats (and black people, wink wink), he now veers out of control into, the " left and right agree" on this; bumps into McCain, a "assionate supporter of Washington-led (and paid-for) "volunteerism" (wait...is it not involuntary servitude anymore? I thought...oh hell); and then somersaults back to this all being the fault of the "JFK cult." He doesn't seem to have a clue as to what he's talking about.
Then, my god in heaven, this comes out (I have to blockquote it again):
Devotees of Rolling Stone and MTV, who normally preen like cats in a pool of sunshine over their alleged libertarianism when the issue is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, see nothing wrong, and everything right, with involuntary servitude -- as long as we just call it "voluntary."
Um, ISSUES, anyone? And the more times he writes "involuntary servitude" the stupider the whole world becomes.
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