There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone from doing community service now. I’ve been doing it for my entire adult lifetime, without any government bribes to motivate me. I’ve both created and run community volunteer organizations, large and small. I don’t need or want government to spend my tax dollars to impose any herd mentality thinking, thank you. The abuse potential inherent in government-funded community "values" evangelism is frightening.

For example, Obama’s call for an "Energy Corp" to green up communities through moral suasion should give one serious pause, and his call for "a civilian national security force that just as strong, just as powerful, just as well-funded" as the U.S. military should scare the holy bejeebers out of you.

While I’m sure it’s not what Connor intended, please read what he said and think about it: "I think one of the most valuable things is to get away from our excessive focus on self and individualism and submerge your identity within the group and the group’s goals."

Remember that those goals will be subject to the current leadership’s control and manipulation at any given time. That such schemes require the taxpayers to fund political activism they don’t agree with. That such organizations can AND WILL be used to influence public political opinion, BY DESIGN.

The shared experience is good, but I think one of the most valuable things is to get away from our excessive focus on self and individualism and submerge your identity within the group and the group’s goals.  Nothing teaches the value of sacrifice like putting aside your choices and goals and instead focusing your energies on achieving group goals by playing a specific role.

That may sound vague, it’s one of those things you really have to experience to understand.

In any event, "mandatory education" already exists, it’s called public school.

This is from the same pdf file that lays out the above proposals.  Sounds good till you think about it for a minute.

Why does he want to increase the military when in fact he is going to pull them out of Iraq and bring them home?  Notice his position says that BETWEEN DEPLOYMENTS. 

What deployments?  Hes bringing the troops home.  Isn’t he?  Why would he want to do that?  Perhaps as a moderate he has no intentions of pulling out of Iraq like he has promised.  I don’t know.  I’m just saying.

Im telling you this Obama dude is the Ultimate Nanny Stater.  He is going over the edge on this one.

Mandatory community service?  Hell thats what they give you when you go to court for misdemeanors.

Mandatory community service.  College grants based upon community service.  Trying to pull Chruch organizations under the umbrella of the federal government.

Scary.  This man is scary.

There is NO constitutional authorization for a civilian "national service" draft. Indeed, there is a constitutional ban on slavery and involuntary servitude. It can be found in the 13th Amendment.

The potential for coercive "re-education" in such a scheme is obvious in the original post.

Although for me I think the most powerful thing is to make you work with and for people that you might never otherwise contact. If everyone suddenly had a co-worker or friend who was black, gay, muslim, etc I think people across the land would be a lot more reasonable.