Obama's civilian defense force

We heard about this a couple months ago, and then it sounded much more sinister than how it was described last week, but it's still just as stupid:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

This isn't the first time that we've heard about this, either. Marcie picked up on it back in July, and she was right then about how distressing the idea was. It was creepy. He wants a civilian defense force with the same budget as the military does, with the same training the military gets, and the same equipment the military uses.

Of course, the interesting thing about this is how are they going to make it mandatory, and get over certain legal hurdles. Kids can't be forced to say the Pledge, so how will they force kids to do this service. And there's a privacy issue in the mix here, as well. After making a big deal out of the privacy over one's body since 1973, how will Obama and the Left get around that to make their precious little corps of indoctrinated brown shirts?

And then there is the issue that Captain Ed points out, which is the youth themselves. The way this program was touted is simply a certain number of hours of community service. But thanks to incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, we now know that it'll require three months of Basic training, and living in barracks. And it's not just for kids either, but they will be the ones directly targeted. We'll see how his vaunted youth voters react when they see that Obama wasn't kidding, and that they will be doing this against their will. While no punishment has been spoken of yet for those that refuse, you can be the punishment won't be a slap on the wrist.

With this program they intend to alienate the very people who helped sweep them into power. Kids don't have to remember the draft to know they won't like it. Ask anyone over 50 that was drafted, or joined the military freely to avoid being drafted, and they'll tell you how much it sucked. They'll also tell you how the youth back then rebelled against the draft. If Obama thinks some flowery prose is going to change hearts and minds, he better rethink that plan. It won't, and the kids will resent him for this.

As for us, Marcie says it'll be a cold day in Hell before she submits to this, and I'm right there with her. And if it's a fight he's looking for on this subject, that's what he'll get. This nation is way beyond the draft, and we're not idiots. We know what this is for. And in case Obama forgot, we already have a defense force in this nation. It's called the National Guard. But I guess when you don't like the military, and you don't trust the military to carry out your orders, you have to build your own, private army that's akin to a Praetorian Guard, or, as I mentioned earlier, a group of brown shirts.

Publius II