from You Belong to Us by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. ~
“The issue has become especially important because Democratic nominee Barack Obama has embraced national service as a priority of his presidency should he win. Obama would not directly impose forced labor on young people, but would instead withhold educational funds from them and their institutions if they fail to comply. (Yes, they shouldn’t be taking these funds in the first place, but there is something sinister in Obama’s program all the same.) We should, he says, “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.”
I expect more from Barack Obama. For John McCain, I’m not surprised at any freedom ending idea that comes out of his mouth. National service? John F. Kennedy called for Peace Corps Volunteers and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA).
Woods makes these points:
- The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution states: “Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
- The Thirteenth Amendment is clear and unambiguous.
- A draft or forced national service is involuntary servitude.
- In the Draft Law Cases of 1917, Chief Justice Edward White concluded that since the Congress has the power to raise armies, it could use any means possible to raise those armies, including force.
- Daniel Webster argued the unconstitutionality of the draft over 50 years before the Thirteenth Amendment was passed:
“Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?”
- Conscription, no matter how pure the motives, cannot be reconciled with freedom.
Commentary:
- Calling on high school students to “volunteer” so many hours or they cannot graduate from high school. They call it “Community Service”, just like someone might be sentenced to by the court. I guess it goes well with the other language used in our schools that sounds like prison - security, metal detectors, lockdowns, and release time.
- My belief has always been that if the U.S. were ever invaded, you could not keep every able bodies man or woman from joining the defense of our country.
- People who accept the notion that it is our duty to be drafted into the Army and give up our lives for someone’s political agenda do not know the difference between being a citizen and being a subject.
- The possibility of drafting men and women when you do not have enough military recruits encourages politicians to rattle sabers and threaten violence in places around the world where our young men and women do not need to die or to kill others.
- Politicians and the Supreme Court have shredded the Constitution so thoroughly no one remembers what it is like to have limited government.
Ron Paul stated the issue clearly: “Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the playthings of government.”
Charles Lamm is a citizen and not a subject of the United States of America. To protect your property as well as your person, visit his Asset Protection Iron Triangle blog and learn how to use corporations, LLCs, and beneficiary controlled trusts to protect yourself from lawsuits, creditors, and even the IRS.
