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Go Home Obama, Would-be Slavedriver

JULY 9, 2008

Obama, Would-be Slavedriver

I was driving home from family vacation and missed this column yesterday, but it deserves to be roundly ridiculed. "Obama and Volunteering: Forced Servitude in America?" may be the most rambling, whiny, faux-provocative effort from Jonah Goldberg I've ever read, which is kind of like saying something is Nicolas Cage's worst movie:

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. 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."

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. 

Right, because playing chess with senior citizens for an hour a week in return for getting $4K to help pay for your classes at the Virginia Commonwealth University is pretty much like chattel slavery, and Obama is our modern-day John C. Calhoun in blackface. Of course, at the end of the column, Goldberg backs off, saying such a call to service isn't really like slavery, ha-ha! But then why even open the column the way he did? Being neither true nor funny, the analogy only qualifies as a mad shriek for attention. 

--Eve Fairbanks

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16 comments

Isn't "Jonah Goldberg" pretty much a synonym for "mad shriek for attention"?

- dmorehous

July 9, 2008 at 11:25am

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So Jonah Goldberg believes that a military draft is unconstitutional. That's good to know. What about stop-loss retention. or other forms of involuntary service currently being imposed on former military personnel? Or is involuntary service only ironically akin to slavery when a Democrat proposes it, rather than when a Republican actually imposes it?

- rhubarbs

July 9, 2008 at 11:36am

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Screw Jonah, and screw the Los Angeles Times for giving that weasel a voice. And while I'm at it why is TNR posting this tripe for discussion and comment when it is worthy of neither.

- AaronBBrown

July 9, 2008 at 11:45am

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"But then why even open the column the way he did?"

Hits.  

Both Goldberg and the L.A. Times are perfectly willing to whore out their standards for a bit more cash.  (Not that Goldberg has standards.)

- FWright

July 9, 2008 at 11:49am

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What do you expect from a guy who coughed up three-hundred-plus pages detailing the ways in which American liberals are the intellectual descendants of Mussolini?

- Androscoggin

July 9, 2008 at 12:03pm

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Eve,  TNR,

Please start posting pictures of the authors when you post a criticism of something this bad.  That will allow us to recognize the person on the street so we can point and laugh at them.

- anonevent

July 9, 2008 at 12:09pm

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Anonevent - you don't need a photograph - just point and laugh every time you a sanctimonious, intellectually-dishonest, intellectually-challenged, overpaid, witless polemicist  and you'll hit Goldberg eventually.  

- geoffgraham

July 9, 2008 at 1:01pm

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"Massuh," said the Princeton sophomore to the senior center volunteer coordinator, "I be done wit my woik heah today, so's if it be awright wit you, I bess be movin' along--"

"Don't you move your no-good uppity ass one inch!" the volunteer coordinator bellowed. "You Princeton students are all alike--lazy, shiftless thieves. All you think about is eatin' and screwin', ain't that right, boy?"

"Why no, massuh, we be tinkin' 'bout all sorts a tings--autosegmental phonology, subatomic particle acceleration, the role of HER2/neu in breast cancer pathogenesis--"

"Don't get smart with me, boy!" yelled the volunteer coordinator. He grabbed a bullwhip leaning against his office wall. "Don't make me use this again!"

"Oh no, massuh, not da whip! I'll stay! You jes tell me what to do, and I be doin' it! You want me ta play cribbage wit dat nice ol' lady wit da drool bib? Hand out da apple juice an cookies to da folks in da Alzheimuh's rec room? Tell me, massuh!"

"That's better," said the volunteer coordinator, setting the whip back against the wall. "Get the cribbage board."

The Princeton student shuffled from the room, head bowed. The volunteer coordinator leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. "Hmmm," he thought, "maybe these people ARE capable of learning..."

- williamyard

July 9, 2008 at 1:32pm

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Doesn't Jonah have anyone in his life to tell him that he is making an ass out of himself? When he used to do "what's your problem?" with Beinert he was always reasonable and made many excellent points because he knew if he talked rubbish he would be challenged and beaten.

- blackton

July 9, 2008 at 2:09pm

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Rhubarbs: A draft may  have a constitutional problem with the 13th, but stop-loss  and callback are not involuntary - when you join the military you sign a contract in which you agree to extend your service or be called back under specific conditions under control of the military.  If you don't like the terms, you can not join.

- sdemuth

July 9, 2008 at 2:53pm

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Requiring 100  hours a year of college students is requiring a lot. Many already work one or two jobs to make ends meet, plus internships that pay nothing. It may not be slavery, but it is a kind of forced labor to require them to volunteer. And to make their federal aid contingent on this service -- a little regressive, no? Great message: only the non-rich need participate.

- dkrieger

July 9, 2008 at 3:29pm

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I disagree, slightly. Obviously, there is no moral equivalence between what Obama is proposing and slavery. But forced servitude is forced servitude, and I'd rather we avoid it altogether, however innocuous a form it may take. As a college student myself, I'll be honest and say I really would rather not do 100 hours of service. Cynic that I am, I usually feel that these sorts of things are more designed to make me feel good about myself (alas! I already do!) than to fix any of society's problems, which are so often structural. I do not buy the modern lie that work is ennobling, or sets us free. I'd like to help people, but I really doubt that the way to do it is require everyone to do 100 hours of something. The program is designed to reform me, not for me to reform something else.

That said, I'm not sure how different this is from all sorts of things we do accept, such as mandatory secondary education (do we have this?) or the draft. I like mandatory secondary education; I don't like the draft but could see how the state would find it necessary on occasion. Then again, I'm an individualist and not a statist, so I don't really care what the state finds necessary.

- skipper2379

July 9, 2008 at 3:43pm

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sdemuth, if you don't like the terms of a required service agreement, you can not take the government scholarship or loan.

I'm not saying the college service thing is necessarily a great policy, but an argument that such a contingent service requirement is unconstitutional would also apply equally to any other contingent service requirement.

- rhubarbs

July 9, 2008 at 3:48pm

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$4 k for 100 hours is damn good pay in its own right, some servitude.

- blackton

July 9, 2008 at 6:14pm

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I don't know.  Goldberg's comparison to slavery is obviously ridiculous, but I don't necessarily think this is good policy.  As dkrieger points out, a lot of college students have to work 1 or 2 jobs in addition to their schoolwork, and the extra requirement might push more people to just conclude that they can't realistically afford it.  I liked Obama's earlier idea about expanding college grants for people who do a year of national service.  I'd have to see some more details about how this one would actually work (I'm damn sure not taking Jonah Goldberg's word on it).

- AlanSP

July 9, 2008 at 7:17pm

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Wouldn't college students NOT have to work real jobs as much if they were getting $4000 for what amounts to two hours of work a week?  I mean, thats a much better wage than you'd get working anywhere.  That amounts to les than a full college course time-wise.  If anything, it would give them more free time rather than less.

- dmalato2

July 10, 2008 at 5:25pm

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