I never thought our first African American President would be the one to bring back slavery. But obviously I’m no psychic.

In a hideously underpublicized clause of Barack Obama’s plans for his first term, one I wasn’t even aware of until yesterday, there is word of a mandatory service initiative, a “calling on” of all American citizens to donate a certain amount of time per year to community projects. Every middle and high school student will be required to do 50 hours, and every college student will be required to do 100 hours per year of enrollment. Retiring citizens, age 55 and over, will be “encouraged” to serve in programs appropriate for their age group, and all other citizens will be pushed to join one of the many programs Obama wants to either grow or start up, namely the Peace Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veteran Corps, Head Start, and Youth Build.

Note that I am not anti-community service. I have done a decent share of it throughout my life, starting with making layettes in my dad’s Crisis Pregnancy Center office to participating in Walk for Life to giving 17 inches of my hair to Locks of Love to tutoring, and I don’t plan on being an stingy, uncharitable adult in the years between now and my death. Charity is good. Community service is good. People should do it.

But requirement? Not only does this completely contradict the very heart of charity, it is borderline slavery. The government cannot control our time and our good deeds. We are not indentured by our citizenship. If a legal adult does not want to do community service, that’s a legitimate choice. It is none of anyone else’s business. We’re being treated like criminals, but instead of a court-ordered service to compensate for a misdemeanor, it’s a government mandate to further a socialist, false utopian agenda.

Did I mention the bribery involved? Obama is offering a $4,000 tax credit to be applied directly to a college student’s tuition should he or she complete the 100 annual hours of community service (overall, $1,000 per year for the average student). This promise 1) negates the term “charity” and 2) forces American taxpayers to shove out payment for work that would have otherwise been done by true volunteers at no cost. Even as a college student who could certainly use an extra 4k in my UNC account, I think this idea is ludicrous and backwards.

While change.gov has made some slight alterations to the careful wording of the “Service” paragraph, eliminating the word “require” that appeared frequently in the first published draft, the principle is the same, as is the underlying problem: we are being turned into the government’s slaves.

Time to re-excavate the Underground Railroad, huh?

While I always pictured Robin Hood as a cartoon fox in a jaunty green number, he is, apparently, a 47-year old Senator of Kenyan/Caucasian birth sporting everything but a flag pin. I had no idea.

But perhaps you’d say that Robin Hood was a good guy. Someone you’d like to vote for. He helped the poor and stuck it to that evil King Richard and made everything better for the whole land. And maybe this was a legitimate cause under a stagnant English monarchy wherein the poor were truly unable to thrive. But this is America, and that’s just not the way we do things.

A friend of mine told me about one of her coworkers, a guy who is fully aware of Obama’s socialist tendencies but doesn’t seem to mind. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked my conservative compadre, baffled that her opposition to socialism was her main argument against Barack. I guess on the surface, a socialist nation doesn’t look so bad. Everyone has the same amount of money so no one feels inferior or is destitute, and all the people start and stay on the same class level. It’s like a private school with uniforms: if we all look the same, no one will be jealous or distracted or slutty.

I went to a private school one year. I hated those plaid skirts and cardigans more than anything in my life.

Barack Obama’s agenda to “spread the wealth around” is frightening. What’s more frightening is how he thinks it’s N.B.D. He’s been talking about a socialized economy (and socialized health care, but I’ll rip on that some other day) since this whole thing started, and people have been going right along with it. The way Obama explains his system, with his taxation of big corporations and tax credits to middle and lower class families, sounds just like President Robin Hood, only in Obama’s case it’s the rich stealing from the rich and giving to the less rich (because let’s face it, America, no one here is truly impoverished by international standards).

I know the story has been harped on endlessly since the last debate, but I feel it’s relevant here, so here’s my comparison using Joe the Plummer:
Obama’s new tax policies would discourage success. Joe wants to better himself by buying a company, something he has worked very hard to be able to do, but once he does so, he’ll be taxed into the poor house and have to close his brand new business. And Obama’s claim that only a “small percentage” of small businesses will be affected by his tax reform is crap; the average small business is making $3.6 million per year, and Obama’s plan would tax them almost $230,000 per year more than they’re paying now. I don’t know about you or your small business, but I say 230k is a decent chunk of change, one I’d rather not see spread into a socialist system that provides cash for the undeserving.

Allow me to make my last statement clear: NOT EVERYONE DESERVES GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. There are some people in America who do absolutely nothing for themselves. Spoiled brat princess girls, drug addicts who make no attempt to quit, the just plain lazy. I will not pad their pockets, understand? I work hard for the money I earn, and if I continue to work hard and someday become wealthy, I should not be penalized for it, and those who have not worked hard should not be rewarded for it. America is a land of opportunity. The American Dream is achieving enormous success from humble beginnings, and when we begin to cut down those who make it to the top, people will stop aiming for it. Why should Joe the Plummer be motivated to buy the company he wants when it’s a guaranteed tax hike? He might as well stay where he is because it’s less stress, less responsibility, and essentially more pay.

So if no one is willing to take on the stress and responsibility and voluntary pay cuts, who’s going to lead us? Who’s going to shoot for the stars and start the small businesses and further our economy and participate in capitalism and stimulate ingenuity? When Obama’s in charge? No one.

Funny how a man who is running under a guise of hope is proposing legislation that quashes optimism. Enjoy turning into Cuba, people. I’ll be the one saying I told you so.