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Friday, September 12, 2008

Thoughts on McCain at ServiceNation

Eventually it hit me. I kept asking myself, "what's with the government centric assumption to service that pervades all of these questions posed by both Stengel and Woodruff?" The answer--these moderators are liberals! Most normal people find higher purpose in religion and perform their acts of service through their churches. To these liberals, government (or environmentalism) has become their religion and their higher purpose. They have never been to church!

It's stunning that the fundamental assumption of ServiceNation is that "volunteerism" has to be lead by the federal government. Incredibly, McCain was asked whether working class people have the necessary means and time off work to volunteer as compared to the wealthy (the assumption being that the government ought to mandate time off or supplement the incomes of those who "serve"). For some reason, McCain agreed to triple the size of Americorps, but the assumption continued when McCain was jokingly asked if he would establish a cabinet level of "Service!?!" If I were answering that question I would have said, h$*@% no, we need to be dissolving at least half of those departments! McCain finally got on track saying that the Cabinet is already too large as it is.

True service consists of simple acts like walking across the street and cutting down a tree limb for a neighbor or helping a widow in need. One of the greatest things about real volunteerism is the fact that there is almost no overhead--100% of the revenues going to those in need. That certainly would never happen with a new layer of bureaucracy. Service does not consist of getting paid to attend a government sponsored left wing training camp and do calisthenics in center city Philadelphia for a year (I've seen it first hand). It makes me wonder why McCain would agree to triple the size of Americorps.

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