United Methodist Church opposes Obama's civilian service corps

As has been thrashed around for awhile now, Barack Obama favored a draft of high-school graduates into federal service for "community serv ice" of some kind or another, and also said that high school students should be required to perform 50 hours of community service per year. As for college students, they would have a 100-hour requirement.

Of course, he backed off the mandatory requirement as this concept bloated its way to proto-policy. Now the service will supposedly be voluntary (yah, shoor) and in exchange for a $4,000 tax credit for college kids. (Hmm... $40 per hour, an annual rate of more than $83K per year. Guess that will be the new federal minimum wage under Obama, 'cause fer durn sure the inmigrantes are doing harder work than community-service college kids.)

White House chief of staff designee Rahm Emanuel wrote a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, in which he called for compulsory service for all Americans from 18 to 25 years old. Wrote Rahm,

We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training...

"Asked to serve" is government-goonie speak for "report or go to jail."

At any rate, it's a draft by another name. And I am proud to report that my denomination, The United Methodist Church, has already stated its doctrinal opposition to the Obama-Emanuel plan.

V. Military Conscription, Training, and Service

(1) Conscription. We affirm our historic opposition to compulsory military training and service. We urge that military conscription laws be repealed; we also warn that elements of compulsion in any national service program will jeopardize seriously the service motive and introduce new forms of coercion into national life. We advocate and will continue to work for the inclusion of the abolition of military conscription in disarmament agreements.

Italics added. This paragraph is from the UMC's Social Principles, which have in the UMC the force of doctrine, though not of canon law, and this section goes back many, many years. I await with litle expectation, however, a contemporary condemnation, specifically of Obama's plan from the UMC's significantly left-of-center General Board of Church and Society.

Update, Jan 25 2009: "Voluntary? Not a bit. It's a draft, pure and simple.