Hey why aren't you at the Funderstormmmmm Show?????
skano11.7.08 - 11:16 pm
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Fifty entire hours, every year? How will our children find time to play Counterstrike and post sultry pictures of themselves on Myspace if we expect them to spend the equivalent of one weekend every four months doing things that are socially useful?
This is clearly a plot to get our kids used to the idea of going someplace the GOVERNMENT wants them to go, on a regular basis, in order to learn things that the GOVERNMENT wants them to learn!!!!!!!!!!!! If we let Barack HUSSEIN Obama get away with this, how much longer will it be before our American kids are forced to go to some "school" every single day to learn about so-called "History" and alleged "Social Studies" and quote-unquote "Civics"?????? This is an outrage!!!!!!!!!! Forward this email to everybody in your address book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PC11.8.08 - 2:48 am
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PC, you rarely miss the point, so I'm surprised. -1 PC
The point is not what's being made mandatory, it could be mandatory ice cream sessions for all I care; it's the mandatory part that's upsetting.
...and you're so cute when you talk all aged about videogames.
Eric Hair11.9.08 - 11:25 am
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First off its not mandatory.
They've already changed the language, before the thing even started.
Second off.
So what if it was mandatory.
We have compulsory education where kids are mandated to go to school. In school it is mandated that they learn certain subjects: english, math, physical education, civics etc.
Community service is just hands on civics classes, where kids learn about civics first hand by doing. Kind of like taking a field trip to the museum, or joining an athletic team (which fills the mandatory PE requirement).
But regardless, the language that said "mandatory" is no longer in there, so its kind of a moot point.
Paranoia solved.
trickmilla11.9.08 - 11:52 am
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The rest of us pay taxes on a mandatory basis, and plenty still manage to find 50-100 hours per YEAR to volunteer. High school and college age kids rarely make enough money to pay significant taxes, if they make any money at all, yet they consume significant public resources.
I've got absolutely no problem with the initiative, mostly because it will be a valuable learning experience - one that many young folks don't get until much later in life. Since it will inevitably be integrated into the curricula at their places of learning, I don't see it as any more onerous than a requirement for sex ed, pe, or math, for that matter.
ideasculptor11.9.08 - 12:57 pm
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I don't care if it's "mandatory". I want to do it anyway. It will give people meaningful things to do and it will get them engaged into this country again. We wanted CHANGE. Here it is. Why whine?
Joe Borfo11.9.08 - 1:15 pm
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Point is, nobody cares.
PC11.9.08 - 2:03 pm
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I care, Compulsory anything is horrible.
Incentives is one thing.
There is many things that I don't accept that the general public just agrees with, goes along and doesn't bother to question or look at alternative view points on issues. Should it be compulsory that I do those things or participate in things that I want no party? Maybe you think I should compulsory receive vaccinations, even though I know how potentially damaging they can be. Vaccines can be so damaging that the vaccine manufactures pushed congress to remove them from any liability, and if somethings harmful happens immediately from someone receiving a vaccination that there is certain cap in which you and I (i.e. da US government has to pay in damages), not the manufactures, the hospitals or the doctors that told you should have them..
Maybe you think I should have to compulsorily medicate myself with fluoride, so I can prevent dental decay. Even though it is more toxic then lead and slightly less toxic then arsenic, (that is according to the EPA). To bad for me, not only do I have to drink it, I have to cook and bath with it. It inserted in my water supply for me. That compulsory
This is a great way to get people who are on and the right and people who believe they should have freedom to do what they like and not like, (as long as they are not hurting or infringing on someone else's freedoms) to come out against this new president.
When is everybody on this site going to push for compulsory bicycling? Who would be against that?
sexy11.9.08 - 2:48 pm
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This isn't compulsory anything or compulsory everything. This isn't forced medicating.
Too be clear the plan is not slated to be mandatory, in an earlier version of the plan, however it appears the word mandatory was used.
Not everybody is forced to attend a public school.
But public schools exist so everybody can go to school.
What's the big deal if the government asks students to be held to a certain standard of community involvement in exchange for their free or subsidized education.
When I was in primary school they sent us to camp to learn about the natural environment in a first hand way. This seems like the same type of thing.
trickmilla11.9.08 - 3:25 pm
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You're an air conditioned anarchist, Sexy; of course anything compulsory is horrible to you unless it involves calling room service for more ice. Most people aren't anarchists.
More to the point, most people aren't black helicopter home-schooling paranoiacs, and they accept the idea of 1) compulsory education, and 2) the inclusion within the educational program of the teaching of certain life skills that are not, strictly speaking, academic. Nobody took to the streets in protest when I was forced by the guvmint to bake cookies in the seventh grade, although they might have done it if they had tasted the cookies. Likewise, few will be outraged by the idea of an eight hour shift at the old folks' home every couple of months for little Tevin or Kaylee. Inconvenienced, maybe, but not outraged.
Not that this will stop certain right wing blowhards from trying to manufacture that outrage. When this falls flat, they'll try something else, and then something else, and then something else again. Remember Regnery Publishing in the nineties? Hillary Clinton wants to eat your babies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, now they have the Web at their disposal, so expect a lot of this crap for the next eight years (yes, I said eight) and learn to tune it out now. Believe me, everybody else will.
PC11.9.08 - 3:38 pm
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fuck mandatory, i'll do it anyway. who wants to go do some community service? i am down.
tinycities11.9.08 - 3:38 pm
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This is so not the same thing as an attack for something that has not happen or is not going to happen. If you force someone into doing something that they may not want to, you have the force of the state to back it up. What does that mean??? If you don't do what is law you can have a court rule against you in which you may now again be forced to pay a fine or serve time in jail. If you try to refuse the courts order, the court can have you forcefully held and if you resist being forcibly taken into custody. There so called peace officer aka law enforcement officers can use deadly force against the person refusing.
People should take that use of deadly force and imprisonment seriously when supporting or calling for laws.
Any community service should be done be voluntarily, with incentives to motivate. This would be very beneficial is so many ways. But to force somebody into volunteering their time, that is what you call a police state. I don't think the Obama administration will have to force anybody into volunteering for community service. Obama is so popular I predict a rise in volunteer military service because of his call to do so, even with an escalation of the losing war in Afghanistan.
Only Reserve osmosis and distillation will remove Fluoride. Using the reserve osmosis process waste about 4 gallon of water for every one gallon treated. This is very wasteful. As an air conditioned anarchist I do have one of these for my cooking and drinking, but it is too wasteful in my opinion to have one for washing and going into my hot water heater. You can get a zero waste pump system that places the brine in your hot water, but then that water is more polluted then the regular untreated water.
I have no control over the water that is treated with fluoride and contaminates my food.
sexy11.9.08 - 4:23 pm
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This is for children. Schoolchildren. They already have to go to school and do shit. Even if you don't, or refuse to, understand this, most people (or at least most people who are not children, which clearly rules out the Pajamas Media crowd) do.
So, to summarize again: nobody cares.
PC11.9.08 - 4:33 pm
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Fine, call me a "nobody" but PC you are a somebody in my book!
sexy11.9.08 - 5:14 pm
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Wow Young Americans will actually be required to participate in their community. Jeeze what else can we find to complain about?
Just about every country has mandatory military service and community services.
pacino11.9.08 - 8:28 pm
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fluoride helps prevent cavities, kids.
so brush, floss, and drink your tap water!
la duderina11.9.08 - 9:50 pm
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I spent the last hour on epa.gov trying to find the reference of floride being "Even though it is more toxic then lead and slightly less toxic then arsenic, (that is according to the EPA)." I had no luck at all. I did see that wiki states, "Fluoride-containing compounds are so diverse that it is not possible to generalize on their toxicity, which depends on their reactivity and structure, and in the case of salts, their solubility and ability to release fluoride ions."
Really if you wanted to scare people with the boogeyman tails of terror, why not go with MTBE?
http://www.epa.gov/mtbe/
Regarding the this "required" service offer. PC's right, this is just the start of 8 long years of target shooting by the Right. Get used to it. No one remembers how Clinton was treated? See the film http://www.thehuntingofthepresident.com/
Big up for thinking this for our youngsters! Wish it was thought of years ago!
User111.9.08 - 10:19 pm
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if you make someone do it, they won't like it.
this plan will back fire and we will have pissed of kids who say 'fuck the community, I served my 50 and I'm done, if anything they owe me."
I used to be president of a volunteering club, I was a member of 4 years in this high school club. Volunteering is bullshit, most of the kids do it for college who don't even care about others. This club is a branch of a bigger organization and they all kind of BS count for community service. Going to six flags counts as community service, dances and meetings all count as community service. its all BS.
if "bama does this it should be regulated and that the people giving out the hours should not be lenient, d'em kids should earn d'em hours.
aksendz11.9.08 - 10:29 pm
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pacino wrote:
Jeeze what else can we find to complain about?
Just you wait. If you think the far right is ungracious in victory, wait till you see how they behave when they've been beat. If you were paying attention during the 90s, you got a taste of it, but the Internet is a much stronger social force than it was then, which means that they no longer have to rely on Richard Mellon Scaife and R. Emmet Tyrell to publish their bumbling attempts at scandalmongering.
Expect it go pretty much like this:
1. Wingnut blogger or neocon newspaper columnist releases "damning" information about Obama administration member or policy--generally of the guilt-by-remote-association or "THEY'LL MAKE YOUR BABIES LEARN WITCHCRAFT" variety
2. Limbaugh, O'Reilly
et al spend weeks or months whipping up outrage on radio and television
3. General public yawns
4. Return to 1., until
5. Obama delivers farewell speech in January 2017
PC11.9.08 - 10:48 pm
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Incidentally, do you guys remember when 9/11 totally changed everything and dissent from government policy became un-American? Well, that's officially canceled.
PC11.9.08 - 10:52 pm
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Oh my goodness. skimming thru the comments before my own response gave me an opportunity to catch some silliness...they'll make our babies learn witchcraft...was by far the funniest. Lol.
*Sometimes* mandatory things are good for people. Muscles aren't built unless they're stretched. So, of all things that could be mandatory, community service is by the far the best possible of mandatory anything. Volunteering your time to help fix/change/create something can be some of the most rewarding experiences. Let's go!
kryxtanicole11.10.08 - 10:14 am
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idealy speaking, that would be awesome
but practically, it will be a bitch.
aksendz11.10.08 - 10:32 am
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Well, I do community service sometimes at "Wheels for humanity"
Its a great place to work because you fix wheel chairs and sent them to impoverished country's. There are also legal reasons as to why they can only serve other country's and not ours as well...
We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in North Hollywood, California. We refurbish donated wheelchairs and hand fit them to children and adults with disabilities in developing nations. We then partner with international health-care organizations to identify those in greatest need. With a team of volunteer health care professionals, each recipient is individually fitted to the wheelchair that best fits their needs.
Many factors contribute to the great number of the world's disabled, such as spinabifida, cerebral palsy, polio, landmines, war, natural disasters, spinal cord injuries and lack of adequate and timely medical care. In many developing countries, if you can't walk by yourself, you must crawl or be carried and are forced to live a life of confinement. UCP Wheels for Humanity is proud of our work to bring the freedom of mobility to thousands across the globe.
Its also a good place to fix/lube bike parts....theyre very nice people.
Theres a lounge and free snacks.
NOISEPOCKET11.10.08 - 10:40 am
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^well, not exactly a lounge per se, but more like a table and couch on the south end of the establishment.
NOISEPOCKET11.10.08 - 10:44 am
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If people hate volunteering, wait until they find out about the forced conversion to Islam!
lol people will freak out about anything. I'll take volunteering over getting drafted any day of the week.
mullingitover11.10.08 - 12:30 pm
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Did you hear that Obama is going to have the Federal government steal all our 401Ks? I was listening to this great American Rush Limbaugh the other day and he told us about it. He also said Obama has caused the biggest depression since the Great Depression!
FUCK OBAMA!
Let the Obama backlash begin!!!
Now.
Yes.
Go.
Hagbard Celine11.10.08 - 12:50 pm
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It's all fun and games until someone gets forced to wear a dashiki.
nathansnider11.10.08 - 1:02 pm
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"We have compulsory education where kids are mandated to go to school. In school it is mandated that they learn certain subjects: english, math, physical education, civics etc."
I for one found Highschool extremely boring. Teachers are pretty much locked in after a few years. They loose their edge, can't relate, and thus can't teach students because they don't know how to get anything across. The result being standardized testing to keep teachers in check.
If I had a kid I would sure as hell make sure to work my ass to pay for private school if they wanted, or move to another country were it's not required or have a system that is more free like freedom.
Just thinking about highschool gives be anxiety. It's like prison.
vor01.20.09 - 4:10 am
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