Everything Is Like Everything Else
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008Others have already commented extensively on the inanity of Jonah Goldberg’s suggestion that Barack Obama’s call for high school and college students to perform community service runs afoul of the 13th Amendment — you know, that one that made it illegal to buy and sell people who look like Barack Obama. Not only is likening compulsory community service to slavery embarrassingly ignorant in the abstract, in reality, Obama is not proposing anything like direct compulsion of students, but rather offering a tax credit to schools that make community service a part of their graduation requirements. So it might be entertaining to see Goldberg field a few follow-up questions, like, say, does mandatory school for all American children violate the 13th Amendment? Are core curricula, if not exactly like chattel slavery, then on a relevant continuum? Where, for that matter, do parental notification laws put us on the road to serfdom? How about mandatory childhood vaccinations? Feel free to come up with your own.