A Modest Proposal

Let’s follow Obama’s plans for national youth service — hell, let’s massively expand them.

Then let’s put those kids to work doing “jobs Americans won’t do.”

That way, the left gets its mandatory voluntary service to the country, and the right gets less illegal immigration. Everyone’s happy, right?

… What?

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 politics

It’s what I did when I was a teenager. I worked for the government doing town clean up for minimum wage.

DJ Eternal Darkness on November 15th, 2008

The people hiring undocumented workers are private companies, so I’m not sure how you’d reconcile the two? I’d like to see the WPA back in action, or something similar to it.

There’s no URL to go to. I was just putting two thoughts together and being snarky.

Susan,

Government to peach growers: “Hey, we’ve got this huge pool of unskilled labor doing their ‘national service’ that you don’t have to pay at all! How many do you need? We’ll even truck ‘em to you!”

If the peach growers were contracted to do something with those peaches that would benefit people in exchange, such as giving a certain percentage of profit or peaches to food shelves, then it would make sense. Otherwise, that would just be slave labor.

Otherwise, that would just be slave labor.

Oh, you wanted them to do stuff that was morally uplifting or valuable service to the nation? How is that not slave labor?

If they’re doing something of valuable service or that’s morally uplifting, that’s the payback right there. That’s the main reason people volunteer, to help others in need. If the kids are just working so some company can make more profit, then that’s slavery.

Gen-X, Goth, Geek, Gamer
Classical Liberal, Atheist, Father-to-be

Rantings and commentary from Bryan Lovely, a reddish guy in a sea of blue, coming to you from the Democratic People's Republic of Seattle.

No Clever Pseudonym