Monday, 12 December 2005 - 7:59 AM CST

Gee. Commented last night and it apparently got fried in the aether.

:-)

Gist of my comment: Lincoln's Inmperial Decree finally (fraudulently) enacted with the faux amendment (XVI) assures that every American who's not rich or powerful enough to have a few congresscritters *spit* and lawyers *spit, spit* in their pockets is enslaved to the government. Was it not Madison, arguing in the Federalist Papers concerning apportionment of representatives/census of slave v free, who argued that slavery was defined as non-ownership of the fruits of one's labor?

By that standard, most Americans, through Federal taxes, are at least half enslaved to the Feds already. (Unless one buys the disingenuous argument that the end user—you and me—does NOT pay business/corporate income taxes).

And that's not even counting those on massa's welfare plantation... funded through the fraud of the XVI Amendment.

Monday, 12 December 2005 - 8:30 AM CST

Wow, some interesting stuff there. Thanks for the background. lgp

Monday, 12 December 2005 - 8:34 AM CST

"slavery was defined as non-ownership of the fruits of one's labor"

In the final analysis slavery is the non-ownership of self.

In a free Society there may be places the Government can prevent you from going, but when the day comes it prevents you from leaving. You are no longer free.

Monday, 12 December 2005 - 6:01 PM CST

First let me agree with you: Involuntary national service is justifiable for nations directly threatened by superior numbers of enemy on their immediate borders. Short of such obvious needs for all to pitch in whether or not they have the guts and the inclination, the case gets weak pretty fast.

Now to quibble a bit. Appeal to the 13th is not as simple as it may seem. A few lines above we read in the 2nd that people should be permitted to keep arms BECAUSE THE NATION MAY NEED TO RAISE A MILITIA FROM TIME TO TIME. This cuts two ways with respect to your idea: the govt is expected to need your soldiering efforts some times BUT only for cause. And to further weaken the power of the government to impose any burden on citizens regarding national service we have the 3rd ammendment. Put them all togehter and I think is means not only can the govt only conscript for military service and only when there is clear need, but no one can be obliged to support the conscripting by providing quarters. I think your argument is in safe territory basically and anybody proposing a national service had better make it voluntary.

Now about the tone and the target of your post, I must disagree.

Work never made anyone free. Work is what we do because we are not free of financial need and perhaps the opinions of our neighbors.

What does unemployment make you? The involuntary aspect of the service is irksome, but what of the welfare aspect?

Kerry must not have been pushing the national service thing too hard...I hadn't heard of it actually. Kerry is history, long gone from the slate. It seems kinda desperate to conjure Nazi spectres just to beat an obscure part of a dead horse, er make that dead donkey. Besides, writers paid for their skills and conservative leaning noted back in 2002 that Bush and David Brooks liked the national service idea just fine. [Brooks' piece may be subscribers-only, darn the Times: he invokes the names of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt as spirits friendly to a national service stint...I think he is full of it.] Better make that "beating a dead elephant".