Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, or GIVE Act by a vote of 321 to 105. The bill is being sold as a way to encourage people across the country to volunteer their time to help others. But within the bills pages is some very disturbing language that could lead to forced-volunteerism by American youth and their political indoctrination. If the bill is also passed by the Senate, it would setup a court challenge as it appears to violate the 13th Amendment.
The 13th Amendment is very clear. It was placed in the Constitution to bring an end to slavery and to insure that it could never be reinstituted by any state. Section one of the Amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” In 1947 the Supreme Court legally defined involuntary servitude to include services preformed due to threatened or actual physical violence and threatened or actual state-imposed legal coercion.
On March 15, 2009, the House voted for the GIVE Act, which among other things forms the "Congressional Commission on Civic Service." This commission is tasked to determine "whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the nation." In other words, one of the Act’s goals is to “draft” America’s youth to “volunteer”. Certainly, this would involve “state-imposed legal coercion”.
This bill is wrong on so many levels that it is nearly impossible to name them all, but I’ll go over a couple of them.
When you force people to give their time, that is not volunteering. By the Supreme Court’s definition, it would force young people into involuntary servitude. Although it would seem that an appeal of the Act is likely if it is passed by the Senate, the outcome of such an appeal is less than clear. Although the Supreme Court has defined involuntary servitude, it has not actually enforced any action associated with involuntary servitude since 1947. If the lower federal courts ruled in favor of the Government, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Supreme Court would agree to take on an appeal.
Beyond this, forcing children to “volunteer” their time is a blatant interference in the child rearing process and parental rights by the federal government. Only parents should have such authority over their children. The government has absolutely no business inserting itself into family life and doing so is a complete violation of privacy.
People also need to be concerned with what the program will “teach” our youth. The GIVE Act would use $6 Billion of government funding to organize volunteers. That’s a lot of money. What would it be used for? Well, perhaps the President’s own words will give you some idea.
Last July, in a campaign speech on volunteerism and national service, Obama expressed an interest in turning over national security to a civilian force of volunteers. He said, "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."
But just what would this “civilian national security force” do, and whom would they be protecting us from? One must presume that such a force would require training. What are we going to train this force to do? Spy on your neighbors? On your parents? On your friends? What would they be looking for?
This sort of thing has happened before in history, and the outcome has never been good. It’s time to give the GIVE Act the boot! And its time for the government to get out of the business of interfering in the activities of ordinary citizens just going about their daily lives. If people want to volunteer, let them. But if they want to be left alone by the government, that is their right and it should not be tampered with.
byJim Malmberg
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