you know you can choose what sort of service you can perform for the community? its not like they are going to put you in a sweatshop or force you to pick up garbage on the side of the highway... and you cant do anything where someone would normally get paid for.
help out a charity, do some fundraising, volunteer at a nursing home or animal shelter, etc.

and...you dont have to do it if you dont want to. they will not physically force you to do it...its your choice.

Maryland is the only state I know requiring it and that's slightly different than the 3 months of basic training the Chief of Staff is proposing.

I give blood, donate, give money to people who need it, etc.  The thing is I am not forced to and that is a better feeling that having charity be a reg forced 9-5.

In the US we have to do this to graduate from highshool.... i dont see how making kids help the comunity is a problem.....

Not only is the government forcing people to pay for other's healthcare, retirement, and education. We'll now be forced to work too!

This is why charity is called charity, and volunteer work is called volunteer. Now it's being re-purposed for slave labor. Maybe Obama and Brown will get them to do their community service to build labor camps?

i think some of you have missed the point here, were not opposed to people doing community/voulantry work (infact i myself do voulantry work 2 days a week), what people are opposed to, is forcing people to do that work, if people want to do it, thats great, but its your choice, also, i really dont see how it would benefit say a History student to pick up litter, its not gonna help them learn about there subject at all, infact it takes away time that could be spent learning stuff that is of use to that student.

SciFi - I find it amazing you dislike forced community work, but love every other socialized program under the sun.

It's the same logic, SciFi, behind the NHS as it would be forced community work. An involuntary requirement for an optional item.

what the?

i really dont understand what youre on about at all?

the NHS is a free universal healthcare system, its not being forced on people?

social programmes generaly dont force people to pick up litter and the like?

It's not free. Someone is being forced to pay for NHS. If you ever get a job, SciFi, you will have a certain amount of money taken out of your paycheck to pay for it - regardless if you use it or not. In America, I have paid out thousands of dollars since I began work for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. 3 programs I will never use.

Community service is the same way. It could, or will, be forced by people to use - a time tax, if you will - to benefit others.

Social programs still force people to pay for something they may not want or use.

i think its stupid to compare taxes to forced work, they are 2 very different things.

its not a tax, a tax is a percentage of your income taken by the government to benefit YOU and EVERYONE else, its not the same at all, forced work isnt essential either, taxes are essential.


e.g - only volunteers pick up litter on a street, the litter still gets picked up, just a little slower, at the end of the day, its not gonna effect many people at all

BUT THEN YOUR SYSTEM IS THIS:

only volunteers pay taxes, as a result, the government cant provide healthcare, education, housing or anything else to people, the taxes lost mean that MILLIONS of people are much, much worse off than they were before.