Blagnet.net

Oh, but it isn’t a draft

I’ve become quite fixated on two themes of our current political-economic climate in the last two or three months, since the recession seemed to be accelerating and a Democratic sweep on election day seemed nearly certain: making correct economic predictions and explanations (which the Austrians seemed to do pretty well) and the likelihood of Democrats continuing the very foreign-policy, civil-liberties, and economic fallacies of the neocons that they so famously opposed (er, claimed to oppose).

I hope that this fixation doesn’t make this blag become more boring, but theorizing about economics (especially by an amateur economist whose audience isn’t economists and who doesn’t prattle on about graphs and statistics) should usually be interesting, and the neocons gave us plenty of interesting material for 8 years so the Democrats shouldn’t be much less interesting. In fact, a change of pace could make things more interesting for a while, if only because the names and details we rail against will differ, if the general types of crimes and fallacies do not.

I can’t speak 100% confidently for Kel, but one of my main reasons for wanting to start this site was to take things from our everyday lives and the current events of the world, and apply libertarian philosophy to them, explaining what was right and wrong and how libertarianism could offer a better solution than the Statism we all live under. I’m not sure how well we do at actually philosophizing very often, and how many clear solutions we offer (as opposed to just ranting about the State and its professional criminals all the time), but, for what it’s worth, that was the general idea.

So, along those lines, I want to begin what I expect will be a long and consistent campaign against President Obama’s actions and decisions. His first move was to select a chief of his White House staff, Rahm Emanuel. J.D. Tuccille writes (hat tip: Lew Rockwell):

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25. The following excerpt is from pages 61-62 of the 2006 book:

It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. …

Here’s how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we’re hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities’ most pressing needs.

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist “this is not a draft,” but go on to write of young men and women, “the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service.” They also warn, “[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom,” ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

As chief of staff, Emanuel will not be in a position to directly introduce public policy, but his enthusiasm for compulsory service, combined with Barack Obama’s own plan to require high school students to perform 50 hours of government-approved service, suggest an unfortunate direction for the new administration.

Let us suppose that Congressional Democrats aren’t keen on this “civilian conscription” idea and Rahm Emanuel doesn’t push for it very much, so it never gets forced on the nation; that would be a good thing. However, even with that very real possibility, the fact that Obama and his chief of staff have said these things, and believe these things, and have that type of mindset about the relationship between individual, State, and country are extremely troubling to me and should be to every self-described liberal out there. They have proposed their civilian conscription plans very recently, not, like, in their college Marxist clubs.

In May I made the rather meek prediction that there will be considerable talk and fear of military slavery in the United States in my lifetime. I said I didn’t necessarily think it would be implemented, so I didn’t go that far in my predicting. But if Obama’s and Emanuel’s civilian conscription plan(s) are inflicted upon young Americans, regardless of whether their “service” involves guns, uniforms, drill sergeants, or anything else militaristic, I will consider the reality worse than my meek and timid prediction; actual implementation of “civilian conscription” is worse than mere discussion of military conscription.

Lastly, along the lines of Blagnet.net’s continuing battle against the Republocrat establishment that will soon happen to have new names and faces in charge, I’ve added a new category for our posts: Obama regime. I expect it to accrue a lot of posts quickly. I’m thinking of actually creating two new categories, one for Obama administration failures, and one specifically for predictions. I’m not sure, and I’m also not sure why I’m telling anyone but Kel…

Posted in Fascism, Obama predictions