Defending volunteerism

Earlier this month, in the April 7 issue of the Vanguard, an article appeared condemning the recently passed U.S. House Bill 1388—alternately known as the “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act,” (or G.I.V.E.), aka the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.

The article provided such a litany of (not necessarily related) indignation at the idea of federally funded service learning, as well as some exaggerations of the bill’s purpose and outcome, I felt compelled to come to the defense of the GIVE Act, even though that meant reading through the entire bill several times.

It’s difficult to find anything very sinister in an act that is intended to “reauthorize and reform” already existing service laws. For example, this bill provides funding to increase the number of positions available to learn-and-serve programs like AmeriCorps, and it also provides minimal stipends for volunteers to groups that benefit seniors, veterans and other underserved or minority populations.

It’s basically like a supplement to the limited work-study funds that are also available through the federal government. The act provides more opportunity for people to (voluntarily) participate in service learning.

I imagine that there is potential fault to be found within any piece of legislation, particularly if you want to find fault with it. Andrew Geist, the author of the aforementioned article [“GIVE back”], seems to have wanted very much to find fault with the bill and he succeeds beyond any reasonable expectation.

To be fair, Geist brings up some points well worth consideration, even for those who may not share his views—most notably, he raises the alarm about the section in the bill that calls for the formation of an exploratory committee to study “… whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed.”

Keep in mind, this is a study. I’m not alarmed by feasibility studies—they are not any guarantee that action will be taken now or later. I do think we should all be aware that there is a possibility that college-aged students might, in exchange for a term of civil service, be provided with a living wage and funds to help pay for their education.

I tend to think that this would be a positive thing, both for students and the national and local communities served. The article’s author compares this concept—unfavorably—to the draft. He seems to think that mandatory military service is a reasonable expectation but that any service not spent in the military defense of national interests is some sort of moral lapse, as well as a guarantee of economic collapse.

The GIVE Act also makes mention of studying the feasibility of creating national service programs to provide more options for “… workers and communities that have been adversely affected by plant closings and job losses,” and to the creation of scholarships for people over 55 who have volunteered over 500 hours in service of “areas of national need.” Should Geist’s argument extend to state that these people should also be drafted to fight in wartime, since they’ve lost their jobs or are trying to find ways to stay engaged and productive after retirement?

There is terminology in the GIVE Act that encourages what Geist calls “a large social experiment in forced diversity,” or, from a slightly different standpoint, incentives to encourage greater inclusion of people who actually need the financial and educational opportunity made available by the act.

Written into almost every governmental, institutional, corporate company policy, hiring manual, employee handbook, training, etc., we will find that this same “social experiment” is underway, a response to another social experiment in which discrimination, segregation and an absence of civil rights and equal opportunities were the status quo.

The article provides other “evidence” that seems to indicate that the author believes the GIVE Act to be some sort of thinly disguised socialist/fascist effort to pick the pockets of the American public in an effort to force young people to volunteer for government-mandated charity work. (Geist and I agree on this at least: Forced volunteerism is a contradiction in terms.) By midway through the article, a slightly different agenda becomes evident; a slippery slope of anti-liberal, anti-Democratic hyperbole casts some doubt on the more rational arguments.

President Obama is referenced, unfavorably, in a completely unrelated policy regarding tax laws (and caps on deductible charitable contributions.) Shortly thereafter, there is some JFK and Andrew Johnson bashing, and while I admire the historical reference, I fail to see what our 17th president (yes, I had to look it up) has to do with proving that a bill (providing more opportunity for service learning, job training and educational funding) is such a bad idea.

The article continues to state that the AmeriCorps program is, first: “… a waste of money,” and a few paragraphs later (quoting conservative author James Bovard) nothing more than “… a paid internship.” I was surprised to hear that AmeriCorps is a waste of money, and I imagine that the thousands of people who benefit from it each year will be, too. Furthermore, I’m at a loss as to why a paid internship is a bad thing, even when the government is footing the bill.

After all, it seems like money well spent. I consider the engagement of underemployed people into service dedicated to providing disaster preparedness, health care, childhood development, environmental quality, energy efficiency, crime reduction and civic commitment, in exchange providing those people with work experience, educational opportunity and personal accountability to their community to be a pretty good deal.

This is especially true given that the cost of this bill runs each taxpayer about $3 per person, per year—according to www.govtrack.us, a nonpartisan civic group that keeps tabs on Congress.

The final straw for me, in terms of finding the article to be an unreasonable attack on the GIVE Act, is the claim that people trained to work within the public sector (for example, those engaging in a government-funded service learning programs) will be unable to work in the private sector afterward.

Huh?

It’s important to remember that these are opinion pieces. Whether it’s Geist’s opinion, my opinion or any other Op-Ed writer’s opinion, we should always be informed well enough to back up our opinions. We’re not just presenting facts and we’re not reporting news in a purely objective fashion. There’s no such thing as an objective opinion any more than there can be a forced volunteer.

Without the apparent predisposition to condemn all that is Democrat, I’d have been much more likely to seriously consider arguments against House Bill 1388. (After plowing through it, I agree with most—not all—of the ideas introduced in this legislation.)

The Vanguard article “GIVE back” provides no fair-minded assessment or even a minor consideration of possible advantages of the GIVE Act; instead it links irrelevant and anecdotal facts to the issue, “proof” that the liberal agenda will lead us all straight into poverty. In the end, this just comes off like partisan bias, maybe even a little bit like a conspiracy theory.