The we decade?

OK for this part, though it sounds a trifle ambitious:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation's challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.

But, good lord, no, on this part:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

I know I've written this before, but doesn't he recognize the oxymoronishness of "mandatory voluntarism"? The post includes a quote, apparently from Obama, that says the American ideal is that we want "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans." No, no. The American dream is based on the idea of individual pursuits, not the subordination of the individual to the group. This nation was founded on the greatest political idea in the history of the world: Rights inhere in the individual. Anything that weakens dedication to that principle is to be viewed with suspicion, and this would do it great damage.