"What crime have these young people committed?"

Denver Post columnist Mike Rosen writes on May 15 that last July candidate Barack Obama told an audience in Colorado Springs: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the U.S. military! The Department of Defense, according to Rosen's piece, includes about 3 million men and women, and will spend an estimated $675 billion in 2009.

So, surely Obama was joking, right? Wrong! HR 1388, "The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, has already been passed, tripling Americorps from 75,000 to 250,000. The next step will be to pass HR 1444, which would establish a Congressional Commission on Civic Service. Its task is to set up rules enabling a mandatory service requirement for all young people.

Rosen notes that the Thirteenth Amendment to our Constitution "prohibits involuntary servitude except as a punishment for a crime." Rosen asks, "What crime have these young people committed?