The pieces are coming together.
We're getting a more complete picture of Barack Obama's draconian plans to create a domestic army of radical extremists promoting bigger and more intrusive government.
The plan is to create a boot camp for community agitators – paid for by you, the U.S. taxpayer.
Investor's Business Daily deserves credit for putting together the elaborate jigsaw puzzle. I merely saw the smoke. IBD discovered the fire. But for reference, you will want to read about what I found previously regarding Obama's calls for a "civilian national security force."
It seems Obama was a founding member of a group called Public Allies in 1992. In 1993, he resigned before his wife, Michelle, took over as executive director of the Chicago chapter.
This little-known, but well-funded, band of taxpayer-supported social misfits will, according to IBD, serve as the centerpiece of his "Universal Voluntary Public Service" program.
"Universal voluntary?" Isn't that an oxymoron? Yes, but just consider the moron who is advocating it.
"Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas," write the editorialists for IBD. "They plan to herd American youth into government-funded re-education camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of 'social change.'"
The "Obama Youth" will get a monthly stipend of $1,800, plus paid health and child care, plus a $4,725 grant after their "service" for future education or school loan payoffs.
But this isn't just a make-work program.
IBD says the "real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about 'social change' through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation – the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul 'The Red' Alinsky."
The group boasts that graduates of the program are more than twice as likely as other young people to "engage in protest activities." Isn't that wonderful? That's the real purpose – using your tax dollars to foment extremist political clashes, furthering the reach of Big Government into the lives of all of us.
The government already pays about half the bill for Public Allies through Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps program. Obama seeks to fund it at levels equal to the U.S. Defense Department – close to $500 billion annually.
This is what he meant when he said: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military."
IBD concludes: "The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military – and stick American taxpayers with the bill."
What else is there to say?
Such a program would fundamentally change the character of America – possibly forever.
Someone should ask Obama, who claims to be a legal scholar, where he finds such a program authorized among the enumerated powers of the Constitution.
Now that would be an entertaining question and answer for some intrepid member of the press.
Personally, I won't hold my breath waiting for anyone with access to be so bold.
Remember what programs like this are about. They are about empowering government to take more control over your life. They are about limiting your freedom. They are about picking your pocket. They are about changing the way you think by coercion. They are about making you uncomfortable being an American. They are about total power – and never letting go.
We've seen programs like this before – in Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China.
Never again.