www.washingtonexaminer.com >> OpEd Contributor

www.washingtonexaminer.com >> OpEd Contributor: "By Sen. Jim DeMint, OpEd Contributor
- | 4/1/09 5:18 PM
Last week, 78 United States Senators voted in favor of the Serve America Act, which will spend $5.7 billion over the next five years to pay people, and in many cases force them, to volunteer. I was not one of the senators voting for this measure. For all its overwhelming bipartisan support, Serve America is about as dangerous a piece of legislation as can even be contemplated.
What makes America America is not our government or economy, but our civil society. It is those organizations, the “little platoons” of democracy, that really make our nation go: The Boy Scouts, United Way, church socials, food drives, and little leagues.
While our large institutions continue to let us down – in Washington and New York – our civic, charitable, and religious organizations thrive.
These organizations make our country better, to be sure, but that is mostly because they make us freer. They meet needs and solve problems without inviting the bull of government into the china shop of our local communities.
Our Founding Fathers understood this. They empowered the federal government to do a few things only, with the understanding that individuals, families, and small voluntary associations would take care"