I participate in a mailing list of friends and acquaintances, most of whom are conservative (I think some are just contrary). One of them sent out this link today with the comment that "all the pros and cons are in the transcript" and suggesting that the concept [of a day of public service] was idiotic.
Well, it goes without saying that my conservative friend believed everything in the Fox News article. So I quickly googled "acorn 9/11 day of service" and came up with this MediaMatters article. I excerpted a couple of points about Bush having created the USA Freedom Corps and a majority of Republican senators voting for the Serve America act and sent it out along with the link.
Interestingly, the response I got was that the situation was worse because the call to service is bipartisan. So my next email said:
Yeah, it's so awful to be forced to remember to think of others on a day when we should just be feeling angry and vengeful.
The thing is, I must be missing something. I thought that the conservatives generally believe that social organizations like churches and the Red Cross (and ACORN, I suppose) should do stuff to support people in need, rather than the government (and without government support of course). But at the same time, they seem to be objecting to any suggestion that ordinary people should volunteer to help people in need. What's up with that?