There's a lot of talk about "service" these days from the government, but where public service traditionally meant the government serving the people, today it seems to mean the public serving the government. Serve.gov, rolled out by the Obama administration as part of the "United We Serve" initiative, has as its mission directing everyone into public service, either as an ad hoc community organizer or as a volunteer "on a path to sustained service". The goal being to get the public to do all the things that even Obama's out of control spending budget can't afford to pay anyone to do.
