Posted on 01/07/2007 9:40:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s been 33 years since America got rid of the draft and moved to an all-volunteer military. Is it time to return to the days of conscription?
Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., thinks so. He plans to hold hearings soon after the new Congress convenes in January.
For years, Rangel has been saying wealthy Americans are “absent” from the military. More recently, he dismissed any sense of duty in America’s youngest generation.
“If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career, or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq,” he said on “Fox News Sunday” on Nov. 26.
This is a bizarre slur on the volunteers in uniform. Class warfare rhetoric is a staple of liberals, but it is stunningly insulting when applied to the integrity of American troops engaged in real warfare. Rangel is talking about people in the profession of arms, men and women who believe it to be the most honorable path in life.
The pernicious myth that the armed forces are filled with stupid soldiers has got to stop. It spews from Michael Moore’s film, Fahrenheit 9/11. It slipped out in John Kerry’s botched “joke.” And it has been echoing around the Left unchallenged for too long.
At the heart of this debate is a fascinating question: Is America a nation of victims or a nation of heroes? Is it so hard to imagine a young, intelligent person choosing to fight for freedom abroad?
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The guy sounds like he gargles with bleach every morning. Literally.
The young of this country are not government slaves. They have rights which too many are interested in taking away for the slimy dubious cause of "sacrifice." Of course once THAT slippery slope begins just wait till your 401(k) or your property taxes fall under the "for the greater good" microscope.
I agree. I also think that the discipline and equalizing aspects of the military would have a tremendous 'sanitizing' effect on the young skulls being squirted out of today's statist schools. In the event of overseas posting or combat deployment, the beenefits would increase since most coming back would likely have a far different view of American rights and freedoms than the complacent dross now being expelled from the NEA rectum.
The way to handle that is a variation on what the Swiss, the Swedes and the Israelis do. Draft into the Reserves. Draft everyone, men and women. Give them at least rudimentary training, at least equivalent to basic and Advanced individual training. Then staff your "selected Reserve, who would get more training and be more ready,and more likely to be called up, with volunteers from the draftees. Likewise your active force, with volunteers from both categories of reserves. If, like Israel, you need a large (relative to population) body of trained and ready troops, you extend that training to a year or two, even for the basic draftee category.
It's not exactly the Well Organized Militia, that the Founding Fathers envisioned, but it's close. Service in their Militia, under President Washington for example, was not voluntary, but service in their regular army was.
Asking is not the same as compulsory service. There's going to be a compulsory "national service" commitment of some form in the US in the coming years. It will be tied to college tuition (Rat reform?) or even admittance - many colleges require "voluntarism." It may be pushed by Homeland Defense. The debate isn't whether it may be good for the nation, but whether that compulsory servitude is in the spirit of America or our governments role. That said a new social service ethic needs to conceived and the government can be a great advocate, without compulsion. Look at recycling or conservation, those areas of life not need to be mandatory, the the benefits are understood by Americans.
A draft would also have to be fair for an area. I had a friend with a high lottery number, but because he lived in a rural area and they had not made their area quota, he was drafted. If he lived in the city he would not have been. Any number goal should pertain to the total required without regard to numbers from an area.
This time around the draft would be used to further the Lefts attacks on the military, for instance speeding up the process to reach a 50% female military, etc.
I think the new push by the democrats is to use the umbrella of true "universal service" to create a "people's army", and to create a parallel sort of draft in a civilian government service, where the young could be organized and trained to serve the "greater good".
We have more men available for service than ever before, it would be easier to simply change the school curriculum to encourage young men to serve their country, and at the same time quit feminizing the image of the military and create a more masculine aura of service so that it would come to be seen as a natural rite of passage for the manly young men, eager to earn their stripes of manhood.
If we talked up military service as something only the toughest, strongest, bravest, most special males could do, then the high school guys would be competing for the relatively few openings.
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NEVER FORGET
RANGEL only wants a Military Draft in this time of war so that TV Coverage of burning American cities that would result, a la 1968 during the Vietnam War, would force an end to our fighting against Terrorism worldwide.
This, regardless of what it would do to our Freedom and that of others we may be fighting for.
RANGEL himself has as much as admitted so publically.
Those who do end up sacrificing on behalf of the Freedom of others, never the less, do in fact turn out to be the greatest benificiaries of them all:
Signed:...A Witness
http://www.Freerepublic.com/~ALOHARONNIE
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set2.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set3.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
NEVER FORGET
.
Yeah Charlie have at it. It really worked out well last time, huh.
NEVER FORGET
BTTT
I think what you say has merit and you may be right. In fact, you are right. We would have rioting in the streets.
That said, we also have an opportunity to restore some things we have lost. For one, the notion of sedition was abandoned during the VN war and a green light was given the MSM to act on their anti-American agenda. That could be altered - if - we had the kind of conservative 'R' leadership that took reigns into their hands and acted with vision, clarity and authority.
For those that respond to our national call of need, let us show them the care and compassion of a grateful family. Let us shower them with the kind of care we have fruitlessly flung on too many through social spending in the last 40 years. Give the worthy their due.
For those who wish to burn our cities, make sure all of America knows their allegiance and their leadership. Then, toss them into the slammer.
For those who wish to undermine our nation, national defense and current mission, make sure all of America knows what is at stake and expose our seditious, treasonous government functionaries for what they are. What fate they suffer is their own problem; just ban them from public life forever.
We can always build more jails. We can't move to another country.
Here's what would happen if a draft started tommorrow:
http://www.sss.gov/WHHAP.HTM
I learned something at the site you linked to, I was in the first lottery and I've been telling people for years that my number was 14, but on the site my actual number was 16.
The other thing was I tell people that I fought the draft for two years and beat them, then I enlisted in the army as I had always planned, it turns out it was almost two years to the day.
A draft would save a lot of American boys.
Do you seriously think a male only draft will work in America today?
If I were a young American male I'd be part of a class action suit to protest a male only draft. As it is, I'd encourage my son to join such an effort. How could it be just to allow the women his age to snap up all the jobs available on graduation (of high school or college) while compelling the males of that age to submit to a draft? All the while, women in the services are demanding equal rights with men.
And afterwards there would be no way you could compel employers to replace women already experienced in their jobs with men leaving the service when their tours were up. What an injustice that would perpetrate.
Not to mention that the military prefer qualified volunteers to unwilling and/or barely literate draftees.
In addition, I think the current generation of young people would be much less reluctant to claim the homosexual label to avoid the draft than previous generations.
If the U.S. were threatened directly I'd be volunteering my own pitiful, female and middle-aged talents to resist the enemy. But there's no way I'd let my son be exploited by a draft that didn't apply to the females of his generation.
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