Posted on 05/03/2009 8:02:08 PM PDT by truthandlife
Rep. Charlie Rangel, Congress's lone champion of reinstating the military draft, can count on another Korean War-era vet for support: Republican James Baker, a soldier in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Baker, secretary of state during the first Gulf War, visited a private girls' school in Virginia, where he was asked how to attract kids into some kind of service that gives them a stake in the country's future. "This is a very unpopular thing that I am about to say," he warned. "But one thing that makes it harder to go to war is to have a draft, because when you have a draft, then everybody's got a stake in it, and the costs of war are brought home much more vividly and vigorously to the American people. I think national service is a wonderful idea." But unlikely, he conceded: "You get killed if you support a draft, politically, but it sure would raise the stakes. Everybody would understand a lot better what we have at stake when we go to war."
“Another Bushie sticks his statist face into the media limelight.
STFU Baker, you old fart.”
Jim Baker could fight 100 “Nonstatists” simultaneously, chew each up and spit all of you out, you lightweight.
“But one thing that makes it harder to go to war is to have a draft, because when you have a draft, then everybody’s got a stake in it, and the costs of war are brought home much more vividly and vigorously to the American people.”
I’m sure a web search will turn up all sorts of quotes by the Founders showing their views on filling military ranks from the people at large as opposed to maintaing an equivilently sized standing army of professionals.
Thats exactly right! During the anti-war demonstrations in 2003 Rangel was interviewed for CSPAN and he said reinstating the draft will galvanize the general public against the war, as in the 60's. He doesn't care one whit about national service.
OK, everyone, take a deep breath before reacting. Then, think for a minute about our history and let’s gather some facts.
1) Think of a mutual defense pact between the citizens, the states and the Feds - that’s the militia that the Constitution creates.
2) The same Constitution also provides for an Army.
3) The founding generation passed the Militia Act of 1792, which required among other things, that ALL able-bodied white males ages 17-45 be enrolled in the militia.
4) Current Federal law (10 USC 311) is not substantially different in the legal definition of the militia as the Act of 1792, except that all males are included (aka the “unorganized militia”).
5) As originally legislated you had to own a suitable gun, ammo, train, etc. [nota bene] I’d be all for a return to that system.
6) That said, the militia cannot constitutionally be used for foreign adventures (Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution defines the three missions of the Federal militia).
7) The Constitution allows the President to take command of the state’s militias with the approval of the Congress.
8) The draft into the Army, OTOH, is not found in the Constitution.
9) Given the quality of modern jurisprudence you’d NEVER find a Federal judge would have the balls to make a true ruling.
Wouldn’t it be great to get the kids to hate the Democrats by bringing back the draft? I mean we’d have to get the Reps to vote no to a man to make the point, but hey never let a crisis go to waste. What we’re doing to the younger generation with debt is bad enough. Once they figure out what Comandante Zero is doing to them, they’ll never vote for that %^&#@ again. Think Wedge Issue folks!
Let’s make it retroactive just to have the perverse thrill of seeing Obama in basic training olive drab, and eating at the mess hall at 6 30 AM, and lying in his bunk staring at a picture of Michelle.
Exactly!
And there were enlisted men who worked as counter agents in the Iraq War too. I give you Sgt. Akbar. A muslim man who threw a grenade into an officers’ tent killing 2 and wounding a dozen.
Delicious visual
Standing armies were viewed as dangerous to the founders. The system they created was a citizen militia. This is NOT the system we have today, no matter how the Feds fudge the wording of current law.
The Constitution has some very specific things to say about “national service.” It says that the militia can be federalized by the Congress to perform it’s three Constitutionally defined missions. No more than that. It doesn’t say the militia can be turned into an Army. And the difference is substantial - militia’s fight with their own weapons, fight for a limited period of time and don’t leave the US.
I agree on this with Baker and Rangel. Reinstate the military draft.
Excellent point! Especially in this day and age when TOTUS always talks about "shared sacrifice."
Exactly.
The system they created was a citizen militia. This is NOT the system we have today...
True. Now we have a fair sized standing army augmented by the National Guard which is a form of select militia. And if we had a draft, not everyone would be called to serve or even at the least be trained.
Back then they wrote in the Militia Act of 1792 that each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia...
That would be pretty much all of them, and they had to spend time training/drilling on a regular basis and purchase their own equipment, or at least some of it. And they got an idea of what war and the military was like which idea of necessity carried over into the rest of their lives including any public office they might eventually attain.
So you're correct when you write "This is NOT the system we have today..."
Dushbags? Did not want to be there?
Are you referring to the 18,000 that were drafted and died fighting in Vietnam?
And there were enlisted men who worked as counter agents in the Iraq War too.
That has little to do with my point above.
The fact is 18,000 of those drafted died fighting in Vietnam.
They did not have to go, there were options, not good ones, but no one forced them at gun point.
I know people who were drafted that died in combat, and I take exception to someone calling all those Americans drafted during Vietnam, "dushbags".
In certain circles, the individual that made that comment, would get his head handed to him.
I will not ever support reinstating the draft. Our volunteer system is ideal. And those who have served have my respect. Those are the truly great Americans.
I would consider it an improvement if we returned to something closer to what the founder’s envisioned. And I am not referring to a draft, and I do mean most every citizen would own an M16 or equivalent (personally I’d go for a Sig SG550).
Baker’s either gone senile or trying to prostitute himself as the Republican whipping boy for ‘Rat draft reinstatement, which is pretty senile in itself.
The Reps should make the most of this - as in, NO WAY, we brought the volunteer Army into being after decades of Democratic draft armies in 1973. We ain’t going to vote in favor of a draft, that’s one way we’re different than DemocRATs.
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