A few years back, Chuck Rangel was calling for a re-instatement of the draft. This was pre-surge Iraq where Rangel’s motives were appallingly transparent. Recall the meme at the time was that the because of the economy, the poor were “forced” to seek employment in the military and Rangel’s draft was his noble attempt to, you know, balance things out by having those rich kids serve alongside those poor minority kids. Of course, drafts don’t work that way and “rich white kids” will go to college and get deferrals leaving the very poor people Rangel claims to champion as his “human shields”.
We also saw through the long range motive of Rangel’s human shield program as a way to take all future U.S. military action off the table with the justification that “sending troops to “X” will be borne disproportionately on the backs of the poor and minorities because of the draft.”
We knew at the time that Rangel was grandstanding as he knew and we knew that a draft didn’t stand an ice cube’s chance in hell of becoming reality so there would be no actual political consequence to his hair-brained scheme. Well, that was then and this is now.
Check out some of the language of recently-introduced H.R. 1444
"Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds."
Think one big nationwide summer camp jamberoo for 19 yr. olds. And precisely what civic challenges are to be overcome? And given the context, we don’t have a clue as to what “strengthening the social fabric of the Nation” means. Will there be a quilting bee regiment?
We’re highly dubious and skeptical of either a draft or this hyper-inflated Americorps concept. We won’t get into all the reasons why because that would be an awfully long post and besides, we want to hear what you think in both the comments and in the poll on the right hand margin. Let’er rip!
P.S. We’ve quite a few friends, family and co-workers who’ve served in the military and we were surprised on numerous occasions by their response to this question, particularly by those that had served in Vietnam.
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1 comment:
The draft is as un-American as it gets.
The draft is slavery, pure and simple, and ought to be prohibited as "involuntary servitude" by the 13th Amendment. Any nation that cannot find enough volunteers to defend it among its citizenry does not deserve to survive.
Where is my Liberator brother?
'Dawg
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