Will we all be drafted in the USA?
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 01:10
VIEWED: 9048
PAGE 4 of 6
"Rangel has been talking about this idea for several years now -- so claiming that he's only started talking about this after the election is misinformed."
That's true. Rangel FIRST proposed this in 2003. His next round was back in Februaury, 9 months ago. It's not a 'new' item, and had no debate and no consideration when it was introduced. Knowing this, Slick, as usual, put this up without making that explicit. He implied it was recent. AND his link didn't work. It took some internet searching to find the DATE it was resubmitted and the full text.
Given that, it's still worth discussion, though not on Slick's terms. Even if it was DOA on submittal and has zero chance of passing now, it forces consideration of the state of our military - which is dismal. And the idea of a CCC is still a good one.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
And the idea of a CCC is still a good one.
And why is that? We are already at or near universal employment. The standard was 5%, 5% was always considered universal employment.
Problem isn't folk finding jobs, its jobs finding folk.
H
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I'm sure Hero is as completely disgusted with Vice President Cheney as he is with former President Clinton, considering Cheney had five deferments and "other priorities" than going to war.
I mean, that would just stand to reason, right?
And he would be equally disgusted with Dennis Hastert, or Tom DeLay, or Dick Armey, or John Ashcroft, or... Whew, that list goes on for a while, doesn't it?
http://www.myspace.com/captainzeph
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The Dems have come out and stated that there will be no draft. No on is in favor of it, not even Rangel. He's simply trying to promote a false notion , that of rich, white America fighting this war.
But, baring some real state of emergency, and we really DO need a draft, it must be asked... Does a country deserve to remain free if its citizens refuse to voluntarily defend it ? The last thing we need is to force folks who don't want to sign up when there's no real pressing need.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Auraptor--
Personally, I don't see a problem with that in the U.S.
Consider recent history:
*After the attacks on 9/11, enlistment went to historic highs.
*When plans were made to use military force in Afghanistan -- to bring down the Taliban gov't, largely seen as synonymous with Al Queada -- enlistment rates remained high.
*When the country was led to believe that Iraq was a.) involved in the 9/11 attacks, b.) was producing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and c.) Iraq was a grave and gathering threat to the United States, enlistment remained high.
When it was discovered and reported that:
*Iraq had no WMD or WMD programs.
*Iraq was not involved with the 9/11 attacks or Al Queada.
*The "Mission Accomplished," wasn't.
*The insurgency was not, in fact, in its' last throes.
*We were largely not, in fact, greeted as liberators.
*Etc.
Enlistment rates plummetted.
It is my opinion that if one keeps the United States populace well-informed, well-motivated, and well-led, a military draft is not necessary in the foreseeable future.
http://www.myspace.com/captainzeph
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But the guy's a Democrat.
And of course, he explained this world -shaking truth AFTER the election, when nobody can touch him for the next 2 years.
It was no big surprise, Rangel pulled the identical stunt after the 2004 election.
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Since when was the draft anything but a horrible, horrible injustice?
HKCavalier,
Well said. Absolutely. Thank you.
Quote:
"The President said in his State of the Union address that war was an option that remained on the table in dealing with these countries. In my view, the war option would not be on the table if the people being placed in harm's way were children of White House officials, members of Congress or CEOs in the boardrooms. As other people's children endure a grinding war, they have been given huge tax cuts, while our veterans have gotten cuts in health benefits," Congressman Rangel said.
This is Rangel's fantasy which I alluded to earlier. It's not anywhere near true, a draft would not do this, we know this for absolutely sure because we've had many forms of draft before, and hundreds of other countries have had thousands of other forms, and it has never done this.
But even if it *did*, so what? This misses the whole point. The current system is far more fair, because not only is it free-will-based, but it also makes the success of recruitment rely on the people's feeling about the military, which in turn, relies on the justness and prudence of the military's action, and of its treatment of its own.
Under the current system, if the the US truly behaved like Nazis or Commies, recruitment would stop dead. Under the draft, there would be an open door to limitless invasion of everyone, unbelievable wastes of human life, and total disregard for the troops. If you don't believe me, study some history, or just go watch Denzel Washington in "Glory" or anyone in any WWI movie from any side.
Recruitment keeps the military honest and fair, and it ultimately puts people like donald rumsfeld out on the street. And Rummy is nowhere near as bad as a typical WWI civilian leader. Sure, he sent them off to war without armor, unforgivable. But in WWI, people ordered troops into certain death offensives, and then ordered local commanders to order the troops directly into machine gun fire.
It's all a matter of scale. Bush is a horrible leader, on a recent-american-scale. On a historical american scale, Bush is about average. He's probably not as bad as Truman or Wilson, probably on a par with Johnson. But on a world-leader-scale, Bush is still probably pretty good. He doesn't open fire on his own people. He doesn't stop services to the people, or hold them hostage. He doesn't ban education, or free speech, and doesn't assassinate people who disagree with him. He's just bad, he's not oh-my-god-I'd-rather-have-Satan bad. He's not even Vladimir-Putin-bad. In fact, he's not as bad as Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac or Angela Merkel, all three of whom are willing to dissolve their own countries, and sacrafice all of their own peoples rights to forward their agenda.
The question we always have to ask ourselves, (Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty here) - is - will a change in our system make it a more free society, or a less free one. The curious thing is that a whole bunch of liberals who seemed to have passed that test when it came to Bush's wiretap, gitmoizing, and torture, have now failed it. What I had mistaken for insight, was really just blind partisanship. They can't see it when it's their own party doing it. Sadly, a fair number on the right also failed this test, when they failed to oppose Bush's anti-freedom measures.
So, does the draft make us more free? of course not. There's not even enough for a debate here. The all volunteer system gives we the people freedom of occupation, and it gives us a solid and direct measure of control over the US military policy. A draft system removes our most basic liberties and gives our govt. limitless power. This is really a no brainer.
And here's a tip to the left from someon
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Rue,
Reforming ethics rules is definitely NOT what the democrats should be doing. The ethics rules are fine, they just need to be enforced. Any CHANGE to the rules is bound to be a corruption. Murtha has said as much about this particualr package, and I figure he knows. But it's almost always true. The argument "we need new rules" is a sucker play to get someone to let you rewrite the existing longstanding "fair" rules with your new corrupt ones.
The democrats can only do one thing which will earn any respect from me, which is to undue some of Bush's executive over-reach, and no, rolling back his tax cuts will not help. I am not affected in any way by those tax cuts, but the economy is, and the federal spending is. But the wiretap, torture, secret prisons, patriot act, homeland security, etc. There's a whole bunch of bad policy here which needs undoing. If democrats can't do that, then they're not really the opposition to Bush, they're the continuation of Bush.
Whatever we need, it's not "new rules" or "new laws" we need to follow the old rules. If we make new rules here, it will not be you and me making them, it will be Bush and Clinton making them, and that will lead to disaster, and speed our course towards a dictatorship.
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Auraptor,
If the US were under attack, people would defend it. A very large number of americans volunteered after 9-11 because they saw the country as being under attack. But this war now is not about defending america, it's about waging an ideological war against the enemies of Israel, and for other reasons, (Mefta, oil, etc.) But it is not about defending america.
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First of all Dreamtrove, "our" party, as you put it, isn't pushingg any such thing. Rangel is a democrat but as far as I know every other democrat has distanced himelf from the proposal.
Secondly, only a couple of us liberals have defended the proposal, and all for the purpose of a dialogue. I posted that it might be a good idea, but that I wasn't sure, and that as it stood I'd still lean against it. There were some very serious concerns brought up about such a thing and I take those concerns seriously.
I know you'd love nothing better than to have something to point to so that you could say "see, democrats = as bad or worse," but your choice of evidence is lacking.
this isn't partisan head nodding.
As to whether the bill in question would make our country freer or less free, I'm siding more on the side of less free, but there are laws we pass that make us less free that infact are a matter of preserving our way of life, not of undermining it.
Taxes are not at will, but only the craziest liberetarian believes that we shouldn't pay any taxes.
Such laws are sometimes acceptable, providing that they do not infringe upon rights expressly granted in the Constitution. Therein lies a huge difference between a draft and warrantless wiretapping, or the suspension of Habeus Corpus.
As to whether mandatory service would actually ad to the perservation of Democracy, I thought maybe, but I have more doubts than hopes for such a drastic solution, and I think such a thing could be done better by a new vision for America that asks its people for more involvement, rather than forcing it upon us.
.............
Oh, and Bush is a horrible leader on any scale...he's just held in check by some very good American laws, and an American Citizenry that still likes to maintain a little decency and democracy.
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Quote:
When it was discovered and reported that:
*Iraq had no WMD or WMD programs.
*Iraq was not involved with the 9/11 attacks or Al Queada.
*The "Mission Accomplished," wasn't.
*The insurgency was not, in fact, in its' last throes.
*We were largely not, in fact, greeted as liberators.
*Etc.
Enlistment rates plummetted.
It is my opinion that if one keeps the United States populace well-informed, well-motivated, and well-led, a military draft is not necessary in the foreseeable future.
A few minor corrections -
*Iraq did have WMD and a WMD program - just not at the levels which were suspected. - Either way, it failed to abide by UN resolutions.
*Iraq never was a primary suspect in the 9/11 attacks.
*The "Mission Accomplished " was - Saddam's military was defeated. ( Not to mention that specific carrier's mission was also accomplished )
*In many sections of Iraq, the US was indeed welcomed as liberators. Just because the 6 o'clock news didn't show it doesn't mean it's not true.
*Enlistment rates have not plummeted, but have met or exceeded expected goals. Same goes for re-enlistment.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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