Charlie Rangel And Other Liberals Support A Draft

[DemocratSinceBirth]

for a number of reasons...

If you had a true egalitarian draft with no deferments except for medical reasons and genuine hardship the Armed Forces would look much more like America demographically.....You would have folks entering the Armed Forces because they were drafted not because they wanted a college education or couldn't find a good job or both...

Also, Charlie Rangel and other supporters of a draft know that war will become much less popular when everybody's sons, daughters, spouses, friends, neighbors, etcetera stand an equal chance of being a participant or casualty...

Their motivations are anything but right wing.....

[Terwilliger]

1. look how well the strategy worked pre-Iraq war

Democrats were convinced that they could get ahead on the issue, and they effectively gave Bush carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted to do.

Rangel and Hollings can believe they'll look better in the eyes of the American public by bringing up the issue first, but this strategy will backfire horribly.

[ArkDem]

3. I agree.

.

[JVS]

2. Maybe our representatives should spend more time stopping the war...

and less time providing cannon fodder.
Rangel is playing a cynical game.

[ArkDem]

4. You hit the nail on the head

.

[LoneStarLiberal]

9. It's Cynical And It's The Right Thing To Do

And when you are the minority party, how do you do that?

You are correct about it being a cynical game...it's a cynical game because we have to defeat a cynical administration. And you simply don't do that by holding hands and singing "Kumbaya My Lord" while smiling at them.

You defeat them by hitting them lower, harder, and more often than they hit you.

Take as an example the draft issue. Our Reps and Senators, regardless of what their votes were to give the President authorization to declare war, know that they can't pull our forces in Iraq out. First it's a legislative impossibility and second it's a military impossibility unless we have the U.N. ready to step in with a monitoring force. Since the Bushies won't play fair with the U.N., pulling our troops out is an impossibility.

So how do you stick it to the administration that has stuck it to us? A draft. Why? The draft doesn't know boundaries. Sure there will be loopholes found, but many of the Vietnam-era draft loopholes have been closed up. In college? Not an excuse. In the National Guard? You'll be going anyway.

If you re-institute a draft you suddenly energize a whole hell of a lot of voting people who are at best apathetic about the administration right now and you get them very concerned and very interested in what the administration is doing because it's their sons and daughters who are being or who will be drafted, not some anonymous volunteer that they have no links to and for whom they have little concern.

Cynical is right. But hey, it's politics. It's a cynical enterprise. I support Rangel and Hollings and their idea because it's beating the Bushies at their own game. And yes, I'm draft-eligible.

[ArkDem]

11. Absolutely right,

if you can't beat them become them.

[Terwilliger]

16. it's beating the Bushies at their own game

are you kidding? what is involved in the "beating"?

[JVS]

18. I don't see it either. It looks like another act of enabling.

[outinforce]

5. A Draft Can Be Pretty Powerful

A draft (or military conscription) can become a pretty powerful anti-war tool.

Many mothers and fathers may be either gung-ho pro-war or apathetic towards a war.

But mothers and fathers become VERY concerned about war when their own kids are being conscripted to fight in it.

And, when their own children are being killed for no meaningful reasons, those previously gung-ho or apathetic parents can become VERY anti-war.

[Bandit]

6. I am not in favor of too large of military but other community service

is a good thing. I don't feel it is too much to ask all Americans to give two years to better their country as long as they have a little choice where they will be used, eg. hospitals, building trails and cleaning cities and streets, fighting fires, I'm sure you get the picture. Some of course would have to go in the military but probably most would simply chose that as their fate.

[Mike_from_NoVa]

7. it's nice to be able to agree with you about something DSB

As I get older, one of the things I see slipping away in America is a national sense of community. As a little kid in the 50s and 60s there was still a strong residual of national civic responsibility - left over, I suppose, from the war (WWII) years. There were a lot of negatives associated with that - slogans like "America Love it or Leave it", "My Country Right or Wrong" - these were ways Americans were once (and maybe even now) encouraged not to think. But there was also a baby thrown out with the jingoistic bathwater in the post-Vietnam post-Watergate years. That baby would be civic engagement.

We're here on this board because we're engaged and we care but, like it or not, we're a tiny tiny minority and even a throwback of sorts. Most Americans are more lazy and indifferent to the real issues today than ever before in our history. Only 50% of eligibles even bother to vote! It's cool to be ironic, disengaged, and selfish.

Way back before we all were born, William Jennings Bryant stumped across America getting the public energized about - of all things - the gold standard for currency. It was an issue people actaully engaged in back then. Could you imagine anybody trying to get such a complex issue past the electorate in this day and age?

Whatever we can do to encourage a return to engaged involvement in political, social and civic responsibility for the public at large would be welcome. I think some form of a mandatory national service requirement would do this. Citizens need to feel like they have a stake in order to care enough to engage.

It would also be an excellent way to bootstrap people who can't afford it into higher education opportunities.

I'm going to go vote now.

[Liberal Classic]

8. Supporting conscription is hardley liberal

Conscription is the last way to establish egalitarianism.

[Loonman]

10. We'll see who blinks first, Go Charlie!!

n/t

[Selwynn]

12. You don't use the lives of innocent boys and girls for political gain

You don't support of draft which would put thousands of children in harms way against their will for an unjust cause just becasue you think that, after enough of them DIE, it will be really bad for Bush.

I'm sorry but that is not the way...

[rucky]

13. So It's Gotta Get Worse Before It Gets Better

apparently so. especially since we say it so often.

So why do we have to help it along? If we're going to take that approach, lets just sit back and let the BFEE ruin everything on their own. I will play no part in helping along the fasttrack to facism.

[BurtWorm]

14. This is sort of why I could support a draft.

If you had a true egalitarian draft with no deferments except for medical reasons and genuine hardship the Armed Forces would look much more like America demographically.....You would have folks entering the Armed Forces because they were drafted not because they wanted a college education or couldn't find a good job or both...

I think it's decadent for a democracy to hire mercenaries to fight the wars for the plutocrats and oligarchs who, in fact, own it. Real democrats should have a stake in their wars. That way they'll think twice about letting the plutocrats start them up.

But now is not the time for a draft. This war was begun without the people's consent. Now is not the time to drag the people in to do the dirty work.

[Stone Cold]

15. Like I've stated in many other threads...

....There's no way in hell this Liberal is going to fight in a god-forsaken war, and die, for an administration that I don't even agree with. Makes me sick that they even think about bring this back. :puke:

[Snow]

17. To some degree there is a draft -

We lived in Omaha through my children's high school years, and armed forces recruiters were very active and well-received with the offer to pay the kids' way through college. A lot of my children's friends took up that offer, and are now in the reserves, national guard, what-have-you, and are either off to Iraq or in jeopardy of that. My take on this is that the mid-west middle class makes use of the armed services to pay for college a lot.....

[JVS]

19. And that degree is not at all

Those were voluntary actions.

[DealsGapRider]

20. Charlie Rangel is a freakin' stud.

That's all you can say about the guy. He's a decorated combat vet, he pimp slaps the Repugs as Ways and Means ranking member, he has a cool sounding voice, he's smart as hell. I love the guy.

[Serenades]

21. dumb

There will never be a true and equal draft - EVER. Give it up. It was a bad idea for them. They are dumb is they think any politician or rich guy's son is going to war.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Silverhair]

23. Sorry, I still oppose a draft.

You and I have agreed on numerous issues, but on this one I must take the opposing side. I don't want a draft at all. However, I respect you for being able to post your thoughs clearly and without attacking anyone, and look forward to agreeing with you on other issues.

[Fall_No_Further]

24. How can it possibly be right?

How can it possibly be right to make someone die for any cause? To force someone to give up their life? Isn't life supposed to be the most sacred thing?