Conscripting for Freedom

Senator Ernest Hollings (Donkey Party -- South Carolina) and Rep. Charles Rangel (Jackass Party -- New York) have a great idea for keeping free Americans free: force them into the involuntary servitude of warmongering politicos by resurrecting the draft.

A return to military body snatching, Hollings opined in a news conference, is necessary to strengthen a military spread thin by its global duties. But there is at least one obvious alternative to this problem. (Since key pecking in internet chat rooms with Caps Lock engaged is considered yelling, please squint while reading my response.) STOP SPREADING OUR MILITARY THIN!!!

A simple refresher course in Constitutionalism 101 informs us that the sole purpose of our military is to protect Americans from attack by Not-Americans. With armed-to-the-gonads troops stationed in over a hundred countries around the world (whatever shall we do when we run out of countries?), someone must be really really paranoid that everybody is out to get us. Personally, My knees go spaghetti at the prospect of Tongan warriors paddling their war canoes across the Pacific to chuck Spears of Mass Destruction at innocent American bikini-clad beach volleyball bunnies in Malibu.

Bring our missile menacing military home where they can actually perform their legal duties. That'll promptly thicken them up.

But commandeering our kids for battlefield fertilizer is justified, the Senator says, because "It's not the Army going to war. It's the country going to war." Now I get it. Pike's Peak will be leading the charge. Mount Rushmore will serve as an infantry squad. The Golden Gate Bridge will provide air cover. No, Senator, things are now as they've always been. The country is not going to war. (Please squint again) POLITICIANS ARE GOING TO WAR!!! From the upholstered comfort of their Good Old Boys clubs in the capital.

But wait. Hollings and co press conferencer Rangel had an Associated Press quoted comeback for that: "policy-makers would be less likely to support war if their own children might have to fight."

C'mon, guys. Since when have policy-makers' kids ever gone for a stroll through a minefield if they didn't want to? Silver spoon Civil War draftees legally paid farm boys to go in their stead. The well connected during WWII found stateside desk duty for their offspring. Rich kids' daddies wrangled educational and "critical employment" exemptions for their precious progeny during the Viet Nam unpleasantries. Some were even known to have studied abroad while not inhaling. It's the absence, not the presence of a draft that guarantees everyone gets equal treatment.

As Democrats are wont to do, the conscripting couple then tugged at the liberal "social justice" heartstrings with this one: "An all-volunteer force leaves the burden of war to fall disproportionately on minorities and lower-income families." In which case, Mr. Senator and Mr. Congressman, if you hanker for "social justice" so much (squint your eyes again) QUIT STARTING WARS!!! What better way to prevent the burden of war from falling on your precious minorities and lower-income families? If our military, whether conscripted or voluntary, fails to do the one thing it's supposed to do -- prevent attacks by outsiders -- war falls equally on all. I don't recall war falling disproportionately on minorities and lower-income families during the Twin Towers massacre.

And then there's this little nugget of oddity from the AP article. First it described Rep Rangel as "Congress' most vocal supporter of a return of the draft." Later it noted that the congressman from the Empire State "opposed a resolution last year authorizing the use of force if necessary to remove Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." So here's a guy who doesn't want to use force against a presidentially designated enemy of America, but he's eager to use force against Americans in the form of a military draft. Is it too much to ask (slit those lids) WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???

Fortunately, the Pentagon is having none of it. The volunteer force, they say, has served the country well, providing us with professional, dedicated soldiers.

In a libertarian society the Defense Department would limit itself to (squinch those peepers one more time) DEFENSE!!! rather than being used as a planetary-wide William the Conqueror game piece. Then the poor and the low-income would only benefit from military service as a means of escaping their circumstances (poverty, you see, falls disproportionately on the poor), getting an education and jump-starting careers, as soldiers and later as civvies. As even the Pentagon put it, they'll become professional and dedicated.

A military draft is too much power to entrust to politicians.