[thechat] The draft

[Judah McAuley]

Norman wrote:

> Not the one much beloved by the Americans.....but the other one they're
> hoping to bring back:
> 
> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00089:@@@L&summ2=m&
> 
> Is this old news? And whats the chance of this or HR163 getting passed?
> 

For what its worth, I take a kind of contrarian view on the draft. I 
don't think its necessarily a bad idea to reinstate it. I'd entertain 
the idea of a draft if it was fairly applied across the social spectrum. 
No college deferments. No getting out of it because of family wealth. 
Draft women. Draft Gays.

Right now, an all volunteer army includes a disproportionate number of 
low income, minority people. They use it as a guaranteed job when other 
prospects are dim, it also represents a potential way to pay for college 
and gain further job training.

I'd like to think that we might be a bit less quick to go to war if the 
sons and daughters of our representatives were pulled out of Yale and 
taken to Afghanistan.

It's probably a bit naive, but its an idea. Reinstate the draft and 
bring military action squarely into the livingrooms of america. Make it 
impact them in a more visceral way. Make it less abstract.

Not that it will ever happen that way :)

Judah