Advocating the draft

To weed out "chickenhawks"

Also posted in the Houston Chronicle.

Rodolfo Acuña wants us to believe that you have to be in the military and fight in battle before you can advocate whether a war is to be fought or not. Others have pointed out the stupidity of the non-argument for this position, so I won't bother with it.

What I will bother with is this ending, broken into easily digestible chunks:

The only way to get an honest debate is to get rid of the volunteer army, which, after all, relies on the poor.

Ignoring the validity of this statement's aside...

Oh Dear Gawd! Did I miss the memo that said this was a bad thing? I must be of the mistaken opinion that asking for people to join the military voluntarily is bad because it presents a job opportunity for anyone willing to put up with the training and discipline. Since the poor generally suffer with a higher rate of unemployment, it seems reasonable that low-income folks might be represented in the military more. Damn my ignorance. Must be those rotten Capitalists, oppressing people again.

A volunteer army gives the middle class and the ruling elite a convenient way to live with their hypocrisy.

Assumption #1: the middle class and the ruling elite have never served in the armed forces and won't in the future
Assumption #2: these people advocate a forceful resolution and need excuses to get them out of explaining that position and to "live with" themselves
Assumption #3: these people are hypocrites because they advocate violence but do not wish to participate in that violence
Assumption #4: this is part of the Right-Wing Conspiracy creeping around our country...so it makes perfect sense

Numbers 1 and 2 are the result of gross and insulting generalizations. Number 3 is dealt with in the links above. Number 4 is beyond the scope of my patience.

Instead, we should bring back the draft and include males and females, from ages 18 to 55.

Hold on to your seats, Ladies and Gentlemen. We have a war skeptic who wants people to fight in that war. Perhaps he'd love to be picked? Judging from his picture, I don't think he's within the window. Maybe he can volunteer? Face those hypocrites down and teach them what's up.

Draft deferments for college students should end, and it should be a felony for anyone to seek an exemption or special treatment for anyone.

I bet the the quadriplegic lobby is saluting his conviction and are counting the ways they can help. I can also hear the stampede of leftist college kids running to their demonstrations. At least Acuña will have to deal with them and not the pro-war people.

The public must pay for the consequences of war. Bluster comes easy if you have never had to pay the price.

He wants to force people to fight a war. He wants random people to be involved in a war who don't need to be. He wants to make a point by putting "the public" in danger. He has a point about being arrogant when one has never experienced the negative consequences of action, but it is nullified by his stance's irrationality. People are completely capable of understanding the hell of war. It's why we have historians, documentarians, and other nifty institutions to research and investigate things like that.

I don't need to be a businessman to understand the regulatory boot they have to work under and neither do I have to be a skydiver to state that it's a dangerous but fun way of spending your time.

As long as Americans can go to war without the fear of their own children or grandchildren dying, they will continue pass the plastic, purchase weapons of mass destruction, and let future generations pay the tab.

Terrorism, Professor Acuña, puts everyone in harm's way. It particularly puts an emphasis on making the innocent and unconnected victims. You know, people like children and grandchildren. Sometimes even parents and grandparents.

It seems like he has a problem with a division-of-labor society, where those who either do well at something or wish to do something for a living can do so and specialize in that activity and field. It costs enormous amounts of money to train brand-new recuits and it's a fair guess to say it costs more to train them when they are taken from their lives and told to do something else, or else. A professional, volunteer military is far more valuable than a conscripted one. But I doubt he gives much thought to the realities of imposing a draft.

He just wants to punish people he thinks are hypocrites.

Posted by Drizzten at November 01, 2002 06:06 PM