Bring the Draft Back!

[busterbrown]

and I’ll respect those who feel we should put “boots on the ground” in the Middle East..

In that way when you start shouting “USA USA USA” I know that you will be willing to sacrifice your child, or grandchild, or someone else of military age whom you love dearly, in order to prevent ISIS from attacking American’s on American soil..

I’ll say it once more... Our Country Should Bring Back The Draft!!

[Warren Stupidity]

1. No.

Conscription has not ever and never will prevent wars.

[busterbrown]

5. Agree!!!

But it sure helped end the Vietnam War.. Middle Class moms and college kids wanted nothing to do with the war,

[Warren Stupidity]

8. 50000 American dead an more than

1000000 Vietnamese dead would like to disagree, but they are dead from one of our longest wars.

[busterbrown]

36. Would have gone on indefinitely...

Why? ...No President at that time wanted to be the only president to lose a war..And thats a big deal..

The protests were a big reason the war was shut down..Mom and Dad vote!!Ant-War was huge..

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. +1

The draft didn't bring a quick exit from Vietnam. It made a fast build-up possible.

[rollin74]

2. the military turns down a large majority of applicants

more than 2/3 are turned away. and they're still meeting recruiting targets.

why would they need a draft?

they have more potential recruits than they can handle

[busterbrown]

16. Perhaps their parents..

would vote the warmongers out of office.. Most of the kids who are joining today have either no hope in the job market other than a low paying job. And many I feel romanticize the winds of battle..

[rollin74]

19. sorry, I can't support reinstating an unnecessary draft for the purpose of...

trying to persuade people to vote a certain way

[handmade34]

3. yes, yes, yes

and the first to be drafted should be lawmakers family members

[busterbrown]

9. Most here, who don’t agree..

want to be nice comfortable, if our idiotic country decides to invade another mid-east country..
If they had skin in the game perhaps they would react dramatically..It’s unfair that the poor have to field the brunt of the horrible consequences of war..

[cemaphonic]

34. You're in favor of people being conscripted for other people's political views?

Sometimes I wonder about this place.

[MohRokTah]

4. No

[Orsino]

7. Do not bring back involuntary servitude.

But the point I believe you are making stands.

[busterbrown]

11. “Involuntary Servitude"

Means everyone must pay attention..... Half the freaking people in this country don’t know their 2 Senators!!

[Orsino]

13. Congress will exempt its families/goodfellas.

A license to enslave will not threaten quite everyone.

[busterbrown]

18. Don’t think that will quite happen..

the reaction of the electorate would be pandemic !!

[Orsino]

22. It happened before with less corrupt Congresses.

Please, let's not sign blank checks in blood.

[valerief]

10. Remember when twit douchbag Pierce Bush was urging young Americans

to enlist for the Iraq War, but, of course, he wasn't about to do that himself?

I could only find this video, not the one where he's saying people should enlist. Maybe it was in this clip but was cut out. The twerp got a lot of blowback for being an asshole hypocrite.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/30/263872/-

[busterbrown]

12. Great Reminder!!

You got skin in the game.. You’ll pay attention.. Mom’s and Dads will carefully watch what their elected congressmen say and do when discussing foreign policy.

[Funtatlaguy]

25. Yes

And wouldn't it be something if a young Congress member or one of their children volunteered to go to war.
I won't hold my breath.....

[FrodosPet]

51. Beau Biden went

But I suppose Joe Biden was an older Senator, not a young Representative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Biden#Military_service

Biden joined the military in 2003 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard and was a Major in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps as part of the 261st Signal Brigade in Smyrna, Delaware.

Biden's unit was activated to deploy to Iraq on October 3, 2008, and sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for pre-deployment training, the day after his father participated in the 2008 presidential campaign's only vice presidential debate. His father was on the record as saying, "I don't want him going. But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference."

Biden traveled to Washington, D.C., from Iraq in January 2009 for the presidential inauguration and his father's swearing-in as Vice President, then returned to Iraq. Biden received a visit at Camp Victory from his father on July 4, 2009. Biden returned from Iraq in September 2009, his yearlong stint on active duty complete. Biden had announced that during his deployment he would continue to actively serve as Delaware's Attorney General by working in conjunction with his office's senior staff in Delaware, although a member of his unit related Biden saying he had turned over most of his attorney general work to his deputy so as to focus on his duties in Iraq. For his service in Iraq, Biden was awarded a Bronze Star. Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno presented Biden with the Legion of Merit for his service in the Delaware National Guard, stating "Beau Biden possessed the traits I have witnessed in only the greatest leaders." He was also posthumously presented with The Conspicuous Service Cross, which is "awarded for heroism, meritorious service and outstanding achievement."

~ snip ~

[hack89]

14. How big a military are you willing to pay for?

because right now it is not big enough to accommodate any draftees.

[busterbrown]

21. Well if people paid attention to MIC

perhaps they wouldn’t be so pleased with their multi billion dollar budgets..Perhaps they could provide some cuts, which certainly they would never do.. People get rich on Military Budgets.. Cut em..

[NaturalHigh]

15. Sign up your own kids if you like. Leave mine alone.

No I'm not for any more wars, and I think we should bring the troops home now. That doesn't change the fact that I'm not going to let anyone indenture my kids.

[Downwinder]

17. If you have an Army, conscript or mercenary,

they have to have something to do.

Eliminate the standing army.

[ileus]

20. Why? we have enough volunteers as it stands.

[busterbrown]

26. Most are poor

and have no other alternative.. The economy has forced them to enlist..

[panader0]

46. And if there were a draft, the rich kids would have student deferments

because their parents could afford college or lawyers. The poor would still be the main cannon fodder.

[alarimer]

23. No and reduce the size of the military by 1/3.

It is too big and bloated. If it was smaller, maybe we'd be more likely not to use it.

[shraby]

24. Bite yer tongue. With the draft, only the 99% serve. People

in congress have no children who get drafted, and neither does the 1%. They deftly dodge the draft even with no deferments allowed.
You must be too young to remember Viet Nam and before that.

[busterbrown]

29. But perhaps the 99% would begin to listen...

and react politically to these protected politicians.. In other words vote em out of office..

Vietnam war ended largely due to the fact that middle class kids and their families wanted nothing to do with the
War..

[shraby]

52. It took a number of years and 58,000 dead kids to get the people in

action against the war.

[Doc_Technical]

27. "War is good business so give your son...

..but I'd rather have my country die for me."

[Renew Deal]

28. I thought the Draft was a November topic

[EX500rider]

66. Now, now, now...

August is ALWAYS "Japan & the atomic bomb" month...

[DetlefK]

30. All the comments here focus on a military draft...

Germany had a two-fold draft: You were allowed to choose between military-service or civil-service.

Military-service consisted of basic military training and stand-by stuff like disaster-aid.

Civil-service lasted longer and the monthly salary was worse. In civil-service, the government basically rented you out to medical and social services.
(The normal health-check by army-doctors. Then they want a one-page-essay on why you want to opt out from military-service and do civil-service instead. The essay is graded very subjectively. Unless you are athletic AND smart, the army won't mind letting you go if you want to. I did civil-service and worked with old and disabled people and got a very basic nurse-training (no medication-related stuff).)
For example, you will have to work as a nurse in a hospital, or in a kindergarten, or as a driver for meals-on-wheels, or as a paramedic assistant...

You either join the military or you spend that year working with the old, vulnerable, needy and disenfranchised for a crappy wage.

Pick one. Or go to jail.





Just imagine everybody spending a year in their late teens working for the poor and sick. You think they would still vote republican as adults?

[global1]

31. The Talking Heads That Call For War (Mainly The Generals) Have A Conflict Of Interest Going Here....

they are being paid by the MIC to talk war - so that the money churns and churns the profits of the companies that make the equipment and armaments for the war.

No boots on the ground and a perpetual war means meager profits for these companies. Peace means meager profits for these companies.

Constant war, however, keeps the MIC in the chips.

[bowens43]

33. dont encourage them, there some dumb asses out there who thin this is a good idea

[busterbrown]

38. It is a good idea.

A proper Draft with absolutely no deferments to anyone except medical.. 1%ers would be watched very carefully by a good honest draft.. And thats because most voters would be careful to only elect congressmen/woman who would be against the MIC and their fraudulent wars..

[pampango]

35. That's what we are reduced to? Anyone who was ever drafted or ever subject to the draft knows

how unfair a system it is. We have a lot of problems but we have not lost 50,000 in a war since the "good ol' draft days" of Vietnam. Let's not force the middle class and working class (the rich are always exempt) to give up their sons and daughters to fight the next war. That was not liberal in the 1960's and 1970's and it is not liberal today.

[busterbrown]

37. I’ll simply state it again.

If Parents have skin in the game, they’ll pay attention.. and create a fair and balance draft!!!
and not allow any deferments besides medical.. !% would have no advantage if the right people were elected.

[pampango]

39. "if the right people were elected." Of course, if the "right" people were elected we would not need

a draft because there would be no war.

Wars and drafts both come when the 'wrong' people are elected. And those 'wrong' people will be the same ones who set up and administer a draft. The likeliehood that such a draft will be "fair and balanced" is a dream.

If Parents have skin in the game, they’ll pay attention.

Agreed. Is the only way for "parents to have skin in the game" to threaten to take their sons and daughters into essentially military slavery? I agree with the problem, not with the solution.

[busterbrown]

40. there will always the threat of War.

With all the harm done to so many countries by our MIC...There would always be the perspective of being attacked.

[pampango]

42. And who trusts our MIC to administer a "fair and balanced" draft to respond to the threat of war?n/t

[busterbrown]

44. And what I’ll continue to claim

is that bringing back the draft can’t help but encourage more citizens to become more incensed at the MIC and war mongering for profit ideology.. Middle class americans will become much more involved with the politicians they send to
congress making sure that mostly those who they send will be sent with the ideology to prevent war at all costs..

[pampango]

45. Claim away. I am not satisfied with a policy that requires 50,000 lives to stop a war. n/t

[busterbrown]

50. unfortunately there are not many solutions from

folks like you..Except Status Quo!! If there are, I would love to hear them.. And please no ‘perfect world stuff"

[NYC Liberal]

54. When has that EVER happened?

The draft has ALWAYS, every time it's been implemented, exempted the rich and powerful and used the poor as cannon fodder. Because the people who write the laws implementing it are the ones writing the exemptions.

[Warren DeMontague]

56. Fuck that. Put the parents' OWN skin in the game. You want a draft, great. Old people first.

[busterbrown]

58. The old already went through the draft,

Fuck That!!

[Warren DeMontague]

60. No, I think anyone who says "lets bring back the draft", they should be first in line.

They and their demographic.

[hughee99]

65. Unless of course the 1% can get their kids nice, safe, stateside jobs,

but that would never happen.

[Act_of_Reparation]

41. Right...

... because rich people and politicians have never found ways to weasel their kids out of a draft.

Oh... wait...

[grntuscarora]

43. Unenthusiastically, I agree with you.

When it's your loved one, you pay closer attention. When it's your loved one, you get up off your butt. When it's your loved one, you get involved.

Right now, it's kids from my neck of the woods-- rural, economically disadvantaged, with few opportunities-- that are joining, while their well off counterparts in other areas go off to college. It has never seemed right, or fair, or wise to me to have the bulk of the burden placed on such a limited segment of the population, a segment who really have too few choices to begin with.

[busterbrown]

48. Right and what the people are missing who disagree w/me?

IS....When people start paying attention to who the politicians who are most likely anti-war at any costs..they simply will won’t vote for them..in fact will find the ant-war candidate..

[Warren DeMontague]

61. what you're missing is, your logic makes even MORE sense if we draft the people most likely to

support the pro-war politicians, namely, older folks.

[Hotler]

47. I agree.... and add institute a war tax. n/t

[busterbrown]

49. Forgot that one.. Lots of ..

“I earned and diserve to keep it” in this country//

[pnwmom]

53. No Democrats are publicly advocating for boots on the ground, right?

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Absolutely. And to make it even better, start with people in their mid-late 60s, and work downward.

Want to get rid of ALL that pro-war sentiment? Start with the cranky old folks - the people who generally start the wars, amirite?- who assume that not just "draft" but war in general means young people.






...

[LostOne4Ever]

57. No nt

[busterbrown]

59. Anyone, but the ones in my life..

Great!!

[cry baby]

62. Please NO...rich and powerful won't let their kids fight.

The rich and powerful get deferments. Then everyone else's kids die.

[friendly_iconoclast]

64. Let me guess: You wouldn't be eligible?

[cemaphonic]

67. Almost a guarantee

The pro-draft people in these stupid threads are almost always Boomers with selective memories about Vietnam-era protests.