Stop the draft

I know I don’t post to this forum often, I’m more often content reading the posts which display fantastic intelligence and eloquence without adding my own 2.3 cents…

However, this is an issue of vital importance, and for some reason there’s been virtually zero press coverage about this. The entire nation should be up in arms.

http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/105146.php

George Bush and his crew of neocons in Washington are planning on reinstating the draft.

This would mean your life and the lives of your children would quite literally belong to the federal government, to spend in any war they see fit.

For the love of all that is decent and just, oppose this madman and his fascist agenda.

Write your representatives via

http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/index.html

and make sure this functionally illiterate monster isn’t given a second term!

and please, if you can, tell five people about this, and ask them to tell five people…

Do you believe everything you read?

Find me a U.S. news source which mentions this and we’ll talk.

Well, of course if it’s on the internet, it must be true. :rolleyes:

do you check your facts before making ad hominem attacks?

http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/National/2003/S89/default.asp

how about the government’s own sites?

y’all are dopers, I figured you could look up the bill numbers that were provided in the article.

Did you miss this phrase from your links:

In any case, it’s only a bill. There’s no guarantee it will pass, so there’s no reason for panicmongering just yet.

I recall NPR doing a small segment on the Draft board positions being filled, but they didn’t go so far as to say that the draft was going to be reinstated.

My question–IF this is true and Bush and Co. are really gearing up to reinstate–what process would they have to go through? Is there any kind of democratic process involved, or would it merely be passing some low-key bills through the house and then simply declaring it reinstated? Because, I gotta be honest, as a mother of two sons even the thought of a draft, however unlikely, makes my stomach clench up.

Yeah, I agree. It’s much too overrated, it inflates rookie salaries to the level of the ridiculous, and the Steelers never seem to pick right since Noll’s great '70s drafts…

oh, not that one…

For real… this is just scare tactics. The US military does not want the problems associated with drafted civilians, and the average American cannot pass the physical requirements test. The US population at large will not stand for a genaral draft, and no one in their right mind would suggest it seriously- in the current state of affairs.

Things would have to change drastically for a draft to be necessary; if it comes to that there will be more important things to worry about occuring at the time.

before adopting a pose of fashionable disbelief, you could have checked out the bill numbers which were cited in the articile.

or: if it’s on the government’s own website, it must be true.

No, I saw that phrase, and I’m quite aware of logic.

An ‘or’ statement allows either possibility. So don’t tell me that just because they won’t necessarily send you to be butchered means that it’s okay that they can.

And yes, this is the perfect time to mobalize support, before the damn bills pass!

It’s true! The bills exist!

But each and every single named sponsor on the bills (Senate and House) are Democrats.

But don’t let that stop you from posting before doing a stitch of research.

Patriot does away with the ability of the US population to resist a general draft. And, as for what would be necessary, say, oh, another Iraq style war or two? People are leaving the military in droves and I’m sure they need some cannon fodder to be sniped at in police actions in our new territories, er, I mean, fiefs, er, no, countries-which-we-protect-for-their-own-good.

It is true that the government is trying to beef up preparedness by filling long-neglected selected service board vacancies.

I am a believer in military preparedness, and my application to volunteer for my local board is working its way through the system right now.

Should the need ever arise, deferments and conscientious objector applicants will need to be handled quickly and fairly. God forbid there is another draft, but if there is, the young men caught up in it are going to need board members with some judgement working the process.

Yeah, George Bush sure is a powerful standard-bearer for all the Democrat neocons sponsoring these bills, huh?

And, BTW, there’s a big difference between bills that are being shuffled around in committees and those that are actually up for votes. Most bills never make it to the floor for a vote.

who sponsors the bills is irrelevant. To begin with, the divide between both parties is laughable, and providing a different label for the people who claim ownership of our lives is laughable.

Moreover, as Bush expects to be president in spring of 2005, it would make this bill something that would directly impact his ‘war on terror’, now wouldn’t it?

And, in any case, tell me exactly WHY it matters if democrats sponsor a bill that robs you of your life? Does that make the bill ok?

Or are you just nitpicking?

If you think that the money-power axis which the neocons make up is somehow different from the money-power axis which gives the democrats their campaign finances (and their platforms)…

An easy test of something like this is ‘who benefits?’

Does bush get a free hand and more boots on the ground for the next war he starts? Does he get to further eliminate civil liberties? Does he get more control?

Isn’t it just slightly possible that the same people who finance both parties have, oh, I don’t know, the same idealogy when they support both parties?

Just because democrats sponsor the bill doesn’t mean that Bush doesn’t want it passed.

Don’t fall for the make-believe game going on in government right now. The republocrats and the democrins want the same thing, they just wear different masks.

And, again… immaterial distinctions. So the bills are in commitee, that means we shouldn’t worry?

Stop the bills before they get any further, that’s all there is to it.

Because your claims of “George Bush and his crew of neocons in Washington are planning on reinstating the draft” are patently false, and it speaks to the fact that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Have you done any research on why these Democrats would want to institute a draft? Would it surprise you to find that those who have sponsored these bills lean more to the left than the majority of their Democratic associates?

Now, why would a liberal-leaning Democrat want to reinstitute the draft? The argument goes, with a non-voluntary military, the government will be *less * likely to recklessly put them in harms way. It’s an extremely interesting slant to the issue, and IMO is a bit dangerous.

How’s about you get that knee of yours checked out? It seems to be jerking uncontrollably.

FinnAgain Thanks for the heads up. I will wait to panic until:

  1. Pentagon enthusiastically endorses the idea (note: not going to happen)
  2. Senatorial/Congressional Subcomittees and Comittees rubber stamp the idea (note: likely to be many long and painful hearings. If Congress rejects the Pentagons input it will likely die here.)
  3. It is brought to the floor with some prayer of passing.

While I am not vehemently against the idea of the draft, especially with the civic service option (though I should note that I am above the age likely to be drafted), I don’t think it is an especially good idea when there is no demonstrable imminent need for it.

I think that the political costs are too high for a peacetime draft to be likely. I also think the budgetary costs of such an option decreases the probablility. I doubt that having a draft would necessarily be the boon for warmongers and fascists (or the present administration) that you think. It would spread the pain of mobilization over a greater physical area.

The post-Vietnam war concept of integrating reserves and guard units into any major war effort in order to prevent the US from casually intervening in a major conflict hasn’t exactly worked as planned these last two years. Yes, the political costs of Iraq are slowly going through the roof and reenlistment in the guard and reserves are (somewhat predictably) going down. As long as the costs are ignored until after the military is set in motion, the President gets his way. I am not sure, shy of locating/developing a Congressional spine, that a set of policies can be developed that will prevent Presidents from doing overly ambitious things with the military while still enabling nimble and rapid responses to crises.

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
do you check your facts before making ad hominem attacks?

QUOTE]

Ad hominem, my ass. From a Bill Summary & Status for the 108th Congress:

S 89

And HR 163 Title :

You linked the latter yourself, so I assume you’re arguing that “requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes” does not equate with “draft.” Of course the next question is, what kind of dictionary are you using?