Posted on 11/22/2004 12:08:13 AM PST by churchillbuff
Herewith some key policy recommendations for the second Bush administration now forming up - with emphasis on a biggie. . . .
Among others, the new administration should do these things:
- Complete the mission in Iraq and move to a strategy of coalition troops in key locations as ultimate backups while stable, unified democracy takes root there.
- Track all illegal aliens (including terrorists) in the United States, and move to temporary-worker cards for legals.
-Crack the legislative code on the liberal Democratic lock stymieing so many administration nominees to the federal bench.
- Infuse the environmental "problem" with free-market solutions.
- Likewise, infuse the developing energy shortage with incentives that will bring about energy independence.
- Enact a private-investment corollary to Social Security, now facing unfunded liabilities of $26 trillion. As even Bill Clinton pointed out, the only options for reforming Social Security are: raise taxes, cut benefits, or invest privately. John Kerry ruled out the first two; President Bush embraced the last.
- Permanentize the Bush tax cuts and eliminate the estate tax.
- Further, simplify the tax code - truly simplify it, even through a revenue-neutral flat tax whereby taxes would be filed via hardly more than a post card asking, How much did you make last year from all sources? The tax paid would be a stipulated low percentage of that amount.
-And - the biggie - move to one year of compulsory universal service with a front-end military component for all men and women 18-23.
This is the biggie because - well, let's go back.
It is clear our standing active-duty military is too small and currently stretched thin by demands in Afghanistan and Iraq - with the prospect of difficulties with the likes of Iran and North Korea to come. We are overstressing our Reserve and Guard forces through rarely envisioned long-term use of their services.
It is equally clear the nation could benefit hugely from an enhanced sense of service on the part of the young. Compulsion and service are notions commonly - but not exclusively - fostered by the left. For example, in the presidential campaign just ended, Kerry floated a plan as part of his Real Deal to (his words) "require service for high-school students":
John Kerry believes we need to think big and do better and get more young Americans serving the nation. As part of his 100-day plan to change America, (he) will propose a comprehensive plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high-school students.
Moreover, in September the Democrats began rumoring that a re-elected Bush would reinstate the military draft - and never mind denials by Republicans from Bush to Vice President Cheney to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ("The truth is, we don't need a draft. We're not going to have a draft."). Bush was similarly emphatic: "We will not have a draft so long as I am president of the United States."
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, mumbling about domestic class war or something, submitted a measure to reinstate a military draft. Led by Majority Leader Tom DeLay ("We're going to put a nail in that coffin"), the Republican House killed the Rangel measure 402-2. Democrat Kerry evidently favored the Rangel position. In an interview aired Sept. 26 he said he would not reinstate a draft now, but: If we had a need for a general mobilization at some time in the future, then I think that's the only fair way to do it.
So we have arrived at this juncture:
(a) The military is strained (the Army has 10 active-duty divisions, with nearly all either in Iraq, just returned, or preparing to go). The left, especially, wants to remedy the situation by reinstating the draft.
(b) Just about everybody sees the need to instill the virtue of service in the young; high-schoolers themselves unabashedly pad their resumes with testimonials about all the volunteer service they have done - the better to please collegiate admissions officers. Some high schools already make community service a condition for graduation.
Then why not a program addressing both issues: one year of compulsory service - no exceptions? The service component could be satisfied by practically anything on a long approved list, from nursing homes and mental wards to soup kitchens and juvenile homes.
That component would follow the front-end military component - the equivalent of boot camp. All would get a taste of the military, even an appreciation for it, so as to understand it better. And there would be established thereby a constant, lightly trained cohort from which the military might draw in times of stress on its regular forces - as now.
This is the biggie.
With the nation in by all accounts a protracted World War IV against jihadist terrorism, what is lacking is any sense of sacrifice. These days post-9/11 flags are broadly absent on cars and front porches; undermining any determination to win the war, the administration has told us repeatedly to go about our business as though little had changed.
But much has changed. We require a renewed sense of service and sacrifice. We also require a populace fully appreciative of the importance of the military, and knowing full well where additional manpower will come from should the need arise. The way to accomplish all that is through a new program of compulsory universal service with a front-end military component - one year, no exceptions. Now.
I agree on the dilution factor. I can personally attest that it has happened to a small degree already. Recruits are bought by the lure of college money and student loan repayments. I was out for a few years, then shortly a reservist. Predominantly, the kids were in it for the college money, but not paid enough for this or that task. Many were shocked that they would be required to go to war.
We should limit our recruitment as it is.
As for myself, I would be willing to do a short term contract in a war zone. No long term commitment. Even at 36 I am certain I could be an asset.
I think there are others like me, short term personnel. Temps. Give me a nine month tour with no strings attached, I would go in a NY minute. Of course, I would like the option of being attached to a Marine unit. I am former Special Ops so whats not to love.
As a country we're pretty much squandering our youth. This pretty much follows the basic principles of supply and demand. If American kids want to sit in front of MTV all day or pretend they'll be rap stars, then fine, there are plenty of kids in India, China and other countries willing to learn the skills and work hard to achieve something. And hey, they don't even have to move stateside, they can do the engineering, the architecture, the design work or the accounting via internet. And, they don't have that pesky sense of entitlement.
So, if you have a better idea of how to motivate or at least instill some work ethic in these kids, let's hear it. Because in ten years they'll be calling some guy whose name they can't pronounce "sir" and wondering where all the American opportunities went.
Compulsory universal service is also known as involuntary servitude.
If it happened, I'm sure I could be polite the first few times a brainless, brainwashed 18 year public school product trespasses on my land and tells me I'm an evil property owner destroying the environment.
But after a couple of months explaining to witless, Marxist useful idiots what private property and free enterprise is, I'm sure I'd lose my patience and start locking them up via a call to the sheriff.
Involuntary servitude is a monumentally stupid idea.
If you believe that it is the government's job to motivate and instill work ethics in kids, or to otherwise attempt to make them better people, then you and I have VERY different understandings of the principles of the American founding, of the proper role of government in a free society, and of what it means to be an American.
Your belief that the role of government is to improve people is really the core essence of old-fashioned, dead-end, social engineering, 20th century Progressivism.
If you can truly believe that government is supposed to improve us, and yet simultaneously believe that the purpose of government is to secure and protect our God-given rights as free human beings, then you have earned a black belt in Orwellian Doublethink.
Nonsense.
This is the same old same old. Every generation is the "worst ever" according to their elders.
StarSpangled - member since 11/1/04.
Besides, given the leftist/socialist tripe they spew in colleges today, why expand the propoganda program by providing yet more taxpayer funds towards this cause? What we ought to do is replace some aspects of higher education with a system of qualifying exams.
Imagine a whole military comprised of John Kerrys. Not a very effective fighting force.
The best motivation I know of is to quit giving deadbeats a free ride.
Very nice quote. Was Mr. Mill hiumself in the military?
I can't believe I am reading this! I just said to my brother and son, we need all 18 yr. olds to be required to serve 2yrs with pay for our country. It is not a draft, but a prep to instill a responsibility and direction to millions of wayward youth. Drugs, gangs, potential crimminals, etc! There would be a great change in this country if we did this!
Yes, a slave is a miserable creature. Now what is your opinion on those in government who enslave these people?
Okay, you're right. I'm wrong. I actually thought it was a the govt's role to fix problems, but from the responses I got, then obviously nobody wants to see that.
But know this, because it is true. I have seen motivated kids. They are the children of the wealthy now in private schools who have every intention and assumption that they'll be running things. And they are the children of immigrants (legal and illegal) who still believe in the American Dream. And they will be running things as well.
Given the way the world is shaping up, it won't matter where their employees live. Just as people complain now about being outsourced for cheap labor, in ten years workers will be outsourced for less expensive intellectual superiority.
And the results will be devastating to those left behind.
Imagine a whole military comprised of John Kerrys. Not a very effective fighting force.
Agreed. But I still believe a draft--or the proposal of one-- is unavoidable, given current circumstances.
I understand what your saying about the college fund money. Also you are probably familiar with Clinton's "New Army". Stress cards to hold up in basic training and that sort of nonsense. Starting precisely in 1993 I noticed a horrible difference in the attitudes of privates reporting to their first permanent duty station.
Enough of that talk, it's depressing what he did to the military. I just hope alot of that nonsense stopped once Bush took office.
Read my post again more carefully. You are either a feminist, or you believe that no one at all should be required to defend the United States in order to live here. I think that the powers of feminism are willing to try draft women in order to prove their "equality" point, and I am not about to give in to that baloney.
If no one defends the country, no one is safe. My sons and everyone else are safer to be subject to a draft PROVIDED it is LEGITIMATELY NEEDED for national defense than to have no draft available. But national defense does not require the conscription of women. And a BillClintonian Amerikorp "service" is not legitimate natiojnal defense.
I concede the just power of the government to draft men of military age for the defense of the country. Men who do not like it can leave permanently. I do NOT concede any such power for NON-defense purposes for men. I do NOT concede any such power over women at all for any purpose.
Men and women are different, don't you know that?
I have a double standard--one for men, one for women--which I vehemently defend. Most people would call me an ANTI-FEMINIST for that view, but you think I am suffering from anti-male BS?
You either did not read correctly, or you are really confused or you have your own problems thinking logically, or maybe all three.
I suspect we have similar views and you have misinterpreted.
A legitimate draft and a socialist national service requirement are two different things, but if you think thay are the same thing then you are playing right into the hands of the national socialists.
Some requirement to participate in the national defense is reasonable: able-bodied military aged men when it is legitimately needed may reasonably be drafted, and if they do not like it they can leave forever. Anything else is not reasonable and should not be done by the government.
Your statement is just a "Rev. Jesse Jackson is it rhymes it must be true sound bite" that makes no logical sense and no one actually believes that but you.
Wrong. Get a clue. In the early 80's, it was the feminists who got the courts to exclude women from the draft; proving that feminists did not want "equality", but instead "elitism" over men.
Being a man, I find it tragic that you share the feminists view the young men's are inferior (to women) and that their lives are worthless, to be thrown away at the whims of the state.
Wrong, both seek to enslave a section of the population to the whims of the state. It is you who are preaching socialism.
The end does not justify the means.
National service when not for legitimate national defense violates our unalienable rights and the Constitution, but to require men to be drafted for necessary emergent national defense is reasonable.
So as to your question, "what if national service provided the promise of a better life for your daughters/sons via educational opportunities?" Obviously I think it is illegal and wrong. And my reason for making the statement early in this thread is that I think there is going to be a movement claiming baloney exactly like you mention; and I think that the powers that be will attempt to soften up public opinion for their view even by contaminating threads like this; and I want it on record early on that the draft of women (for example) is something that I and many like me will never permit.
Tell us what YOU think, do you think it is right for the government to force women into service?
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