"Needed: Sense of service and sacrifice" (Mackenzie calls for 'compulsory service'

Herewith some key policy recommendations for the second Bush administration now forming up - with emphasis on a biggie. . . .

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

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.

(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.

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.

Read my comments again more carefully. We AGREE. I am not against a draft. Men should defend the country if they want to live here. I am against nationalist socialists co-opting the concept of a legitimate draft to force political correctness upon us that has essentially nothing to do with national defense.

If we ever got to the point that women HAD to fight then we will be fighting on home soil and that's a circumstance beyond what we are discussing. Otherwise we men can and will defend the women, and if a draft is needed for legitimate national defense I agree with that.

National Service is something I've been thinking about for some time. I firmly and truly believe it is needed, but do not know what form it will or could take. It might not be mandatory. It could be voluntary. I don't know. What I do know it, the GI Bill was a terrific piece of legislation. It gave guys who never had an opportunity, a terrific start in life. And they did amazing things.

I also believe we're squandering our youth, as previously stated. Brain power will be the greatest natural resource of the 21st century and we're throwing it away wholesale.

As for women serving in the military, I believe they should have the opportunity, but not subject to the draft. There have been a lot of books written on the subject, not the least of which is Martin Van Creveld's, which clearly lays out that the vast majority of women are not as effective in combat as men. Creveld is a brilliant historian and I tend to believe him.

Man are you sensitive. At best you are talking like a Libertarian. Principled but unrealistic. Hopefully that's it, because if that's not it then the best thing I can call your position is un-American and I won't describe the rest lest you take it wrong.

You are wrong about women and the draft. WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EXEMPT FROM THE DRAFT AND THEY OUGHT TO BE. The 80's has nothing to do with it. Radical feminism sucks eggs, but unlike you I am not going to have my daughters drafted just to throw feminist equality mis-logic back in their faces.

No real men think that women ought to be drafted for combat. Feminist men might. Libertarians trying to make a point might. Take that however you want, Paul, but I am not going to let people like you draft my daughters for combat just so you can make a political point.

Oops, did I imply that you think ANYONE may ever be drafted? "My bad," as you clearly are pushing for no draft at all for anyone under any circumstances.

Well, that is the real issue here. You do not think that anyone ever should be drafted, so by gosh, if they are going to draft men then they dang well should have to draft women, right?

Here I am advocating that there should be (1) no non-defense national service for men or (2) women, and (3) no national defense draft for women, but the fact that I agree with a draft for men in time of national need just sticks in your craw. We agree on 3 out of 4 points but for some reason that 4th point that there in fact is a legitimate type of draft for men just sets you off.

In fact, you might as well be espousing your illogic at almost everyone here because ALL I am advocating it that I agree with the status quo. Things are fine as they are! I just do not want to see for political correctness either a non-defense national service, or a draft of women, EXACTLY WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE HERE IN THESE UNITED STATES.

So what is your problem? I think that your agenda is to eliminate a draft completely, right, and to do that you are willing to sacrifice our women and try to act like we have to draft everyone including women or else (what you really want) never draft anyone at all for any reason.

You can have the last word, Paul, because my position is quite clear through this thread and it does not need further clarification. But the best thing for you to do is state your own position clearly for us all to see.

Answer these 4 true-false questions if you dare (I think you answer all false, even the first, but we will see if you are willing to say so in public):

(1) It is a legitimate power of the United States to draft able-bodied military age MEN for necessary national defense, true or false? I say TRUE. What do you say?

(2) It is a legitimate power of the United States to draft able-bodied military age WOMEN for necessary national defense, true or false? I say FALSE. What do you say?

(3) It is a legitimate power of the United States to compel any and all MEN to perform national service not directly related to necessary national defense. I say FALSE. What do you say?

(4) It is a legitimate power of the United States to compel any and all WOMEN to perform national service not directly related to necessary national defense. I say FALSE. What do you say?

I don't like the idea of mandatory service. As for the draft... I disagree that women should be excluded. You seem to think that all draftees will be handed a rifle and assigned to infantry units. That's a bogus assumption. As for women in combat... They're serving in Iraq now (in Combat Support and Combat Service Support jobs) and I dare say our Army couldn't function without them. I say if it's OK for women to voluteer, it's OK for them to be drafted.
As to the size of the military... Something needs to be done. We are getting stretched too thin. Some units are spending more time in combat zones than they are stateside. That has to change as these men and women are getting tired. The abundance of talk and lack of action on this issue should be of great concern to everyone.

I will never agree that WOMEN may be drafted. Keeping our women from having to fight and kill that is one of the things we are defending! It does not mean that women can't fight--it means that they should not have to.

If I miscontrued your comments, please accept my apologies; they didn't come across that way to me.

And, we agree with the sentence above. Women served this nation brilliantly in WWII by filling in for them in the factories, the shipyards and as pilots delivering new aircraft. I, too, don't believe they have any business on the battlefield, even though most of them are tougher than men (IMO). Truth to be told, as a wounded soldier, I would rather look up at their beautiful faces from my hospital bed, than have to look at their mangled, dead, bodies after a battle.

Like you, dad, it just doesn't work for me.

Name calling only hurts your position.

You are wrong about women and the draft. WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EXEMPT FROM THE DRAFT AND THEY OUGHT TO BE. The 80's has nothing to do with it.

You missed my entire point about how feminists want elitism over men and NOT equality, and how you support THEIR opinion.

Answer these 4 true-false questions if you dare (I think you answer all false, even the first, but we will see if you are willing to say so in public):

Nope, they are 'loaded' questions that each require a detailed explaination on. But since you keep missing the points I make, I think it is a waste of time to go into a more in-depth discussion on until after you understand the basics.

I don't know how to break this to you, friend, but we all live in some sort of slavery. We are slave to our boss, our mortgage company, our families, the IRS, the HOA, etc.

This idiotic garbage is the same excuse antebellum slaveholders used to justify their "peculiar institution", with bogus assertions that free factory workers were as badly treated as slaves.

There's nothing wrong with having a stake in this nation.

Every citizen already has that. Part of the price is defending the nation against the government.

Virtually every country on earth has something similar.

This is the United States of America, not some two-bit fleabag country like France.

Suppose an all-out world war breaks out

In the event of "all-out world war", it takes two guys per silo to turn the keys. We have more than enough people for that.

We have a stake in it because we stepped up to ensure that others will still have the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Yep, and when the government gets out of line again, it needs to be slapped down again.

You talk a good story, but you can't and never have walked the walk. What you know about slavery and the antebellum South would fit comfortably on the head of a pin a leave plenty of room for the Lord's Prayer and the Gettysburg Address.

How many folks like you does it take to proclaim "Let George do it", before there are too many of you and not enough of us? Carter successfully undermined the draft by pardoning all the Vietnam darft dodgers. The question is, what if everyone decides to run away to canada the next time there's a major war or some conflict that you disagree with? Who will defend America? By pardoning the draft dodgers, Carter might as well as painted "sucker" on the forehead of every veteran, living and dead, who went to 'Nam.

It is through the grace of God and the blessings of selfless individuals who are more concerned about the well-being of others and not themselves, that we have as fine a military as we do. There are givers and takers in this world - those who give of themselves for the benefit of others are the givers. Those who are more concerned about themselves are the takers.

You, sir, are a taker.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.