I know several woman, who has served, that would disagree with you.
Posted on 02/25/2006 3:59:47 PM PST by thinkwell
WASHINGTON — A New York congressman has once again proposed reinstating the draft, not just to boost the ranks of U.S. fighters but also to discourage what he sees as some politicians’ cavalier attitude toward military action.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has introduced the legislation twice before, each time with no success. Two years ago the House rejected his idea by a 402-2 vote.
Rangel, a Korean War veteran who has been a critic of the war in Iraq, said he doubts the measure will make any progress this time either, but believes debate over the issue will re-emphasize the sacrifice of U.S. servicemembers.
“And I would suggest if you support war you should be prepared to make a personal sacrifice,” he said. “I think it will be very awkward for my colleagues to say they support war in North Korea or Iran if their children or their grandchildren are going to be placed in harm’s way.”
The bill differs only slightly from one Rangel introduced last year, this time extending the age range for mandatory military service for all men and women between 18 and 42.
The change reflects the Army’s recent decision to allow citizens up to 42 years old to enlist.
Rangel said deferments from military service would only be permitted for completion of high school, health reasons, or religious or “conscience” objections. Recruits refused by the military would be required to perform some other form of national service.
He said the Army’s recent recruitment problems show the need to at least discuss the idea of reinstating the draft.
“We depend on the military when our nation is faced with a threat,” he said. “I would like to believe that if our national security is threatened, that men and women of any age would be prepared to make some sacrifice. But there are recruitment problems.”
Most of us have no problem with drafting only men when the need arises, but why should men suffer this potentially deadly stick with absolutely no carrot? You FReeper women out there, how bad would it be for you personally to give up the vote at the national level in order to give men that well earned carrot? The chance of your individual vote ever making a difference in a presidential election is certainly less than the chance of an individual young man being drafted into service and killed.
Based on past U.S. history, this risk of being drafted to one's death is random but very real. How real? Let's say something like one half to one million men have died in military service over the last sixty years or so. That very roughly comes out to ten thousand deaths per year.
Those death are born on average by the one half to two million men who come of age each year. Let's use one million to make the math easy. One million divided by ten thousand comes out to one percent. True, this number includes not only draftees, but men pressured by society into volunteering[1] as well as those who did it for selfish reasons (e.g. just to get a college education - nothing wrong with that, btw).
All men are required by law to register for the draft, essentially a death lottery where each player has a one out of hundred chance of "winning", this is, loosing his life. Women simply don't share this risk or anything comparable (you look me straight in the internet eyeball and type to me that it won't be almost exclusively men doing the real fighting and dying when the next big war comes along). The stick society applies to men is very real. Where is the carrot? (If not the national vote, then what?)
Our brave women who have actually served in the military have earned their national voting rights. As for the rest, let them put a one or two hundred chamber revolver with one round in it to their heads, spin and pull. If they survive, they get to vote for president. Is your vote worth that much to you? It is for men.
And don't even talk to me about women earning their voting rights by bearing and raising children - not at all comparable. Only about three hundred women die in or of childbirth in America each year and none of those were conscripted into birthing babies for their country. Almost all U.S. women have children for purely family centric selfish reasons (nothing wrong with that - it's just in no way comparable to military duty). Women choose to have families precisely because it is its own reward. Get back to me when the government requires women to register for mandatory duty in the National Birthing Service or in the Concubine Corps to support our servicemen. :)
It is true that at this moment in history our armed forces are all volunteer, but men and women volunteers neither bear an equal risk nor are rewarded in proportion to the risks they do bear. As it stands, even though over 80 percent of the military is now wide open to women, women comprise only 15 percent of enlistments and fill only 2 percent of the body bags coming home from Iraq. That amounts to a thousand or so women whose lives have been spared by men dying in their stead - and this is almost the way it should be (no women should be put in harm's way, IMO).
Actually there is one exception to this that I would love to see - make all the whiny, "died"-in-the-wool feminist harpies live up to that name. :) The feminist women of this country would gain a valuable perspective on citizenship if they had to face the very real prospect being called to give their lives for their country, even if most of them never actually ended up getting shot at.
Women are not interchangeable for men. Yet the end station of our country's current course of feminist folly would be a law that mandated the creation (via a female only draft if necessary) of a completely separate all female military - female troops, female officers, female generals - no men at all. Equipment would be specified by and for women. Guns would be smaller, etc. All the rules would be made by women for women, but the only immutable rule would be that the female corps would have to take on (separately, of course) enough difficult and dangerous assignments to fill as many body bags as the men. (I wonder then if women would choose to let their fellow soldiers shirk their duty by getting themselves pregnant as is now the case?)
I suggest that because women as a group do not (and should not) carry an equal share of the burdens of national citizenship, that women should not have the right to directly participate (vote, run for office, etc.) in national politics (state and local, yes, but not at the national level).
Again, why should men have to put up with all stick and no carrot? It's either time for men to start handing out white feathered[1] draft notices to the little ladies or for our pampered princesses to act like real ladies and acknowledge and justly compensate (with law, not just lip) the greater sacrifices of men.
---------------
[1] During WW1 British women, safe from death in the trenches themselves, routinely goaded and shamed young British men into enlisting (and getting killed) by presenting them with the symbol of cowardice, the white feather.
In another six months we'll be hearing from the left all about how Bush is trying to reinstate the draft. That it's a Dem is something to bookmark now for later ammo.
I was recently given my commission as a member of the draft board for my district and I am convinced, however sadly, that we will see selective service reinstated very soon.
I believe very strongly in serving and it will take a great deal to convince me that anyone of draft age deserves a deferment if the republic is threatened.
He does`nt give a d##n about any of these kids,much less minorities.
You're wierd man.
Yup, just in preparation for the Congressional races.
You feelin' okay?
The draft is a political nuke against the war on terrorism, that is why only the democrats support it.
Apart from being an anti-Semite, Rangel is a hack that will do and try anything to make the current admin look bad. This is pure grandstanding...
It takes almost no effort for 18 yo men to register, there is no excuse for not doing so, if they lose their rights because they were too lazy to register, or if they think somehow they don't need to pay for the freedom that was earned from the deaths of many americans that came before them, then they deserve to lose their rights.
It is hard to understand what your rant is, do you favor a draft, not favor a draft? You fail to make yourself clear except you seemed pissed that men have to register and women don't. The end result is the same, neither men or women have to serve in the military unless they choose to volunteer.
Read the rest...suggest that because women as a group do not (and should not) carry an equal share of the burdens of national citizenship, that women should not have the right to directly participate (vote, run for office, etc.) in national politics (state and local, yes, but not at the national level). and then the sign up date and saw a low flying troll.
Get lost.
Rangle knows it was the draft that led to the violent campus unrest during the Vietnam War. He is hoping to foment the same thing now during the Iraq War.
The man is a cockroach.
Our present Military leadership remembers those times very well, as do I.
While its nice to have registration to identify a pool of available manpower in case total mobilization would be needed for a true, all out war, nothing short of WW111 would make it happen.
As far as draftees, well, they made good drug addicts.
We don't want anyone who doesn't want to be there.
You are in trouble now.
50s=60s
I know several woman, who has served, that would disagree with you.
Rangel is a racist a**hole.
I think we may have another one.
If my 38 year old husband is drafted, I will lose my house and my children may starve. How's that for a reason?
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