Pimp My Draft, Charlie!

So Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York is calling again to reinstate the draft, is he?

Let’s see, he introduced this three years ago as an attempt at social engineering because “our fighting forces should more closely reflect the economic makeup of the nation,” and prior to that, he stated that the draft would be more of an incentive for our leaders to work with the international community of nations, since the sons and daughters of members of Congress would be subject to military service.

And he’s now calling for it again as a sort of de facto punishment to Bushco for its illegal Iraq war?

I’ll give Rangel credit for his own service during the Korean War, and he has my thanks for that. However, in his attempt to exact some sort of retribution over the disproportionate representation of African Americans and minorities in the military (as well as settling old scores), he’s also playing games with the future of my son and the children of many, many other Americans.

Given that, does Rangel have the slightest clue as to how hard I’m going to fight to make sure that his proposal never sees the light of day, even if it means doing all I can to take him down politically (even to the point of actually supporting a Republican)?

The military can be a fine, honorable way of life for a person with the right temperament and maturity (and I’m not trying to demean those for whom it would be a bad fit, including yours truly – you don’t want to know what I was like in my teen and early 20s). But military service should not be crammed down anyone’s throat in this country, especially because our force strength was depleted by the criminal actions of a bunch of chickenhawks. If Rangel or anyone else thinks that I’m going to sit still knowing the young one could be forced to pay the price for what Bushco has wrought, they’re living in a dream world.

Short of that, if legislation were to be passed allowing for a choice of military or community service, I could be amenable to that, though that’s the subject of another post.

As noted here, though, it sounds like Rangel’s plan isn’t going to go anywhere (though we should continue to watch this closely).

Update 11/30: David Sirota notes other problems with Rangel here (as one commenter noted, this stuff is a reason why people don't care about politics when they should).