Freaking Congress critters, gots to watch 'em 24x7

[Cosmoline]

Nobody suggested such a thing. What I suggested (specifically to counter your argument that a mandatory Reserve commitment was too expensive) was that there would likely be a collatoral benefit in the reduction in payments of other entitlements. Never was that suggested to be the goal - merely a possible (and IMO likely) outcome.

How is this likely or even possible. You'll be paying them out of government coffers for their service, and the two year period will keep them from two years of earning real money and putting it into the entitlement system. Why do you think two years of mandatory guard service is going to make people less likely to turn to the government for entitlements later on? And if this isn't what you think, how is it the program would reduce the payments of other entitlements?

You're being disengenuous in comparing a mandatory NG/Reserve committment to ditch digging brigades of convicts.

But if you increase the guard from a few hundred thousand to twenty or thirty million, what else are they going to do? They'll either be going through pointless drills or they'll be put to work cleaning the roadsides and digging ditches.

I don't confuse them at all. I'm just willing to admit that one is an inevitable outgrowth of the other, and that separating them as entities is an arbitrary and intellectually stunted approach.

My community is composed of the people around me. My neighbors and friends. Governments are composed of the elected representatives, but the only ones with any tie to MY COMMUNITY are local and state governments, and those links get weaker as you go higher up the chain. The state government represents my community a little less, since it represents many communities in the state at once. The federal government barely represents me or my community at all. It's distant and knows almost nothing about life here.

This is why I have less of a problem with the notion of a state or local government calling up crews of locals to help deal with emergencies than with a NATIONAL SERVICE LAW which by definition is going to have to come from the Federales.

 

[DWARREN123]

Just like the draft, some would slide by.
Just my opinion.

 

[xd9fan]

rangel is a joke. He put this same bill up for a vote last year and voted against his own bill. THAT should tell you something. He is just grand standing (and racist).

the draft is slavery.....in a free society persuasion is the digified tool/choice versus Force.



www.theadvocates.org/library/pers-vs-force.html

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Universal mandatory military service is not slavery. It is paying a price for citizenship.

But,.........the empire is in decline. Mandatory military service is done for.

The founders had the right idea, namely all able bodied males being in the militia. Musters, training and like that. Elect their own officers and like that.

Now since we have so much effluence and complacency, the rich and/or lazy and/or cowardly will figger a way to weasel out of their service.

Like I said, the empire is in decline. It was good while it lasted.

 

[geekWithA.45]

There is a very distinct difference between our civic militia duty, and mandatory conscription into a national standing army.

One is moral and righteous, the other is questionable, subject to potential degeneration into evil, circumstances depending.

This difference has been plastered over, sanded and given a nice glossy coat of paint by the events of the last 120 years.

 

[xd9fan]

The founders had the right idea, namely all able bodied males being in the militia. Musters, training and like that. Elect their own officers and like that.

Now since we have so much effluence and complacency, the rich and/or lazy and/or cowardly will figger a way to weasel out of their service.

Like I said, the empire is in decline. It was good while it lasted.

The way I see it is the reason the draft is talked about is because the empires's army is low on numbers.

I too would love original Militia system (like the swiss....a real machine gun and ammo in every home...etc..) but this so called "free" nation does not believe in that either.

+1 geekwitha45

Universal mandatory military service is not slavery. It is paying a price for citizenship.

Could not disagree with you more!! Joining "the State" is NOT what the FF thought of the "price for citizenship" OR for protecting Liberty. This statement sounds fascist.

 

[wingman]

the draft is slavery.....in a free society persuasion is the digified tool/choice versus Force

I always find this humorous when someone compares a draft to slavery,
I'm sure true slaves of the past would be willing to show you the difference.


Anyone living in this country should be required to serve two years for the
privilege of living here. If not don't let the door hit you as you exit south
or north of he border.

 

[xd9fan]

whatever...

its against ones free will. thats the point.

 

[Cosmoline]

Anyone living in this country should be required to serve two years for the
privilege of living here. If not don't let the door hit you as you exit south
or north of he border

These sorts of statements are classic Archie Bunker armchair quips, typically made by old men who think a few years of what they went through in the military would straighten out all the rotten kids and fix what ails the nation. But the devil is in the details. You cannot institute universal mandatory service without changing the military forever. It's NOT the same thing as instituting a draft at time of total war. It's actually much closer to the European socialist system of mandatory service. And I don't know any sane person who thinks those programs have been good for the military forces of Europe. All it does is waste the time of the professionals babysitting millions of young people who would rather be making money and who have neither the will nor the ability to contribute in any useful way to any military effort. The exception might be the IDF, but in that case you have a nation which has been in an almost continuous state of war for fifty years, so the national service obligations function as a true wartime draft.

The bottom line is--the military is for FIGHTING WARS. It should never be turned into a social services program for "straightening kids out." That's what prison is for.

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Could not disagree with you more!! Joining "the State" is NOT what the FF thought of the "price for citizenship" OR for protecting Liberty. This statement sounds fascist.

Excellent satire.

The founders created the militia and they did not ask for you to voluntarily sign up. If you were able bodied, you were in the militia. Simple as that. No signing up required.

.gov learned in the Viet Nam incursion that an unpopular war would not be supported by the people. The Kansas Militia refused to enter Missouri in 1861 to help the Union at the battle of the Hemp Bales (Lexington, MO, back when Hemp was still legal ).

A Militia like unto that which the founders intended would never be over killing goat herders in a place far, far away.

Fascist? That's what we got now.

 

[slide]

Universal national service is a forced servitude while being in the militia isn't. The difference is that you are in the militia and can live a civilian life up until there is an emergency need.

I agree with the post who said this is grumpy old man Archie Bunker talk. The idea of having to DEAL with several million slackers is staggering. It'd ruin the military and anything else it was used for such as road building. Do YOU want to ride your truck across a bridge made by several thousand dope addled slackers?

 

[Ziryo]

Out of curosity, how would the logistics of such an endeavor work?

I'm just going to pick a number...say...10,000 students graduate high school a year. How is distribution and training going to work? I'm having trouble imagining the military coping with a sudden influx. Boot camp takes ermm...8 to 13 weeks I believe, depending on the service branch. Advanced training takes...well...it's all over the place.

There's also the costs, financial and otherwise that the military has to handle. Last time I checked military instructors, food, buildings, and other necessities don't just come out of the air.

So now you have these soldiers, sailors, and airmen that probably didn't want to join the military forced into it for two years. What are you going to do with them? Pay them a pittance and put them to work on civil "engineering" projects like in South Korea? What will you do with those unable to adapt to military life?

I'd be very resentful if I was forced into the military on my 18th birthday for two years (especially since I was 18 my entire senior year of high school.)

The idea of people supporting an idea like this just...aggrevates me. Just for the record I am joining the military.

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Even though Mr. Rangle is probably screwed up and one of those evil Democrats to boot, he is getting purty close to hitting on something. Hey, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[aside] Although a well regulated clock set to the correct time has the possibility of being right all the time, if it is even fast or slow, it is right less times than a stopped clock. Fer instance, if a clock that is fast or slow by 1 second per day was correct back on July 4, 1776, wound regularly and such, it would not be correct again until November 9, 1894 (based on 43,200 days 118.37 years) and I could be off by a few days (allowing for leaps etc. ).)[/aside]

This national service thing that Rangel dreampt up is probably as screwed up as he is but mandatory military service is not.

The point is.......our rulers are less likely to get us into entangling adventures if it is their offspring feeding the cannons.

How do they do it in Isreal or Switzerland?

 

[Diomed]

What I "owe" the "State" is tax revenue. I pay my taxes, my responsibility to the state is discharged.

The only exception is in times of emergency - the draft being another form of the militia. A peacetime draft is an unwarranted intrusion into the private life of the citizenry.

Are we at peace now? Hell if I know. But that's a different argument.

 

[slide]

1. If there were a draft, it'd be more likely we'd have more wars because of all the extra soldiers hanging about doing nothing.

2. The children of powerful people would not be used as cannon fodder. It'd be like Gore's kid in Vietnam having a job which was perfectly safe, but he was there. Or Bush in the National Guard or, well, I can go on.

Yes, some influential people like MacArthur's kid did serve in a hazard situation (his was killed, IIRC) but that's an extreme rarity and one the rich volunteer for. Most rich kids are in no jeopardy today nor would be tomorrow.

 

[Pilgrim]

I personally prefer the Robert Heinlein's "Starship Trooper" model. If you want to vote, you have to have served the state.

Pilgrim

 

[Cosmoline]

I personally prefer the Robert Heinlein's "Starship Trooper" model. If you want to vote, you have to have served the state.

That's no different than what the fascists and communists have done, though. They always make a point of limiting the voting rights to PARTY MEMBERS. Only those who have been approved and trained by the state can control the state. Voting is not a right, but a mere privilege in such a place. We've all seen where these notions lead, and it isn't pretty. Following Heinlein's ideas on voting rights makes every bit as much sense as following Hubbard's ideas on religion.

I think one of the wisest things our founders did was keep the standing army small and underfunded. We kept true to these notions until after WWII. Now we seem to be slipping further and further down the European path of martial imperialism. Even to the point of suggesting everyone should be forced to serve in the military or in prison. It's not good, not good at all. Honoring those who gave their lives should include a realization that there is nothing good in war, and much danger in trying to constantly prepare for it. We ought to be a nation of CIVILIAN riflemen, not some authoritarian Heinleinesque nation where the warriors rule the sheep.

 

[xd9fan]

We ought to be a nation of CIVILIAN riflemen, not some authoritarian Heinleinesque nation where the warriors rule the sheep.

I agree and a draft wont get us there.....