Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[phillymic2000]

I understand the theory behind your argument, just not the execution. 

The kids of the people in power don't go to battle.  They get arranged for cushy, safe jobs if they're in the military.  It's the rest of our kids that get blown to smithereens.

and it really doesn't matter dem or repub.

[phillymic2000]

That's a large part of the reason I support a draft.  If the country goes to war for good reason, no problem.  If it goes to war for bad reason, you have people who actually have a stake in it because it's their kid that has to go fight.  We'd war less often if we had a draft, and that would be good especially given the wars our leaders have pitched us into recently.

well put

[ice grillin you]

am i the only one who is a bit surprised by dio's support for a draft? 

no youre not...hes a weakling liberal...sucked into the madness like most others...when phillymic is telling you 'well put' its time to kill yourself

[phillymic2000]

  he made a good point, farg you go back to bitching about how some white athlete will never be better then spud webb cause he's not black and 3' 2".

[ice grillin you]

keep bitching about the lack of lynchings in the country

[Eagaholic]

That's a large part of the reason I support a draft.  If the country goes to war for good reason, no problem.  If it goes to war for bad reason, you have people who actually have a stake in it because it's their kid that has to go fight.  We'd war less often if we had a draft, and that would be good especially given the wars our leaders have pitched us into recently.

Except this is based on the assumption that much of the general populace with kids drafted won't be hoodwinked into thinking it is a necessary or just war. You don't even need to be a hardcore conspiracy theorist anymore to think the government would orchestrate a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor type disaster to get much of the country behind a war.

Btw, would this draft include women?

[MDS]

how about the people who support a draft just volunteer

then we wouldnt need a draft

[Diomedes]

What we've got now is a military class that is for the most part made up of a small sliver of the American people.  Mostly poor and working class people, more heavily rural than the actual population of the country, etc.  There are exceptions of course, but for the most part kids who have the option of college don't enlist.  When we went to war in Iraq I was working in NYC for a richie rich corporation full of upper middle class people.  Almost none of us had any direct link to the war.  No brothers or sons or uncles over there.  Most didn't even have a cousin serving.  The same is true of most of my friends.  We all went to college as did most of our families.  Few of us know any service members closely.  The guys I work with now on the other hand have known people over there from day one, have lost people.

A draft closes that divide.  Now everyone has skin in the game.  And now that everyone has skin in the game, the war had better be popular, or the people pushing it will have a mess on their hands.

A draft eliminates the practice of siphoning national treasure from the tax payer to the mercenary corporations.  You want to talk fiscal responsibility?  Look at what Bush (and now Obama) are paying KBR, Blackwater (or whatever they call themselves now), Halliburton, etc. for doing jobs that the military used to do and is more than capable of doing again if we weren't more interested in lining corporate pockets than openly fighting our own battles.
If the military provided security, drove trucks, cooked food, and did all the other things that contractors are now doing, we'd have a benefit beyond cost saving: transparency.  As it stands now, a pile of money goes with a contract and that's that...where the money goes, how well it is used, we will never know because these private corporations aren't subject to the same legal standard of transparency that the military and the government are.  We'd know more, and therefore be in more control of, the war effort.  T

Yes of course women should be drafted.  Gays too.  No one getting shot at cares the people on his side have titties or like dick, all he cares about is that person fighting like hell.  If you want to say women or gays can't fight, then we have nothing more to talk about on the issue because you're wrong.

Finally, I don't see how this position contradicts liberal ideology.  I want a draft because the lack of one artificially divides the country and allows the government to war at will, enrich the corporations their buddies and political contributors operate.   These reasons don't strike me as conservative.

[Diomedes]

nm

[Diomedes]

how about the people who support a draft just volunteer

then we wouldnt need a draft

How about we rig our system so that all those who don't support war get treated the same way as those who do...since we're all U.S. citizens...and be forced to do something about their beliefs instead of sit back and snicker.  You either go fight or you take a stand against it.  You man up for the first time in your miserable little life and take principled action.

[phillymic2000]

keep bitching about the lack of lynchings in the country

i think its hilarious how racist you are and can't even see it

[Diomedes]

yes, let's talk more about vigy

[Sgt PSN]

What we've got now is a military class that is for the most part made up of a small sliver of the American people.  Mostly poor and working class people, more heavily rural than the actual population of the country, etc.  There are exceptions of course, but for the most part kids who have the option of college don't enlist.  When we went to war in Iraq I was working in NYC for a richie rich corporation full of upper middle class people.  Almost none of us had any direct link to the war.  No brothers or sons or uncles over there.  Most didn't even have a cousin serving.  The same is true of most of my friends.  We all went to college as did most of our families.  Few of us know any service members closely.  The guys I work with now on the other hand have known people over there from day one, have lost people.

A draft closes that divide.  Now everyone has skin in the game.  And now that everyone has skin in the game, the war had better be popular, or the people pushing it will have a mess on their hands.

A draft eliminates the practice of siphoning national treasure from the tax payer to the mercenary corporations.  You want to talk fiscal responsibility?  Look at what Bush (and now Obama) are paying KBR, Blackwater (or whatever they call themselves now), Halliburton, etc. for doing jobs that the military used to do and is more than capable of doing again if we weren't more interested in lining corporate pockets than openly fighting our own battles.
If the military provided security, drove trucks, cooked food, and did all the other things that contractors are now doing, we'd have a benefit beyond cost saving: transparency.  As it stands now, a pile of money goes with a contract and that's that...where the money goes, how well it is used, we will never know because these private corporations aren't subject to the same legal standard of transparency that the military and the government are.  We'd know more, and therefore be in more control of, the war effort.  T

Yes of course women should be drafted.  Gays too.  No one getting shot at cares the people on his side have titties or like dick, all he cares about is that person fighting like hell.  If you want to say women or gays can't fight, then we have nothing more to talk about on the issue because you're wrong.

Finally, I don't see how this position contradicts liberal ideology.  I want a draft because the lack of one artificially divides the country and allows the government to war at will, enrich the corporations their buddies and political contributors operate.   These reasons don't strike me as conservative.

i get what you're saying and it makes sense, but the thought of anything less than an all-volunteer military doesn't sit well with me.  maybe i'm just being too idealistic in my approach to it and not looking at the big picture. 

but i look at it like this.....we all hate the patriot act because of how intrusive it allows the gov't to be in our privacy.  supporters of the patriot act say that by peeking into our private lives, they'll be able to find more terrorists and thwart future attacks.  and they probably would be able to.  giving the gov't access to what goes on in our homes and listening in on our phone calls and monitoring our spending most certainly would help them pinpoint people who wish to do us harm.  it would most certainly make this country a safer place.  but it completely goes against everything that this country is supposed to stand for.  with the patriot act, we could be a much safer country but we'd be paying for that safety with our freedom.  no sale.  it's putting a price on freedom and that's something that we simply cannot afford to do. 

enacting a draft is basically the same thing imo.  perhaps it makes the big wigs on capital hill think twice about mobilizing our troops and sending them off to war.  so even if your theory worked and congress never declared war ever again unless it was absolutely justified (of course, different people are going to have different opinions on what "justified" is and that's another  topic in and of itself), just the fact that there is a law in place that tells a young man or woman that in the event of war that he/she has to stop what they're doing, pick up a rifle and fight for this country simply goes against the very idea that a person has the right to do with their lives whatever it is they want to do.  this is the u.s of farging a and no one, especially the farging gov't should ever have the ability to tell a citizen of this country that it's time for them to stop what they're doing, pick up a rifle and put their life on the line.  the very concept of a draft is about as unconstitutional as anything that our gov't can do if you ask me.   

this is our country.  and any war that we get involved in, no matter how popular or unpopular or how justified or unjustified it may be, there will always be people who support it and who are against it.  those who support it, will join.  those who don't, won't.  one thing i strongly believe though is that if our country as a whole is ever truly threatened and our freedoms ever truly come under fire, then people will join and they will fight.

the recruiting numbers in the first year or 2 after 9/11 support that.  all branches of the military literally had waiting lists of people wanting to enlist.  and not just farm boys or factory workers.  i'm talking about stock brokers, teachers, engineers, lawyers and people from every social and financial background were lining up at the recruiters office.  i've met guys with masters degrees who were walking away from jobs paying them 6 figures a year who wanted to trade their suit and tie for a rifle, some combat boots and $25k a year.  these are guys who, like you, had absolutely no prior connection to the military at all.  they were college educated and came from college educated families.  they were rich and so were their families.  and when a couple of planes got hijacked and flew into the wtc, they still felt the obligation to do something about it.  and a lot of these guys weren't taking commissions as officers so they could monitor the war from some air conditioned control room on a heavily fortified base in iraq.  they were enlisting as privates in the combat arms fields because they wanted to take the fight to the taliban and get up close and personal with them. 

obviously as time's gone on, these wars have lost favor in this country and with good reason.  recruiting has been on the decline since 2004 and attrition has been on the rise.  these wars have been heavily mismanaged and turned into a marketing tool to help a select few profit.  but make no mistake about it, 9/11 scared the shtein out of this country and we all felt threatened.  and the american people responded to that threat in a way that far exceeded my expectations.  at the time, i honestly didn't think we had it in us. 

but as i've said before, if anything ever appears to threaten our country....our borders, our lives or our freedoms, then people will fight for it.  and if the people don't feel threatened or if they don't feel the cause is just, then they won't.  and they shouldn't.  that's what i farging love about this country.  as individuals, we literally get to pick and choose our battles.  abortion, civil rights, taxes, education, war, whatever the case may be you can choose a side or you can even watch and do nothing.  right, wrong or indifferent, the freedom to choose is what we're all about and if i've said it once, i've said it a thousand times....the instant you take that freedom away from people is when you've under minded our greatest strength and asset.  our rights and freedoms are what makes us stronger than any other country.  not our military, not our gov't, not our corporations.  freedom is what our military voluntarily fights for and dies for and once you start stripping those freedoms....any of them, then you're only opening the door for more rights to be taken and that's when we lose our identity. 

you simply can't force people to fight for their freedom. 

[/soap box]

[MDS]

how about the people who support a draft just volunteer

then we wouldnt need a draft

How about we rig our system so that all those who don't support war get treated the same way as those who do...since we're all U.S. citizens...and be forced to do something about their beliefs instead of sit back and snicker.  You either go fight or you take a stand against it.  You man up for the first time in your miserable little life and take principled action.

sitting back and snickering is a time honored american tradition right up there with discriminating against immigrants and rich people rigging the system to benefit themselves.

if you are so for a draft then enlist. i will respect the hell out of you if you do. but im guessing if there was a draft youd be too old and right now you just come off a lunatic old person.

[MMH]

So you basically don't want a draft because you are young enough to have to serve.

Poor self-serving bastich.