Andrew Sackville-West writes: > I'm a very wildly-liberal guy and I'm all in favor of the draft.
Conscription is slavery. > 1) it spreads the load throughout the population -- barring corruption, > the Bush twins have just as much chance as any body else of ending up in > the military. 2) we end up with a true citizen's army. I was drafted. You are wrong. > This means we get better diversity in the military and frankly, since > most of the current US military comes from the largely uneducated, > desperate for a job crowd (no offense intended, but it is reality -- look > at recruiting numbers and lowering standards), getting a broader > cross-section is good. Even with the "lowered standards" many of the guys I served with would not be able to get in. > ...we end up with a true citizen's army... No. You end up with a slave army with no morale. I know. I was there. > ...which means more and more of the folks who end up in power have more > at stake in a war situation -- either they've been there and understand > or they know their kids might go. Most of those now in power were subject to the draft. Didn't work. > I'm a pacifist and the best thing I can think of to promote peace is to >make war hurt *everybody* and not just a certain slice of the population. I'ma pacifist too but I know better than to propose solutions that ignore fundamental features of human nature. Give the politicians a slave army and they will use it. -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
