When Charlie Rangel’s proposal to reinstitute the draft first made headlines, I commented that there would be many interpretations of this move. Some people here in the DKos community suggested that what he was doing was obvious. They wrote that Charlie was trying to make the point that it was easier for most Americans to tolerate the continuance of the military action in Iraq if they had no skin in the game. And while I certainly understand that point, it has become obvious to me that many here still have different interpretations of the reasoning behind Charlie’s move as well as the necessity for it.
First, let me make one thing clear as to my own thinking lest some dear reader misinterpret my reasoning. Do I agree with the contention that it is easier to tolerate bad public policy if the personal effects upon me are minimal? Yes, I will go that far with this line of reasoning. Many others here also seem to accept this. But I contend that the basic premise, that Americans are content to allow the continuation of this military action because they are not affected by it, is a false one.
How can I say that? All I have to do is follow public opinion polls and look at the results of the last election. It seems pretty obvious to me that Americans do not want our fine folks in uniform to continue their suffering in Iraq. We have been moving toward that way of thinking for some time now, and the momentum continues to grow. It is clear to me that the majority of Americans have clearly and unequivocally voiced their discontent with our continued presence in Iraq. The idea that we need to draft innocent children into this conflict in order to raise public awareness is both misguided and dangerous. We do not need to destroy our village in order to save it.
To my way of thinking, reinstituting the draft to end the war is much like arming all citizens in order to eliminate crime. Counterintuitive? No. Just plain wrong. Reinstituting the draft is the LAST thing we need to be doing with the current administration still in office. Try to imagine what other military conflicts our children might be cast into if the current tyrant-in-chief only had more warm bodies to play with. And as a matter of public policy, I don’t want an endless supply of my fellow citizens to face involuntary governmental servitude of any kind. That’s not the America I learned about as a child, and that’s not the America that our Founding Fathers described in those wonderful documents they crafted not so long ago.
The debate of whether of not to be involved in military conflict in Iraq is a good and necessary one. But for those among us who would be willing to put the lives of my children on the table as gambling chips in order to make a point, I say, keep your bloody netroot hands off of my kids! My people have been against this immoral aggression from day one and want no part of it.