[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by rextorres:
It's kind of Pathetic

Of all the members of congress only 1 - the democratic senator of south dakota - out of 485(?) has their son or daughter serving in the military. If we had a draft with no deferments so that people like cheney and rumsfeld couldn't get out of it sending troops into adventures would be far less likely. Also - Gore actually volunteered to go to Vietnam unlike others - it may have been for cynical reasons but he still went.

If we had a draft it ought to run in a different age range. In the past you'd be drafted at 18 or 19 (26 at most) and at that age most people are too conditioned by the propo^H^H^H^H^H patriotism radiating from all the media to know any better than to serve the war machine and go kill foreigners for disobeying their rightful rulers in Washington. If the draft were to run from about 21-35 with NO exceptions for college, marriage, etc. (which their used to be in the old draft) then ordinary 'middle class' citizens with responsibilities would have to pay attention to US foreign policy. Gratuitous wars on disobediant dictators would be much more difficult if millions of people who had established lives of their own and learned to think for themselves a bit were in the line of fire.