Rep. Rangel will seek to reinstate draft

Parent Cafe
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<p>"if we have the ability to conscript instead of reying on volunteers, it will prevent wars. What a moron! "</p>

<p>You may feel he’s a moron, but I want whomever is in power to THINK before they commit anybody’s son or daughter to combat. Even yours. While that may make me a moron too in your opinion, what does it say about your logic? Who’s kids are expendable for a whim?</p>

<p>The other thing, since the world is watching, how mouthy would Iran continue to be IF they thought we would moblize a China size army? Would they still talk smack? Their mouthing off pretty much came about around the same time we became bogged down in Iraq. It’s pretty easy to be cocky when you know the other guy is tied up. </p>

<p>Rangle wanting the country to be certain enough to go to war to have a draft is looking out for our elisted men and women. Making a politican responsible for their decisions. We have the best fighting force in the world, unfortunately we’ve haven’t had the same quality in charge of these forces.</p>

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<p>I think it’s very likely that it would have prevented this one. And it played a significant role in ending the Vietnam war.</p>

<p>I do not support a draft. But I DO support talking about it. This is a conversation the country needs to be having. I suspect that’s the real reason the bill was submitted (since it is politically doomed), and I’m glad it was. We need to be talking about whether we want to be fighting this war, whether the right people are fighting it, and whether we want additional similar wars in the future. Right now we’re too busy impugning one another’s patriotism to actually have that talk…this may push more of us to grapple with those questions.</p>

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<p>Roosevelt signed the first peacetime draft bill in 1940.</p>

<p>Apparently neither the Japanese nor the Germans thought the way that we are expecting Iran and others to think.</p>

<p>There may well be reasons to have a draft. Rangel’s meshuggenah reason doesn’t make the list.</p>

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<p>“Rangel’s meshuggenah reason doesn’t make the list.”</p>

<p>But the gop’s “it won’t cost a thing” reason doesn’t make the list either. It’s been too easy to waste American lives, no inconvienence at all, except to the families who have kids or spouses in the service. When I always hear the “you don’t support the troops” words, I think of our leader and the words hit home. Nobody’s kid is expendable. The leadership has gone about this “war” without regard for the people actually fighting it and that is wrong if not criminal. I would rather join Rangle in moron land than haphazardly commit someone else’s kids into poorly managed conflicts without a second thought.</p>

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<p>I’m going to sidestep the main arguments here, because I have just read the most appalling comments I’ve ever read here on CC.</p>

<p>Latetoschool, please, by all means, teach your daughter to watch out for herself as much as possible. But, don’t you DARE assume that someone who is attacked brought it on herself and could have avoided it, therefore bears responsibility.</p>

<p>My daughter was attacked and severely beaten while jogging through a public park in an area near our home a three in the afternoon. Her nose was broken, her eyes were damaged, her kidneys were bruised. It still makes me cry to think about how she looked.</p>

<p>I hope you never get a phonecall like I did that day, but–how DARE you suggest that she was at fault?</p>

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<p>Garland, I am sorry you are upset, but, (continuing hijacking here), I disagree. </p>

<p>I cannot possibly know the circumstances of how, where, or why your daughter was attacked, and, I am extremely,deeply sorry that such a thing happened. </p>

<p>But there are many, many things that women (and men) can do to prevent becoming victims. Awareness of surroundings, running with a buddy, assuming responsibility for personal protection by becoming proficient in self defense, running/conducting exercise in more populous areas, etc. are just a few of them. </p>

<p>Perhaps your daughter did all of those things and then some. Perhaps she did none of them - which, if she didn’t, still doesn’t give anyone the right to harm her or interfere with her exercise and freedom in any way. </p>

<p>I strongly believe we can usually avoid danger by taking personal responsibility, and, even we make all of the right choices 100% of the time, we’re each still at minimum partially responsible if issues that come about that victimize us. You are, of course, free to believe otherwise.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are other sorts of horrible situations that no amount of diligence can avoid - for example, this morning’s bus accident, killing two high school students is in different space altogether. </p>

<p>A young woman running alone in a public park is not something that on surface seems overly dangerous either, however, it might be an extremely poor choice, depending on the general area and inhabitants of the park.</p>

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<p>“Apparently neither the Japanese nor the Germans thought the way that we are expecting Iran and others to think.”</p>

<p>The Japanese and the Germans had enormous imperial armies bearing the most sophisticated weapons available. As of right now, it seems that Iran doesn’t. Now, that doesn’t mean that Iran would make the wise choice not to provoke us even if we had a 10-million strong infantry – countries make foolish and self-defeating choices all the time – but I think that we are a more intimidating power when our most fearsome fighters are available at a moment’s notice (as opposed to being occupied with an occupation). As conservatives should note with some pride, deterrence of attack via massive military strength worked like a charm during the Cold War.</p>

<p>I don’t see why it’s meshuggenah to suppose that we will make less wasteful choices when we bear our own costs. People who have to pay their own electricity bills use less air conditioning than those whose cooling costs are included in the rent. If you have reasons why you think this principle should not apply to the spending of blood and treasure on war, let’s hear them.</p>

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<p>Speaker-designate Pelosi has already stated that it is NOT on the schedule for the Democrats (nor is it a part of the First 100 hours, the primary legislative agenda that will be at the top of the Democrats’ priorities come January 3rd.)</p>

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<p>Of course the bill is both political and educational, with both functions cross-referencing. It’s political because it makes Bush look bad. It’s educational because it points out the incompetence and arrogance with which the Bush Administration spent our soldiers’ lives in a war that no one else in the country was called upon to sacrifice for. But there’s obviously some resistance to being educated, so I’ll float an alternative proposal:</p>

<p>No draft, but a 10% income tax surcharge on the top 10% of taxpayers any time we sent more than 1000 soldiers into a foreign nation in a military “adventure.” I bet that law would have stopped the Iraq fiasco before it started. Whatya think?</p>

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<p>I doubt it. How about a 30% surtax on the top 2%? </p>

<p>That would sing. ;)</p>

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<p>Actually, when you consider that pretty much the entire burden of the war has fallen on the soldiers, active and reserves, who have been rotated through Iraq (and their familes), I figure that’s about a million taxpayers, more or less. So we could keep the scope of the sacrifice symmetrical if we limited the surcharge to the top 1%. </p>

<p>I think we’re on to something here, P2n!</p>

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<p>You are aware that when Bush cut taxes, he actually ended up raking in more revenue because of those cut taxes. So that top 1% that you deplore so much for being succesful created jobs for people that you think you are a champion of and paid them money much higher than a minimum wage you are trying to force on them and then those people paid taxes to government, much more taxes than you pay.(unless it turns out you are paty of that corporate swine that is corrupting america by providing the most business, and revenue)</p>

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<p>Golani, </p>

<p>Why do you even try?</p>

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<p>Golani, how do you explain the times of economic prosperity in America (with jobs, tax revenue, etc.) when taxes were higher than they are now?</p>

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<p>We are at an all time high however, in the stock market, and look at how many times of economic prosperity revolved around tax cuts-many times. This is not my opinon though, most economists simply believe that cutting taxes raises revenue and promotes economic prosperity. As for us, just look at revnue beofore and after tax cuts</p>

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<p>Wow. They should make macroeconomic theory a year-long high school requirement. Trickle-down economics doesn’t work, neither does “a rising tide floats all boats.” Most of the economists you refer to are economists who were trying to support a partisan agenda – and as someone pointed out before, the greatest period of economic growth in the past ten years took place during a time of higher taxes – tax cuts … not so much.</p>

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<p>Trickle down does not work because it does not exist. What happens is that the businessman who got his taxes cuts will save some and invest the rest by hiring a worker, and buying more resources, but the money goes to the worker and resources before it gets back to him as profits</p>

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<p>So LTS, out of curiousity, given that you’ve said “There are no victims, only volunteers” and applied that to women who are raped…what about child molestation? Do kids “volunteer” for that, too?</p>

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<p>So, Golani, unless we cut taxes, the business owner just stays home and cries, right? Wrong. The cost of employees and goods is tax-deductible to the business. Any money the business owner spends on that stuff is transparent to taxes. The business owner is going to benefit from increased profits whether taxes are cut or not - there was no disincentive to building up a business before the tax cuts that somehow magically disappeared with lowered taxes.</p>

<p>Here’s your quiz number 2, Golani: at what point have taxes been cut too much? Or is it always beneficial to cut taxes? Right down to zero? Think it through, Golani.</p>

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<p>Could someone offer Golani Econ 101 here, or do I have to read the whole thread to see if said synopsis has already been posted?</p>