Friday, April 23, 2004
Uncle Sam Wants YOU
C.C. Kraemer loathes the idea of a draft, and lets us know why here.
He overstates his case by a long shot.
Webster was not alone in recognizing that to take a young man forcibly from his life and compel him to give up his right to himself says one thing: The government supercedes the sovereignty of the individual.
By that line of thinking, Kraemer ought to declare himself a conscienscious objector to the Federal Income Tax. We'll see how far that gets him.
Also, by his logic, the Franklin Roosevelt Administration represented an orgiastic triumph of Fascism.
I don't think a draft is practical, nor would it be cost effective. I simply do not believe that the Federal Government could find productive employment for millions of young Americans. The problem, of course, is that the bureaucrats who would run such a program would try anyway.
So except in times of national emergency, or in times like the Great Depression, when it was neccessary for the Government to provide a massive Keynesian stimulus to the economy, I am not a draft supporter.
But I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea.
Rather, a draft, in theory, would level the burden of arms by including a portion of the affluent students from the families who have benefitted the most from the economic and political freedoms secured by America's armed forces.
It is particularly galling, in this context, that some of our elite universities--with tuitions well out of reach of Montgomery GI Bill benefits--continue to prohibit ROTC programs on their campuses.
Put simply, if we do have a draft, we should start with the students of Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale.
Splash, out
Jason
He overstates his case by a long shot.
Webster was not alone in recognizing that to take a young man forcibly from his life and compel him to give up his right to himself says one thing: The government supercedes the sovereignty of the individual.
By that line of thinking, Kraemer ought to declare himself a conscienscious objector to the Federal Income Tax. We'll see how far that gets him.
Also, by his logic, the Franklin Roosevelt Administration represented an orgiastic triumph of Fascism.
I don't think a draft is practical, nor would it be cost effective. I simply do not believe that the Federal Government could find productive employment for millions of young Americans. The problem, of course, is that the bureaucrats who would run such a program would try anyway.
So except in times of national emergency, or in times like the Great Depression, when it was neccessary for the Government to provide a massive Keynesian stimulus to the economy, I am not a draft supporter.
But I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea.
Rather, a draft, in theory, would level the burden of arms by including a portion of the affluent students from the families who have benefitted the most from the economic and political freedoms secured by America's armed forces.
It is particularly galling, in this context, that some of our elite universities--with tuitions well out of reach of Montgomery GI Bill benefits--continue to prohibit ROTC programs on their campuses.
Put simply, if we do have a draft, we should start with the students of Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale.
Splash, out
Jason
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