Comments on: My very first venting…SAY NO TO THE DRAFT!

By: duane

duane — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:51:00 +0000

Well, I feel the need to clarify what I meant. Point blank: The draft is a bad idea for me. The draft is a bad idea for anyone who doesn’t believe in war, violence, and destruction as a means to secure or conquer anything. Surely there are other ways to save the world than to kill thousands of innocent people. And the people that are doing the killing are our military right now. People that, like Stephanie says, tend to be the poorer people, people that, in many cases, have no other choices to make it ahead in life, so they must join the military. Well, that stinks, and I agree with that. It sucks that the way our country is set up, is that many of the poor have no other way. But, I don’t believe in reinstating a draft that will most likely draft a majority of lower middle, middle, and upper middle class citizens into wars that they may or may not believe in, after all, that is the bulk of the country, right? Many, like myself, see this war as totally unnecessary (i.e. the “reason” we went was to find and destroy WMD… right? yet none are there.), and see it as more of an agenda to further the financial gains of certain chosen companies, as well as to procure supplies of oil (as many people who drive have begun to notice that our supply is getting a little low).
So in summation, I just want to clarify… the draft WOULD eliminate the problem that the poor are the majority fighting in the war, but it would force many peaceful pacifists onto the front line (many of which work hard as hell and pay taxes out the wazoo to make certain things like essential systems, like public health (myself) work in this country and throughout the world). So there is no right or wrong answer about the draft…for the masses, but there is a right or wrong answer for the draft FOR ME. That answer is that the idea of a draft sucks, ESPECIALLY considering it would be to fight a war that I believe is not necessary in the first place.

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 05:25:00 +0000

I have to agree with Stephanie. The only way to make the policy makers in Washington accountable for the way they treat the military is to make them all part of it.

By: stephanie

stephanie — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 05:21:00 +0000

Well, I think that you are completely off on the Draft thing. The problem with the way the military works now is that only poor kids who have no other way to get ahead in the world join the military. If you have money then there is no need to join the army or any other branch of military service. Then you look to Washington and the people in power, and as Michael Moore pointed out none of their kids are fighting the war in Iraq. They do not want them there and their kids come from money and have an out. So, when they send our young soldiers to go find WMD they do not have a personal stake in it, and are less likely to question thier decision. I think we should have a draft, a complete draft, not one in times of war, but like Isreal or Spain that makes every person serve time in the military. That is not to say we are going to be always fighting, but a national service program that could do all sorts of things to improve our country. Think about them being like a huge Americorps. They could go into our inner-cities and help clean them up, or go on peace keeping mission and the like.
I believe it would do a lot to level the playing field and remove many of the obstacles that our poor youth face today, and put up some barriers to the rich kids who have it easy going right from college into daddy’s friend’s business firm.
I also see it like jury duty, a service that we all have to do. We may not like it, but it is something we do for the community as a whole.