Elliot Ackerman wants peace so badly that he is willing to conscript our sons and daughters into the military in hopes of achieving it.
“From Somalia to Syria, American forces are engaged in combat,” the author and decorated Marine veteran writes in Time. “With recent military posturing against Iran, against North Korea, it is also easy to imagine our country sleepwalking into another major theater war.”
Mr. Ackerman is not arguing the draft would help in current or future combat operations, or appreciably improve the military. In answer to the obvious question, “Why would you degrade the finest fighting machine the world has ever known?” he replies, “[W]e must move the issues of war and peace from the periphery of our national discourse to its center.”
How?
Ackerman proposes a “reverse-engineered draft.”
His idea is to call up 65,000 young men and women by lottery for two-year terms of servitude. This would represent roughly 5 percent of the armed forces. “And no one could skip this draft,” he claims . . . though obviously not everyone sent a “Greetings” letter will be physically able to serve.
Lastly, he insists that “the only ones eligible” would be “those whose families fall into the top income tax bracket.”
In short, conscript the rich kids!
Of which Ackerman was one.*
Maybe his stance of theatrical class self-sacrifice distracted him from his proposal’s blatant violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
All this to stir up more angst from allegedly influential high-income earners by turning their children into political hostages.
Doesn’t make Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* In the 1990s, I served with Peter Ackerman, Elliot’s father, on the board of directors of U.S. Term Limits.
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