Tag: draft

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And Then There Were 20-Something

MIke Gravel, president, candidate, war, draft,

The media won’t have my favorite Democratic presidential candidate to kick around anymore. 

“Mike Gravel drops out of 2020 race,” Vox headlined Catherine Kim’s report. “He never wanted to be president anyway.” A subhead continued: “The former Alaska senator simply ran to get other candidates to talk about American imperialism.”

It was largely a Twitter campaign, which, as The New York Times featured months ago, was run by two teenagers, David Oks and Henry Williams. “It wasn’t exactly a bid for the presidency,” the paper cautioned, “but neither was it really a prank.”

The goal? Launch Gravel — and, moreover, his issues — onto the debate stage. Though the campaign garnered enough individual donors to qualify, his lackluster polling results kept the former U.S. Senator out of prime time.

During the Vietnam War, Sen. Gravel worked to end the military draft and had the courage to read the Pentagon Papers into the Senate record in order to inform the public about the war. After leaving the Senate, Gravel continued his battle against U.S. military intervention, as well as advocating for initiative and referendum.

Back in 2008, in another quixotic presidential bid, he succeeded getting into the debates, lobbing in a few much-​needed zingers. He was 77-​years-​old then; today he is 89.

Oks’ and Williams’ “real goal was to inject Gravel’s far-​left views,”  informed FiveThirtyEight​.com, “into the primary.”

Though I disagree with Mike Gravel on a number of his “far-​left” issues — and for endorsing Bernie Sanders for president — he has my utmost respect. 

And if “ending ‘imperialist’ wars, legalizing drugs and enacting dramatic political reforms” be “far left,” make the most of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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MIke Gravel, president, candidate, war, draft,

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Hypothetical Cowardice?

Congressman Joe Heck, draft, selective service, volunteers, national service

We must treat real threats realistically. 

But what to do with bizarrely hypothetical ones?

Last week, former Congressman Joe Heck (R‑Nev.), chairman of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, addressed witnesses at a hearing in Washington: “So I want to pose a hypothetical scenario and ask your response.”

“We are in the Red Dawn scenario being attacked from both Canada and Mexico,” he related. “There is no Selective Service System. The All Volunteer Force is insufficient. There’s been a presidential and congressional call for volunteers, for people to step up. However, the response has not been enough to meet the threat, the actual threat to our homeland.” 

“How would you propose to meet the demand?” inquired the chairman.

Seriously? We must prepare for military conscription because of the likelihood that Canada and Mexico will launch a joint invasion?

Leaving one ridiculous supposition, during the public comment period, I confronted the other: hypothetical American cowardice.

“This is really all about trust,” I told the commission.

“Do you trust the American people to step up in times of crisis — from Pearl Harbor to 9/​11 — or do you not? I submit that all evidence points to the fact that they will, because they have. 

“Or should we trust Congress with the awesome power to take our sons and daughters away because they choose to, because there’s a ‘big emergency’ or maybe just because we figure it will help with ‘social cohesion’? I submit that all evidence points to the fact that we cannot trust Congress.”

I urged commissioners “to tell Congress: trust the American people — end draft registration, don’t extend it to women, and do not force any sort of national service.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Congressman Joe Heck, draft, selective service, volunteers, national service

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Big Issue 2020

Buttigieg, draft, selective service, national service, involuntary servitude, slavery, Rachel Maddow,

“National service will hopefully become one of the themes of the 2020 campaign,” said Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Why?

Talking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Mayor Buttigieg explained: “we really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency, but also just this era.”

Oh, goodie, another threat from which the wannabe wizards of Washington can save us.

“One thing we could do that would help change that,” announced Buttigieg, “would be to make it, if not legally obligatory, then certainly a social norm that anybody after they’re 18 spends a year in national service.”

What does he mean by “if not legally obligatory”? Perhaps it is nothing more than this: he is considering a program of forced service, but wants plausible deniability, a way to back off in the heat of an election campaign … when moms and dads are voting. 

Buttigieg wants “the first question on your college application” or “the first question when you’re being interviewed for a job” to be whether a young person did national service. 

Hey, I want a lot of things. Does a President Buttigieg plan to force all colleges and employers to ask his question first?

What seems obvious to citizens seems lost on politicians, the rather clear difference between offering jobs to the nation’s 4 million 18-​year-​olds and dragging them away from their lives to make them work for Washington. 

Host Maddow, for her part, supports a draft, but expresses doubts about its feasibility, noting “we seem wired as a country to reject that at every level.”

She is correct: Land of the free, home of the brave and all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Buttigieg, draft, selective service, national service, involuntary servitude, slavery, Rachel Maddow,

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Save the Young

ask not, draft, selective service, slavery, National Commission on Military, public service, involuntary servitude

Freedom is good, sure … for most of us, most of the time. 

But the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service was funded by Congress to study whether perhaps just a smidgen of short-​term slavery for young people might be a smart program, a nice change of pace, a big help to all involved — both our nation’s youth and our nation’s government.

Involuntary servitude — a year or two of military service or mandatory civilian national service, i.e. helping this government agency or that one — might force these whipper-​snappers to grow up faster, the argument goes. Not to mention assisting them by engineering an enlighteningly involuntary point-​of-​view from which to better sort out their futures.

But enough about what’s good for young people. Let them heed the famous words of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what we can do for you, ask what you can do for us.”

Consider the awesome benefits we can accrue from an army of four million well-​mannered, bright-​eyed 18-​year-​olds, like the kids on The Facts of Life or Saved By the Bell — or whatever newfangled TV show dances in front of today’s youthful eyes. 

Imagine, young people solving all our problems: cleaning up the environment, ending illiteracy, reversing global warming, wiping out poverty, curing cancer. 

Or at least mopping up the lobby at the EPA, filing documents close to alphabetically at the Department of Education, picking up trash in a park.

All while becoming fully-​actualized citizens.

Green energy isn’t the answer, youthful energy is! Remember: It cannot be bottled, but it can be conscripted.

Oh, and actually paying for 4 million make-​work jobs?*

Ssshhhh.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* At minimum wage, it would cost more than $60 billion a year to hire every 18-​year-​old American. Oh, well, I guess freedom is much less expensive. 

NOTE: If for any reason, you are skeptical of the wonders forced governmental service can provide, please join me today (April 10, 2019) at 4:00 pm ET for a webinar on how to “Save the Young People.”

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ask not, draft, selective service, slavery, National Commission on Military, public service, involuntary servitude

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There’s a Word for It

Government Property, draft, selective service, slavery, commission,

The word is “effrontery.”

With shameless boldness, two gentlemen testifying for mandatory “National Service” at a recent hearing of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service pitched the notion that social dysfunction and directionlessness among the young could be best solved by forcing them to work for government for a year.

I indicated the effrontery — the maximum chutzpah — in a video last weekend. But it is more than “just” the case that forcing labor on people in a free society is a whopping internal contradiction — we can only be free if we are unfree, and we should push servitude for freedom’s sake? It is also astoundingly presumptuous. 

Consider the context.

The rap about the young is that they inhabit a gimme-​gimme culture, always taking, never giving back. But when was the last time the two parties in Congress took a stand on a difficult issue that required doing something inconvenient, like saying no to their own constituencies? When did they decide not to spend to please their various political interests because going further into debt was perilous for the entire nation?

Spending other people’s money is easy, the ultimate “gimme.”

Meanwhile, Congress bogs down in pointless partisan “investigations,” idiotic virtue signaling, and defense of their own wayward members.

It is absurd to suggest that experts in Washington, D.C., could “fix” a generation of young people, since official Washington is far more dysfunctional than the citizens they think they can remold in their craven image.

Effrontery, indeed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Government Property, draft, selective service, slavery, commission,

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National Disservice

Paul Jacob, draft, registration, selective service, slavery, freedom

Common Sense focused on the draft, last week, specifically the idea of “national service,” too often portrayed as a wonderful enriching experience.

My midweek commentaries “Old Codger Draft,” “The Opposite of Freedom,” and “Green New Conscript?” pinpointed the plethora of problems with enslaving folks. 

On Thursday, I traveled with two threatened members of that now vulnerable population known as “young people” to a public hearing at American University. There I testified for three-​and-​a-​half minutes of the two allotted to me by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. I implored them to “forswear any forced service whatsoever.”*

“That shouldn’t happen,” I said, “in America.”

Then, late Friday, a federal judge ruled that the Selective Service System’s male-​only draft registration program is unconstitutional. Since all combat positions are now open to women, a draft registration program excluding women violates the equal protection rights of men. The lawsuit brought by the National Coalition for Men doesn’t ask that registration be extended to women, only ended in its current discriminatory form. 

The judge, however, did not issue an injunction, and there will be an appeal.

“This ruling is going to force the government eventually,” the group’s attorney told the Washington Post, “to either get rid of the selective service requirement or require both sexes to register.”

Between now and the 2020 election, the issue of conscription — for men and for women, for war or for street sweeping — will be before the Congress, the President and candidates for those positions.

Let’s ask them: Whose life is it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And I offered important advice on the proper website domain name for the Commission, to boot. 

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Paul Jacob, draft, registration, selective service, slavery, freedom