Tag: slavery

general freedom national politics & policies

Dizzying Utopian Vortex

national service, the draft, slavery, involuntary servitude, freedom

“We are all, regardless of where we sit on the political spectrum,” Dr. Jonathan Holloway wrote in The New York Times last week, “caught in a vortex of intoxication.”

Holloway, president of Rutgers University as well as an author and historian, blames social media for encouraging us not “to see and respect one another.” But have no fear, he offers a solution to all or most of our nation’s problems.

“The time has come,” he argues, “for compulsory national service for all young people — with no exceptions.”*

He references FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, LBJ’s Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and today’s “domestic civilian service” programs such as AmeriCorps, asserting, sans evidence, that these “have been enormously successful.”

Effectiveness aside, does this academician see no significant difference between the programs mentioned, which were offered freely to young people who wanted to participate, and a program forced upon young people against their will?

Regardless, Dr. Holloway declares “it is easy to imagine” this one-year governmental control and use of millions of young people as “a vehicle to provide necessary support to underserved urban and rural communities, help eliminate food deserts, contribute to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, enrich our arts and culture, and bolster our community health clinics, classrooms and preschools.”

In his utopia, mandatory national service would also

“put young people in the wilderness repairing the ravages of environmental destruction”;
“dispatch young Americans to distant lands where they would understand the challenges of poor countries”;
“force all of our young people to better know one another”;
“shore up our fragile communities”; and
even unify “America’s races, religions and social classes.”

Ah, the Rutgers president: terminally delusional . . . or only temporarily “caught in a vortex of intoxication”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The “no exceptions” stance is designed to silence questions of fairness and “equity” . . . even though just a few moments of thought will convince anyone that exceptions must and will be made.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags freedom, involuntary servitude, selective service, slavery, The Draft

general freedom media and media people

The Other Other

“How would you characterize this moment?” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian (and occasional Biden advisor) Jon Meacham.

“I think you have a dedicated minority of the population — it was the secessionist slave-holding interests in the 1850s,” responded Meacham. “Today, it is this vast swath of people who have found a home in the Republican Party, who are no longer part of a coherent and constructive and good-intentioned conversation about the future of the country.”

Meacham then posited that “a democracy fundamentally depends on our capacity to see each other not as adversaries — or heathen — but as neighbors.”

Wait . . . did the tenured television expert say our whole system relies on not considering those you disagree with politically as “the other,” just mere seconds after comparing a “vast swath” of Republicans to slaveholders and essentially accusing them of being incoherent, destructive, and evil?

While Meacham bemoaned “these” otherwise undefined Republicans, CNN flashed pictures of the January 6th rioters on the screen. Hmmm. Obviously with the best of intentions.

Next, Zakaria sought the input of another Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin . . . also a well-known plagiarist.

“The answer” to seeing folks as this “other,” according to Goodwin? “I believe it’s national service,” she argued. “You get people from the city to the country, country to the city, you begin to create a new generation that has shared values.”

She’s delusional, but serious.*

Notice that her Pulitzer Prize-winning psychopathy would force millions of young (read: less powerful) citizens into government make-work, to be directed and “re-educated” by Washington-based experts . . . like Goodwin (and Meacham).

The other thing? Ironically, the program aired on Independence Day.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Last week, in a New York Times op-ed, Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway urged “compulsory national service for all young people — with no exceptions.” He contends forcing young people out of their chosen life paths will “build bridges between people” and “shore up our fragile communities.”

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags National Service, slavery, The Draft

international affairs

The China Syndrome

Is the Chinese government under Xi Jinping becoming as murderously totalitarian as it was in the time of Mao?

Since Mao was responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions, today’s China is not, at least yet, Maoist bad. But as Doug Bandow reports in a recent overview (“China’s Terrifying Return to Maoism”), it is indeed awful.

The scuttling of presidential term limits is the merest tip of a titanic iceberg of tyranny.

Beneath the surface is China’s intensified repression of the Uyghurs, Tibet, and Hong Kong; prolific use of torture; a rise in coerced televised confessions; increased censorship and detaining of foreign journalists; massive expansion of the surveillance state with the help of technology firms like Huawei; and new crackdowns on practices of religion.

A few years ago, churches in many provinces of China could carry on without interference as long as they steered clear of politics. Hardly a minor restriction. But today, writes Bandow, “ministers are arrested, churches are closed or destroyed, members are barred from bringing their children and forced to display communist agitprop, and the [Chinese Communist Party] even wants to rewrite Scripture. Islam, Buddhism, and Daoism are also under sustained attack.”

Bandow bases his observations in part on a Human Rights Commission report just published by the UK Conservative Party.

Too often, journalists, politicians and others ignore or whitewash what the Chinese regime is doing at home and abroad. Whatever our policies toward China should be, they should be based on eyes-wide-open reality.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags China, freedom, human rights, slavery

general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Draft Winds Blowing

draft, conscription, slavery, registration, force,

A month ago, the U.S. drone strike against an Iranian commander in Baghdad sparked enough public concern over military conscription to overwhelm the Selective Service System’s website.

“With the ongoing military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan unlikely to end any time soon,” former Congressman Ron Paul writes, people are “right to be concerned about a return of the draft.”

“There is not going to be a draft,” SSS Director Don Benton emphatically declared. “At least, we don’t think so.”

The current context? Last February, a federal judge ruled male-only draft registration unconstitutional. On March 3, the Fifth Circuit will hear the government’s appeal of that ruling.*

A few weeks later, the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service will release their report to Congress on what to do with draft registration — jettison or keep and expand to young women — as well as the advisability of a year or two of compulsory government service after young people graduate from high school.

The issue is really very old unfinished business. “The U.S. draft proposal that no one supported,” reads the headline of a February 8, 1980, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on then-President Jimmy Carter’s proposal to register both men and women.

Back then, women were not permitted in combat units, and Carter’s proposal did not propose putting women into such positions. Still, as the CBC’s Washington correspondent at the time explained, “On Capitol Hill, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative.”

Especially because of a Catch-22. “Those who are for the draft are mostly against women being included,” he found. “Those who favor equal treatment for women are mostly against the draft.”

Nowadays, support for the draft is, if anything, even less enthusiastic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* See National Organization for Men v. Selective Service System.

PDF For printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags conscription, draft, force, registration, slavery

national politics & policies The Draft

Five Days Left!

draft, registration, slavery, war, freedom,

You may have noticed me take notice . . . repeatedly . . . of an otherwise little-noticed National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS). It was established by Congress in 2017 to look into the issue of extending draft registration to women or let the federal courts end registration for not including women.

While I protested the atavistic practice, loud calls could be heard to bring back military conscription partially or universally . . . or to impose a year or two of national “service” on all young people when they turn 18 — despite its utter lack of value.

The last day of the year — Dec. 31, 2019 — is your deadline to quickly and easily express your thoughts on the draft here.

Thankfully, as the Commission is finishing its work (making its report in March — don’t forget to share your thoughts!), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) have introduced House Resolution 5492. “To repeal the Military Selective Service Act, and thereby terminate the registration requirements of such Act . . .”*

“Today, with the introduction of H.R. 5492, the report of the NCMNPS due in March 2020, and Congress likely to be forced by pending legal cases to choose between ending draft registration and trying to expand it to women as well as men,” 1980s draft registration resister Edward Hasbrouck writes at AntiWar.com, “we are closer to ending draft registration than at any time since the requirement for all young men to register with the Selective Service System was reinstated in 1980.”

Speak loudly to the Commission now and let’s carry all the big sticks we can to Congress in the new year with one simple message: Pass H.R. 5492.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The legislation would also end what are sometimes lifetime penalties imposed by federal agencies and state governments against those who fail to register.

Draft Links of Note: https://thisiscommonsense.org////2019/01/01/paul-jacob-on-the-draft/

Archive of Posts on the Draft: https://thisiscommonsense.org////category/the-draft/

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags draft, freedom, registration, slavery, war

The Draft

Attendant Loss of Life

Is there an easy way to avoid the insanity of what author and decorated Marine vet Elliot Ackerman calls America’s “two-decade military quagmire”?

Yesterday, I took issue with Ackerman’s idea of a “reverse-engineered draft,” whereby each year about 65,000 young men and women — but only those with parents in the highest federal tax bracket* — would be forced into the military for two years of “service.”

“A draft places militarism on a leash,” he argues. But in reality, select young people lose their freedom and politicians don’t relinquish any powers.

Still, Ackerman maintains that

“with a draft the barrier to entering new wars would be significantly higher”
placing these “kids” in jeopardy via military conscription would activate their wealthy and influential parents to lobby Congress and the White House
“could create greater accountability”

ultimately resulting in a saner military posture around the globe, hopefully allowing us to “avoid . . . a major theater war, the continuance of our ‘terror wars,’ the attendant loss of life.”

Threatening to draft their kids would raise the eyebrows of parents. That’s why when Congress last voted on legislation mandating a draft, even the bill’s author voted NO.

But would having a small drafted force somehow actually save lives?

Let’s look at combat deaths when the United States used a military draft, post-World War II, and compare that to the time-period since 1973, when the draft ended and the All-Volunteer Force began. Those numbers are not close:

Between 1946 and 1973, with the draft in place, nearly 100,000 American soldiers were killed overseas.
Over the more than four decades since the draft ended, fatalities remain under 10,000.

That’s a heap-big correlation between the military draft and “attendant loss of life.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* As I noted yesterday, targeting the draft to apply only to top income earners clearly violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.