For one, only adults or 17 year olds with express parental permission volunteer for military service. It seems that talking point is passed on by people who think people can walk up to their adult or near adult children and say, “Put on your boots junior you’re going to Iraq!”

For two, Cindy Sheehan is a shining example of the fallacy of the above talking point. I seriously doubt she “sent her child to Iraq.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYcRuwOspjw&search=Matt%20Damon%20Bush%20Twins%20Iraq

The good thing about the draft would be the ability to pick and choose. Personally I would be hitting the more educated types the hardest and exclude those who would be problem’s. Primarily my purpose would be the “reeducation” of the educated types. I.E. the real world versus the liberal pipe dreams of the so called higher institutions of learning.

One such enlistee I had the pleasure of serving with later went on to become a professor of classical languages at a well-known university. By the time I met him, he had less than a year left on his enlistment, but others who served longer with him told me that his views on national security were definitely influenced by the time he served in Germany during the Cold War.

The mixing of young men of privilege with their counterparts from lower stations in life also exposes the latter to possibilities they never would have experienced had they stayed on the farm or in the ghetto or barrio.

Apparently Representative Rangel’s vision of a new draft includes service in other governmental agencies beside the armed forces (e.g. Americorps, the Peace Corps, etc.). Like most Democrat plans, the devil’s in the details.

Beside that, even if a strictly military draft could be reinstituted, I wonder whether the socialization of some of the less desirable types among our nation’s young people these days might be more trouble than their service would be worth.