> Are you saying that forced military slavery is preferable over voluntary
> service?
The problem is that in the existing setup, it's not really "voluntary." More like indentured servitude than slavery, to be sure, but still it's an option that, for the most part, is only considered by people with few other options.
Having an army is something that most people, in the current state of thinking, consider socially necessary. I don't necessarily agree. Like you, I think maybe we could do surprisingly well without one. But if one _does_ think that an army is a necessary social burden, then it seems elementary that that burden should be equally shared by all. Rangel is drawing a logical, and even a moral, conclusion, though he is starting from premises that you and I might question. To repeat, however, those premises are widely shared.
"Forced," yes. But a lot of things in society are forced. You are forced to fork over part of your income in taxes, for example. You are forced to go to school -- and talk about grinding, soul-destroying, mind-numbing oppression!
"Slavery" is a little over the top, though. The condition of a draftee serving a two-year hitch, particularly when everyone in the society must do the same, just isn't much like the condition of a slave.
In fact, I can imagine there would be a lot of social benefit in universal service -- accent, as always in this discussion, on 'universal'. It might tend to curb the sense of irresponsible entitlement felt by the offspring of the elites. And two years in a barracks with a random sample of the society might diminish our provincial horror of the Other. And finally, I think Rangel is right that if we had had a universal-service army we would never have gone into Iraq. I would add that if we had had a true universal-service army in the Vietnam period, we would have been out a lot sooner.
> If the U.S. military disappeared for the next 10 years, the world would
> be a far better place.
I couldn't agree more.
-- --Michael J. Smith --mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org