[geeks] Special skills draft?

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at caerllewys.net>
> Date: 2004/09/23 Thu PM 07:31:46 GMT
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Special skills draft?
> 
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 11:19:07AM -0700, Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez wrote:
> >  Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > >Charles Rangel has been puchsing a draft (Democrat >Congressman)
> 
> > He proposed a draft so that politicians (whose own kids 
> > would also be elligible for military service) would be far 
> > more cautious when waging war. It is always easier when 
> > somebody else's kids are doing the dying to go gun ho.
> 
> Not that politicians and other figures of power and influence have ever
> had any trouble getting their own kids somehow exempted from the draft
> if they want to.  Cushy jobs, Ivy League colleges, assorted
> deferments....


Sorry, but this brought to mind a bit from Farenheit 9/11, so I feel the need to vent:

Michael Moore made a big play out of asking Senators and Representatives how many of their children were in the military/in Iraq/Afghanistan, and if none, would they be interested in signing them up?

My Nits:

1) There was no mention of how many Senators/Representatives have children of an age to enlist in the military (what is it, 18-34?).

2) It is a volunteer military, parents don't enlist their children.

3) If a Senator/Representative doesn't have children (no matter what the reason), are they not capable of voting for the use of force?

It is just one of those moronic Michael Moore Moments that he springs on you, proposes a very simplistic premise, and then makes his assertion before you have a chance to think about what is going on...

Sorry for interrupting the thread, we can all go back to the unspoken threat of a theoretical draft that seems so interesting... ;^)