Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Meme Continues

Over at The New York Times, blogger Robert Mackey wonders if, perhaps, the controversy over General McChrystal's remarks and dismissal signal a "culture war" between the all-volunteer military and the rare-to-volunteer civilian leadership.
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6 comments:

wally said...

I think the draft should be reinstituted.

6/24/2010 02:28:00 PM
Bob said...

@wally: I don't favor conscription, myself. I follow Robert Heinlein on this, who viewed it as involuntary servitude and thus forbidden under the 13th Amendment. If a man or woman can't be persuaded to join voluntarily, his reasoning goes, then maybe your country deserves to fail.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'd like to see a quid pro quo system of exchange of voluntary service for government benefits such as Social Security or medical coverage. No service, no benefits. It's a step up from conscription in that the citizen still enjoys free will and can refuse service. For the working classes the benefits would be a powerful incentive, however.

6/24/2010 02:41:00 PM
wally said...

Which is a problem in itself. It's the other classes who need to be exposed to the experience. You know, the Dick Cheneys and Bill Clintons.

6/24/2010 07:57:00 PM
Bob said...

@wally: realistically you won't get the wealthy to join the military or any other government agency, they have no financial incentive to do so. Besides, don't the rich exist to fund all of these government programs I'm proposing with confiscatory taxes? Isn't their patriotic duty, then, fulfilled by taking that money away from them?

6/25/2010 01:45:00 AM
wally said...

There you go, changing the subject again ;)

6/25/2010 10:50:00 AM
wally said...

By the way, when I served back in the late '60's and the draft was in effect, there were plenty of well-off draftees around. I didn't run into any fabulously wealthy people, but I wonder how rich Dick Cheney was at the time. At any rate, I suppose if I were to reinstitute the draft, I'd tighten up the deferments too. As for the monetary contribution of the rich, it's exactly my point that maybe they'd be less eager to foot the bill for foolish wars if they had had some first-hand experience of their cost. But maybe not.

6/25/2010 11:00:00 AM

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