Since the attacks on 9-11, the issue of the draft has sat simmering on the backburner of American politics with intermittent bouts on the front pages of political news. Its latest proponent is Congressman Charles Rangel, a left-darling from New York, whose entire professional life has been spent in Washington.
This columnist joins several prominent Republicans and America's Founding Fathers in being patriotically hostile to the concept of compulsory military service. Pro-liberty conservative idols like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan both questioned the legitimacy of conscription during their respective career pinnacles. And Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.) introduced legislation that would dismantle the Selective Service System and transfer the funds used in its administration to the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
The Founding Fathers weren't exactly keen on conscription either: not only is there no provision in the constitution for compulsory service, King George's "standing" armies are condemned in the Declaration of Independence.
During the War of 1812, Daniel Webster eloquently condemned the draft on constitutional grounds: "Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of Government may engage it?" The United States went on to win that war without a single conscript. Proof that when liberty is truly threatened, there is no shortage of Americans willing to take up arms in its defense.
There is a tendency among some conservatives to support compulsory military service in lieu of some sort of civics education that will supposedly make one more patriotic. A civics class in a school can be patriotic, but lowering the collective professional standard of our military by requiring conscripts is not. While he was Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney stated "The reason to be prepared to fight and win wars...it's not a jobs program." That is so very true, and this is what proponents of compulsory military service fail to realize: that the armed forces of the United States would be morphed into little more than a public works project for societal rejects.
And I have too much respect for the institution of the military for it to be bamboozled into an AmeriCorps with nukes. In turn, the morale of the professional volunteers would suffer, and the United States could soon find itself with a military more preoccupied with delivering "corndogs to refugees" (as Neal Boortz puts it) than it would be with national security.
Proof? Observe the conscripted peace-time militaries of Europe: small, ineffective...with the United States footing the bill for their own defensive incompetence. Compulsory military service is bad not only in practice, but in principle as well. It lowers the quality and professionalism we've come to expect from our men and women in uniform, and it maligns the constitutional basis on which our country was founded.
| Peter Krembs Peter Krembs is a radical for Capitalism who resides in Savannah. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Chatham County Young Republicans, and is also Chairman of the Georgia Chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus. He received a BS degree from Georgia Southern University in 2002. |