Patriotism and The Draft

After viewing this video, sent to me by a good friend…

…I was reminded of the reality that now in America, the FEW are bearing the burden of responsibility of the MANY. Since principle bereft and weak-kneed politicians caved in and made the draft an obsolete thing of the past our National Guard and Reservists have been assuming the responsibility of the citizen soldier.(1) So now, especially since Viet Nam, we have a generation of young people for whom a sense of patriotism is alien. It is no coincidence the draft was abandoned in 1973 in large part due to protests and a general belief that the draft was unfair. It was a political backlash reaction to the end of the Vietnam War.

Ironically, the latest efforts to get a draft law passed originated with the sleazy Chales Rangel (D-NY), recently disgraced congressman. That was just last year and it had NO co-sponsors and died in committee. Before that he tried passing the same bill in 2007 and it went down to a resounding defeat in the House by a 402 to 2 vote.

I’ve posted my own plan in the past and have it saved. I’ll probably post it as a new topic for discussion soon. Not a draft as we knew in the past with too many loophole exceptions, but a plan titled Compulsory Military Service.

I always hearken back a few short years to that comment by the lead singer of the Texas-based Dixie Twits(Chicks) who wondered aloud overseas no less….”The entire country (US) may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism. Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but, as for loving the whole country … I don’t see why people care about patriotism.”(2)

For many older Americans she voiced then what we believed too many young people felt. An ignorance about what patriotism is all about. That in America one has an inherent civic obligation as We the People to take pride in what we have created, be ever vigilant to threats from without and within or risk loosing it all. Not unexpectedly to me, we now are approaching that crossroads marker for the survival of this representative democracy we call a constitutional republic dated Election Day 2012.

(1) https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b237365.html

(2) https://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/06/17/dixie_chick_questions_patriotism