If the draft was reinstated, the U.S. would have a harder time fighting unpopular wars like the one currently being waged in Antarctica.
An all-"volunteer" military ("volunteer" as in you better enlist because there are no other jobs in this rotten economy) means only a tiny segment of America is directly affected by wars. Which explains why I mistakenly said we're fighting in Antarctica rather than Afghanistan, though I do worry about Taliban penguins.
Anyway, if Americans of a certain age could all be potentially drafted, suddenly a lot of people would have a vested interest in whether or not the U.S. should be taking on fundamentalist Taliban penguins who hate our freedom and our seafood (since the BP oil spill).
But in the unlikely event that a draft was reinstated, it wouldn't be fair to force anti-war people to fight. So the draft should be limited to hawkish politicians, hawkish corporate execs, hawkish media commentators, and the like. If these people are too old for induction, their children or grandchildren could be drafted instead. After all, we must protect the homeland from radical fundamentalist Taliban penguins.
Of course, most right-wing American bigwigs who are gung-ho for unnecessary wars want nothing to do with fighting them. One priceless example of this was when then-35-year-old conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg said in 2005 that he didn't sign up for the Iraq War he strongly supported because "my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter...." As if military people from poor and working-class backgrounds don't have children and other life situations they have to wrench themselves away from to fight the evil-doing radical fundamentalist Taliban penguins.
So a draft that only targeted hawkish right-wingers could result in most of those potential inductees fleeing to southern Canada (a new "Southern Strategy"?). Or they might race further north to the Arctic, where there are no penguins of any ideology.
All this conservative draft-dodging would make America's military too small to invade/occupy any country -- meaning fewer deaths and more money for U.S. social programs. To which I would say: "mission accomplished!"
I do think a draft can make it harder for the U.S. to get into and sustain wars. If much of the population (including conservatives and higher-income people) can potentially die in wars, they will be less likely to go along with unnecessary ones. That's not the case when a relatively small number of "volunteers" are doing all the fighting and dying.
And it doesn't have to be military only, there could be teaching corps, a building corps, an environmental corps. Stranger things have happened, but it is pie in the sky, so says me cynical self...
Old men send young men off to war as long as they are not rich
Training Afghan peasants to use flush toilets and drive automobiles is difficult enough. Sending the Twitter generation to unify warring tribes of fundamentalist xenophobes in Central Asia just doesn't seem like a very good idea.
-- [I]f Americans of a certain age could all be potentially drafted . . . --
. . . then our Medicare and Social Security funding issues might disappear faster than a platter of Maine lobsters, blue-eyed oysters, deviled crabs, marine mussels, and sea clams within grasping distance of Rush Limbaugh.
Personally, I am OK with eating the rich, but, regrettably, they give me gas. Besides, I am an ovolactovegetarian, which, regrettably, also gives me gas.
MugThankDogForBeanoRuith1
Thanks for your ultra-clever note! I gather that Rush Limbaugh doesn't have a problem getting enough Omega-3....
Dave