How much is a human life worth? That senior in your local high school, for example.

[TahitiNut]

What would you give to save that kid's life? $1? $10? $100? Maybe it's not something we can measure in dollars. Is it worth getting arrested? Is it worth a broken arm? Is it worth risking your own life? Risk. How much risk?

Let's say a fire threatened that kid's life and we had a chance to cut his risk in half by sharing it - maybe grabbing a water bucket or hose or shovel. Would we walk away and say "Well, I'm opposed to fire so he's on his own"? Would we stand there and say "Well, it was his choice to go fight that fire. Tough shit"? Would we climb up on a soapbox and tell people "They're all arsonist and deserve to die"?

Or would we put a "Support You Local Firefighters" bumper-sticker on our car and self-righteously vote for stricter fire codes and better pay? After all, it's worth a few bucks and an hour or two of our time, right? As long as we're against fire, we need do nothing more, right?

Some of us have had to answer that question - some far more frequently than others. A lot of combat veterans know what it means to "take your six" - that pact guys made to share the risk. It's not some discussion we had in the dorm over a pizza - it was real.

To me, democracy is all about "taking your six." If you're gay, I've got your six. We'll fight for equal marriage rights together. We'll fight until fighting isn't necessary anymore. If you're female, I've got your six. We'll fight to abolish glass ceilings and outlaw government interference in reporductive choices together. We'll fight until fighting isn't necessary anymore. The same goes for any fellow citizen who's getting screwed by our 'system' - I've got your six. That doesn't mean I merely voice an opinion - it means I'll share the risk. I've got skin in the game. Do you?

It's all fine and wonderful to be against war. It's all fine and wonderful to be against a cabal who've made us an outlaw nation. But that's like the "fire." Saying you're against it an just want it to go out ain't what I call 'democracy.' The fact is that we're paying (bribing?) people to be in our military. As little as we can get away with, of course. We're also paying (as much as we're forced to) for the whole fiasco in Iraq - ships, planes, vehicles, supplies ... whatever the corporations can profit from.

The fact is ... we're not sharing the risk. I regard that as reprehensible.

So, what's that kid's life worth to you?

[KoKo]

1. Huh? How about "Other?"

:eyes:

[Bobbieo]

2. The Marine recruiting officer who lived next door who talks to high school kids

moved out last week. I asked if he was transferring to Iraq - "Not me - My job is too important, here."

That upstanding soul left with all the draperies and hardware in the house, two bookcases plus 2 feet of Bermuda grass in the front and back yard.

[genie_weenie]

3. There have always been members of

society who are "disposable".

Those who do they shit work for shit pay and get shit upon when they are done.

Most people are unwilling, do to a combination of factors (fear of reprisal), to actually risk anything in combating that which they may abhor. After all who wants to have the mechanism of Government focusing in upon them?

You sir are a :patriot:

[Beam Me Up]

4. I would favor a fair and equitable draft IF **BIG BIG IF**

WAR wasn't something that could be manipulated by corporate war profiteers using false flag operations against our own county.

BIG BIG IF.

I'll go for the draft when we get the first point settled. Until then, nada.

[TahitiNut]

5. Yeah. Just tell the fire you don't like the way it burns.

What if firefighters refused to fight arson fires?

Here's a clue: Sharing the risk doesn't mean you don't want less risk. Likewise, wanting less risk doesn't ethically exempt folks from sharing the risk that exists! In the 60s, we called that a "cop-out." (I guess we were smarter then.)

[Beam Me Up]

7. When governments can lie to their people and get away with it

-- leading to the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people -- none of us are safe.

Fix that problem, then we can talk about a draft.

PS: Your analogy is a cop out.

[TahitiNut]

10. How effete. You'll fight alligators only if the swamps are drained.

Meanwhile, lives are lost to alligators. Not. Your. Problem. I assume you answered #9?

:eyes:

[Beam Me Up]

12. You keep talking about the heat fires and the threat of alligators

as if analogies will make your point, as if these are forces beyond our control.

That's the problem.

Bring the troops home. NOW. NO more funding. ZERO. Investigate the crimes, impeach, try, convict.

[TahitiNut]

15. You talk like both can't be done.

You characterize alligators and fires as "beyond our control." Really? So how's that "investigate ... impeach, try, convict" working out for you? Which is more under our control?

Meanwhile our neighbors and neighbors' kids are dying ... and we're paying for it. How's that working out for you? (Remember, "impeachment is off the table.")

Cheap labor, cheap patriotism, cheap lives. Cheap.

:puke: Cop-out.

[Beam Me Up]

17. You have ceased to make any sense what ever.

I oppose universal conscription and I do so in large measure because our government and the media which is its moth-piece has utterly lost my trust. Universal conscription would allow THIS government to pursue the imperialist objectives I fundamentally oppose.

Impeachment isn't off my table, nor the table of a lot of Americans who voted for Democrats this year because they are demanding a SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE in American domestic and foreign policy. They, like I, want an end to this war and the sooner the better -- and not only because it is taking American lives. They, like I, want investigations into the origins of this war, they want to see these crooks out of office and they want to see government back in their hands. How is that going? Come January it had better start to go damn good.

[TahitiNut]

23. I see. So, I'll put you down as a #9, then.

Figures. :eyes:

[Beam Me Up]

33. You'll catch more flies with honey than aspersions.

[Mythsaje]

35. Yeah, but who wants to catch flies? n/t

[MichiganVote]

6. Sure, lets add a bullshit draft on top of a bullshit war..oh, that's right

we did that and people still aren't over it. But we'll do it "right" this time, won't we? It will be the "no hard feelings draft" or the "serve two tours of duty instead of three draft". Maybe we can just call it the "now that we have more of you, we can really fight this bullshit war draft".

Better yet, let's just torpedo what Americans said they wanted about the war in Iraq, fix it or get it gone. Who would have thought that Democrats, who have accused the GOP and * for not listening to Americans for six long years would commit the same crime? Nah, surely the American electorate will understand. We're the Democrats, the sainted ones, the ones who stand for...er...what is it again we stand for? Oh yeah, an exit strategy, a timeline. So of course American voters will get it when we call for a draft, won't they?

They'll say thank you for the dialogue mister. Thank you for the national service opportunity on top of my 50 hour work week buddy. Hooray for my $10 an hour homeland security job baby. Gracias for one more way I can pay for my government and eat shit too.

Seriously, let's just get on with the one sure way of utterly turning off the voters, esp. female voters, for 2008.

[LWolf]

8. None of the above.

I support appropriate pay and lifelong benefits for veterans. "Appropriate" being a single-income family living wage.

I support universal pre-school through college/trade school so that no one has to join the military for job training.

I support a living wage for all; universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all; safe, clean, affordable housing for all; safe, clean, healthy neighborhoods for all.

I support all of those things without reservation.

I do not support mandatory conscription, mandatory combat training, or mandatory military service for any. I support the inalienable right for each individual, whether they are in the military or not, to decide whether or not they can or will kill another human being, and what circumstances they might be willing to do so, for any potential conflict.

That kid's life is worth much to me, which is why I support his or her rights to all of the above.

[Mythsaje]

11. Spot on...

You said it.

[Mythsaje]

9. No, Tahitinut

what you're talking about is grabbing some kid walking by on the street, snatching him up, slapping fire-fighter gear on him, giving him a 15 minute orientation, and then giving him the ol' heave-ho into the HOTTEST part of the fire. And if he still refused to do it, you'd be standing there with a gun pointing at him going "get in there, kid, or I'll shoot you."

Did I mention that the building was empty, and owned by the richest guy in town, who just happened to pay someone to burn it down?

Well, fuck that.

[TahitiNut]

16. Yeah. I sorta figured you for #2.

:shrug:

[Mythsaje]

19. Do you really think there's something noble

about killing and dying for a lie?

Or FORCING people to do it against their will?

Sure seems that way.

[TahitiNut]

22. As a student of the Tonya Harding Institute of Bear Defense ...

... how about you tell me? :eyes:

People ARE dying. Our neighbors. Our neighbors' kids. :cry:

Aren't you happy you can run faster than those who've been knee-capped by the system we're paying for?

Best government our money can buy.

Shop Wal*Mart and support any Dem no matter what - even the "impeachment-is-on-the-table Dems" and the "Yes-on-Military-Commissions-Act Dems" and the "Yes-on-IWR Dems." It's OK if we don't have any skin in the game, right? Let those others die - as long as Dems benefit, too. After all, it's only a matter of having a convenient opinion, right?

:puke:

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Withywindle]

13. I don't believe any of your options.

I oppose a draft because I believe that coercion is wrong, and incompatible with a free democratic society. Period.

[Mythsaje]

14. BINGO!!! n/t

[madmusic]

18. More on the taser thing?

See, what you don't get is that the sheeple have been brainwashed since the 80s. The 60s and the 70s scared the shit out of the government and they have been cramming "the truth" down everyone's throat ever since to ensure that never happens again.

"Cops" has been on the air since 1989 and those cops are never, NEVER wrong. Once in a while, someone might get away, but they never make any big mistake and everyone they catch is guilty, despite the disclaimer. In a real show about real cops, why not air the outtakes, the big mistakes and the big stuff they don't want us to see? Stuff like breaking into the wrong house to serve a search warrant at 4 in the morning and shooting the dog or what have you. That's why we get law enforcement going on the news and talk shows ranting about CSI. It's not just because CSI might reveal to criminals how to beat the crime lab stuff. No, anyone who wanted to could get that from books anyway. CSI is really about complex thinking in shades more than black in white. Things are not always what they seem. Not every cop is Pleasantville perfect. The don't like that and like "Cops" much better.

It's propaganda. And it works.

Then we have CourtTV and 24 hour news, all fear and death all the time, and it's all the fault of the people they report on, from movie stars to actual crime. Probably the ONLY time any of those reports really do, or can do, any good is the Amber alerts. Even they might end up like the car alarms we always hear and ignore if they aren't reserved for real emergencies.

Then there's the "tough on crime" because there is terror everyone moral panic. BushCo took that very same meme and used it to support the war in Iraq, and it worked perfectly until recently. The exact same meme. That's how conditioned the people are. It might have worked this last election if not for all the GOP corruption and scandals that brought out the Dem vote and swayed some Independents. People desperately need the government to save them from terror, either the terror from crime at home or the threat of terror from abroad. And the people slowly but surely gave up their rights for the cause. They don't know it, but they did. They thought is was someone else's rights they gave up, someone dangerous and threatening, but, no, a right is a right and a precedent is a precedent. Once lost rights make their way into stare decisis, that is that. It applies to everyone slowly but surely.

So there is a difference. We were not brainwashed into thinking fires are the good guys. We were not mind controlled into thinking we should never defy or question a fire. The only thing in common is that we know we should fear fires. They burn us to the bone just like the government can.

In a real fire, I think most of the students would most likely have been heroic. As it was, they were caught on a razor's edge and didn't know whether to trust their instincts or their brainwashing. Frankly, in this case, I'm glad they chose their brainwashing. There will come a time when there will be no doubt their instincts should rule the day, and then they won't have any regrets. There is no denying instinct when the time is right. This wasn't the right time. This was only a wakeup call: dust off your instincts and keep them on the alert. I think the students got that.

edit typo

[Mythsaje]

20. Funny you'd bring up CSI

One of the other things they don't like is that now juries expect PHYSICAL evidence rather than just the circumstantial things...and they don't like seeing people acquitted because all they have is the circumstantial stuff.

[madmusic]

21. Another thing...

Many people have been wrongly convicted when that was the norm. People like Nancy Grace and Lisa Bloom keep saying our standards are getting too high and that circumstantial evidence is plenty, because it traditionally was. But Nancy Grace would like to do away with a lot of the Bill of Rights.

What gets me is that we don't hear much outrage about overturned cases when the cops lied and cheated. Just recently in Texas a man won a law suit after being wrongly convicted. How? The cops did a picture line-up and asked the rape victim if she recognized any of the men. No, she didn't. So they later did another photo line-up and only the wrongly convicted man was in the second one too. She recognized him. He was convicted.

Talk about getting raped twice by the system. She not only helped a man wrongly serve 18 years, the real rapist got away! Where's the outrage at the COPS? Why aren't feminists raising hell?

edit typo

[Mythsaje]

24. Sure..

Eyewitnesses are consider the LEAST reliable form of evidence, believe it or not. Of course, if they screw up the wrongful conviction rate, they'll put a debt in the prison-industrial complex's profit ration. Add ending the drug war to that and we'd have whole penal systems going broke.

Couldn't have that.

[Horse with no Name]

25. We aren't sharing the risk

and as I said in another post, why does MY brother have to keep going somewhere he doesn't want to go so that someone elses brother doesn't have to?
Yes, he signed up voluntarily. He signed up when we had a President who wouldn't sacrifice our military for personal greed.
Now he is stuck. He can't get out because they won't let him.
He was held over FOUR times on his last tour in Iraq.
I think he has EARNED a place stateside.
NO ONE in our family supports this war. We never have. Yet we have been forced to sacrifice.
I think it is high time other families who CLAIM to be more patriotic than US start backing up their bullshit with their family members.
Our entire family is tired of the sleepless nights we had when we watched the carnage on television and then didn't hear from him for weeks.

[TahitiNut]

28. I hear ya, horse. Loud and clear.

It's a form of "checkbook liberalism" - pay taxes for the war but wrap ourselves in the flag of righteousness. After all, it's not really a democracy (and we'll make it even less so) and even if it were, why fight in a war we disagree with? (That, of course, is why Prescott Bush was happy to do banking for the Nazi's. It was OK because he disagreed with the war in Europe. I guess he was OK with killing the Japs, though.)

:puke:

[Jcrowley]

26. Kicketh

as

well

as

recommendeth.

Think

[Jed Dilligan]

27. I think it would be insane to go fight in a war

I don't believe in. I would probably end up killing my officers or killing myself.

I would participate in a tax protest, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't organize one.

[Horse with no Name]

30. And at the same time

I bet if you ask some of these kids who got in over their heads what they believed in, their beliefs would align somewhere with yours.
Yet, they don't have any choices anymore.

[Jed Dilligan]

31. And if I were to join them,

the only thing I could do in good conscience is try to lead a mutiny.

So clearly, you don't want anyone like me in the miltary, do you?

[TahitiNut]

32. Why not? At least that'd be "skin in the game."

Right now, the 'average American' has as much vested in the Iraq occupation as he has in some reality TV show - and voting is mere Nielsen Ratings. Seems to me we oughta all have skin in the game. All of us. Not just the ones too poor to run fast. Like our neighbor's kid.

[Horse with no Name]

34. One of the boys my daughter graduated with from High School

last year just went in this week.
This is a GOOD kid.
But he is poor and black. Worked at Walmart. Tried to go to college this semester, but couldn't work and go to school. Started failing.
Some nice recruiter "talked" to the school and got them to drop him without failing him so that "when he gets back" he can have a "fresh start" in school with "all of the money he will get" from "serving his country".
Makes me want to :puke:

[Jed Dilligan]

36. Sorry. Not buying.

These sound like the words of someone too old to go...

[CarbonDate]

39. No, they're the words of someone who's gone.

Look, as long as you're actively working to end the war, I can respect that. 655,000 Iraqis and over 2,800 Americans have died in it. It's a crime against humanity. I understand the desire not to want to participate.

It is the citizens who have no stake in it but allow it to continue either through apathy or complicit silence who earn my contempt. 60% of the American public is against it. Why are my friends (and probably me some time in the next year) still going? Clearly there are a lot of people who are not making their voices heard.

I've absolutely no use for Democrats who allow the war to continue because opposing it hurts their chances for re-election. People are dying, and that's more important than their damned job or their damned political ambitions (yes, I'm talking to you, Hillary).

Work to end the war. Then we can make this discussion on a draft academic.

[Jed Dilligan]

40. If the Democratic party institutes a draft,

I will never vote for them again as long as I live. Which won't be long, because I will probably get killed resisting the draft.

[JDPriestly]

37. People volunteered in huge numbers to go to WWII.

Very few have volunteered to go to Iraq as soldiers. The misery needs to be spread across class, race and ethnic groups.

[rockymountaindem]

41. Or maybe we should only fight in wars that most people support

you know, being a democracy and all. I happen to think, as a young person, that there is room for debate in this country about having some kind of mandatory national service. Instituting it ex post facto to crystalize something that started when nobody was thinking about a draft, to me, just seems hasty and is obfuscating the real issue. By suggesting implimenting the draft in a manner such as this, you're asking people to risk their lives on something they never saw coming, and which few support. If you go *into* the war with the draft, then everybody knows where they stand. This is changing the rules at halftime.

[TahitiNut]

42. Urban myth. 6,332,000 volunteers. 10,110,104 drafted

The percentage of draftees in WW2 was comparable if not higher than the percentage during the Viet Nam War, in which 1,857,304 guys were drafted.

Again, however, it's very difficult to assess the impact of the draft on volunteerism. When fighting a land war in Asia, it would probably be insane to argue that volunteerism in the Navy and Air Farce (and probably the Army, too) didn't increase significantly due to the draft. I know at least two guys who voluntarily enlisted in the Marines because of the draft. The rationale? They wanted the best training to increase their odds of surviving. (I only report - I don't judge.)

[ComerPerro]

38. So, you're saying more of us should go to war? Fuck that shit