Gina Cobb (Nov. 20) and many other bloggers are appropriately angry about the prominent New York Democrat’s proposal to reintroduce draft conscription. I have one relatively small point to add, which is that no one who respects the English language should ever again refer to Congressman Rangel as “pro-labor”. Someone who proposes to take away the individual’s right to decide for himself or herself for whom to work, and at what calling, is an enemy of the rights of labor, not a friend. (Maybe “pro-union” still works, as a description.) More: Angry Bear.
“Charles Rangel Thinks He Owns You”
Gina Cobb (Nov. 20) and many other bloggers are appropriately angry about the prominent New York Democrat’s proposal to reintroduce draft conscription. I have one relatively small point to add, which is that no one who respects the English language should ever again refer to Congressman Rangel as “pro-labor”. Someone who proposes to take away […]
6 Comments
So a Democrat supports slavery. What else is new?
“Pro-labor” has been a euphemism for “pro-union” for a long time, and “pro-union” hasn’t meant “pro-labor” in my lifetime.
This is really just a foolish way to call out hawks who support the war without actually making a country face the war. The idea being, of course, that those idiots thinking we should be in Iraq have to place to object to sending people to Iraq.
Okay, now I KNOW I’m on the wrong blog. I used to come here for interesting articles about how the US in overlawyered. Now it’s just another “Democrats are bad” blog.
I already knew that, thanks. Now how about some articles at least tenuously related to “Overlawyered” theme?
Conservative reader, the post likely comes from the editors’ libertarian bent, which compels them to oppose the compulsory actions of lawyers and compulsory military service alike. Just a guess. Agree or disagree with that, it’s not a partisan site, as the negative posts about Republicans playing footsie with trial lawyers should show.
On Rangel.
Rangel calls for a draft in part because he thinks it’s his co-ethnics bearing the brunt of war. But the statistics don’t bear this out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/763021/posts
Wow…
Just stumbled across this thread. Juat my quick 2 cents:
– That Free Republic article? Didja read any of the posts in the comments? Umm… yeah. I don’t think they were trying to be faithful to Samuel Clement’s attempts to accurately portray a certain vernacular… if you know what I mean. You really need to source your information from a little more unbiased place than that. Besides, Rangel never made a point about his (as you so delicately put it) “co-ethnics”. What he has said, time and again, is that “it’s just not fair that the people that we ask to fight our wars are people who join the military because of economic conditions, because they have fewer options…”
In sum: The color Rangel is concerned with is green, not black, and all the *nudge nudge, wink wink* from the Free Republic won’t change that truth.
But what is of real concern here is the visceral reaction against the draft. What Rangel is trying to do, with this trial balloon that he knows will not succeed, is to place this fundamental dichotomy back into the view of the voters- why are the people that are most likely to support the war that are *in power* least likely to have friends and family they are willing to put in harms way? This is not a problem for their voting block. The solidly Red South that sends their sons and daughters to fight overseas may be willing to make this choice- but what of the moneyed interests that fund their campaigns?
Something to think about. Sometimes, the principled idea that is unacceptable in practice is the correct political course of action.
Put another way, an American Engineer built a bridge in Paris. After completion, he was showing it off to a group of Parisians. After looking at it, unimpressed for a while, they eventually said to him, “Yes, yes, it works great in practice, but tell us- how will it work in theory?”