PrintKerry And The Draft
It's pretty funny that the Democrats in their desperate efforts to turn the tide against Bush's rising poll numbers and to re—live their glory days of the 1960s are raising the specter of a new draft.
It's especially funny since the only people to seriously propose such a thing are Democrats: Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Rep. Charles Rangel of New York have introduced separate legislation to require both men and women to perform either "military or civilian government service."
(The bill introduced by Mr. Rangel can be found by putting HR 163 into the Thomas search engine. )
H. R. 163
To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.
Mandatory military or civilian government service is what we simple folk call 'a draft.'
And guess who else wants to introduce mandatory government service? And who has in fact made it one of his top priorities to be accomplished within the first 100 days of his term in office? None other than the man who claims Bush has a secret plan to institute a draft—Sen. John F. Kerry.
If you act quickly you can still find a detailed description of Kerry's plan from his web site as saved by Google's cache.
(This embarrassing material has been recently expunged from Kerry—Edward's website—something that seems to happen quite often over there.)
Here are some relevant excerpts:
Plan to Require Service for High School Students
Part of Plan to Enlist One Million Americans in National Service A Year
Read More About the Real Deal: 100 Days to Change America
On September 11th, 2001, America experienced the most terrible and deadly attack in its history. Yet, President Bush's response was to call on Americans to wait in long lines at airports, go shopping, or wrap their windows in plastic. President Bush promised to double AmeriCorps, but instead he gave Americans a raw deal, breaking his promise and letting Congressional Republicans cut the program in half. John Kerry believes we need to think big and do better and get more young Americans serving the nation.
As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high school students and four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of national service.
MANDATORY SERVICE FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Service Should Be a Graduation Requirement: John Kerry believes that knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship — including the duty to serve your community — are as important to American adults as knowing how to read and do math. Combined with a curriculum that teaches students about democracy, citizenship and civic participation, this high school service requirement will be a rite of passage for every young person in the country. As President, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America does community service as a requirement for graduation...
SERVICE FOR COLLEGE
Four Years of College Tuition for Two Years of Service: As President, John Kerry will call on young people to help strengthen America's security and address unmet community needs. In return, Kerry believes that we should offer young Americans and their family's peace of mind that they will be able to afford a college education. Under Kerry's proposal America will pick up the tab for college tuition for every young person who serves the nation...
Of course you got help with college if you got drafted back in the 1960s, too. That didn't stop Kerry and his contemporaries from complaining about it.
But what do you call someone who falsely claims that the Bush administration has a secret plan in the works to reintroduce a draft, when it is in fact Kerry himself who wants to implement mandatory government service? (But who now hides his plan for same.)
Somehow hypocrite doesn't seem to be strong enough.
Steve Gilbert 9 28 04
