United States citizens who are worried about the Draft being reinstated should read this.

As you may or may not know, nearly two years ago (Jan. 2003), Democrat Charles Rangel introduced a bill to reinstate the Draft. It would have required all citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 to serve (male and female) for two years.

On 10/05/04, a roll-call vote was held. The bill was defeated by a count of 402 to 2, with Rangel himself voting against it.

So, if you were worried about the Draft being reinstated, don't be. There are no plans in the forseeable future to reinstate it.

Thank goodness. I would hate to have to take someone's life. I would be so miserable.

Alcides.

I was watching Channel 1 today (its something that the school has; the news for kids kinda thing)
And I heard BOTH Kerry and Bush say:

No Draft is needed. The Draft will NOT be reinstated during MY presidency!

There really isn't a need for the draft right now. Does anyone see a need for one? I'm kind of at a loss to see why we'd need a draft, as there's not really any particular area where we can't handle ourselves, IMHO.

As much as I love America, if a bill like the one you described actually did come to pass, I'd be moving to Japan or something. It's one thing to instate a draft, where people are called up to fight, but what you've described seems a little different. I think the word for that is conscription?

I never thought there would be a draft - and now I'm sure there won't be. We don't need one.

Have you watched the news within the past 6 months? Many military strategists and political scientists suggest that atleast 200,000-300,000 troops, 3x the current numbers. I oppose the draft, as it's against the whole concept of choice, but I can understand why we'd need it.

If Bush hadn't screwed us up in the first place, then we'd never have this issue. We'll also be needing more troops once he starts invading more countries (my bet is Syria next). There's also the fact that Afghanistan is going to Hell, so soon we'll need another 10,000 or so troops.

Screwed up how? You should read the WMD report before making a claim like that:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/

Also, Afghan is to soon hold it's first democratic elections.

Exactly. I don't want to argue talking points or anything, but most analysts, whether they admit it, or even realize it, tend to have a negative slant (note, I could have said "Liberal", but I didn't). So, to say that we need 3x more troops than what we've got might be like me saying, "Well, I make $12.00 an hour, and I'm making it okay, but BOY, imagine what I could do if I made $36 an hour! SHOO-WEE!"

I'm sure that having 3x the number of troops on the ground would most certainly help, but I feel like things are getting under control, and that much of the public's conceptions about the war(s) are way overblown. Fear of TERRISTS! have made people batty, even congressmen, and they want to rush to do anything to keep those nasty TERRISTS! from blowing up our buildings, and harming our innocents. Some people are level-headed, and others aren't so level-headed. I think that by the landslide that the bill was voted down, it's apparent that the general concensus is that we're doing fine as we are, and though it'd be nice to have more troops out there, we don't imminently need them right now. At least, we don't need them enough to instate the draft.

Personally, I look at it like this. Forgive my language on this, though. No matter what happens, this administration is damned if they do, damned if they don't. Same for pretty much every administration I can think of in the past, too. No matter what the primary controlling party/president does or doesn't do, there's always going to be somebody gripeing from the left, right, above, below, and every sideways you can think of. If we'd sent more troops, people'd complain about that. If we sent less troops, people'd complain about that. People are complaining both ways even now! Going even further, people would have complained if we hadn't gone to war, and people are complaining that we shouldn't have gone to war. Heck, there are people still complaining that we should have finished things back in the early 90's.

...But I'm curious, too-- Because of my work schedule, I don't really get to keep up with the day-to-day events of what's going on. Why is Afghanistan going to hell?

Also, how did Bush screw us? Now, before you answer that question, think really hard. Let's not hear any sillyness like:

• NO BLOOD FOR OIL!
  or
• BUSH IS FINISHING WHAT 'IS DADDY COULDN'T DO!
  or
• HALLIBURTON, HALLIBURTON, RAH, RAH , RAH!
  or
• Intolerance for Islam--WE JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THEM, MAN!
  or...
• WAR! *HUH* (Good GOD, Y'ALL!) What is it good for?!?!

Mind you, I'm not stabbing at anyone here. I just want to veer away from the anti-Bush talking points that are always spewed about, and end up in pointless arguments. And, when stating why you think Bush screwed us in the first place, try to cite references, but do it without citing any organizations with obvious liberal bias. And, just to make things fair, let's not cite any sources with obvious neo-conservative bias either. I think the dialog about this stuff needs to have the facts discussed, not opinions, not rumors, not hatred for a party or particular person.

Alex, I couldn't agree with you more. But I want everyone to keep in mind that this thread was started only to allay peoples fears of the Draft. I don't know if DaniWeb is the appropriate forum for a political debate, which is where this appears to be heading.

Sure, you're probably right here. I don't think that political discussion is out of the scope of the Geek's Lounge here, but my questions would probably drive this thread off-topic. If anyone's interested in discussing the points I mentioned, PM me, and I can alter or split this thread as needed.