Confirmation: Jean Fraud Kerry’s view that a military career is for dummies, failures, the left end of the bell curve is not his alone, that other prominent leaders among the Democrats share his view is found in Charles “military careers are for losers” Rangel’s pitch for the draft.
No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.
A couple of questions, Charlie:
Where do you find “young fellas” in this country trapped in isolated pockets of “very, very high unemployment” and unable to escape to the rest of the country which is suffering so very terribly from a a five-year low unemployment rate hovering around 4%? Are these “young fellas” you claim unable to leave these anomalous pockets of “very, very high unemployment”? (Gee. If that’s so, we need to enact the measures taken there to protect our borders from illegal aliens… )
Next, Charlie, figures show that blacks are not disproportionately represented, that poorer communities are under represented and that high school grads are over-represented (as against the general population) in the all-volunteer military. This directly contradicts your other statements made recently, and you refused to address these contradictions when you were asked to.
Yeh, watch the video at Hot Air. Catch the roundup of views at Stop the ACLU. Oh, and for the clincher, read “Who Bears the Burden” from the Heritage Foundation, a detailed study on just who is serving in our all-volunteer military. That study alone demonstrates that Charlie Rangel is a liar, a fool and a poltroon of the first order.
There’s really not much choice in blogging about this: either a long screed excoriating Rangel in detail or a short “Y’all head on over and see for yourself what this bag of pus has to say.” I’m too coffee-deprived this morning to give Rangel the dope slap he deserves, so I’ll leave that in your hands, gentle readers.
😉
[UPDATE] OK, let’s see if, after a few cupsa coffee, I can whet your appetite for some fairly dense reading. The “social justice” argument that Charles Rangel and others have advanced for the draft rests primarily on this thesis:
“A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military, while most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent.”—Charles B. Rangel, op-ed, “Bring Back the Draft,†The New York Times, December 31, 2002, p. A19.
IOW, the argument is pretty fairly summed up as, “The poor and the stupid are trapped into ‘volunteering’ for military service, since that’s their only legitimate option” or something like that. This argument assumes that, as its proponents frequently claim, the military is made up primarily of people who are unable to find decent work because they lack the educational or economic prospects of more privileged Americans.
“Representative Rangel’s theory is that if all citizens faced equal prospects of dying in a conflict, support for that conflict would have to pass a higher standard. This theory assumes that the privileged classes would be less willing to commit the nation to war if that conflict involved personal, familial, or class bloodshed. It also assumes that the existing volunteers are either ignorant or lack other options—that is, they are involuntary participants. One way to test this thesis is to explore the demographic patterns of enlisted recruits before and after the initiation of the global war on terrorism on September 11, 2001.”—Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11
Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11, examining whether the theory of oppression of the poor and minorities via military service, looked at the following areas:
- Household income,
- Level of education,
- Race/ethnicity, and
- Region/rural origin.
IOW, exactly the criteria Rangel and others have cited as reasons for their “social justice” view concerning the need for a draft.
What did the Heritage Foundation examination of the facts discover?
…There may be legitimate equity concerns that outweigh national security, but they will undoubtedly come at a cost or trade-off in productivity.
However, our research shows that the volunteer force is already equitable. That is, it is highly likely that reinstating the draft would erode military effectiveness, increase American fatalities, destroy personal freedom, and even produce a less socioeconomically “privileged” military in the process.
(Emphasis added above.)
And,
Put simply, the current makeup of the all-voluntary military looks like America. Where they are different, the data show that the average soldier is slightly better educated and comes from a slightly wealthier, more rural area. We found that the military (and Army specifically) included a higher proportion of blacks and lower proportions of other minorities but a proportionate number of whites. More important, we found that recruiting was not drawing disproportionately from racially concentrated areas.
The report includes the data refuting Charles Rangel’s and other “social justice” arguers lies about how the all-volunteer military is social injustice in action.
And no, I’ll not characterize Rangel’s lies as “inaccuracies” or “mistakes” since he’s in a position to KNOW the facts but chooses to lie about them. Even if he is ignorant of the facts, it’s a wilfull ignorance that amounts to the same as lies, especially since he has been informed of the facts and simply, openly, brazenly dismisses them.
Liar. Coward. Afraid to base his argument for a draft upon facts, he has no recourse BUT to lie about what the facts are.
I’m also adding a category to this post I ought to have done before: No More Bullshit!
