Why don't conservatives apply free market ideas to the draft issue?

[wuushew]

As long as enlistment in the armed forces is influenced by money in any degree why can't we continue to raise pay until the necessary bodies are fed into the machine? If the 1990's proved anything it is that enlistment is elastic in relation to the overall labor situation. Since we as a country have incurred casualties in both peacetime and the various peacekeeping activities since the Gulf War , when does fear for personal safety overcome the inherent monetary motivation for armed service?


I feel the whole draft debate is far too binary in nature. Surely there exists alternatives other than military slavery or military defeat. The most likely Bush solution is massive stop loss, while the Kerry solution would hopefully be increased internationalization of the occupation.

[buddy22600]

1. They are a bunch of cowards

[Cat Atomic]

2. Because conservatives believe strongly in civic duty.

That is to say, they believe strongly that poor people have a civic duty to die for their vital corporate interests.

Oh and those corporate interests are free from of civic duty, i.e. tax free.

[drkedjr]

5. What was that quote .....

something, something, something, and then the village idiot will become king?

[jobycom]

3. Same reason they don't apply the right to bear arms to Iraq

The only principle they grasp is "what I want I want."

[wuushew]

4. Do they want a draft?

They being the party in power, passing a draft would be political suicide. If they lose control they will not be able to maintain the current tax structure. Therefore in order to satiate their greed they must find a way to maintain war without politically divisive drafting.

[jobycom]

6. They want Iraq

They don't care if they get it in any ideologically consistent manner. They don't care much what they pay to get it. And I don't think they care much about losing the elections in 2006 and 2008, because they figure they can win no matter what, and if they don't, the people calling the shots will still get more money from Iraqi oil than they would get by running the WHite House and Congress without getting Iraq. So whether they instate a draft or raise wages or find some other method of getting what they want, including (and we have all forgotten this, but it will come back up) limited nuclear weapons, they will do it first and worry about the consequences afterwards.

I understand your economic statement, and it's a good point. My point is that they are not concerned with the best way to raise more troops, and could care less about the market or any other ideal they use in their arguments. They are pure reactionary, and make up the ideology to support what they are going to do, not the other way around. They will want more troops. They will thus try whatever emotional argument will work to get them, and proimise whatever lies they have to to get them. Cost, effectiveness, beliefs about the way the market works, none of that will matter to them.