I enjoyed his column in the San Antonio Current when I was a busboy. Joe Bob’s America: Draft Insanity:
Actually, I don’t even think this discussion has anything to do with the needs of the military. I got the impression, from the comments and emails, that the people in favor of a compulsory draft were more interested in indoctrinating young people than in beefing up the armed services.
“There are no free rides in life!” was the sacred mantra from several of them. The idea was that 18-year-olds should be forced to go through military training because it would teach them some kind of lesson about how grateful they should be. For the ones unfit for military service, there was talk of sending them into ghettos, hospitals and nursing homes as a kind of domestic Peace Corps. There were constant references to Boot Camp, as though it were some kind of end in itself. The idea is that someone who goes through Boot Camp ends up a better person. They come out disciplined and patriotic and moral.
What a wonderfully Soviet idea — that we have the power to MAKE people become good citizens. All those famous soldiers who passed through the rigors of Boot Camp — Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman, Timothy McVeigh, John Muhammad — no doubt cheated on their pushups or they would have become community leaders. The fact is, Boot Camp can be just as destructive as it is constructive, depending on the person. We’ve all seen “Full Metal Jacket.”
So what is this about really? I think it’s about fear and sacrifice. The vast middle class is fearful and paranoid. They want to offer some sacrifice to the gods of self-denial. So they offer up their children — or, more cynically, other people’s children.
We should heed the words of a famous man who explained just exactly why the compulsory permanent draft violates our freedoms. That kind of conscription, he said, “rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that assumption then it is for the state — not for parents, the community, the religious institutions or teachers — to decide who shall have what values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. That assumption isn’t a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”
Who said it? Some long-haired 60s draft resister? Some pacifist Harvard professor? Ronald Reagan said it. I had no idea he was such a wussy-boy.
absolutely fucking brilliant. five stars. check it out. (and no breasts, blood, or stuff blowing up! amazing.)