The Draft With Hospital Corners -- Part 2.

Let’s be clear about this, because the stakes could not be higher. The ideals of shared sacrifice and the nobility of service to neighbor and nation are good, old-fashioned American progressive values. This is who we are when we are at our best.

But WalMart is the Republican vision for America.

A place where the intermediating force of representative government is taken completely out of the mix, and the citizenry is pitted against and picked off one at a time by corporations that have billion-dollar pockets and keep Senators as pets.

Wanna strike for better working conditions? Sorry dumbass. Remember, you voted for people who gutted the labor movement.

Wanna bring suit against corporate malfeasance? Sorry. Remember, you voted for people who got rid of “activist judges” who might have heard you out. And remember, you voted for people who made sure “frivolous” lawsuits like yours never even make it to the bar.

Your kid screwed up a little bit? Sorry. Remember, you voted for people who believe in a vengeful and retributive system.

And so, after a layoff or a busted leg, you fall. And as your world turns to ash, to save your family you fling out your arms to catch ahold of a safety net that isn’t there anymore.

You want help? Jebus! What kind of weak loser needs help? And what kind of un-American commie degenerate would think its OK to confiscate to wages of decent Americans to pay to support your weak loser ass?

And too late you realize that Katrina was not an accident.

That Iraq was not a mistake.

That these are the shape of things to come. They are glimpses of Conservatives Heaven; places where the brown, the poor, the elderly, the sick and the young are left to die. Where government is gone. Where guns rule the streets. And where the wealthy grow fatter on no-bid contracts at a safe distance from the carnage.

And if in this radically asymmetrical future people lose their homes and pensions and schools and health care, fuck ‘em.

In the understandable euphoria following the routing of the GOP on November 7th, please remember that like the Cylons, they have not learned the error of their ways and gone away. Their software simply does not allow them to consider the possibility that they are wrong. Instead, Republicans are already regrouping, and will soon come roaring back out of the dark, more strident and hateful and pig-ignorant than ever.

So in that context, let’s talk about the military for a minute.

Our military represents our most progressive of values, but not because of the particulars of its construction or execution.

At least in theory, it is progressive in its rationale, because it is designed to protects us all, from sea to shining sea.

Unlike Separate But Equal No Child Left Behind Conservatives, the military does not operate as though the American children of one state or one city are less worthy of protection than American children in other places.

Unlike anti-choice Conservatives, the military does not function as though the rights of poor women are less worthy of defending than the rights of the rich.

Which circles us back around to The Draft.

And while I won’t go nearly as far down the road as this quote from Bob Heinlein -- "Any country that has to defend itself with forced conscripts is not worth defending.” – I agree with Steve that conscript armies are a bad idea and a draft will never be a means to progressivize the country.

However as long as we have a distinct Warrior Caste embedded in our democracy, as long as the military is a seen by the overclass as jobs program for throwaway people, as long as it’s considered weaponized welfare for the proles, made palatable to people who otherwise wouldn’t pry open their trust fund change purse to save another’s life by the promise that all the ordnance will be pointed outward at the targets of their whims, we will continue to have Iraqs in our future.

Because as long as the public is free to think of the military as found money -- as “they” -- and plead themselves out of the consequences of insanely irresponsible foreign policy adventures by reciting the Neocon Mantra of “They Volunteered”, we will continue to have the basic problem of Operation Endless Clusterfuck repeated over and over again: A lethal weapon in the hands of reckless, spoiled children.

Our national contempt for the idea of service to others, from its devaluation in the private sector, to open contempt for it as Evil Collectivism in the public sector (and brought to you as a part of the overall Republican plan to first discredit, and then eliminate the federal government) has encouraged large segments of the public to pervert their idea of the military from “public service” to “public property” (I forget where I first heard this very cogent construction – either AlterNet or Digby.)

A Conservative friend of mine recently tried to dampen my Happy Dance by reminding me that half of this country doesn’t vote at all, and around half of the rest still thinks like he does. And so for the majority of Americans the issues that people like me hold most dear are issues on which most people either never expend a moment’s thought, or are matters that people like him work to oppose.

Well, sorry, but my Happy Dance cannot be abated. However he was right about the public’s capacity to ignore damned near everything.

“Except,” I reminded him, “when it’s dropped in our back yard.”

On September 10th, 2001, I doubt one American in fifty could have pointed to Afghanistan on a map, or explained who the Taliban were, or how they had come into being. On that day terrorism was far away and confusing. Something someone somewhere was probably working on, but nothing for us to trouble ourselves with.

But by September 20th, 2001, we were a nation of experts-in-training. We were a nation of theories and maps that watched teevee broadcasts abruptly filled wall-to-wall with thoughtful authorities.

We were suddenly serious and trifles fell away.

We should never delude ourselves into believing that Selective Service can be used to flog this country towards some classless Utopia. That will never happen. However we as a nation can become very attentive almost overnight when our collective skin is thrown into the game, and perhaps with conscription – or at least with the idea of it in the air – we can induce a few million of our somnolent fellow citizens to bother joining our national conversation about what the fuck is being done in their name.

Bob Heinlein (mentioned above) also famously made “TANSTAAFL” (“There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”) the motto of his fictional lunar colonies in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

And quite frankly I don’t think we are capable of having a grown-up discussion about war and peace until our national motto has become ““TANSTAAFA”:

“There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Army.”