ANOTHER GOOD ONE GONE

        Hall of fame coach Sid Gillman is dead, according to the NFL. He was a pioneering coach in both the AFL and the NFL. His San Diego Chargers won the AFL with a (pun intended) electrifying passing game.

HAPPY NEW BEERS!

        Gonna go to Kaiju Big Battel tonight, with some friends. I'll try to write it up for Blogcritics. I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. Hopefully that bottle of 151 won't disappear like it has the last couple of years. (2 point ref)

DRAFT FEARS ON TAP

        Charles Rangel (D-NY) the very liberal Harlem Congressman has been the first to bring up the D-word. Of course, being a liberal Democrat, cynical political calculus and not honorable strategic thinking is behind the pronouncement.

        Some observers, including Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Jack H. Jacobs have warned our troops are being spread too thin. As Colonel Jacobs noted on MSNBC.com.

[O]ur military force is only a fraction of what we had a decade ago - and nothing near what is required to fight. We have only about a million men and women under arms in the entire active service, but we have commitments as geographically diverse as Bosnia, Korea, Iraq and homeland defense. With numbers like these, the United States will find it difficult to amass decisive and overwhelming military force to combat any but the least significant of threats, and we require all the technological edge we can get. We rely very heavily on National Guard and reserve augmentation of active units, but we have no system of National Service.

        I fear a draft may be necessary. And I'm scared as hell that it will come through. Now don't get me wrong. Even back in the day when I was a prime demographic for the draft, during the Persian Gulf War, I had no qualms about serving if called upon. I was not sure I'd survive boot camp, but that's another matter. While all my friends were talking about fleeing to Canada or bragging about their flat feet, I was thinking of enlisting in the Navy if called upon.
John Stryker, after slamming Rangel's motives, points out the basic problem with reinstating the draft.

A draft will weaken and diminish the military, because anyone with the least amount of talent, skill or money will be able to legally dodge the draft, leaving only the worst this society has to offer to fill our ranks. Right now, we have the most powerful military force this world has ever seen and it's manned solely by volunteers.         (Emphasis in the original)

        Even though America may need the manpower, the draft is still a bad idea.
After the Vietnam War, the armed forces were a hollow shell because of the unpopularity of the draft. Because the armed forces had to lower their standards, the 70s became a time when they were beset by low retention, poor morale, racial tension, inefficiency, poor equipment, combat unreadiness and rife crime and drug abuse. It took Reagan to cure that.

        Even if those loopholes Stryker described are closed, do we WANT the slackers, faux bohos, pierced idiots, Barbie dolls, PC androids and other assorted nitwits from the college campuses in the Armed forces? After the 60s, the liberals took over the educational institutions, leaving the armed forces to the conservatives (despite some busybody oversight attempts).

        The results? Universities are increasingly expensive PC farces where standards are constantly lowered and ignorance and arrogance are as common in the faculty as in the student body. Free inquiry and free speech have been crushed by the quasi-totalitarian party line. And every day we read new stories of the 'dumbing down of America.' The parents who can, or who care, flee the public schools for pricey private schools or home schooling. Meanwhile the teachers unions fight viciously and rapaciously to keep their monopoly and ensuring the ignorance of those they live off of.

        Meanwhile, the US military is a colorblind meritocracy, with proactive thinkers and an efficiency and strength that even they underestimate!

        As tempting as it is to see the Berkley Yahoos getting very acquainted with the underclass and proles on the confidence course, let's not mess up a good thing.