Draft Punk
Frankly, I'm more than a little dismayed that otherwise respectable lefties like Max Sawicky and Matthew Yglesias would climb on board with this, particulary given the very slim likelihood that if Congress were to approve a draft, it would come with the"rich kids are gonna' die too" stipulations that have motivated Charlie Rangel and company to start agitating for it in the first place.
The more likely outcome? We get a draft. Congress creates the holes for privileged kids to crawl through we've always allowed. We get more soldiers. Extra soldiers are to presidents what budget suprluses are to Congress. More men means future presidents find more wars to fight, without ever really needing to quit the old ones.
It doesn't surprise me that a McCain or a Kristol or a Hagel is on board with conscription. What's striking to me that alleged leftist, peace-loving, rights-loving people would think it's okay to send young men and women unwillingly to their deaths as pretext to a national debate on foreign policy.
I wrote a bit of satire on the topic called"Affirmative Casualties" back when Rangel first broached the idea in 2002. As with much of satire these days, it really doesn't seem so farfetched anymore.