So, like, the election?

[Keyan Farlander]

No thread on the election? This place really is dying

 

Anyway, Bush wins. Hooray!

[Rogue15]

geez...it spread to here...

 

I'm alright with it. I voted for Bush anyway (even though he lost pennsylvania, rumors of democrats rigging the polls or something like that?)

 

I'm glad Kerry conceded.

[Keyan Farlander]

Well, if we were only voting for president, there was no reason for me to vote. Maryland's electoral votes were all going to Kerry, and there was nothing that could be done about that. But there were some other important elections being held, like for school board, and I wanted to get some good people in there.

[edlib]

[Ikhnaton]

Hurrah for Bush!

[Kylilin]

you won't be saying hurrah when that raging lunatic tries to institute a draft.

[Keyan Farlander]

Never happen.

[Nute Gunray]

1) The Pentagon doesn't want a draft. Conscripts make for terrible soldiers and there isn't a capacity to train them anyhow

2) That d-bag Rangel and his draft bill got swatted down in the House 402-2 not a month ago.

[Kylilin]

Well, I certainly hope it won't happen, and I'm glad it got voted down, but that doesn't mean they won't try again.

 

I think what should be most important to the President is finding an exit strategy for Iraq, we can't leave it as it is right now, because that would be horrendously irresponsible, but we do need some sort of timeline for when we bring our military back home, and relatively soon. I'm not saying that we should have never been there in the first place, or that it was a mistake, I'm just saying lets get the job done there and get out.

 

I voted for John Kerry because I did not want the neo-conservative tag team of Vice-President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld back in power, they are the guys who scare me.

[edlib]

There's a small chance that Rumsfeld won't be back, or perhaps moved to another position. I'm not holding my breath, but it could happen since cabinet positions are often refreshed and restructured between terms.

 

Ky, I don't believe there will be a draft for two reasons:

 

1.) There are a lot of influencial people with draft-age children (not least of which are the Bush kids.)

 

Not that it's impossible to get deferments for the children of the rich and powerful,.. but it might be a bit of political suicide to do so now, especially since our "War President" has a bit of a shadowy record on that particular count himself.

 

2.) It really won't be needed.

 

One possible senario:

 

All the administration has to keep doing is continue the current economic policies that erode the middle-class into non-existance (replaced by a small, but almost all-powerful super-wealthy class, and a huge, but poor service sector; ) make it more difficult for needy kids to get government loans and grants for higher education out of high-school (easy to do since there is a huge deficit and something has to be slashed somewhere,.. or just increase the restrictions on elegiblity, which has already happened to a small extent; ) and continue to look the other way as unbalanced trade-agreements allow decent paying manufacturing jobs continue to disappear and are only replaced with low-level service positions.

As poor kids graduate high school they are going to find there are no starting jobs for the uneducated, or that they are competing with thier own parents for a slot at the local Wal*Mart, and that the only road to college has to be trod in combat boots.

No draft, but record numbers of "Volunteers" in the armed services. Even in war-time kids with no other real future in an otherwise dead-end former factory town will fall to the siren-songs of the recruiters.

 

That may not be exactly the way it goes down, but I do expect something similar,.. and it goes a way towards explaining some of the policy decisions made in the last couple of years.

[Gold leader]

Well, I'm a western European, I think that says it all. It seems to me like the Old and the New World are drifting in two different directions; morally, economically, militarily. Not that Kerry as a president would close the atlantic gap, but I expected that at least he would not try to make any wider.

 

Oh, a weaker dollar is great for tourism

[Rogue15]

I'm definetely considering reentering the army and going through basic again (failed it the first time). I wanna go in as 13b (cannon crewmember for field artillery) in the National Guard. (don't really wanna move to a different state...pennsylvania has kinda grown on me... )

 

 

@edlib: good point, i was thinking the same thing pretty much. instead of there being a draft, just up the cost of education pretty much forcing the kiddies to join up. I'm not gonna enlist for the education....i can't stand reading so i know i'd fail outta college too fast to care. gonna enlist for the honor of serving my country.