Drafting democracy

I was standing in my kitchen, frosting an American flag onto a cake, when I saw the headline proclaiming that Rep. Charles B. Rangel's intent to introduce a bill calling for the draft to be reinstated.\nRangel, a New York Democrat set to chair the House Ways and Means Committee, has attempted to reintroduce the draft on grounds that it would "force policymakers to deliberate more carefully before deciding to go to war," according to the Washington Post. His opponents claim that the draft "would not be acceptable to the American people today," and they point out that exemptions, claimed mostly by the wealthy and educated, undermined the draft during Vietnam.\nBut Democratic leaders brushed aside Rangel's proposal in late November.\nPerhaps Democrats, who are missing the underlying political implications, should reconsider the strategy. Even the threat of the draft appearing in the congressional agenda would spark fierce opposition from nearly every side, not to mention from comfortable citizens content to watch Iraq on their TV screens. However, where there is outrage, anger and fierce opposition, you also find attention, involvement and deliberation -- not only by Congress but also by the average politically apathetic American.\nBack to the cake. I was frosting it for a childhood friend who joined the Marines out of high school and who will soon be serving in Iraq, as he volunteered to do. \nBut this is about who I wasn't frosting a cake for.\nI wasn't frosting that cake for someone like me, who has been fortunate enough through scholarship or circumstance to concentrate on other pursuits; someone who has been fortunate enough to remain apathetic and unaffected by Iraq; someone who, like most Americans, will never have to deal with this war first-hand, much less have to deal with being called to serve in it with no exemptions or exceptions. \nWhat kind of effect would the threat of reinstating the draft have on our "great democracy" -- one of a low voter turnout, a politically apathetic public and an unpopular administration fighting a war essentially by itself, with only help from volunteers? It is a war that is being fought without affecting the standard of living for the rest of us.\nKnowing this county's promising collegiate sons and daughters could be pulled from their dorms and thrust into barracks, how much more vigilantly would our county watch its elected representatives? Forced to deal with this war personally, every day, in a real and threatening way, we would have to demand more from our leaders, and in turn they would be forced to respond.\nThey would understand that it could be not only their children, and the children of their constituents but also the children of their big-money supporters. No exceptions. \nThough Rangel's objectors may be correct that Americans would never accept the draft, the fact is they don't have to. They only must demand their representatives to consider whether they would call for war if their own children would be the ones fighting it.