David Asman, an anchor for Fox news, writes about how his son is earning his citizenship. A touching story, that belies the Rangel fantasy that we need a draft so all segments of our society can feel invested in our military's successes and failures. (Peggy Noonan wrote a touching article a while back on some similar stories.)

As for Rangel, he might be interested in this piece, de-bunking the idea that black enlisted men will suffer disproportionately in any war. It turns out, in a war, it's the middle-class white kids who are at the greatest risk. Rangel's piece is a joke though, because he says everything but the real reason he is suggesting the draft. He is just trying, cleverly, to pretend that we need one. What he wants is for everyone to be clamoring about the reasons for, or against, a draft, and to just assume that it is something that would help us militarily. It has nothing to do with a draft; it's all about Iraq. I personally am not dead-set against a draft, in the very remote possibility that we might actually need one, but we aren't anywhere near the point where it would even be helpful, let alone necessary.

Update: Laurence Simon agrees that a draft is a bad idea, but he misses some of the evolutionary benefits.