Stage 3: Commentary/Criticism

On February 15, 2013 USA today published an opinion column by Charles Rangel representing New York's 13th district in the House of Representatives called 'All Americans have a duty to defend our nation.' In this article he makes a strong argument about the consequences of war and the effects it has on soldiers, their families and our nations as a whole. He makes the point that war should be the last resort, after exhausting all peaceful options to resolving a conflict and that most Americans think our elected officials send our soldiers to war entirely too often. It looks like he was for the for the proposed bill (which was never passed) Universal National Service Act of 2011 would basically force all citizens of the United States between the ages of 18-25 to perform national service which doesn’t have to be actual combat in the war, but it’s still something that would make it required. I agree with everything Rangel had to say except for that part, I don’t think that Americans should have to be forced to serve. For example if someone got drafted and they didn’t want to be there, they would pretty much be a waste of space in my eyes because they wouldn’t be as useful as someone who actually wanted to be there and serve the country. On the other side, Rangel makes the point that if everyone had this obligation then all of the families would be affected and our representatives might be more hesitant to resort to fixing our problems with force all the time because it would be their child or their nephew being affected not just another random civilian.