Are We Dancing on the Grave of Freedom?

Just over two years ago, I walked with my oldest son to the local post office just a few blocks from our home. He could have registered for Selective Service online, but there is something about that solemn walk to the post office, the coming-of-age ritual that young men have participated in since 1940, that just seemed fitting. It was an act that somehow tied him to his father and grandfathers and great-grandfathers who had also made similar walks to similar post offices not long after their own eighteenth birthdays.

As a mother, the act was slightly disturbing. My kid, who barely needed to shave, was registering with the government, surrendering to its will, suddenly subject to its whims. He could be forced to kill and be killed just because he was male and a citizen and between the ages of 18 and 26. Go, America! Let freedom ring!

I am not so far removed from the Vietnam War and it's era of burning draft cards. I've heard stories from my parents about their friends who were drafted to "serve" in the War and then never came home. There is something about the idea, the possibility of your own child that you've nurtured and protected and invested an awful lot of energy in keeping alive, being forced by the powers that be to serve as a pawn in international affairs and government interests.

My daughter turns eighteen in January. Just a little over six months away.

Last week, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed The National Defense Authorisation Act which includes an amendment that would require women to register for the draft.

I may soon be making that same walk to the post office with my young daughter.

It's only fair, right? With the pentagon recently dropping barriers to women serving in combat roles, it seems a requirement for women to register for the draft is the next, logical step to fairness and equality. That the bill passed so strongly with an 85-13 vote proves just how readily our lawmakers are willing to force the nation's girls into conscription.

In the name of fairness.

And equality.

Women have, after all fought tooth and nail for years to be treated like men. Our sisters struggled for centuries to serve as anything more than just nurses in our armed forces. And they've won. Even combat jobs are now open to females. There are women who actually don an Army Ranger tab on their uniforms. Inclusion in the draft is the next logical step in achieving gender equality, and one whose time has long since come.

There is nothing that Americans care about more than equality.

We certainly don't care so much about freedom, or we wouldn't be so quick and eager to throw it out in the name of equality.

Because Selective Service is kind of like a compulsory lottery for slavery (and perhaps imminent death). If not slavery, what label do you slap on a system that indentures individuals, tells them where they can go, what they can do, even what they can do to their bodies? They must do what they are told without hesitation and without regard to the whisperings of their conscience. Slavery is defined as involuntary servitude. And that is exactly what conscription is, involuntary service.  I concede that the meager paychecks our military servicemen and women receive does offer a significant perk over traditional slavery. But toss in the potential order to kill other human beings, or to have their life sacrificed for ideals the individual may not hold, and I think it almost evens out.

Remember how angry we all got over The Hunger Games? Remember how we couldn't believe that those parents would stand by and watch their children be sent off by an uncaring government to die? Remember how they didn't even do anything about it?

Dude, that's us!

For generations now we have knowingly allowed our sons to be registered and catalogued for possible sacrifice. We've even counted it as noble. We've handed over our sons' lives to the whims of an imperial government. And now we are lining up to hand over our daughters, too. All to the sound of thunderous applause. All to the celebratory chants of "Equality".

All because it is what's fair and right.

But it isn't fair or right. It isn't for our sons and it isn't any more for our daughters.

Instead of marching down the road to equality, and willingly placing our daughters' lives in possible jeopardy because it's what our men have to do, maybe we should just rethink the whole concept. Maybe Selective Service was never right in the first place. Maybe we are asking  the wrong questions. Maybe, for once, our country's men should be standing up and demanding the same freedoms that our women enjoy.

Or I could be wrong. Maybe equality is far more important than personal freedom. Maybe we've taken that "all men are created equal" phrase in the Declaration of Independence a little too literally. I'm not sure why those five words should seem more important than the words that follow, "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

It seems some people think equality trumps their inalienable rights. Or maybe they are just willing to trade those rights for equality.

I'm not. And neither are my daughters.

The Price of Politically Correct Army Rangers and Secret Service Agents

Last week, the White House experienced an unprecedented security breach when 42 year-old Omar Gonzales scaled the fence and sprinted across the White House lawn.

At least the Obama administration is consistent in the securing of it's borders.

Not only did the knife-wielding, Iraq war veteran fence-jumper sprint seventy yards across the lawn unstopped, he opened an unlocked door and waltzed right into the executive mansion.  He overpowered the first Secret Service Officer to confront him before he was finally tackled on the far southern side of the 80-foot-long East Room by an off-duty Secret Service agent.

While it is indeed surprising that this man managed to get through several layers that should have been secure, it may be even more surprising that the first Secret Service agent to actually confront the intruder was overpowered.  Although, the agent was female.

The word overpowered seems to be the word most of the news agencies are over-using to describe what Gonzales did to the female agent who attempted to stop him.  It's pretty vague and could mean a lot of things. But considering how much further Gonzales managed to get into the White House after the altercation. I am lead to believe she was not a significant factor in stopping him. She may have been laying incapacitated on the floor of the entryway... or Gonzales may have just shoved her and then outrun her. Either way, he dominated her physically.

I mean no disrespect to the woman's position.  It is certainly no easy task to become a member of the Secret Service.  There are stringent requirements of education and experience and background clearance and even physical fitness. This was not your run-of-the-mill soccer mom expected to guard the president and his family. I certainly admire and recognize her level of commitment and training.  She is certainly a member of an elite group of special individuals.

But she is still a woman.

There is a reason that most bars don't hire women to serve as bouncers and instead tend to rely on big burly muscular men.

Certainly the safety of the President of the United States and his family is of far greater importance than whether or not Bubba has too much to drink and smashes up the local pub.

Are we potentially sacrificing the safety and security of our highest-ranking public official for the cause of political correctness?

Last month, women were also extended an invitation to apply for U.S. Army Ranger school.  While the invitation doesn't signify the acceptance of women into the special ranks of combat Rangers, it does mean the Army is attempting to determine how it should open combat military occupational specialties to women.

Nothing is yet set in stone.  The school is still in the planning process, identifying volunteers and selecting them over the next few months.  However, the Army Ranger school has monstrously grueling physical demands.  The minimum PFT requirements are enough to keep most women from even getting in. The first of the three phases of sadistically taxing training should cull out most of the ones who do land a spot in Ranger school. 80 push-ups in 2 minutes, 12 pull-ups, a 2-mile run in less than 13 minutes, a 16 mile hike with a 65-pound pack (that's more than half my body weight!) should keep even the fittest, beastiest women from moving on to the next phases and then on to graduation.

Unless, in a fit of blind feminism and political correctness, the powers that be lower the standards for women. You know... just to make it fair.

The Army has already lowered it's minimum requirements for Basic Training PFT to even the playing field and ensure women can actually make it into the Army.  As it stands women are required to perform less than half the push-ups expected of their male peers and are given more than an extra three minutes to finish their two-mile run.

That's fine.  There are plenty of military positions for females where their weaker physical prowess is NOT an issue.  Shoot.  There are even combat positions where a woman's inferior physical strength might not be an issue. Flying planes and helicopters or operating other equipment, even serving as snipers leaves their weaker build out of the equation.

But the Army Rangers is quite a bit different and strikes a little too close to home.

My son wants, with all of his heart, to be an Army Ranger.  Chances are good that he will enlist at the beginning of the year.  While I have some major trepidation over his decision, especially considering the threat of ISIS and unrest in the Middle East, he is an adult and I fully support his pursuit of his dream, even if it isn't what I would have chosen for him.  I know he will make one hell of an Army Ranger!

But as a mother... the thought of my son being injured in a fire fight with his only chance of survival being that one of his fellow soldiers carry his injured 6'2" 185 pound body out of harm's way... that the only soldier available to perform that duty might be a 5'5" 135 pound female who only made it through Ranger school because the physical requirements were lowered for her gender in order to be more politically correct... that is something I cannot emotionally handle.

It's not about being fair.  It's not about how hard women work or train. It's not even about whether women can handle the emotional or mental strain of combat situations.

At the end of the day a woman, even a woman in top physical form, is still a woman. And most women are not capable of physically carrying out the same duties a man is capable of.  We can't afford to sacrifice the safety of our sons (or our president in the case of the overpowered female Secret Service agent) for the sake of being "fair" to women.

Because that's just not "fair" to the men who have to count on them, sometimes for their very lives.