María García Pérez, a PAN deputy for Queretaro, has introduced a Bill that would end the draft.  Well, that seems fair…though what she would like to replace it with would be universal Military service for all 18 year olds.  Being well past draft age,  and not having kids, I suppose it’s not all that bad an idea. It would make the military a more democratic force … funny that most kids who get drafted are the poor kids and very seldom the middle or upper class ones (though I did have a friend from a family of academics and Communist Party leaders who was drafted,  though his military assignment was finishing his doctoral dissertation research on sex and gender studies).

I don’t know much about the bill, and it may be one of those bills fated to die a quiet death in committee, but it appears to be much less radical that one might suppose. Mexicans are already supposed to do a public service job, and the overwhelming majority of the 18 year olds would be reservists, merely trained for disaster relief and emergency assistance.  Then again, do I want to give guns to a bunch of teenagers?

El  Financiero, 1 January 2018