Will we all be drafted in the USA?

POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 01:10
VIEWED: 9048
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CANTTAKESKY

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 9:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Just because something is worthwhile, like public service, doesn't mean the government should be allowed to FORCE people to do it.

Thank you.

I am unequivocally against a draft for national service or defense, period. However, having said that, I believe Righteous has a point worth considering. Scott Peck (author of Road Less Traveled) also talked about this. Average citizens are so distant from war decisions that their apathy allows their governments to go to wars they morally oppose. Peck's solution is the draft. It will force the issue home and the apathy out. It will force citizens to TAKE responsibility for their government's choice to engage in something as devastating as war. Peck believes drafts will decrease the frequency and severity of wars.

If I HAD to consider a draft, it would only under the condition that war was a near-unanimous choice of the entire voting population. If say, 90% of the citizenry believes the cause is worth dying and killing for, then yes, it would be more equitable to spread the risk to all able-bodied persons (as opposed to being shouldered by only volunteers). I am a staunch individualist, but war is one of those few responsibilities that has to be carried by the collective--as long as war is a decision the collective can vote on directly.

Whether a draft is an issue or not, I believe going to war should be a direct vote issue anyway. It's just not right to go abroad and kill folks in the name of all Americans without all Americans having a say-so in it.

IMHO, there is absolutely no convincing rationale for FORCED public service.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

------------
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
-- Bertrand Russell

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:37 AM

Frack big centralized government/business/insurance that's capable of even imagining some of the scenarios posted to this thread.

Frack the Demoncrats and Repuglicans alike who do nothing to represent the people who elect them, other than serve as a PR front who looks pretty on the outside while the Cthulhu crawl beneath their masks in the shells that used to be their bodies when they were human.

Frack the bullshit war which serves no other purpose than enslaving the men and women on both sides of the made up battle.

Frack the draft. They'll have to kill me first.

And besides all that... if they do reinstate the draft, they're going to have to let in a whole bunch of idiots and seriously re-think thier anti-drug stance, as in there will be no anti-drug stance..... like the good old days when we just killed innocient women and children from helicopters and the idiot sheeple clapped on as long as their astronomical death tolls were higher than ours were.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

HERO

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 3:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zeph:
I'm sure Hero is as completely disgusted with Vice President Cheney as he is with former President Clinton, considering Cheney had five deferments and "other priorities" than going to war.

There is a big difference between a fella working his way through school for a few years and then having a pregnant wife. Clinton indicated that he "loathed" the military and fled to Oxford to sit out the war smoking weed and burning American flags.

H

HERO

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 3:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
But, baring some real state of emergency, and we really DO need a draft, it must be asked... Does a country deserve to remain free if its citizens refuse to voluntarily defend it ? The last thing we need is to force folks who don't want to sign up when there's no real pressing need.

Read a book called 'Invasion' a few years back about a hypothetical Chinease invasion of the US. In it the invasion is coming, people know its coming for years. In order to hold off the ten million chinease the country must mobilize every able bodied person, male and female, regardless of age and put them in uniform or in a factory.

Then John Ringo does something similar in 'A Hymm Before Battle' with an alien invasion.

Good stories both. Deal with different sides of the issue.

H

RUE

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 4:59 PM

Slick: "Just thought I'd try my hand at the liberal's "Let's take everything to the worst possible extreme." game. You know, the "We'll ALL be wiretapped and tortured by the evil government if this law exists" shtick. It's really not that hard."

Slick really needs to assess his own hard-earned reputation. He's there supporting Bush at every turn. He's denied, minimized, excused and accepted every administration corruption and lie that only democrats have the guts to point out.

And what are those things? No WMD - true. The Iraq war as a failure - true. The president lying his way into a war in Iraq - true. Secret prisons - true. Torture - true. Disregarding habeas corpus - true. Politicizing intelligence, medicine and science - true. Warrantless spying on 10% of everyday Americans - true. Warrantless wiretaps and illegal spying on bank transactions - true. Massive databases with illegally collected information - true. Government propaganda broadcast as 'news' - true. Cronyism - true. Even bribes, theft, and pedophilia under the cover of government business - true.

And he misrepresents the arguments. Above is a prime example. No one said we'd ALL be ... whatever.

So now he's stuck with a personal reputation - he supports torture, comprehensive government spying on citizens, indefinitely keeping people in secret prisons, illegal wars, corruption, rigged elections ... Everything that makes the US more like some heinous 'communist' dictatorship and less like a democracy. You gotta wonder about Slick and what he stands for. And he's stuck with a personal record of unbroken lying and deceit. So you juust gotta question everything he says.

RIGHTEOUS9

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 6:31 PM

Hero, that's the biggest bullshit reason to give Cheney a pass that I've ever heard. How many soldiers went to war while they had pregnant wives? Do you think the army gave them consideration because of it?

And this is what the honorable Cheney said on the matter of Viet Nam. "I would have been happy to serve had I been called." When he was confronted with the fact that he had been, 6 times!, his weak reply was "I had other priorities."

How do you forget that you were called 6 times and each time wriggled out of it? That does a huge dishonor to the soldiers who were brave enough to actually go. Somebody took his fucking place, and he can't remember that?

This is what Bush said on why he chose the National Guard, staying out of Viet Nam.

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out in order to get a deferrment, nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning to fly air planes."

This is the man that just went to Viet Nam and told them they'd be better off if we had stayed to finish the fight there?

HERO, I could give a shit about Clinton's military service. I can respect somebody who stayed out of a war he didn't believe in.

But Bush and Cheney are at the height of hypocracy when it comes to this issue. As far as they're concerned, Viet Nam was a noble war that they think should have been fought, just so long as it wasn't fought by them.

Fucking disgusting leadership.

HERO

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 8:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
So now he's stuck with a personal reputation - he supports torture, comprehensive government spying on citizens, indefinitely keeping people in secret prisons, illegal wars, corruption, rigged elections ... Everything that makes the US more like some heinous 'communist' dictatorship and less like a democracy. You gotta wonder about Slick and what he stands for. And he's stuck with a personal record of unbroken lying and deceit. So you juust gotta question everything he says.

Your just like my puppy. She barks at her own reflection in the mirror. She also craps on the rug...

H

HERO

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 8:25 PM

First its:

Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
How do you forget that you were called 6 times and each time wriggled out of it? That does a huge dishonor to the soldiers who were brave enough to actually go. Somebody took his fucking place, and he can't remember that?

and then:

Quote:

HERO, I could give a shit about Clinton's military service. I can respect somebody who stayed out of a war he didn't believe in.

Well argued. I note for the record that Cheney filed for five deferments. Four were student deferments for his college days...and I note that he did two years in school with no deferment, six years total. The fifth one was a deferment for married men with children (or pregnant wives).

Also to answer your question about whether the army sends fathers to war. Yes. But in the 1960's which is the relevant period, the law allowed a draft deferment for expecting fathers. So the Army, prior to 1967, sent no drafted, expecting fathers to Vietnam...unless they didn't request the deferment.

Why is 1967 important? Because its the year Cheney was no longer elidgable for the draft because he was too old. I note for the record that the majority of drafted Vietnam vets were drafted AFTER 1967, so it seems his age precluded him more then any other factor.

H

SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 8:47 PM

Quote:
Peck's solution is the draft. It will force the issue home and the apathy out. It will force citizens to TAKE responsibility for their government's choice to engage in something as devastating as war. Peck believes drafts will decrease the frequency and severity of wars.

On the whole, it seems that nations with the draft (USA during Vietnam)- even nations with universal military service (Israel, Soviet Union)have MORE wars rather than fewer. Citizens manage to insulate themselves from what's happening in the military, even if it's their own back yard. There was a photography/ diary exhibit in Israel about eight months ago put together by active duty troops, and it caused quite a stir among the folks "back home", who could not envision that "those things" were done by "their troops" - even tho the fighting was close to home and nearly everyone had been in the military.

In other words, the draft does not reduce militarism.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

RIGHTEOUS9

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 9:02 PM

double

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