Reinstating the draft to make war unpopular is like reinstating Jim Crow to make slavery unpopular.

[jacquelope]

You make war unpopular by directly attacking the idea of America being the world's policeman. Not by feeding the war machine!

When you feed the war machine all you do is create more tribalism - one demographic will always want to sacrifice another. White rich men here, poor black kids there, the war machine still gets fed and it will never go away by being fed. If liberals win we'll just turn to feeding our enemies to the war machine. We're human and corrupt and vengeful like that.

No draft! Not for rich white men, the poor, minorities, or anyone. You make war unpopular by making your voice heard.

[Modern_Matthew]

1. Well said. nt

[sibelian]

2. It's a totally grotesque idea.

Making legislation to force people to do things you disagree with to get them to disagree with it as well.

It's calculating, manipulative, and utterly doomed, if there's one thing you can't do with legislation it's using it to trick people into thinking things.

[GodlessBiker]

3. But slavery is already unpopular.

[JVS]

30. So are our shitty wars, but it seems some politicians won't act on that.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. Would women be included in the draft?

YES? No? maybe? Just curious.

[jacquelope]

6. Are you kidding me? No way.

Society would never stand for that.

But even if women were also drafted, I am not in favor of conscription. Conscription is slavery.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Conscription is not slavery. Slavery is slavery.

The conscripts of WW2 were as effective a military force as any the world has ever seen. And they were rewarded with the GI Bill, which almost singlehandedly created the American middle class by giving millions of men and women college educations which they'd otherwise have never gotten; and also, otherwise unavailable small business assistance. That is NOT slavery.

'Conscription is slavery' is libertarian bullshit. Be careful of what memes you're buying into.

[jacquelope]

28. Forced labor is slavery. I don't care what Libertarians say. n/t

.

[RaleighNCDUer]

34. No. There is a very specific definition for 'slavery' - uncompensated forced labor.

I can argue that conscription is as legitimate as paying taxes - it is, under particular circumstances, what is owed to the government by the citizens. It is, in fact, provided for in the constitution, in the provision of calling up the militia.

Pre-empire, conscription served the nation quite well, and was overall accepted by the populace. Only thing is, citizen soldiers tend to be somewhat rebellious to the yoke so if we have no clear purpose for why we are fighting, conscripts become reluctant -- and until the government admits that we are fighting for the elites and their empire, we will get no such 'clear purpose'.

WW1, we accepted the draft (though there were real problems with it) because the authoritarian Germans had attacked the French democracy, and we still remembered how the French had aided us in our own fights for freedom.

WW2, we were attacked by the Japanese, who were allied with the Nazis - we were clearly the aggrieved party and were, again, fighting authoritarian regimes which were hostile to Democracy. Most didn't wait to be drafted, and few of those who did, didn't object.

Korea, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, post WW2 - but that didn't matter when the N Korean forces overran the thousands of Americans who were stationed in S Korea. Again, they attacked us. At first, at least, we saw ourselves as the good guys fighting the good fight - it was, however, in essence someone else's civil war and had it lasted much longer it's unlikely support would have persisted.

Vietnam? The best rationale, the only rationale, was the 'domino theory'. N Vietnam never attacked us. We had no business being there. After watching how France dealt with the same population in the same place, we imitated their tactics and, ultimately, their failure. (That is the REAL reason why the right hates the French - they hate being faced with "I told you so". They had warned us not to do it...).

So, when did conscription fail us? When we had no moral authority to give the conscripts a reason to be there.

So, no, conscription is not slavery, any more than paying taxes is slavery. We are forced to give the government the fruits of as much as three months of our labor every year! That's Slavery! Never mind that it pays for your highways and police and fire departments, our schools and clean air and clean water.

It is NOT slavery. It is, in a backassed way, a brake on authoritarian government, having citizen soldiers who will not cooperate with a military that enters into adventures with no clear cause or goal. The all-volunteer force has no such constraints.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wellst0nev0ter]

24. The IDF Drafts Women

Just saying.

[BOG PERSON]

5. how do you attack an idea?

ideas aren't things.

edit: oh, i get it. you attack an idea with high minded rhetoric.

[Arctic Dave]

7. Drafts almost destroyed the military service during and after Vietnam.

Many books have been written explaining that the moral and military readiness was degraded because of it. That was one of the huge reasons to go to an all volunteer military. That is why we have resorted to bribery more and more to fill our ranks now.

Greedy people will always want what others have and will always be willing to sacrifice others to get it. Putting one's own skin in the game always has a effect on choices no matter what it is.

[OHdem10]

14. Wonder why. The Elites had it losing their kids. and having

their kids lives interrupted.

[sibelian]

21. So you want your military degraded?

That doesn't sound like a very good idea.

[Arctic Dave]

22. That is how people react to being used as fodder. They rebel.

The OP said that drafts don't work which seems not to be the case.

[jacquelope]

31. Rebels? Hell, lots of fraggings happened in 'nam.

A lot worse will happen this time around if there's a draft.

People are a little smarter about finding out where they can do enormous damage to the chain of command with a single frag. Being shot dead by a fellow soldier in retaliation for a frag beats being raped and torn to pieces in a POW camp.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Wrong. It was not the draft that almost destroyed the military -

it was the unending, immoral war the draftees were being asked to fight that almost destroyed the military.

World War 1 - mostly draftees.
World War 2 - mostly draftees.
Korea - mostly draftees.

There is NOTHING about being a concripted force which makes a military incapable, incompetant or unwilling. It is what they are being asked to fight for. By '68 you couldn't find one in a hundred who could articulate a rationale for the war. By '68 it was obvious that the 'communist menace' was not a monolithic threat to the world - not with open fighting on the borders between Soviet Russia and Communist China - not with student uprisings throughout all of Eastern Europe. If the Soviets couldn't control students in Prague and Warsaw, what made them such a threat in Vietnam? And if they weren't such a threat, what the hell were we doing there?

Besides, when the enemy at night might be the same guy who was trimming your hair that afternoon, it kind of gives you pause about who you are fighting for.

Funny how none of the books after WW1, WW 2 and Korea decried the quality of the conscript troops.

That was an idea created and perpetuated by by MIC which did not want to deal with people who would do things like report the My Lai massacre (it was a draftee who informed the press that the 'battle' never happened).

Without the conscripts, the military is nothing but an underpaid Blackwater.

[Arctic Dave]

25. What were the % of draftees for WWI-II and Korea.

Just a question.

Also, Korea was a good indicator of how Vietnam would play out. Although we "won", the rational was weak and less straight forward the then the WW's. If my memory serves me the public was fairly ambivalent about it.

[zeemike]

26. You have described it well.

All volunteer translates to perpetual war....a mercenary force needs war.

[Bluerthanblue]

8. Charlie Rangel has done this often- and to be honest, it

does make sense.

I have draft age sons, one soon to be draft age who will have to register with SS. I've thought a LOT about this over the last several years, and believe that if ALL of America -women, men, wealthy, poor, alike were required to face the prospect of war, (that would mean no avoiding the situation because of friends in high places as well) We'd be much more inclined to weigh the consequences of our actions in this world.-

BEYOND actual military commitments. The US's insatiable hunger for more- our consumerism, desire for cheap goods and sense of entitlement has often led us to behave in ways which promote conflict abroad. If the effects of this, were spread equally among all Americans, then perhaps we'd all be inclined to live a little more cooperatively.

Creating a draft which is universal, and fair would be essential. There is nothing inherently wrong with a 'draft'- The "standing Army" is a pretty hungry beast, and it won't disappear just because we don't have a 'draft'. No one has been drafted in the US in decades. But the war machine has not gone unfed.

[EC]

9. Rangel does this every once in a while

not just to make the war unpopular, with him it's that war kills poor and blacks more when it's volunteer. A draft somewhat equalizes that. (Usually the rich figure a way to get out of it, but not always.)

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Poor analogy.

Jim Crow was instituted as an acceptable alternative to slavery.

The 'all volunteer army' was instituted as an acceptable way to continue feeding the MIC. It was instituted BECAUSE the draft made what they were doing too public, too noticeable, too hard to ignore.

If 50% of the military was draftees, the Pentagon would be looking at a thousand Bradley Mannings instead of just one. THAT would make our wars less popular.

[Scuba]

11. Bingo. Nixon ended the draft because he saw it as a problem...

...related to public relations.

[Bluerthanblue]

13. +1

:hi:

[KeepItReal]

17. +1

eom

[sibelian]

19. All volunteer armies were actually quite an established thing before Vietnam.

[Confusious]

15. Poor analogy

Poor History.

Jim Crow came after slavery, as a way of keeping blacks down.

[fittosurvive]

16. It is beyond my realm of comprehension to observe as one mindless narrative after another

is presented in an effort to rationalize violation of a person's right to his own life by means of forced conscription. It is the same logic that those who support the sacrifice of our sons and daughters in Libya employ. When did the concept of inalienable rights become negotiable?

[sibelian]

20. When the anti-war folk started realising they didn't have any way of stopping warfare.

It's getting to them. The control structures within which they operate are getting clearer and they don't know how to respond to them other than by copying them.

[Schema Thing]

18. not really.

[islandmkl]

27. you want to slow down the profiteering war machine...

put the draft back in...let everyone have to participate...wouldn't that be more DEMOCRATIC??

the military is made up of many who have no other economic choice...and let's all the rest of the public off the fucking hook...

i hated the draft because it could have got me killed...which is exactly why they should have one now...

put every American in the same boat and that boat will float a whole different way...

if you hate war...understood...

if you hate the draft...you are merely helping the machine gather fodder which no one objects to...

maybe the answer is to stop the machine...and that might require having a situation where more people HAVE to be aware of that machine than is the current situation...

[JVS]

29. +1

[undeterred]

32. No its nothing like that at all.

And Rangel's proposal is nothing like the old draft.

[underseasurveyor]

33. YEA BABY!!!

I mean really, what an idiotic delusion to imagine reinstating a draft would mean less war :crazy:
Like the ultra rich and powerful would ever be drafted. I'd laugh at the mere thought if it wasn't taken so seriously by so many but instead it pisses me off and scares me even more to see so many otherwise intellgent people being conned into such a ruse.

[cliffordu]

36. The loss of exemption for the rich white college kids

is what ended the Vietnam war.

Really. Look at the difference between exemptions in the Johnson Administration and the Nixon Admin.

The anti-war effort kicked into gear when those rich kids thought they might be drafted.

Check it out.

Your point works for a lot of stuff, the draft, not so much.