Guest Post by Ron Paul
During recent increased US-Iran confrontation, so many people viewed the Selective Service website to find out about the draft that the website crashed. People were right to be concerned about a return of the draft.
With the ongoing military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan unlikely to end any time soon, and the possibly of the US being neoconned into war with Iran and possibly even Russia or China, the demand for troops is likely to rise. At the same time, soldiers return home with lifelong medical problems, including psychological problems, causing a horrifying number of veterans to commit suicide.
All this can make it more difficult for the military to attract recruits. And it can leave a Congress unwilling to pursue nonintervention with a choice: increase spending on troops’ pay and benefits or bring back the draft. A Congress facing an over 25 trillion dollars debt may reinstate the draft instead of further increasing spending on the troops.
Any future draft will probably include women, thanks to judges, politicians, and feminists who think women should have the “opportunity” to be forced to join the military.
A military draft violates the principle that individuals have inalienable rights that no government should violate. A draft also puts all of our rights at risk. If we accept that the government has the legitimate authority to force individuals to fight, kill, and die in a war, then how can we argue that the government cannot force citizens to pay high taxes, purchase health insurance, or submit to TSA screenings? How can we argue against the government forbidding people from smoking marijuana or owning “assault” weapons? Many traditional conservatives, including Ronald Reagan, opposed the draft, pointing to its threat to individual rights.
Some antiwar individuals have endorsed the draft on the theory that a draft makes politicians less likely to support war. But the draft did not stop politicians from supporting unnecessary wars like World War One, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. While the draft helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War, it took almost a decade of American casualties for opposition to reach critical mass. More importantly, the draft violates the nonaggression principle, which is the moral heart of libertarianism. Advocating use of force to advance even as noble a goal as peace is itself immoral and sets back the cause of liberty.
Some antiwar progressives oppose a military draft but support forcing young people to participate in a “national service” program. Some conservatives join these progressives to say that national service is a way for young people to “pay back” government for the privilege of living in a free society, as if our rights and liberties are gifts from government. Mandatory national service will likely gain support when the next market meltdown occurs, as it would serve as a jobs programs for young people.
All those who support liberty must be prepared to fight any attempt to reinstate the military draft or to mandate any other type of national service. We must mobilize as many people as possible to tell the politicians it is unacceptable for the US government to enslave people in the military or otherwise. We must also support those who engage in civil disobedience. As Ronald Regan stated, the draft “rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state…. That assumption isn’t a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”
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on 08dec1941 virtually the entire mexican population living in california rapidly fled to mexico. upon returning to their natural habitat they immediately began agitating for the united states to implement a foreign guest worker program to allow them as non-citizens to temporarily work as foreign guests and then be returned by their host nation to their native homelands. the reason they did this was to repudiate and deny and reject and flee from any notion that they were citizens of the u.s. and subject to the draft for world war ii.
I say we bring back the draft.
Wow, that is a nugget I’ll be sticking in my mind brain for later.
Institute a draft today and watch the illegals AND the useless libtards run for the border. We could institute guest worker and guest liberal retard programs afterwards.
could modern draftees handle boot camp without their cell phones?
So weight and sloth aren’t entrance factors in the military anymore? The military is going to turn kids that need a safe room with puppies and Play Doh to handle microaggressions into Audie Murphy’s?
Maybe it’ll happen in the Buttigieg administration when proud soldiers and sailors can boast: My commander in chief takes it up the ass!
Slavery by another name.
“Slavery by another name”
see, this is where far-right libertarianism falls on its face – it equates community with slavery. because for them, it is. for the far-right libertarian, they are their own world, complete and independent, and the world and people surrounding them are nothing more than impositions. far right libertarians recognize that communities exist, but see themselves as separate and independent wholes, as intelligently above the snuffling morons that mindlessly congregate. they want to live near communities, sure, so they can flit in and skim what they need, but they demand that they be able to then flit away again, to their own little safe space, where they can repose in magnificent isolation – “I don’t need any of you! none of you snuffling morons have any part of me!”
most of them live on the fringes of society where they can swoop in and swoop out as they please. but the honest ones go to alaska where they are never heard from again, which suits everyone just fine.
They certainly don’t object to using socialized infrastructure to do that darting in and out do they.
“They certainly don’t object to using socialized infrastructure”
no … well, more exactly, they don’t seem to realize it exists. and I suspect that, were it all to disappear tomorrow, they wouldn’t notice that either, any more than other people notice the shape of the clouds in the sky as they go about their day. they just push forward, detached, insular in and of themselves ….
Please explain how, when one’s money has already been stolen, property has been seized, alternatives have been BANNED, and choice has been destroyed, the libertarian, regardless of his principled objection to government, is supposed to use any alternative (there being none allowed)? You should write for a Progressive/Socialist website instead. You fail to appreciate the vast array of private solutions that were in place well before government decided to claim the monopoly on most of what we now treat as “essential.” That is your loss, not mine. Clearly you are more than happy to worship government power, so long as what you get makes YOU happy. Some of us realize that we could have far better without government.
“when one’s money has already been stolen, property has been seized, alternatives have been BANNED, and choice has been destroyed”
oh harf, you’re not living in a gulag yet, you still have plenty of options and resources remaining. now’s the time to bug in or out or wherever, if you’re going to.
… unless of course you’re one of those drug dealers with a felony record now. geez guys, like I always say, if you drive the speed limit and stay away from drugs your chances of ever dealing with law enforcement are almost zero. those of you who really have indeed lost EVERYthing just have to take responsibility for your life choices – you knew the risks, you had other options, you made your choice, and now here you are.
The comment was about “socialized infrastructure”….try and keep up. And wow, you really have no respect for personal freedom, do you?
“you really have no respect for personal freedom”
do you? you proclaim your ideology, but don’t live it. instead of living alone by your own efforts, you take advantage of the existence of any community that others have built while contemptuously repudiating that community. when the time comes you can expect a mutual response.
It is also your counter argument where neocon shills fall on their face too. That is right white boy, go do your duty and fight in the next Military Industrial Complex (((Banker’s War))) because the US homeland is in –danger– from Iran. Just stop… it is embarassing.
The DRAFT is involuntary. Voluntarily stepping up to defend one’s home is exactly the kind of thing a libertarian/anarchist would do. If you need help in understanding how geopolitical problems 10,000 miles away, that are truly the issues of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the oil cartels, the arms cartels, and the bankers, are NOT IN ANY WAY, issues that US citizens should fight and die for, there are volumes and volumes of arguments written daily. Sorry that you have bought into the argument of the neocons and the others who profit from the death and destruction industry. The article is clear, is specifically about the draft, and is specifically about the likelihood of its restoration for the purpose of more non-stop war in the middle east and other nations of no consequence. Force is force, and forcing someone to be your prisoner and die for YOUR cause, not theirs, is not only slavery, it is murder.
there is a difference between defending your soil and home and fighting wars overseas for a bankrupt empire
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-myth-of-compulsory-military-service-in-Israel-569779
While it is true Israel has had conscription since 1949, the military only represents about 60 percent of the populace, at most with some citizenry excluded from service.
Just thought I’d toss the myth of Israel’s great social experiment by conscripting ALL young people out for debate and discussion.
I hope Stucky pipes up!
“the myth of Israel’s great social experiment”
well israel is all about what is “genuinely jewish”, which includes a vast history of non-militancy, so they suck it up and tolerate the lack of defense participation for the sake of “genuine jewishness”.
This was posted on Anti-War.com a few years back.
An interesting proposal for a new draft.
“Maybe We Do Need a Draft”
By Al Lorentz Posted on June 19, 2004
With all this talk about a draft, I thought that, as a professional soldier, I’d throw my two cents worth in.
Let me begin by saying that I’m against a general draft for a number of reasons. Conscription makes free citizens into slaves and the property of the state. A draft also gives the state a large standing army, and having such an army creates too great a temptation for politicians to use it.
However, I find it patently un-American and unpatriotic to place the burden of war on a small stratum of society. I’m not speaking of just the actual blood and guts fighting, but the entire burden of war.
War is a sad event that, in a great nation like the United States, should be shared equally.
First, there is the issue of whose children shall actually go and do the fighting and dying. I notice that the children of our political elite are not here with us in Iraq. I think we need a rather selective draft to fix this obvious oversight.
Specifically, we need to draft, right now, the children of every politician in our federal government and every executive in our military industrial complex. We must also draft the wife or husband of each politician and defense contractor.
They will be put into frontline combat units in the most dangerous areas. They could, for instance, be used as shock troops in operations like Najaf and Fallujah. After all, if it’s good enough for our kids and spouses, it’s got to be good enough for theirs.
These spouses and kids need to serve on a “first in, last out” basis. They will be required to roll up their sleeves and take the anthrax and other experimental injections and drugs that the soldiers do. They will go to war with the same equipment the rest of us use, and if there is a shortage of items like body armor, boots or uniforms, they will be at the end of the receiving line.
Second, there is the issue of solidarity within the government. Take, for instance, the status of reservists, men and women who patriotically remain in the military on a reserve status and go to war when they are called upon.
In almost every case (except perhaps for officers, who actually get a good paycheck), the soldiers and reservists must not only leave behind family and friends, they must also leave behind their jobs. We usually take a massive pay cut for the privilege of living in squalid conditions away from family and friends in defense of our Republic.
For the record, most of us reservists didn’t sign up for the money; we signed up to defend our country. But given that the last few wars we’ve been sent to fight have NOT been in defense of our Constitutional Republic, but rather of some politician’s notion of “global security” or “national interest,” pardon me if we get a little upset at the wrecking of our careers, our bank accounts and our families.
I believe the oath of enlistment we took said something about defending the Constitution, not about defending some despotic little regime such as Kuwait or liberating people 10,000 miles from our home. Remember, we are a Constitutional Republic, not an Empire.
Politicians believe that the military and reservists can be deployed frequently, for long periods of time, without causing any problems. As a result, soldiers are leaving the military in a steady flow, so many that the military has put into effect a “stop loss” program, which basically means, “You ain’t getting out until we say so, contracts and regulations be damned.”
Perhaps we need to level the playing field a bit. Whenever our nation goes to war, our political leadership must be given the glorious privilege of bearing the same burdens that we troops do. This is a basic principle called “jump first, eat last,” or leading by example. A good leader faces the same hardships as his or her soldiers, making sure that their needs are taken care of first, even if it means that he or she does without.
Therefore, when troops go into the field, all of our “public servants” need to move out of their homes and into tents or barracks with conditions identical to those of the soldiers. They will eat the same kind of food that their soldiers do and sleep in the dirt, on cots or in bunk beds.
They will also take a 50% cut in pay, although they will get to keep their benefits and retirement programs. We won’t ask them to go so far as to shut down their businesses and lose their clients (as some of us in the reserves must), but they will have to get by on less just like the rest of us do. They will, of course, be protected by the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act from creditors seizing their homes, property and businesses while they are deployed.
They will not be allowed to see their spouses (who, you’ll recall, will be serving in the frontlines) or children, but they will be given free postage on their mail home. We will allow AT&T to set up pay phone banks just like the soldiers have over here (yes, we have to pay for those calls). We’ll also have “Internet cafés” set up so that they can wait in line and sit in a hot tent to send an email to their families. Maybe we’ll spring for a web cam or two!
We won’t make them face actual danger, though; that’s the job of the trained professionals. Besides, if their children and spouses are serving in combat, they will have enough on their minds as it is.
Of course, we could just limit ourselves to only declaring wars and deploying troops to defend our Constitutional Republic, but then what do I know? I’m only a soldier.
I for one, am moral, and support equality.
I think the selective service should not only require women to register, but only women should be drafted until the number of female draftees killled in service is equal to the number of male draftees that have been killed.
Once parity has been achieved, we can either end the draft, or draft both genders to keep the harvest of the genders in approximate balance.
The Mullahs won’t know what hit them when Meghan Trainor leads a battalion of strong, empowered women draftees into battle!
As Mark’s posted vid, yesterday(?) stated, All Wars are Banker’s Wars.
You wanna fight so the Bankers, Corporations, MIC, etc earn gross amounts of cash on the back of your pain, suffering, dismemberment and death, well be my guest. I’ll wave a flag for you if that makes you happy.
a draft would be civil war
Somethings going to kick it off. Such a very long list that the powers that be are considering.