Ok, convince me that the draft is a good idea

[northernsoul]

I'm surprised at the number of DUers who seem to be so keen to reinstitute military conscription.

I am unequivocally opposed to a military draft for a number of reasons which I am advocating for in other threads, apparently to no avail.

So, I'll shut my big yap now and let all of you who are so eager to see young Americans wrenched from their homes and shipped off to military induction centers and the tender mercies of Donald Rumsfeld convince me that I'm wrong and you're right.

I'll maintain a good-faith effort to keep my mind in a state that is receptive to solid, persuasive reasoning - so put your thoughts together and take your best shot at winning me over.

[youngred]

1. sorry no can do

no reason for a draft

[AP]

2. Because people with kids will stop voting for Republicans, and

because, from the generation of people drafted, we'll get more politicians like John Kerry, John McCain, George McGovern, John F. Kennedy, Max Clelland, Jimmy Carter, etc., and fewer like Dick Cheney and George Bush.

[JVS]

4. Wasn't George Bush a member of a generation that faced a draft?

Dick Cheney too.

[AP]

10. It's the FACT of service, not the threat of service which focuses peoples

minds on not being fascistic, imperialistic assholes.

Had Bush and Cheney actually served, they might not have turned out to be such assholes.

[JVS]

14. But faced with a generation of politicians who were of draft age in Nam

The public has generally not gone for those that have served.

Nam combatants: 0 Nam avoiders: 2

[AP]

23. After Kerry wins it'll be 1:2, and we all know Gore won, so it should

be 1:0, and we also know that many Americans (thanks to the state of American journalism) believe that Bush was a jet fighter pilot in 'nam, so in the minds of Americans, they're voting for war heroes, and when they voted against McCain it was because he was the Manchurian Candidate.

[JVS]

24. 1:1

Clinton avoided too.

And Kerry winning is nor a certainty either.

[AP]

28. Clinton actually withdrew his requests for exmptions and was

exposed to the draft (which he did after a friend died in Vietnam).

He didn't get drafted.

This is covered in the Clinton Wars.

Clinton did have a vet on his ticket though, so it was 1.5:1, right?

[JVS]

30. Good point, that is why I use "avoid" rather than dodge

I consider Clinton's academic deferrments very legitimate. One would have to be a moron to pass up being a Rhode's scholar for the chance to be drafted.

But remembering the Dan Quayle draft controversy, I can't help but think that everytime the issue of Vietnam service comes up that the guy who went gets hosed and the guy who didn't suffers no penalty.

[AP]

31. It's also beyond laughable to think that if Clinton were drafted,

he was going to get out of it.

Furthermore, it's not like anyone was going to find a place in the National Guard for him.

And I'm not clear on the timing, but it looks like he didn't get married when the marriage deferrment was allowed, and he didn't have a kid when the parent deferment was initiated (are you listening Dick Cheney?).

After the school deferment, the only thing you can really criticize him for was that he didn't enlist. I'm willing to cut him some slack, especially given the fact that he clearly committed the rest of his life to making the lives of people who were on the downside of opportunity better (which is, really, the only reason anyone should be fighting wars).

[damnraddem]

34. I use the word 'dodge' with full honors.

I did and Clinton did. I'm proud of us.

[JVS]

25. McCain too

yup, Nam vets seem to not be elected. Or if they are like Gore was, then they get cheated out of it.

[AP]

29. I think the lesson isn't that service is a liability, it's that those who

avoided service through gaming the system are also willing to game the system when they're running for election.

McCain and Gore were both victims to the biggest system-gamers going.

[BlueEyedSon]

17. BINGO!

[northernsoul]

6. ok, a few questions about that

1) Of the "good" politicians you named, how many were drafted and how many volunteered?

2) So the best possible justification for forcibly compelling unwilling kids to kill and die because some of their surviving comrades might turn out to be better political leaders?
- I'm not asking that to be snarky, I just want to see if that's really your whole sales pitch for the draft. Thanks for answering.

[AP]

13. Draft or no draft, I think we'd have more politicians who really

understood the purpose of the military if they had actually served in it, and we'd have more voters who voted on the issues that would prevent misuse of the military.

The draft is interesting though since it means that people from all classes and backgrounds would serve together, rather than just people down on their luck, or people who have an incredibly patriotic bone, for whatever reason.

As for (2) my response to that is that if America is really a great thing, we should all be willing to die for it, but if we all served and if we all felt a stake in what America was doing, we wouldn't be fighting any war except the just ones.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want anyone getting drafted to die for American imperialism in Iraq. But I don't think we should be in Iraq fighting wars to make a very few, very wealthy people wealthier.

And then it's back to the full ciricle: if we had complusory service, and more people felt they had a stake in what the governement was doing, we wouldn't be voting for politicians who took us into wars for imperialism.

[BOSSHOG]

18. Perspective is priceless

Chickenhawks think war is really cool, because they have never been to war. Very simply John Kerry knows what it is like to fight a losing battle, to be shot at and hit, to kill another human in war. bush, cheney, limbaugh ad infinitum do not. Its hard to gain perspective hiding behind a microphone.

[AP]

21. To chickenhawks, war is money for their cronies. For Democrats

it should be a perspective that war is lives lost for a principle the majority of Americans believe is important.

[JVS]

3. It's the old "the worse, the better" routine

[Nashyra]

15. The draft in it's present form is unacceptable

My reasoning for some type of National Service, call it a draft if you must is to wake up the stupid asses that still think a resident such the * was ever agood idea to elect in the first place. It is for accountablity, there should not be a draft for this Iraq war, we should pull out before we draft, however the reinsitution of a mandatory national service whether it is peace time or war time would be enough to make sure that as a voter you 1) get yourself to the polls 2) make sure you knew what the fucking hell your candidate thought about and knew about foreign policy 3) make sure that you paid a fucking attention to what was going around globally. If you thouhgt your young son or daughter had the chance to be conscripted to "national Service" at some point in time in their young lives how much attention would you be paying to who you voted for. If their was a draft in 2000 do you really think the dummy would be in the WH right now? I think we would have alot more candidates like DK who would be sitting in the senate and congress also. There would probably alot fewer tax cuts for muli national companies and wealthy Americans if that money was spent on the pay and benefits of the men and women who did volunteer for the combat positions so that those who did not want to fight could stay back and perform other neccessary duties, National Service could consist of helping the homeless, enviromental work, etc any number of things. Why do so many of think that we get to live under the protection of the constitution for notheing? And don't even start with the unless you have kids.....My son is a freshman in college and god forbid he has to go that is why i have been doing so much research on the draft. Though he is wants to go military when he GRADUATES, I can not stand the thought of him being drafted and he has already said he would go if he had to while his friends say that they would go to Canada. He wants to fly and study law, he wants one day to run for office and has said he does not want anyone to ever question whether he served his country or not.

5. I'm not sure I buy the justification but

there is something to the argument that if there were a draft it would energize segments of the population.
As it stands now, wars in foreign countries are fairly abstract to most citizens because they are not directly impacted by them.

One of the things that galvanized support against the Vietnam War was the existence of a draft.
Speaking as someone who was of draft age at the time ( and received c.o. status) there was a marked falling off of personal concern about the actions of the government in a military fashion once the draft ended.

The problem with this argument, in my mind, is that it is an end justifies the means argument in some ways.

The end of making people engage and be more concerned about military adventurism justified by the means of a draft.

I don't think it is completely cut and dried, for or against a draft.

For years I have thought that perhaps it would take a draft to create this kind of engagement, but I have not thought that things had gotten so bad as to justify a draft.

The question is, have they gotten that bad? It would be great if citizens would be engaged and question military adventurism without a draft, but it seems that the sad fact is that they don't.

[JVS]

9. Two problems

1. Opposition to the Vietnam war did not result in the election of anti-war leadership.

2. If people feel threatened by a draft their reactions will not necessarily be pro-peace. Establishing a draft could well be a way of asking the American public "Do you want total war?" The public could come to desire an increase in the brutality of wars for the sake of getting it over with.

12. I agree with point two

although I will say that if people want war, there should be a draft. People who want war won't have any qualms about a draft. At least if they're not being hypocritical. And if it's the will of the people, in a democracy you have to go with the will of the people, right?
Theoretically anyway.
(there should always be deferments for conscientious objection)

Point one is more problematic.
People thought they were getting anti-war leadership with Nixon.
He had a secret plan to end the war, remember in 1972. The anti-war forces hadn't really coalesced as completely in 1968.

[JVS]

16. His plan was used to get elected in 1968

he was re-elected in 1972 despite not having had a plan to end the war. I would definitely take this as a sign of an electorate that was accepting the war.

22. Now we're getting into interpretive ground

Yes, the secret plan was initially floated in 68, but by 72 how many people knew Nixon had no secret plan at all? A lot of people still thought he had a secret plan in 72.
We know now of course he never did.
Some of the electorate were accepting of the war in 72, sure; but despite McGovern's landslide loss, fewer than had been in 68. That's my memory of it anyway. McGovern's loss was due to a lot of other factors that get forgotten, such as the Eagleton fiasco & McGovern not running a strong enough campaign. The Democratic party, at least, had become more anti-war by 72 than it was in 68 as witnessed by their nomination of McGovern.

Back to my original post, none of this stuff as to the effect of a draft can be writ in stone or predicted with any certainty. I thought I made that clear initially. If you want to continue to debate me over how to interpret what happened or exactly what happened before, go ahead, but I don't think it's that relevant to the theoretical question. If it was completely certain why people voted the way they did in the Vietnam era, that is, if there were hard and fast facts, of course they'd be relevant.

another edit -- in my original post I said "One of the things that galvanized support against the Vietnam War was the existence of a draft." I didn't say it succeeded in electing an anti-war candidate.

[sfwriter]

7. Support the Draft and Vote for Nader...

If the way to make things better is to make them worse, then that is the way to go.

Personally, I'll oppose the Draft and vote for Kerry.

[BOSSHOG]

8. Bosshog's Rules for the Draft

Any child, grandchild, niece, nephew, stepchildren or spouse under the age of 41 of a member of congress or an employee of faux news or of the eib network, or clearchannel or sinclair broadcasting or a member of the staff of the white house or the staff of the vice resident will be called to military duty to serve in war zones for a minimum of four years. There will be NO deferments. Those physically or medically impaired will be assigned to tasks they can perform for the military.

Place this rule into effect and we won't have to concern ourselves with future unnecessary military excursions. I'm all for THIS draft.

[BurtWorm]

11. Who is eager to see young Americans wrenched from their homes

and into the clutches of Donald Rumsfeld? If you think I am, you're sorely mistaken. I think the draft is more becoming of democracy than a volunteer army. But I don't think Donald Rumsfeld is.

[northernsoul]

19. fair enough, that was rhetorical bluster on my part

However, if a draft is instituted tommorow that's exactly what will happen. I'm still failing to see how freedom is perserved or enhanced by instituting a form of slavery.

[BurtWorm]

26. It's slavery the way you are looking at it. Just as taxes are theft

to wingers. Service should not be viewed as slavery but as duty. That doesn't mean you should go along with every war. Nor does it mean that if you are a conscientious objector that you shouldn't have the right not to go along with any war.

[MSgt213]

20. There is no need for a draft no matter what people tell you

The draft is a tool that the government can use to protect this country due to world events that necessiate a need for a over abundance of bodies because there is a threat that a large enough enemy force could be landed on our shores. At this moment in time there simply is no country capable of doing that.

Those who would tell you that we need a large force to share the burden to fight the war on terror are simply wrong. You need large forces to replenish losses and for occupation purposes. Since no country that I know of supports terrorists operating within it's borders with the exception of the Taliban who tolerated Bin Laden more for his money then his beliefs. That doesn't mean that terrorist don't operate in countries that wouldn't ordinarily tolerate them. But in any country they operate in they are a unstablizing effect to those in power. The reason why the Taliban tolerated Bin Laden is because after the war with Russian that or any other government in that country would have not have the resources to get him out.

Unless we intend to occupy a lot of countries at once (believe me no draft would help us with that) a large force would slow us down. The simply reason is a large force has to be moved along with their equipment and that makes your large force slow moving and unable to react quickly.

I don't want this to turn into a rant on terrorism, but there is no need for a draft right now and before you considered that this country ought to consider paying those who are willing to volunteer for the duty properly, stop invading an occupying dirt poor countries and learn how to use the diplomatic process properly so can even stand a chance of winning the hearts and minds of those countries that can assist us. Having a draft now will just be a lot of money wasted on people who don't want to be there in the first place and will hurt more then it help.

[TX-RAT]

27. There won't be a draft

We didn't learn much from Viet Nam, but one thing we did learn was if a man doesn't want to fight, don't make him.

[damnraddem]

35. We learned a lot in Vietnam that ...

the Bushistas not only never learned but are doing their worst to make sure we don't remember. If Dubya is reselected, there will be a strong push for a draft.

[bigtree]

32. Why not just stick to opposing it

and leave others who would drag our kids into war to justify the inanity of it?

[damnraddem]

33. OK, here are the good points about a draft:

1) it takes years out of many young people's lives without their consent;
2) it forces those young people into a rigid, regimented environment that many will see as hostile and harassing;
3) it deprives those young people of various civil rights;
4) it forces those young people, and any families that they support, to live under low-income conditions;
5) it degrades the concept of serving one's country by turning it into an experience of slavery;
6) it forces many young people with moral objections to warfare to at least train for, if not participate in, activities they find objectionable; and
7) it reassures political and military leaders who want to engage in wars that they will have a ready supply of cannon fodder.

There, have I hit up all the good points? Have you seen the light? Have I won you over to slavery -- er, the draft?

[JVS]

36. You forgot the best one!

It creates an army of relatively untrained people who often get killed