What makes you think that lack of combat experience does not keep enlisted women from being promoted? I served in a Navy combat support unit that deployed detachments to front line areas. Although we at the deckplates believed that it was perfectly fine to deploy women with these detachments (this was 2002-2004), our leadership refused to allow enlisted women to deploy. The women filed a grievance that they were not able to compete for promotion due to this policy. I transferred before the grievance was resolved.
As for the main thrust of this thread, yes the policy should be equal, whether Selective Service is continued or not. I personally believe that with the population as high as it is, Selective Service should be voluntary, for everyone. Provide some incentive to do it. I can’t think of a good incentive that would not be classist, such as tax breaks, but I think that people around the SDMB could come up with an incentive that would be equally enticing to rich and poor.
Men unfit for combat are not, and have never in modern times, been drafted. In your post, you are assuming all women are unfit based upon a sexist world view.
You can provide uniform registration for all, and then if/when a conscription is contemplated decide what billets need filling on need and qualification basis: that’s what “Selective Service” is supposed to do. If the potential for conscription exists then putting someone’s name in the pool of potential eligibles needs to be uniformly applied to all who could normally fill those billets, be they male or female, cis or trans.
(While at it I’d go further back deep and amend the legal fiction that the Militia of the United States is theoretically all able-bodied male citizens or citizen-aspirants ages 17-45, by making it just all citizens and citizen-aspirants.)
That,* if *you want to keep the sign-in registration method. I suppose Congress could amend the Social Security and Selective Service laws so that the pool of potential draftees is just automatically anyone who’s in the list of SSN numbers and turned 18 last year, so nobody has to sign in *and *it becomes a *universal *mandate.
Right. Of course if there was a period of “high demand” first the raw number of call-ups would rise and second the entry standards would loosen, but heck, the professional volunteer military already does the latter during lean years too.
(For much of the existence of the US conscription, the local Draft Boards had a lot of discretion to pick and choose, the requirements were tightened towards the very end. The complaint was, and the reservation on the hypothetical still is, that some of the Right Kind of People would show up already holding the Right Kind of Letter signed by the Right Kind of Authority saying they had a good excuse and instead of looking closely at that, it was much easier just to move on to the next poor Joe who may have had no idea he even had a right to argue.)
The 1980 revival of Selective Service registration was just low-cost Political Theater in response to situations at the time. By the time of the Bush41 administration the professional volunteer military was running well and registration could have been done away with as part of the post- Cold War “peace dividend” but, again, it was and remains no-cost Political Theater to leave it there.
Discussing the draft in terms of gender equality is meaningless. The point of the army isn’t to be fair or un-sexist. It’s not like everyone has some kind of inherent right to serve their country in battle. There is only ONE measure for success of an army, and that is whether it wins or loses. if an army with women in it can beat an army without women, then that’s what we should have. Heck, if an army of only women was most effective, we should fire all the men. If the shit hits the fan and your citizens are slaughtered because the army was routed because people were more concerned about gender equality than actually winning, that would really be unfair to all the men women and children. If we as humans are going to continue to have wars, let the army be so-called unfair. If not, your opponents will be and you will lose. Basic survival of the fittest.
Realistically while as a society we might be egalitarian enough to accept the idea of women being drafted, I doubt that in the foreseeable future there will be the political will to draft a new mother with an infant child.
If there ever was a draft I suspect that there would be a significant increase in pregnancies as women sought to avoid the draft in the same way that there was an upswing in interest in college as men sought education deferments for Vietnam.
We all understand that the draft is to fill the ranks of cannon fodder and not for office workers, right? The office workers tend to last longer than front line infantry.
And we also agree that an overwhelmingly larger percentage of men will be suited for this job compared to women? I’m not saying that NO women are qualified just the same as I am not saying that ALL men are qualified.
I’m sure some 60 year old men would be qualified as well, but we don’t draft them because we don’t want to weed through thousands of old men to find the diamond in the rough, right?
For the same reason, we shouldn’t draft women. And, again, call me old fashioned, but society that forces women to the front line instead of a man stepping up to take her place has failed at its basic duty according to our history and traditions. Flame away at this last paragraph, but at least address the ones before it.
No, we do not all understand that. Some of us, such as us veterans, are aware that draftees have been assigned to just about every MOS/AFSC/Rating in the military during wars/armed conflicts.
Many of the “office workers” deploy with front line infantry because they’re assigned all the way down to company/detachment level.
If the general population is healthy, then there’s no reason that the women shouldn’t qualify just as the men. Seems to work for a few countries.
Are you seriously saying that “a women’s place is in the home”?
But, until men have equal responsibility for giving birth to the next generation, I don’t think that women should be drafted. I think they should be equally considered for combat once they enlist, assuming they can achieve the same physical standards demanded of the men. Not all of them can (nor can all of the men).
As long as only women can produce the next generation, things are not going to be completely fair. They can be fair in most other areas (although they’re not), but not this one.
Every single one? Generals and such? No, just the lesser ones.
Your definition differs from mine. I think you know what I mean.
You need to define “healthy.” You are fighting the very clear observation I gave.
I said absolutely no such fucking thing. If you are a man who lives with a woman, and someone’s life is on the line, as a man, you put yours up first. That is basic in our society. Do you dispute that?
