# Draft College Student, Male And Female, Into The Military! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2004, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386 "2004-07-16T08:03:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/21 "2004-07-16T22:03:20Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > will this finally get university students off their collective asses and come out as political beings? Seems to me this is one of the most significant reasons why this will never happen. Why wake the sheep? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/22 "2004-07-16T22:10:38Z")
So once a President is elected to a second term, they become virtual dictators, since they will never face re-election again? Don’t be silly. The President has no law making powers. The President can propose legislation, but it is up to the House and Senate to pass it. Therefore, given that a draft would require the vote of 60 Senators to invoke cloture, and given that under any concievable election results the 2004 Senate will close to 50-50, there is no possible way that a draft bill could pass without support of both Republicans and Democrats. And there are plenty of Republicans would would vote against a draft, for obvious reasons. And why would the retirement of the people who rammed through a draft bill make any difference? According to you they don’t care what happens after they leave office…so why would they bother expending all their political capital getting the draft bill passed, when it would be so bitterly opposed that within one or two election cycles it would be repealed anyway? It doesn’t do any good to reinstate the draft, send every 18 year old in the country off to basic training, and then have the draft repealed a few months after they graduate. The draft can only succeed if a solid majority of the American people support a draft. A solid majority of the American people oppose the draft, for very good reasons. Therefore, there will not be a draft. Let’s say that you’re right, and everyone in the Bush administration is just looking to cash in, and they’re willing to destroy the country AND the Republican party for short-term gain, since they’ll be living like kings by 2008. Never mind how stupid that is, even if we grant the idea that they are all amoral psychopaths…after all, the goal of the powerful is to maintain power…wealth isn’t an end, it is a means to an end, and the end is power. No, never mind that. The question is, how exactly would reinstating the draft further their twisted aims? What exactly is the point of reinstating the draft? How does that enrich Haliburton (Haliburton used here as proxy for the shadowy figures that are supposed to control the Bush administration)? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use every ounce of political capital to fight for corporate welfare and tax cuts rather than the draft? OK, the draft might help us fight the war in Iraq. Actually, it wouldn’t help, but suppose it did. So what? Let’s say the goal is subjugation of Iraq and control over the oil fields, right? Don’t you think that once the Republican party is destroyed as a political force those troops protecting the oil fields are going to be brought home by whatever peace-loving Democratic candidate that wins in 2008? And then Haliburton doesn’t have draftees to protect its oil wells on the Euphrates river any more. Listen, I can accept conspiracy theories as long as they make sense. But this is ridiculous. The long term prosperity of Haliburton would surely depend on the long term viability of friendly Republican-led government, right? Surely there are easier ways to pump dollars from the wallets of American taxpayers into the portfolios of Haliburton stockholders than reinstating the draft. Reinstating the draft accomplishes nothing, even if we stipulate the the Bush administration would be happy to ruin the country (and the Republican party!) to make a few bucks. ---
**Author:** ![factorial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed8c4c/32.png) [@factorial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/factorial)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/23 "2004-07-17T08:25:52Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > I think he meant he’d go to the protests because those would be more interesting than class. Nope, I meant I’d go to Iraq without protest because it would be more interesting than classes, or sitting around at home like this summer. I tried to subcontract myself and my friends to Halliburton this summer, but they never got back to me. Must be the economy’s in the shitter or something. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/24 "2004-07-17T15:58:46Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Or was your question rhetorical? No, I rarely resort to verbal trickery, all to often what I ask is a plain question. I simply presumed from the leading nature of your inquiries that you already had an answer in mind. Please excuse me if I misunderstood. To turn to your questions then, the answer is simply unknowable. There will be no draft, and so no way to answer your inquiry. Sorry, I hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/25 "2004-07-17T23:20:11Z")
The draft was **popular** during World War II, when there was a **consensus** that we truly needed to defend ourselves against truly evil and aggressive enemies. It was seen as ultimate fairness – deferments for essential occupations, and random choice among the rest of the population. Even people who didn’t much want to go to war saw it as something that they would have to do owing to Nazi and Japanese hatred of us. No war since then has attracted that sense of consensus – and I would consider any debate on the need for Korea, Vietnam, the Reagan-Bush I-Clinton interventions, and Afghanistan and Iraq, to be a hijack of this thread. Simply allow me that whatever your personal views, there are a fair group of people who hold the opposing view, so no consensus exists. In _For Us, the Living_, published before the atomic bomb and missiles, Robert A. Heinlein had an interesting idea – make all declarations of war subject to a public national referendum – with open, non-secret ballots. The kicker is that if you voted for the war, you were volunteering to go fight it – or at least, if not fully able-bodied, volunteering to take on the military support duties you were capable of in order to free up able-bodied men and women to fight. If a war truly **needs** to be fought, Heinlein reasoned, it’ll still win the referendum. (Heinlein, though foursquare for a strong military, was vehemently against the draft, which he considered as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.) ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/26 "2004-07-20T23:45:11Z")
I spent six years in college and six years in the military. I had more fun in the military and am about ten times prouder of my military service than my bachelors degree. Draft 'em all. It’ll be the best thing that ever happens to the little whiners. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/27 "2004-07-21T01:26:25Z")
> [@Menocchio](#): > > Bringing back the draft would shift this country leftward (well, maybe rightward of teh draft was instituted by a left-wing administration under leftist reasonings) like nothing else could. Every draftable studnet, and their parents, would take to the streets in protest. They’d be joined by elements f the regular military, as they don’t really want soldiers who don’t want to be there. No congress critter who liked his job would dare to support it. If he did it, the president (whoever that may be next term, would be forced to leave the war long befor his term was up (whether we were “done” or not), and not deploy American forces again. He’d still be voted out by a huge margin come next election. > > That’s why the only people to seriously suggest such a thing in recent years are people who don’t want the military to be used. They want draftees to act as political hostages against unneccessary wars. Underlining mine. Talk about strange bedfellows: the handful of ultra-right wingers who believe that restoring the draft would return the staus quo to 1955 would be voting along with the people who would like universal military service AND require universal consent to actually go to war. > [@Polycarp](#): > > (Heinlein, though foursquare for a strong military, was vehemently against the draft, which he considered as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.) What the Master had to say about the 13th Amendment and the draft: [Is the draft forbidden by the 13th Amendment?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_140b.html) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/28 "2004-07-21T02:34:37Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > In _For Us, the Living_, published before the atomic bomb and missiles, Robert A. Heinlein had an interesting idea – make all declarations of war subject to a public national referendum – with open, non-secret ballots. The kicker is that if you voted for the war, you were volunteering to go fight it – or at least, if not fully able-bodied, volunteering to take on the military support duties you were capable of in order to free up able-bodied men and women to fight. If a war truly **needs** to be fought, Heinlein reasoned, it’ll still win the referendum. > > (Heinlein, though foursquare for a strong military, was vehemently against the draft, which he considered as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.) MrAru and I were discussing this this morning, he was reading over my shoulder last night and spotted the thread… We agree that universal service is actually a great idea…and for those who are consientious objectors, or have something disqualifying them for more athletic demanding or combat positions, bring back the Civillian Conservation Corps and WPA. A lot of the countries infrastructure that was built by the CCC and WPA are deteriorating. There are a lot of paper pushing and nonphysically demanding jobs stateside that can be done by minimally trained people…So if we had a mandatory 2 year term for everybody hitting 18 years old, we could get a lot of kids jobs other than slinging fries and burgers, some real world experience, and get them ready to meet the world. Heck, mrAru pointed out that most military bases actually have childcare centers on base for military members, get those women who complain that they have to stay home until their kid is in middle school because they cant afford child care and are single, the kid hits 4 years old, off welfare and into the mililtary for a tour…they get a chance to get out of the house, the kids go into day care and socialize with other kids until they are old enough to go to school full time, and mom gets vocational training…and they might make a few friends as a side benefit - group picnics are fun when you have a bunch of kids along. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/29 "2004-07-21T03:08:14Z")
> [@bluethree](#): > > I spent six years in college and six years in the military. I had more fun in the military and am about ten times prouder of my military service than my bachelors degree. > > Draft 'em all. It’ll be the best thing that ever happens to the little whiners. Hey, you know, I had fun when I was telemarketing. Let’s force everyone to work in a call center for a year. It’ll be the best thing that ever happens to the little whiners, 'cause what’s good for me must be good for everyone else, right? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/30 "2004-07-21T04:10:20Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > > [@Polycarp](#): > > > > (Heinlein, though foursquare for a strong military, was vehemently against the draft, which he considered as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.) > > What the Master had to say about the 13th Amendment and the draft: > > [Is the draft forbidden by the 13th Amendment?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_140b.html) Better yet, here’s what the Supreme Court said in [1918](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=245&invol=366) when rejecting a challenge to the WWI draft brought under the 13th Amendment (at p. 390 of the decision): > [@](#): > > As we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation, as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people, can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement. Personally, when old guys start by talking about the “supreme and noble duty” for young guys to go to war, and finish by saying the draft is so obviously okay that they don’t need to explain their conclusion because it’s obvious, I think there’s a bit of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/31 "2004-07-21T05:02:35Z")
> [@Astacey](#): > > However, with the recent involuntary recall, is it completely voluntary anyway? Yes. The people affected voluntarily failed to read the fine print. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/32 "2004-07-21T05:11:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > What the Master had to say about the 13th Amendment and the draft: > > [Is the draft forbidden by the 13th Amendment?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_140b.html) It turns out that the answer is similar to his comment [income tax protestor arguments](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_127.html) – the courts have punted the matter, by just sort of sputtering that attacks on the _status quo_ are stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/33 "2004-07-21T05:14:02Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > Personally, when old guys start by talking about the “supreme and noble duty” for young guys to go to war, and finish by saying the draft is so obviously okay that they don’t need to explain their conclusion because it’s obvious, I think there’s a bit of a problem. As the Master put it in the other column I referenced, “\*f you’re a parent you recognize that ‘because I said so’ isn’t much of an argument. Guess it’s different if you’re a judge.” ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/34 "2004-07-22T18:17:22Z")
Regarding the “there will NEVER be another draft” feelings: > **[Well, it's official. I've been appointed to the local Draft Board.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=267715)** > > I received the letter yesterday. They’re called Selective Service Local Boards now, but the purpose is the same. Right now the boards are in standby, for obvious reasons. Let’s all pray they remain that way forever. The appointment had to be... ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386/35 "2004-07-22T21:59:06Z")
This has got to be one of the most frequently asked questions in GD…and its been answered over and over again. And no one has ever taken John Mace up on his bet either. Lets try this again: There will be no draft, unless WWIII crops up somehow. Bush can’t enact the draft, even if he wanted too…which he doesn’t. The military doesn’t want the draft either…their current model is exactly what they want. Our all voluntary force is the best military machine in the world…bar none. Why fuck with it?? Congress doesn’t want a draft…it would be political suicide. Certain blow-hard members of Congress and the Senate might toy with the idea or even flap their gums about it to the press…but thats it. There is zero chance of it passing a vote. So, NO ONE WHO MATTERS WANTS A FUCKING VOTE. Clear? Lastly, Bush ISN’T the king…he can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants, even in his second term. Lets at least TRY and keep, say, one foot in reality in the future, ok? Think we can finally put this question to rest or will there be another parade of 'There is going to be a Draft from evil Bush…" threads from handwringing democrats frantic about a Bush re-election?? THAT is an intersting debate point at least: Will there be yet another stupid rash of draft threads in GD? -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-college-student-male-and-female-into-the-military/255386.md?page=1)