# Men's Rights: Why not get rid of Selective Service? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 18, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056 "2011-01-18T07:14:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/81 "2011-01-19T15:03:29Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] So, shouldn’t they be stuck at home looking after the family and kids, rather than working? [/QUOTE] Where did you get THAT strawman from? I never said anything about women having to be ‘stuck at home looking after the family and kids, rather than working’. What I said was that emotionally and culturally for 10’s of thousands of years humans have accepted that men were (and are even today) more expendable than women or kids. That sort of baggage and cultural inertia doesn’t change on a dime and suddenly humanity across the board is good with women dying in droves like men did. Tell me, as a thought experiment, consider WWI. Let’s say you have a brother and a sister. They HAVE to go to war…no choice. Are you equally comfortable with both of them going? How about dying in a mass charge? Dying slowly in the mud? Granted, you aren’t going to be human if you are comfortable with either dying…but my guess is, if you are honest, you are more comfortable with the thought of your brother dying than your sister in such conditions. Or your father instead of your mother. Or your son instead of your daughter. Now. Are you more comfortable with your adult brother, sister or your 4 year old sibling dying in those conditions? Again, you would probably be unhappy with ANY of them dying…but most people would rank the brother as the most expendable, the sister next and the child last. That’s how we are wired, emotionally and locked in culturally. All of that is changing over time, and we are more comfortable with women in combat now than we were before. But ‘more comfortable’ isn’t ‘fully comfortable’, and I’d say that most of society would still be very UNCOMFORTABLE drafting teen girls and sending them into combat…and not just because of the combat aspects, though that would be a big part. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/82 "2011-01-19T16:12:46Z")
**xtisme** , I think you need to read my post again. I didn’t claim that you said women should be back at home slaving over an oven. I claimed that, if the rationale for keeping the draft male only is reference to thousands of years of history where men were seen as expendable, then the same logic should be applied to women in the workplace, for instance, too. Their traditional role has been care giver, not worker/bread provider. > [@xtisme](#): > > Tell me, as a thought experiment, consider WWI. Let’s say you have a brother and a sister. They HAVE to go to war…no choice. Are you equally comfortable with both of them going? How about dying in a mass charge? Dying slowly in the mud? This is pretty stupid. Yes, I’d be equally OK with both of them going. Why on Earth would I not 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:** [January 19, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/83 "2011-01-19T16:18:19Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] xtisme, I think you need to read my post again. I didn’t claim that you said women should be back at home slaving over an oven. I claimed that, if the rationale for keeping the draft male only is reference to thousands of years of history where men were seen as expendable, then the same logic should be applied to women in the workplace, for instance, too. Their traditional role has been care giver, not worker/bread provider. [/QUOTE] No, because as I said attitudes have and continue to change. Read through ALL of my posts and you will see that was what I was getting at. > [@](#): > > This is pretty stupid. Yes, I’d be equally OK with both of them going. Why on Earth would I not be? :dubious: And you are equally comfortable with both dying in the mud, yes? Ok…if I give you the choice of punching your brother in the face and breaking his nose or doing the same to your sister, you are equally ok with that? If so, then all I can say is that you are ahead of the curve to most people…even most people from Western countries. You are certainly ahead of the curve of most of the folks I know in the UK, who are even more conservative about this subject that Americans are. -XT ---
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/84 "2011-01-19T16:22:09Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It would take a core or existential threat to the US to EVER have a draft again Even that isn’t an issue – realistically, if something poses a core or existential threat to the US, we’ll nuke 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/85 "2011-01-19T16:22:19Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And you are equally comfortable with both dying in the mud, yes? Ok…if I give you the choice of punching your brother in the face and breaking his nose or doing the same to your sister, you are equally ok with that? If so, then all I can say is that you are ahead of the curve to most people…even most people from Western countries. You are certainly ahead of the curve of most of the folks I know in the UK, who are even more conservative about this subject that Americans are. Which fantastical situation will you think up next? Women are equals now. They get to have fun dieing in the mud, too. ---
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/86 "2011-01-19T16:25:02Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] Which fantastical situation will you think up next? Women are equals now. They get to have fun dieing in the mud, too. [/QUOTE] The one that will make you engage your brain and think about the underlying assumptions you are making, instead of jerking your knee. Women may be equal in some things, but attitudes take time to change, and they haven’t completely changed yet. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/87 "2011-01-19T16:30:17Z")
Which underlying assumptions, bar equality of the sexes, am I making? For that matter, which assumptions are _you_ making? ---
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/88 "2011-01-19T16:30:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Right, my mistake, I meant 13th, not 14th. But even when the Supreme Court rejected the argument, they didn’t really give any reason _why_ it doesn’t apply. It’s service, it’s involuntary, what part of that is so hard to understand? Early Penumbral Emanation Spectacles didn’t reveal the secret text in 3D like modern ones do, but they were sufficient to enable judges to read what they wanted to find. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/89 "2011-01-19T16:31:16Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > If you can’t convince people to fight for you without resorting to conscription (a practice I feel is a step away from outright slavery), perhaps you deserve to lose. The problem with this is that you then rely on people to do what is bad for them in the short term but would be good for the society in the longterm. What will happen is that when things get nasty people will decide to do what is better for them in the short term and rely on others to do the heavy lifting…but most will do this meaning the heavy lifting doesn’t get done. ‘Modern warfare’ is a…well…er…modern thing. In the past you needed bodies in the field. God is on the side with the larger battalions if you will. Maybe modern warfare makes this a thing of the past but I’m not so sure. There could be a time when we need to put a multi-million man army into the field…and for that you will need a draft. The other thing is that major wars are not usually won in flash and brilliance and in short time. They are long affairs of attrition and grinding. You put your men and blood into the field and grind it out. The side with the most intestinal fortitude for this thing will most likely win. This means that things get nasty. They get hard and discouraging and looks like you might lose all the while expending blood and material. A country gets exhausted. You have to dig down and through shear stubborness/determinination/whatever and call up whatever you need to win. This means making everyone fight and not relying on volunteers. The country/society that can do this will perevere. Ones that can’t will fade. ---
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/90 "2011-01-19T18:00:20Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] Which underlying assumptions, bar equality of the sexes, am I making? For that matter, which assumptions are you making? [/QUOTE] The underlying assumption you seem to be making is that the public acceptance of women being ‘equal’ has percolated down to the level where the reality is that women are equal to men in all things, including having really horrible things happen to them as a matter of course. I don’t believe that this assumption is true. In general, I think people are moving in that direction (in Western countries anyway), but at a visceral level I think that a lot of that old baggage and attitude is still in effect. Which is why I used the examples I did. My guess (and that’s all it is, based on my own perceptions of attitudes I pick up in movies, TV, books and interactions with people not just in the US but all over) is that people would still be more comfortable having their male brother hit in the face and have his nose broken than their female sister…or their father instead of their mother. Or sending in a male to be ripped apart from artillery shells as opposed to a female. I think our attitudes have shifted enough to accept a female volunteering for that duty, but even there I think a lot of especially the older generation is uneasy about that…but I don’t believe that attitudes have shifted to where society as a whole is as comfortable sending in teen aged girls to die as they are sending in teen aged boys to do so. And this leaves aside the sexual angles and mores of society. Obviously the assumptions I’m making is that, even though I’m older and come from an earlier generation, that my perceptions of the over all attitudes of society on this subject are pretty much what I’m saying here. When I watch a movie, it seems that a male dying is not as big a deal as a female dying. When I watch the news it seems there is still a subtle difference between a male being killed and a female being killed. Talking to people about this subject of women in the military I still detect a subtle difference in attitude. My assumption then would be that the over all public is moving towards equal attitudes about men and women, and that we’ve come a hell of a long way since I was a kid, but that we aren’t there yet, and we won’t be there tomorrow either. It’s sort of like race relations…we’ve come light years since I was a kid. That doesn’t mean that all things are equal today or that we don’t have light years still to go. -XT ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/91 "2011-01-19T18:24:35Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > …The other thing is that major wars are not usually won in flash and brilliance and in short time. They are long affairs of attrition and grinding…This means making everyone fight and not relying on volunteers…The country/society that can do this will perevere. Ones that can’t will fade. We haven’t been in a major war like that since WWII. If we do it’ll likely either be over or go nuclear long before the first conscripts make it out of boot camp. > [@xtisme](#): > > At one point during WWII there was a sever shortage of nurses and there was some talk of drafting women to that role. However, there was a call for more women nurses and a large surge in volunteers so they never had to draft them. > > -XT If we’d actually had to invade Japan we likely would’ve seen a limited draft of nurses. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/92 "2011-01-19T21:34:36Z")
The reason why, historically, men have always been regarded as more expendable than women is because, biologically, we _are_. If half or three quarters of the men in a tribe/population/nation get wiped out, the tribe can fully recover its numbers within a generation, but if a similar number of women are lost, the tribe is in serious trouble. Modern warfare has made it unlikely that anywhere near that proportion of a nation will be wiped out, but we’ve still got the same hardwiring programmed into us by billions of years of evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/93 "2011-01-19T23:54:46Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Come on, the OP getting bent out of shape over something that hasn’t been used in donkey’s years and isn’t likely to be used any time in the near future is a tad ridiculous, but so it this rationale. Ok so I’m bent out of shape because this hasn’t been used in donkey’s years and so on. So why do we continue to waste taxpayers’ dollars on something we haven’t used and will not use any time in the near future? > [@](#): > > We’re really organising modern society based on how things have always been done? In which case, when do women get back in the kitchen? Just as men have always been classed as expendable, women have also been classed as primary care givers. So, shouldn’t they be stuck at home looking after the family and kids, rather than working? Oh boy, I _knew_ this would get misinterpreted. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > **xtisme** , I think you need to read my post again. I didn’t claim that you said women should be back at home slaving over an oven. I claimed that, if the rationale for keeping the draft male only is reference to thousands of years of history where men were seen as expendable, then the same logic should be applied to women in the workplace, for instance, too. Their traditional role has been care giver, not worker/bread provider. Indeed, you’re talking about traditional sex roles and the logic behind it, not your own point of view. > [@](#): > > This is pretty stupid. Yes, I’d be equally OK with both of them going. Why on Earth would I not be? There seems to be some measure of consternation here over the idea of equality. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Which fantastical situation will you think up next? Women are equals now. They get to have fun dieing in the mud, too. Oh, the misogyny. \<– sarcasm. > [@Chronos](#): > > The reason why, historically, men have always been regarded as more expendable than women is because, biologically, we _are_. If half or three quarters of the men in a tribe/population/nation get wiped out, the tribe can fully recover its numbers within a generation, but if a similar number of women are lost, the tribe is in serious trouble. This of course ignores the consequences to genetic diversity that such losses would cause. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/94 "2011-01-19T23:56:54Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > This means making everyone fight and not relying on volunteers. > > The country/society that can do this will perevere. Ones that can’t will fade. What if, instead, you get your citizens rising up in rebellion? Or worse, draftees fragging officers on the battlefield during an important battle? ---
**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:** [January 20, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/95 "2011-01-20T00:18:03Z")
[QUOTE=Le Jacquelope] Ok so I’m bent out of shape because this hasn’t been used in donkey’s years and so on. So why do we continue to waste taxpayers’ dollars on something we haven’t used and will not use any time in the near future? [/QUOTE] That’s a good question. My guess is bureaucratic inertia. Supposedly we needed this during the cold war, and since then there was no compelling reason for the politicians or the public to stop it, so it just keeps rolling on and costing us money. That, and possibly it’s not a hugely expensive program (I have no idea, but it’s probably less than $10 billion a year, so cutting it wouldn’t really make enough political hay to make it worth while to go after). > [@](#): > > This of course ignores the consequences to genetic diversity that such losses would cause. Since it’s what has happened historically, I don’t see where you are going with this. We have survived with the supposed consequences for pretty much the entire history of humanity, and continue to thrive even through two horrendous world wars. > [@](#): > > What if, instead, you get your citizens rising up in rebellion? Then conscription is the least of your problems. > [@](#): > > Or worse, draftees fragging officers on the battlefield during an important battle? What if they do? It’s happened in the past and I’m sure it will happen in the future. That’s one of the reasons why conscription sucks if you have an alternative (such as we do in non-Apocalyptic times). -XT ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/96 "2011-01-20T21:59:13Z")
> [@](#): > > This of course ignores the consequences to genetic diversity that such losses would cause. Well, yeah, it’s obviously bad (for a number of reasons, not just genetic) to lose a large fraction of your men. It’s just that it’s even worse, by a significant margin, to lose the same fraction of your women. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/97 "2011-01-20T23:45:04Z")
A lot of men are useless in a way. We have a lot more female ancestors than male. Many males are dead-ends, genetically. So to stand out and impress potential mates they have to be heroic to gain status, like going on adventures or doing dangerous things like raiding the neighboring village or jumping over 2 hobos with a skateboard. ---
**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:** [January 20, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/98 "2011-01-20T23:57:17Z")
I seem to recall that, for all that WE think we look a lot difference (wrt ‘race’) that humanity is really not very genetically diverse (though more due to the fact that several times we nearly went extinct, I think, than males dying in droves). From an evolutionary perspective, I don’t believe that males dying in job lots has had a major down side for us. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/99 "2011-01-21T00:35:40Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > A lot of men are useless in a way. What makes you say that? What makes them useless? ---
**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:** [January 21, 2011, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056/100 "2011-01-21T00:40:44Z")
Because a few men can impregnate many women, but on the women side it’s a binary equation. So…evolutionary speaking, men are less important than women in propagating the species. Doesn’t make us ‘useless’ (there are all those issues with spiders, mice, plumbing and so on ;))…just less important in the larger scheme of species survival. -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mens-rights-why-not-get-rid-of-selective-service/568056.md?page=6)