Men's Rights: Why not get rid of Selective Service?

[Mr.Excellent]

@Marley23

It’s more patronizing than anything else, I think.

Eh, I don’t think that’s quite correct. It would be patronizing if I believed that my sister (or other women, for that matter) couldn’t match my combat effectiveness by virtue of their sex. That isn’t so - in many ways, I think my sister would make a better soldier than I would.

I’m just not willing to see her in that role. She’s my little sister - I don’t want people shooting at her. And I wouldn’t back any proposal that would increase the odds of that happening, even by the tiniest fraction.

[alphaboi867]

I remember this issue coming up alot in high school social studies class. The boys were almost unanimously in favor of a coed draft; the girls were split. For the most part they all agreed that nobody should be drafted. Half agreed that if men were drafted so should women, the other half insisted the women need to “stay home to take care of the babies”.

I came up with two “solutions” that wouldn’t require women to be drafted. One involved exchanging their right to vote & hold office for exemption from the draft (nobody said she’d do that). The other was having the government select young women at random and if they proved fertile requiring them to submit (on pain of imprisionment) to artificial insemination and bear a child for the state (I’d seen A Handmaid’s Tale on TV that week). That option was “completely ridiculous” and
“disgusting”, but our teacher (who realized were I got the idea) thought it was an interesting topic for a debate (which we never did).

[Marley23]

@Mr.Excellent

Eh, I don’t think that’s quite correct. It would be patronizing if I believed that my sister (or other women, for that matter) couldn’t match my combat effectiveness by virtue of their sex. That isn’t so - in many ways, I think my sister would make a better soldier than I would.

I’m just not willing to see her in that role.

Right, that’s patronizing. You’re saying your feelings are based on her gender. I don’t have sisters, but I don’t want people shooting at my family, period. The idea of my youngest brother being drafted (when I thought that might theoretically be possible) was one that used to make me very angry. The fact that he was male didn’t make that any easier. I’m not criticizing you for being protective of a sibling, but this is a patronizing attitude.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Mr.Excellent

Eh, I don’t think that’s quite correct. It would be patronizing if I believed that my sister (or other women, for that matter) couldn’t match my combat effectiveness by virtue of their sex. That isn’t so - in many ways, I think my sister would make a better soldier than I would.

I’m just not willing to see her in that role. She’s my little sister - I don’t want people shooting at her. And I wouldn’t back any proposal that would increase the odds of that happening, even by the tiniest fraction.

Okay, that’s not patronizing, just ridiculously egocentric.

[XT]

The problem isn’t ‘are woman able to fight as well as men in combat situations?’. The problem is, if you draft men and women from civilian life, how much additional problem are you going to have over just drafting men? Let’s be realistic here…taking a bunch of civilian men and giving them even a veneer of military discipline is really, REALLY hard when you factor in that a large percentage of them won’t want to be there. Taking men AND women and trying to do that would be a nightmare from just about every perspective you can think of.

Even women volunteering to be full combat soldiers in mixed formations causes problems and issues, though my understanding is that, over time this has subsided quite a bit (when I served there weren’t any women in the fleet, though there were women in shore billets). But those are volunteers who are getting into it with their eyes at least partially open and to some degree WANT to be there.

At any rate I don’t think that a draft is at all likely or desired by anyone, and is generally brought up by people with a political agenda to grind. That said, I don’t think it would be a good idea to preclude (by law) the possibility of ever having a draft again, as if we need it we are probably going to need it really badly.

-XT

[RickJay]

@Le_Jacquelope

Well, could China invade us? Could they get troops through Russian territory to Alaska across the Bering Strait?

The Nazis and Japanese never invaded the United States in numbers that had real military significance. Those wars were mostly fough in Europe and the Pacific.

Not having conscription and Constitutionally banning it are two different concepts, and I’m not sure you quite grasp why some things are Constitutionally prohibited. A country shouldn’t just ban things it doesn’t like in the Constitution; after all, the U.S. has no Constitutional amendment prohibiting murder. The idea behind a Constitutional block to something is to prevent the government from doing something that it is actually likely to do if there’s no rule against it.

To use the most obvious example, the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on speech. There is an absolute ass-load of evidence that, absent the First Amendment, the government would be prohibiting speech left, right and center. It tries to even with the First Amendment in place. Tipper Gore certainly gave it a shot.

For a variety of political economic and technical reasons, conscription simply isn’t in the cards anymore unless the U.S. was in a war so gigantic and threatening that even if there was an Amendment banning it, the government would probably have the support to repeal the amendment anyway.

[Procrustus]

The only thing that would make bring back a draft feasible is if the US’s backs were firmly to the wall and the very existence of the country were at stake…in which case, we’d really need that draft.

I’m not sure. If our backs were firmly to the wall and our very existence was at stake, I think every able body citizen would do their part. I know I would (and I refused to register for the draft when I turned 18).

[XT]

But the government may not want every able body citizen to volunteer for duty (for instance, someone in a vital manufacturing role, or some other vital role would be better serving their country there than volunteering)…they may want to focus the efforts of the citizens in a more optimal way. A draft is great at doing this in extreme situations.

BTW, refusing to register for the Selective Service can have some serious consequences.

Penalties for Failure to Register for the Draft

Men who do not register could be prosecuted and, if convicted, fined up to $250,000 and/or serve up to five years in prison. In addition, men who fail to register with Selective Service before turning age 26, even if not prosecuted, will become ineligible for:

* Student Financial Aid - including Pell Grants, College Work Study, Guaranteed Student/Plus Loans, and National Direct Student Loans.
* U.S. Citizenship - if the man first arrived in the U.S. before his 26th birthday.
* Federal Job Training - The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) offers programs that can train young men for jobs in auto mechanics and other skills. This program is only open to those men who register with Selective Service.
* Federal Jobs - men born after December 31, 1959 must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service.

In addition, several states have added additional penalties for those who fail to register.

To me, it’s silly not to register. The political probability of the draft being reintroduced is practically zero. The only thing that would change that equation is one of those disasters so bad that it would force the government and military to bring it back…and it would have to be REALLY bad for that to happen. Even if the politicians were ok with it (which they aren’t, mainly, due to the fact that the public is so opposed to it) the military would resist tooth and nail.

-XT

[Procrustus]

@xtisme

To me, it’s silly not to register. The political probability of the draft being reintroduced is practically zero. The only thing that would change that equation is one of those disasters so bad that it would force the government and military to bring it back…and it would have to be REALLY bad for that to happen. Even if the politicians were ok with it (which they aren’t, mainly, due to the fact that the public is so opposed to it) the military would resist tooth and nail.

-XT

I didn’t refuse because I was afraid of getting drafted. I refused because I thought mandatory registration was wrong. There was some (remote) hope that if enough of us didn’t register they would give up. (“they can’t arrest all of us”). Also being used by Carter to “send a message” to the Soviets about Afghanistan wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of. They never caught me, and I think the Statute of Limitations must have run by now.

[Mr.Moto]

@Procrustus

They never caught me, and I think the Statute of Limitations must have run by now.

Maybe for criminal penalties - I don’t know. But various state and federal benefits have been made conditional upon a Selective Service registration, including federal student loans and grants and drivers licenses in many states.

[Procrustus]

@Mr.Moto

Maybe for criminal penalties - I don’t know. But various state and federal benefits have been made conditional upon a Selective Service registration, including federal student loans and grants and drivers licenses in many states.

Well, so far so good. 30 years and counting. I’ve managed to get a drivers license is at least three different states since then, and be admitted to the Bar in four.

[XT]

@Procrustus

They never caught me, and I think the Statute of Limitations must have run by now.

From the cite earlier:

You may have read or been told that there is no need to register, because so few people are prosecuted for failing to register. The goal of the Selective Service System is registration, not prosecution. Even though those who fail to register may not be prosecuted they will be denied student financial assistance, federal job training, and most federal employment unless they can provide convincing evidence to the agency providing the benefit they are seeking, that their failure to register was not knowing and willful.

They aren’t going to prosecute you or throw you in jail. There will be other consequences, and there is not S of L on those. Maybe they aren’t important to you, but franking I think it was silly not to register. YMMV and hopefully it will work out for you.

-XT

[alphaboi867]

I never even had a chance to refuse to register; I just got a registration card in the mail a few weeks after my 18th birth day.

[XT]

Linked to that other cite I found this on women and the draft that might be interesting:

After America’s draft ended in 1973, the Selective Service System was maintained in a standby status, just in case a return to conscription became necessary during a crisis. After March 29, 1975, men no longer had to register and Selective Service was placed in “deep standby.” But then, in 1980, President Carter reactivated the registration process for men in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and in reaction to reports that the standby Selective Service System might not meet wartime requirements for rapid manpower expansion of the active and reserve forces.

In 1992, a Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces reexamined the issue of registration and conscription of women. In its November 1992 report, by a vote of 11 to 3, the Commission recommended that women not be required to register for or be subject to conscription. The Commission cited the 1981 Supreme Court decision in Rostker v. Goldberg upholding the exclusion of women from registration as the basis for its recommendation. The Commission also discussed enacting existing ground combat specialties exclusion policies into law to provide an additional barrier to the amendment of the MSSA to provide for the conscription of women. However, an appendix to its report suggested that public opinion was divided on the issue. The appendix, which included the results of a random telephone survey of 1,500 adults, showed that, in the event of a draft for a national emergency or threat of war (and assuming an ample pool of young men exists), 52 percent of respondents indicated women should be drafted, about 39 percent of respondents indicated women should not be drafted, and 10 percent responded they did not know.

In May 1994, President Clinton asked the Secretary of Defense to update its mobilization requirements for the Selective Service System and, as a part of the effort, “continue to review the arguments for and against continuing to exclude women from registration now that they can be assigned to combat roles other than ground combat.” In its subsequent report, the DOD position remained “that the restriction of females from assignments below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground, provides justification from exempting women from registration (and a draft) as set forth in the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Rostker v. Goldberg (1981).” However, the report also recognized the vastly increased role being played by women in each of the Armed Services who, in Fiscal Year 1994, comprised 16 percent of recruits. “Because of this change in the makeup of the Armed Forces,” the report observed, “much of the congressional debate which, in the court’s opinion, provided adequate congressional scrutiny of the issue…(in 1981) would be inappropriate today.” While maintaining that it was not necessary to register or draft women, the DOD review concluded “the success of the military will increasingly depend upon the participation of women.”

GAO examined the issue from Selective Service cost and staffing points of view, recognizing that registration of women would require legislative action and operational and budgetary changes. “Selective Service System could register women if its authorizing legislation, the Military Selective Service Act, is amended to allow registering women,” the report stated. The report provided cost estimates for expanding the registration program to include women, and included an historical summary providing perspectives on women and the draft since America’s transition to an all-volunteer military in the 1970s.

-XT

[Le_Jacquelope]

@Marley23

The mentality isn’t the most important issue.

I wasn’t saying whether it was an important issue or not - it is the history of conscription, though, that males are typically the only ones forced to fight. This fact doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

If the mentality were “everybody is expendable when the state decides they are,” that would not be any better.

No, it wouldn’t… I agree with this.

It’s true that men have done most of the fighting and killing throughout history. There are a lot of reasons for that, starting with the fact that men tend to be bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than women. I don’t think the reasons are relevant to why forced conscription is wrong.

It’s a side point; I want to know why certain elements of society still has no problem with a men-only draft.

[Le_Jacquelope]

@alphaboi867

The other was having the government select young women at random and if they proved fertile requiring them to submit (on pain of imprisionment) to artificial insemination and bear a child for the state (I’d seen A Handmaid’s Tale on TV that week).

Ouch. :eek:

I wonder what the grievous injury and death rate was for draftees, versus women in childbirth situations. You could have made some interesting parallels.

Imagine if you had started out instead with, “Why doesn’t a man have a right to control his own body?” (As in, the right not to have it hijacked by the State)

[XT]

@Le Jacquelope

It’s a side point; I want to know why certain elements of society still has no problem with a men-only draft.

Because for the entire history of our species (with a few notable exceptions) men have always been considered more expendable than women. We are practically hard wired for this reaction.

There are other, practical reasons as well, but the bottom line is that it’s pretty natural for our species to envision men getting killed in droves or dying horribly…but not so natural to wrap our collective minds around women dying (in combat) the same ways. Same for children, though even more so…

-XT

[Bridget_Burke]

Enemies of the Equal Rights Amendment used “Drafting Women” as one of the reasons such a Godless amendment should not be added to the Constitution. (Along with “Unisex Bathrooms.”)

It didn’t pass.

Hey, I’m all for re-examining Selective Service. But spare me the “Men’s Rights” complaints.

[XT]

Poor men! Don’t you pity our lot in life??

-XT

[Ravenman]

@Le_Jacquelope

It’s a side point; I want to know why certain elements of society still has no problem with a men-only draft.

Well, for one thing, this is really only a hypothetical problem. We haven’t had a draft in four decades and it is awfully tough to imagine a draft in the next four. It’s not like men are actually suffering some sort of injustice at present… it’s just the possibility that someday, men may or may not end up on the short end of the stick.

While the OPs point on getting rid of the Selective Service is very interesting, I disagree that this is an equal rights issue. I think it is more of a budget issue. But on the list of injustices that we should tackle, this is pretty low on the list, because it is quite unlikely it will actually cause anyone harm in the foreseeable future.

Let’s tackle real problems first – like jobs, the economy, education, and so on.