You have to consider recent history, though.
We had a draft in this country from 1940 to 1973, at which time a volunteer force was established. Selective Service registration was restarted in 1979, because of escalating Cold War tensions in the Carter administration, and was supported by both parties.
It continues today.
That should answer your question as well, wolf_meister.
Selective Service at this time is merely another layer of readiness.
You do realize that the Pentagon does not have the power to reinstate the draft. The president does not have the power to reinstate the draft. The draft cannot be reinstated in secret.
The draft must be authorized by Congress. That means a majority of the house must vote for it, a majority of the senate must vote for it, the bill must be reconciled, both houses must pass the reconciled bill again, then the president must sign the bill. Didn’t you watch Schoolhouse Rock?
Since the Pentagon can’t just pull a draft out of its ass in secret, since congressmen who are up for re-election every few years must vote for it, there will be no draft.
Anyone willing to place a bet that there will be no draft during the current Bush administration, and no draft during the next administration, whether it is Republican or Democrat (that takes us to 2012), bet to be void if a nuclear bomb explodes on American soil?
The Pentagon has a mission to be prepared to reinstitute a draft if Congress reinstitutes a draft. They still have selective service registration and selective service boards in place so they could reinstitute the draft. But this can only happen on the authority of Congress, which will–get this–never happen.
Never is an awfully long time, Lemur866. Congress would have to find a way to enact a draft that is not political suicide and does not put their children nor the children of their biggest supporters at risk. In other words, they need to figure out how to legally draft the poor without showing bias. My cynical view is that they haven’t yet figured out how to do that, and that is what is holding them back.
Would it change things if Martial Law was declared? Would the pres have unilateral decision-making of that type in the middle of a crisis?
D_Odds, that is cynical, and probably true.
That’s why I volunteered to sit on the Fulton County draft board (before I moved), to make sure the rich and poor were inducted equally.
Regarding the OP, I’m not going to blame the military for trying everything it can to get recruits (I draw the line at lying and harrassment). It’s gotta be difficult when you fall short of your recruitment goals month after month.
Of course, I’m not going to blame kids for not wanting to sign up to be blown up either.
That brings up an entirely different question, which I’ll post over in GQ. Is Martial Law a legal state in the US?
I’ll post a link shortly, so as to not totally highjack this thread.
But this assumes that 51%+ of congress is just itching to reinstate the draft, if only it wasn’t for those pesky voters. But what support do you have for this view? How do those congressbeings benefit from a reinstated draft? What’s in it for them? OK, we get more soldiers in uniform at a lower dollar cost. How does that benefit Congressman A, even assuming Congressman A is a rabid hawk who goes to bed every night dreaming about blowing up Ay-rabs?
If you are a hawk who wants to use the military to establish a new American Empire around the globe a volunteer military is preferable by far. Today, every time someone complains about how our soldiers are being killed in Iraq they can be told that everyone volunteered to be over there. Draft kids and send them to Vietnam–oops, I meant Iraq–and suddenly opposition to the war skyrockets. Every draftee sent to Iraq means 10 anti-war voters. Do you think that the political elites don’t remember the Vietnam anti-war protests? And how much of the protest was caused by the draft? Get rid of the draft and you cut the knees off the antiwar movement. Or in this case, don’t reinstate the draft and you keep the antiwar movement at its current fringe levels.
Cynical means believing that people will generally act in their personal interest without caring about the fallout for everyone else. It doesn’t mean assuming that everyone will act evilly, rubbing their hands together like a cartoon supervillan, it means they will act selfishly. I simply don’t see what a hypothetical selfish egomaniac machiavellian congressman gains personally from voting to reinstate the draft.
Had a feeling my “already doing enough” comment would need more, John Carter of Mars and wolf_meister.
I work as a Special Investigator for the US Office of Personnel Management. Any time somebody applies for or has a Federal job long enough to need an update, some sort of investigation is run on them. At the very least, it’s just a criminal or financial database or two. At the most, interviews with friends, neighbors, cow-orkers, the person themselves, as well as in-person record checks, etc. I’m the guy who does the interviews and checks. I don’t carry a gun or have police power, but I do have investigative authority on those who allow it for a Federal job, and people like me do uncover some of the criminals (and even terrorists) that try to get themselves placed into the Federal government, which would obviously pose a risk to national security. So that’s my “already doing enough.”
I admit I made the thread title a little leading (after all, it is the Pit and one does want a good vitriolic rant from all sides), and this is not yet tantamount to a draft. But it is, as stated by many while I was out working today, a much bigger first step than simple Selective Service.
Thanks for the answer MrMoto.
Still, I have a feeling the Draft will return. I’ll admit I could be wrong but we can never foresee events (Pearl Harbor for example), which would bring about its almost immediate reinstatement.
Sorry, Only Mostly Dead. I didn’t read your answer due to the simulpost.
That’s interesting work that you do and needless to say, extremely important.
I don’t really think that’s true. It’s, like you said in the OP, not about the draft, it’s about recruitment. If the military has a database with demographic info, they can focus their recruitment efforts on people who are statistically more likely to enlist, or better fit their profiles. I don’t see how this is any different than any other group that does marketing.
You are incorrect. Selective Service does NOT require “everyone” to register at 18.
It only requires MEN to register.
This database would obviously get info on the women, too.
Let’s look at this from a different angle.
Remember when you were warned to behave in school or it would end up on your “permanent record”? In the past the threat was empty save for the real grievous examples; no one expected that ending up in detention for being late for class would have any tangible effect on their adult life.
With the advent of better data systems, it’s now possible to keep every record. The government has the power and the ability to get the information they need about anyone they desire to investigate. Whether or not they should is irrelevant; the ability exists.
What doesn’t exist is a review process to allow a citizen to see what information the government has, and how it is being used.
What if- you had a personality conflict with a teacher, who finds some work you did that could be found objectionable, like a story about a murder that named the name of a real person. Down the road, this could come up in an unexpected way- the denial of a security clearance, or the presence of your name on the Do Not Fly list, any number of things. If there was no official charge made, just a note placed on the “permanent record”, what recourse do you have?
Armed with this database, the military should (by their own doctrine) be able to amass information about every potential recruit, up to and including political reliability. They would pick and choose the right people for the jobs open, and the rest would be consigned to being cannon fodder. They already do this; the database would just make the process more efficient if implemented properly.
This is the scariest part- in a melodramatic sense, the military is preselecting those who will live and those who may die.
That spitball you hit your second grade teacher with may have gotten a laugh and popularity among your fellow students, but your reputation as a troublemaker qualifies you for the infantry only. Grab a rifle and get in line…
Another worst-case scenario dreamed up by the Mad one
That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?
When I was in the military, I had a position that required a security clearance. That meant that an investigator for the government indeed went to my old neighborhood and my high school and interviewed me principal, my teachers, and my neighbors.
If anything questionable turned up in these interviews, and in things like a criminal records and credit check, the clearance would have been denied. The government has been doing this for, oh, decades now.
Shouldn’t this be done in the case of security clearances? Makes sense to me.
<nitpick> it’s strung <nitpick>
As for your last post:
And isn’t that what Mad Hermit is saying? That someone could have some youthful indiscretions, and in some cases, depending on the person reporting the incidents, these hijinks could either NOT be put down in some permanent record or if that person has a personality conflict with you, they could not only put it down, but make it look really bad-thereby denying you the opportunity to 1. defend or explain the incidence or 2. denying you a true place in the Brave New World of Military Advancement.
You seem to have a naive attitude about people in positions of authority–I have known vindictive college profs, HS teachers and bosses. Not towards me, per se (mine was the prof), but I have seen unfair and outrageous abuses of power that have left a trail for the victim. There are at least two sides to every story, every indiscretion–but often only one is recorded history.
I think Mad’s example of spitballs is just hyperbole–but it does speak to a danger inherent in keeping this kind of list and also not allowing the public access to the list. Hell, we get a gander at our credit ratings annually–we should have access to “our permanent record.”
The military already preys on the the poorer neighborhoods and on the unemployed youth. A draft would make it easier for them, surely–but it would have to be equitable across class lines and that is the sticking point.
I have an admiration for what our military is supposed to stand for and for the soldiers caught in the war. I have no admiration for the hawks that got us here or the ones who troll for cannon fodder, using despair and ignorance to their advantage.
I was broke and pretty desperate when I joined the Navy. I got out after a few years with a decent job waiting for me in the DC area. I’m now making double what that job first paid, in the same field. And I work with the Navy every single day.
Now, I will admit that my views on all of this have been affected by my experience. But that experience has been, taken as a whole, a positive one.
Here’s the thing. Collecting data about someone will only get easier. Everything someone says on a message board, every email you send, every phone call you make, every plane ticket you buy, every purchase, every public street you walk down, everything you do can be recorded, studied, analyzed, and brought up years later. Whether this data is collected by the goverment, or big business, or nosy neighbors, or tabloid media, is irrelevant…data is collected every day, as computers, sensors and data storage become cheaper and cheaper and more and more ubiquitous we will eventually have every moment of our lives documented in some way, even if no one is allowed to look at that information legally.
The fear that a classroom videotape of John Smith throwing spitballs in second grade will destroy the rest of his life is ludicrous. Why? Because EVERYONE will have a record of throwing spitballs, or the equivalent. If you only give security clearances to guys who didn’t throw spitballs in second grade, never teased their little brother, never drank a beer before they turned 21, never went 1 mph over the speed limit, you’ll have no one to give security clearances too. The idea is ludicrous. Ubiquitous data collection means that everyone has their secrets exposed, no one is immune. And in consequence, NO ONE WILL CARE. If everyone has these things in their past, and everyone does, how can you hold it against someone, when everyone you consider for that security clearance will have the same sorts of things?
Anyway, the ludicrous assertion that this will determine who lives and who dies is dependent on the assumption that we’ll draft everyone, and send the undesirable people to the front lines where they’ll be killed and send the chosen people to safe desk jobs. First, there will be no draft. THERE WILL BE NO DRAFT.
And even if there were a draft, throwing spitballs in second grade, or all the muliple equivalents of throwing spitballs in second grade, won’t be a bar to getting a security clearance, because the people handing out the security clearances will have thrown spitballs in the second grade themselves, and if they barred spitball throwers they’d be out of work themselves.
And third, being an infantryman isn’t a death sentence. The US military doesn’t have cannon fodder positions anymore. Putting a rifle into the hands of a half-trained 18 year old draftee and telling him to march to the front is a waste of time, you might as well shoot the kid back in basic training and save yourself the expense of the plane flight over there, the rifle, his food, and the flight back for the coffin. The US military doesn’t need more conscript privates clutching rifles, we need trained technical specialists…engineers, MPs, lawyers, medics, linguists, mechanics, accountants, pilots, and on and on. A hundred thousand new 18 year old draftees wouldn’t be a benefit for the Pentagon, it would be a drain, a waste of time, it would make fighting in Iraq more difficult, not easier.
[sub]If I might riff on *Mad Hermit’s worst-case scenario for a bit…[/sub]
Data can still be used selectively to further an ideological agenda. J. Edgar Hoover, supposed gay transvestite, was happy to ruin people for attending one too many lefty cocktail parties. Police value chickenshit ordnances like “parking too far from the curb” to nail people they feel they need nailing. (And not without reason. They caught Jessica Lunsford’s murderer only because his license plate light was out.)
Boot camp as it exists today would be the perfect foundation for political reeducation by a theoretical military-dominated police state. Training commands already have the tools to break people. All they’d need would be the rationale…“for the good of the country.”
[sub]Scared yet?[/sub] 
Bull.
We had a draft in place for thirty-three straight years, including a stretch of time when there were no actual shooting wars going on. If there were a time America would have been militarized and turned rightward, it would have been then.
Hasn’t happened, to my mind.
My dad went through Army boot camp in the late 1960’s. He’s a moderate Democrat today. My brother and I went to Navy boot camp in the early 1990’s. He’s similarly a moderate Democrat, while I’m a conservative Republican.
There will be an awful lot of stories like this.
Boot camp was, at least for me, a profoundly apolitical experience. It only lasted two months, and the time is full of training. There is no time for indoctrination into an ideology of any kind.