The morality of draft avoidance/dodging during Vietnam

Great Debates
101

Trolley problem. Thousands of trolleys, thousands of tracks, thousands of people on the tracks.

A trolley is bearing down on you, so you use your connections with the trolley operators to re-direct the trolley so that it runs over someone else instead. Repeat thousands of times as everyone with an “in” at the trolley office can avoid being run over. Pedestrians with influence and connections routinely avoid being run over, those trolleys being redirected to people without influence or connections.

Is this moral? I get it, I’d jump on the chance to avoid the trolley, but I can’t say it’s a moral choice, it’s a selfish choice.

102

But, again, who actually said that anyone needs to be on the tracks? Who put the trolleys in motion? What is the purpose of you or anyone else being on the tracks? Is it really impossible for everyone–literally everyone–else to get off the tracks?

You cannot remove the broader issues from the question of morality. There’s plenty of room for gray in there, but I really find it quite absurd, this insistence that just because some asshole said “I need you to stand on these tracks and stop that trolley, with your life if necessary” that one must be morally obliged to do so just because that same asshole threatens to put someone else on the tracks in your place. It is they, the “asshole” who have made the decision to hazard someone else’s life. Not you. Not me. And, for what it’s worth, if the next proposed victim feels the same way, they too can step out of line and refuse. The difference is they may not have the same kind of resources to avoid punishment, but they absolutely can still refuse. It is, in no circumstance, a forgone conclusion that they must accept themselves. They, like you (albeit perhaps under less favorable circumstances) still have the option to make a choice. To the extent their ability to choose freely is infringed upon, that’s due to the “asshole,” not you or whoever else refuses to stand in their place.

There are plenty of scenarios that actually played out in which its easy for me to conclude that the totality of circumstances–not just the draft avoidance, but the past and future decision of the avoider–was immoral. But there’s also plenty of scenarios that actually played out in which I can understand the decision was at worst morally neutral, perhaps even morally good. Again, scenarios that actually played out, not mere hypotheticals stripped bare of relevant facts to try and twist it into something that makes it seem like an easy judgement to make.

103

If someone wants to hate Donald Trump for all the wrong reasons, please be my guest. Lord knows, there’s enough people who love that dishonest amoral a**hole to make up for it.

104

Hardly matters what these people said. What matters is what they did. They let someone else take the risk for them. Then they said words that justified their actions.

Everyone has a pretty excuse for taking care of Number One.

105

You have no more business assuming that everyone’s motive was cowardice than I would assuming that nobody’s motive was.

And that doesn’t in any way remove the point that killing or attempting to kill other people is certainly endangering them.

106

You are, but then we are free to speak freely ourselves, which can include arguing that you are wrong. I definitely see the argument that caring about other people’s feelings is part of morality–a lot of what we consider immoral is such because it hurts others emotionally.

That said, as far as I’m concerned, your main error is in who you assign blame. If I were to dodge the draft, I am not the one who forced someone else to take my place. The government did that.

That type of logic breaks down because it would apply to any situation where one protects themselves. If I keep myself from being raped, that could easily mean that the rapist has more time to find another victim. But that’s not my fault. That’s the rapist’s. If I run away from a shooter, being unable to stop them, and they go on to shoot someone else, that’s on them. I didn’t kill the victim. Same here: that the government took someone else when they shouldn’t have taken away their freedom is the government’s fault.

And, yes, I do believe that drafts are wrong. The military in a free country should always be volunteer based–albeit with possible financial incentives. A drafted individual potentially has their right to life taken away. Liberty is definitely taken away. And, given what PTSD can do to a person, often have pursuit of happiness heavily curtailed. It contradict the founding documents.

I can see throwing in some required training for protection, counting it as part of schooling, of learning the skills you need for life as a citizen. But not being drafted into wars.

As for how this applies to rich people: I find myself siding with the others that there is something different about being so rich you could basically scam the system, while not using that power to try and stop the draft entirely. I also have some problems with the misleading ways people are brought into the military, making it not quite as voluntary as it should be. No one should think it will “make them a man.” Plenty of grown men don’t join the military. I think that’s part of toxic masculinity to think you have to be this warrior type to be a “real man,” as this promotes violence as a solution to problems.

I recognize the need for a military, but I firmly believe it must always be a free choice to join or not join. One should have opportunity at some point to leave if it’s not what they thought they were signing up for–though I understand letting them leave at any point would be bad.

So for those who used their class status as a way to avoid military service, but did nothing to try and help anyone else avoid the service, I see those people as immoral. That is where Trump lies, for instance.

But draft dodging itself? No. Sometimes it was just self-defense. And someone defending themselves isn’t responsible for other victims–the perpetrator is.

And, yes, I know I will likely get pushback for making the government the bad guys who one needs to act in self-defense of. But I am, like you, speaking freely. I don’t believe a democratic government has the right to force people to put their lives at risk because it wants to fight a war.

107

For a majority of soldiers, dehumanizing the enemy is one way of making the killing okay. Hence: Redcoats, Rebs, Savages, Redskins, Jerries, Krauts, Japs, Wops, Dinks, Gooks (in Vietnam) and other less than flattering (or human) names for the enemy. To think of them as people with families and lives is to invite madness and perhaps to make you reconsider pulling the trigger. They torture us, so we torture them. We roast them alive and blow them to pieces from afar because to do so up close is too horrifying to contemplate. If you can’t see them, they’re not real.

108

Their motives do not matter. What they did matters. The put someone else in harm’s way.

109

No, the people managing the war put people in harms way. Just because the board is set up doesn’t mean you have to play the game.

110

This is not the case.

We are looking for the proximate cause. The cause that had no later causes.

  1. Nixon was a bastard (to simplify)
  2. Some kid decided to lie and say he had bone spurs.
  3. So some poor shmuck got sent to war in place of the kid in #2.

The proximate cause was not #1. The proximate cause was #2.

111

Yep. Perfectly correct. Did you notice that in The Pit is a thread discussing what we should call people who support President Trump? Trumpnik. Trumper, Trumpsuckers, trumpistas, Trumpettes, MAGAnuts, trump idiots all have their supporters.

But of course that is somehow different I suppose. I can’t imagine why. But I am sure it is different.

112

The proximate cause was the draft notice the next guy received.

113

I think you are right and I am wrong.

114

Since the goal is not to kill them, I don’t think it’s comparable. We recognize them as people, just not people we like.

115

This is so ridiculous. I should accept being sent to a war zone because if I don’t, some other guy will? Who likely will be sent regardless? And if I go and get killed, guess what? That also sends another guy. So I have a moral responsibility to go get shot at to delay other people going and getting shot at.

116

Hardly matters what the goal is. Hateful words are spoken and rattle around the echo chamber gaining in force. Eventually, someone acts on them.

Oh well. Not my fault. All I did was say words.

117

Yes. You ought not to put someone in danger to save yourself.

118

Get a grip. My refusing something is not remotely linked to the government forcing someone to take my place. The government is not some force of nature. It was people deciding to send other people to war. So to hell with your idea of the inevitability of me refusing sends someone else. What if that guy refuses too. Then the next guy. Does this sound immoral to you?

119

You make a very good point. If the circumstances were different than the circumstances would of course be different.

We live in the real world. When Donald Trump claimed to have bone spurs, his seat on the plane went to someone without the wit or wealth to do the same. When the rich and the clever bow out, they hand the dirty end of the stick to the poor and the slow-witted.

Which is of course just what happened.

120

You know, you’d do yourself a favour by not talking about this issue focusing on how various politicians have escaped combat service.

Not some gotcha/bothsides bullshit. I mean, this is a different thing.