Those who went to Canada believed they were surendering their US citizenship as well as the ability ever to go back home. That’s accepting a greater consequence than a few months in jail.
Scroll up to his earlier post and read where he said he sees no honor in serving in the military.
Diogenese: Did they really believe they were surrendering their citizenship? If so, what law did they think that was based on? Did any of them actually go into a US embassy or consulate and actually renounce their citizenship?
Prejudice means that a judgement is made before all the facts are in: it’s prejudging. What facts do you believe I am not aware of?
Daniel
Ah, my mistake. As I elaborated later, I meant that there is no more honor in the military than there is in being an orderly in a plague-ridden hospital who carts off corpses. In other words, it may under some circumstances have the same honor as a corpse-carrier; in other circumstances, it is extremely dishonorable.
The word I should have used in the post to which you’re referring is “glory.” There is never any glory in the profession. Again, I apologize for the poorly-chosen word; I thought my later clarification sufficed, but it clearly did not.
Daniel
In effect, yes. They believed that they would never be able to return to the US or participate as citizens again.
The law that said they would be arrested if they tried to return to the US.
I have no idea.
Does it really matter? Does fleeing an unjust law instead of engaging in civil disobedience make you a bad person?
Anyways, I suppose this question depeneds on a few questions. The first is whether the government has any right to press citizens into military service and if so, under what circumstances can it do so? I have yet to see an argument proffered in favor of this and I think its a necessary step for someone to do so.
The second question is whether the Vietnam war met the requirements for the government to be justified in conscripting ctiziens. I think its fairly clear that if there are any requirements that the Vietnam war would not have qualified. It was started on a fabricated incident in support of a corrupt puppet government. It was illegally fought and brutal on the local populations. Nothing good came out of it and nothing good could have come out of it.
The last question is whether people are justified in escaping unjust government action and whether a government has any right to prosecute an unjust law. I believe that its absolutely a right for a person to escape unjust laws and should not be held accountable for their fleeing. Consequently I see no justification for the government to prosecute citizens for escaping an unjust law. Saying that an action was illegal means nothing if the law was unjust. I have seen no argument for why amnesty should not have been extended except that what they did was illegal. Well duh thats the whole point, they are being shielded from prosecution of an unjust law.
I can see an argument that we have a prima facie obligation to follow a law, assuming we live in a democratic society: following even the laws we don’t believe in helps hold the society together, and holding the society together prevents the bloodshed of a revolution.
However, sometimes breaking a law prevents more bloodshed than following it does. In such a case, I haven’t seen an argument made that we have an obligation to be punished for acting in the ethical manner: allowing ourselves to be so punished does not necessarily result in any concrete good that I can see.
Daniel
If you were a conscientious objector and drafted during the war, they made you a medic and sent you to the nam anyway.
They put that big red cross on your helmet.
It was a great target.
Cite? I know for certain that an awful lot of alternative service by conscientious objectors was done stateside, so I’d like some statistics, please, of the number that became, as you claim, targets with crosses on their helmets.
You’re the one claiming that there was consceintous objector status that avoided participating in the war. You pony up the cite.
You folks might not be aware that there are several grades of conscientious objuctor recognized by the government. Chiefly, though, the distinction is between those who oppose combatant and noncombatant military service (1-O) and those who oppose only service requiring the use of arms (1-A-O). The former type of CO performs alternative nonmilitary service, the second type noncombatant service within the military.
Please provide us a citation for your claim that for a large number of COs that it was possible to avoid going over to Vietnam. Then, please explain why it is acceptable to force someone to do whatever those COs did when they refused to fight in an unjust war.
Here’s what I objected to: your tossing it all together, both the honorable and the dishonorable. Those who do any honorable job, and do it honestly and faithfully, are worthy of honor. The types of awards given vary with the type of employment. You mentioned that you don’t see a corpse carrier getting medals. Well, those in the military do as that’s one way the military recognizes achievement and service. Those in civilian life get whatever type of award their employer dispenses if they’re deserving of those awards.
Those who do dishonorable things do not earn honor.
If you mean there’s no glory in the military, then I believe you are mistaken. Those who do their military service honestly and faithfully–and above and beyond the call of duty–are certainly worthy of glory. I also feel the same about police officers and firefighters.
If you mean there’s no glory in the mortician’s business–I’m not sure, but perhaps that’s debateable (I really did like the Quincy movies when I was a teen). Let’s debate that in another thread, though.
Cool. What say you to debating the mortician’s glory issue in another thread?
Ghandi may have codified a formula for civil disobedience, John Mace, but that does not mean it is necessarily the only formula. For example, going back to the grandfather of the modern concept of civil disobedience, Thoreau, is there any evidence that you had to be caught and punished in order to stand against that which is morally objectionable?
I don’t think so. Of course, if you let yourself be caught and punished, your message is stronger because of the commitment and dedication you display for your cause; on the other hand, martyrdom is simply not that attractive.
Civil disobedience is passive or pacifist resistance. I may be interpreting the concept from a different point of view but it does not seem to me that getting caught and punished is a necessary requirement to make the statement that one strongly disapproves of the government.
There is a reason why going to jail is not a meaningful form of civil disobedience in this case. It’s a bit subtle, so bear with me.
The law does not say “You must join the military.” The law says “You must join the military or you will go to jail.”
Ideally, when you perform an act of civil disobedience, the attitude of “I am doing this thing that I believe is right, so what are you going to do about it?” Usually what happens is you get thrown in jail on some trumped up bogus charges. At that point, you have a good chance of proving your opponent unreasonable.
But in the case of the draft, it’s no mystery what they are going to do about it. You’ve been given a choice and the public is generally accepting of whichever one you choose. Going to jail is not challenging the system, it is accepting it and proving that it is working exactly as it should. You are not resisting. You are completely accepting the choice that has been calmly presented to you. Everyone agrees you got exactly what you asked for.
FWIW, getting CO status at that time was not matter of walking in and saying “I’m a conscientious objector.” First you are given a tricky interview where they ask you questions like “If God asked you to go to war, would you?” You are told to prove that you are against all war. It didn’t count if you were only objecting to this particular war. You will be asked to provide references and back-up documentation. They will do stuff like interview Sunday school teachers. You will need to prove that you’ve been a CO since before this particular conflict. Generally the only people who get it are people who are long-time members of a documented pacifist faith.
And they may decide your not really one anyway and stick you in a unit with the fear of a court martial if you don’t comply.
Even today, registaration cards don’t offer a way to register as a CO. An 18 year old that wants on the record as one basically has to scrawl “I am a CO” on his card and hope that at whatever point in the future they start using those things, it’ll work out.
But you could couch any law in those terms: You must pay your taxes or you will go to jail. You must not kill someone or you will goto jail. You must not break into my house and steal my jewelry or you will go to jail. You must drink only when you are sober or you will go to jail. What makes “You must join the military or you must go to jail” so different?
If your yardstick is reasonability, then that is up to what society thinks. Rosa parks was willing to go to jail and put the system on trial because she believed in the “reasonableness” of blacks being equal and not sittiing in the back of the bus. Draft dodgers ran to Canada because they knew that society would not see their actions as “reasonable”. They simply lacked the courage of their own convictions.
I’m no big fan of the rah-rah rag, but I certainly understand the irony of bashing the people who ensure my freedom to bash.
The problem is that it’s been a very long time since they’ve ensured my freedom to bash. Korea wasn’t aobut that; Vietnam wasn’t about that; Panama wasn’t about that; the first or second Gul Wars weren’t about that. This whole “ensuring my freedom to bash” is a canard that the military likes to promote, but that doesn’t stand up the briefest of scrutiny.
YOu will NOT hear me bashing the police who protect demonstrators from counterprotestors. THOSE are people who are ensuring my freedom to bash.
Daniel