Hypothetical situation: You live in a village with ten combatants. A bear attacks. Nine go off to fight the bear, risking life and limb, while the tenth sits around and picks his nose or something. Why should the tenth person get the benefit of living in a society that defends him if he is not willing to participate in communal defense? I wouldn’t tolerate that, and I don’t know anyone who would.
Yup, it’s okay that half the able-bodied men in my village are dead because being forced to fight bears is slavery and I don’t owe them anything, even though the bear surely would have eaten me if not for their sacrifice.
The only reason we are different from cavemen fighting bears is that our defense needs are adequately met by our volunteer armies… For now. So many of the people arguing against the concept of conscription are only framing their arguments for current conflicts. If a future conflict directly threatened your life, and our volunteer system did not produce enough combatants, would you still say the same thing? Would you rather die than participate in “slavery” by being asked to contribute to defense of the group?
Someone who expects the benefits of living in a civilized society, but is not willing to participate in the communal defense, is a parasite who doesn’t deserve to be part of the community.
The last time the bear attacked our village was over with in 1865. Since then we’ve forced people to go fight bears thousands of miles away from our village. How is that defending us personally against the bears?
My only point was that if we draft people, it should be to fill real military needs, not as a team building participation trophy exercise. If we need medics we should draft people to be medics. If we need computer hackers, we should draft people suited for that. If we need nannies we should draft people for that. If we need people to sleep in the mud and carry rifles we should draft people for that. If we need forensic accountants we should draft people for that.
Of course we need people for all sorts of roles in the modern military. But if we have an urgent military need for 100,000 chemical engineers, we shouldn’t bother drafting a bunch of knuckleheads who would be great at carrying rifles in the mud just to make it fair. And vice versa. If we have a draft it should be because there’s no other way to meet a real vital military need, and we should draft only those people necessary to meet that need and it should be as short as possible.
I’m just arguing against the “draft everyone” position. The modern military is filled with highly skilled specialists. We don’t need cannon fodder and bullet sponges. So it makes no sense to draft 18 year old kids who can barely tie their own shoes. We should be drafting middle aged professionals instead. Why should universal service start at 18? Why not 35? Seems a much more reasonable age to actually get some valuable work out of people.
If men have to do it, then women should have to. Don’t believe anyone who calls themselves feminist or for equal rights if they’re against something that they may not benefit from
I’ve always been a little put off when I’m filling out federal forms and they have the section for men about having registered for the draft. Why should they have to do something I don’t? Even if we never have another draft, the idea that not registering has lifetime consequences seems pretty messed up.
It’s not even really a making-both-sides-equal thing for me. It’s a reminder that I’m in this messed up system where my plumbing has real, legal consequences.
So yes, whatever happens with the draft should happen to both men and women. But what happens with the draft should probably be that it’s dismantled.
Your analogy is a little outdated and limited. A better reason to resist the draft is that the village tends to send its men out to kill other villagers or for stupid shit like stealing another village’s oil. Nobody argues that in times of crisis, everyone’s gotta step up and help and cowardice or parasites are looked down upon. But given our history, its much more likely that these bear fighters are sent to murder and steal instead. Why should anyone tolerate a draft where the chances of bear attacks are minuscule and the chances of abuse is much larger?
In this analogy the “bear” is actually a group of men from another village, who look down on the one cowardly shirker from their village who didn’t have the stones to come with them and attack your village.
In the real world the bear is the Nazi Hun invader, and the villagers are the Soviet citizens drafted to fight this wholly existential threat. Anyone shrinking their duty can go take their chances with the Huns. Or as the topic is women: if you decide to sleep with the Hun, you better count yourself lucky if having your hair cut off will be the only consequence of your treasonous actions.
The registration system hurts tens of thousands of men every year. All because we collectively forgot to shut down a wasteful program we didn’t need any more. We need to stop hurting people because of something so stupid, not double the number of people we hurt.
Here’s an analogy for ya Lord - a contemporary analogy: The “tens of thousands of men” hurt by NOT registering for the draft are like the Bundy cowboys who don’t pay their bills. They commit crimes against the people of this country and then cry foul when they go to the government asking for a handout.
I don’t tolerate conscientious objectors. I think they are cowards and parasites and don’t deserve to be citizens.
As I said in my original post, the only reason these people are tolerated is because our current defense needs are met by volunteer armies. If there was a direct and existential threat to the nation and the volunteer army was not adequate, I think a lot of people would be singing a different tune.
Some people are not going to take this. It’s going to be a battle. I have no problem with this. I believe that strong women makes things easier for men. But some people are not going to take this.