Conscription and...the draft

[AlmostGone]

Originally Posted by seeker5

This is a different issue from the draft. When the U.S. was exterminating various Native American tribes back in the 1800s, would the best thing have been to have a foreign country invade and start killing Americans and occupy America with an iron fist?

My post was in response to Erin's statement against picking up arms against another country. I wasn't speaking of the draft at all. What was done to the American Indian was a crime of untold proportion. Because that crime was committed, all similar crimes should be ignored? I doubt you believe that.

My point was there are some very bad people in this world. These people are not going to be stopped from their crimes against humanity by someone saying "Pretty Please".

[AlmostGone]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

lol That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Thanks for lighting up my evening!

With all respect, AlmostGone, you're talking about your country and citizen duties exactly like a nazi.

Someone should tell the millions of people trying to immigrate to the U.S. each year what a stupid mistake they're making.

Your "With all respect" lost something in translation.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by AlmostGone

The politicians haven't gained power, the American people have given it to them. You might think thats a matter of semantics, but there's a huge difference. My next point could be applied to any democratically elected government. We choose our elected leaders. My guy might not get elected, but I have a vote so I do have a say who our leaders are. Once these leaders are chosen, their job is to lead until new leaders are chosen. If I'm not happy with them, I cast my vote for someone else next time. But to rebel against every decision a leader makes because some don't like it is nothing but anarchy.

First, remember, the leader of the government (ie, the President), is NOT the leader of the people. When I vote for president, I do not vote for my leader, I vote for the one whom I want to be the leader of the government. The government and thus the president serves me. Not the other way around, I do not serve the president. At least that's the way this country was set up - a government that serves the people, not the people that serves the government.

Furthermore, simply because a leader is democratically elected does not means we should blindly follow their every decision. Hitler was democratically elected, and every single thing he did in Germany, including the execution of millions of jews, was legal in Germany, because he was the decision-maker. All those Germans who helped the jews escape were in fact, breaking the law and rebelling against Hitler's decision. Even in America in the 1800's, it was illegal to help slaves escape. Everyone who helped slaves escape was a criminal, breaking the laws and decisions of the top politicians. Even up to the 60's, it was illegal for blacks to enjoy the same freedom that the whites had in America, and many things the blacks did during the Civil Rights era to gain their rights...was illegal. Blindly following the top politician's decision simply because he was elected has severe bad consequences.

Relax, simply because people choose to use their own brain to make their own decisions based on their principles does not mean anarchy will follow. It's the very basis of freedom to have people refuse to blindly follow the wishes of our government.

[AlmostGone]

Whatever.

[danaseilhan]

I agree with the person who said we are not resource materials to be used up at will whenever our government feels like it. Additionally, we have something called the Thirteenth Amendment to our Constitution that says neither slavery nor involuntary servitude is to be allowed in this country. The draft is BY DEFINITION involuntary servitude.

I am ashamed of the so-called veteran who has been inveighing on this issue thus far, and slinging around his combat experience to add weight to his side of the argument. In the first place, having been in combat does not give you any more rights than any other citizen would have, nor should it. In the second, sir, you swore an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States and if you took that oath at all seriously you would not be casting aspersions on people who take the Thirteenth Amendment seriously even if they did not know consciously that was what they were doing. You cannot pick and choose which articles you will uphold; you must defend the entire thing.

I know what oath you swore, because I swore it too. As I did not get the opportunity to defend said sacred document with a weapon as there was no active combat during my term of service and as women are not allowed in combat positions, I will defend the Constitution instead with words. I find words are more effective in the end anyway, since your average human being can tolerate conversation a sight better than bullet wounds.

As for what Erin said about there being only evil deeds and not evil people I cannot entirely agree. The experts say that as many as one in twenty-five people in the United States may be a sociopath, or one who suffers (if you can call it that) from antisocial personality disorder. These people literally have no discernable conscience and feel no remorse for wrongdoing they have committed. Add to this the propensity of the average person to follow anyone they perceive as an authority, AND the tendency of your better-camouflaged and more intelligent sociopaths to seek positions of greater power and authority, and you have it there in a nutshell why so many nations start wars, including our own.

This is not to say we should continue tripping off merrily to fight wars having nothing to do with national defense; that is only our tendency to follow a sociopath's orders being put on display, at great expense to our young people and to women, children, and old people in other countries. Instead we should grow a collective backbone and begin fulfilling the promises on which this country was built, whether the "leadership" wishes to go along or not.

Presently, we send young men and women off to fight pointless wars for the sake of government cronyism and corporate profit, and this has been true for quite a long time; General Smedley Butler gave a speech in 1933 to that effect, boasting cynically that he'd run a racket on three continents that would put Al Capone to shame. I doubt World War Two did much to change his mind; had we entered that war for honorable reasons we would have entered it when Hitler was first taking over Europe, and we would not have turned boatloads of Jews away when they tried to come to this country to get away from him. In the end we did much good, but it was in spite of our bad behavior and misguided purpose, not because of those.

It's interesting that the present occupant of the White House descends from a man who once funded the German Nazi Party until Congress made him stop. First thing he did after the Towers came down was make sure bin Laden's family got out of this country safely. I wouldn't serve under him if you paid me the General of the Army's salary. But I wouldn't answer a draft to serve under any other President, either, because that's not a hallmark of a free country.

Additionally, ask any military officer who's honest and has command experience and s/he will tell you s/he'd rather have volunteers than conscripts; the discipline is better and the atmosphere far safer for the brass. Good morale means less "friendly fire." Bad morale means high officer turnover. Slaves with weapons are very, very dangerous, as any Old South slaveholder could tell you, if he were alive today. They would not even let a slave learn to read, much less carry a weapon. There is a reason some institutions are allowed to die. It is long past time Selective Service joined them in the grave.

But the sociopaths must be dealt with, you might argue, and I can agree with that. However, I do not think our getting into a war is the best way to do it, if we are not in danger. If a sociopath is running an entire country and they want him gone and ask for our help then we should assist that country in removing him through funding and supplies, but not with troops. If that country is happy with their leader and they are not bothering anyone else, then leave them alone. Part of being a free country is extending that freedom to other countries as well. Otherwise, what's the point?

If I or my loved ones were attacked by a psychopath (a sociopath times a hundred, I guess you could say), then I would have no problem with the notion of defending myself or them from him. That is not the same thing as amassing the resources of an entire political state against another one. It's simply me defending myself and/or my loved ones from harm, and while I would welcome state help in the form of an effective (but fair) police force, a full-out war is not necessary, and I find any attempt to frame war in the terms of a personal crime to be... shall we say "disingenuous," because I'm trying to be nice. The two are so far apart in meaning as to be virtually night and day. I can see with my own two eyes, thank you very much, whether I am in imminent danger of being raped or murdered on the sidewalk. I cannot see halfway around the world to discern whether some tinpot dictator in a backwater nation is really a threat to my country. I will trust my own eyes, not the word of some politician with the military-industrial complex in his wallet. That is all.

[AlmostGone]

There appears to be a common thread that runs through posts opposing this war on terror. "If someone were attacking me or my family on the street, I would fight them. Otherwise, they pose no threat and we shouldn't engage them."

That is at best, myopic, and more likely, suicidal.