View Full Version : HR 163: The Universal Draft
DennyA
12-16-2003, 07:08 PM
There's a bill fermenting in Congress (which of course nobody is going to touch until after the national election) to require every American between 18 and 26 -- male and female -- to do two years of mandatory military or civilian service. No college deferments.
It seems too ludicrous to ever pass, but then again, the government has certainly done some ludicrous things. Not to mention the fact that you're going to see a lot of people deciding not to re-enlist or join the guard/reserves after the events of the past couple of years. So you never know.
To see the bill, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and type HR163.
I'm hoping this was just some representative's lame attempt at doing his own version of "A Modest Proposal."
DennyA
12-16-2003, 07:12 PM
Replying to myself...
It looks like the congressweiner who proposed this was trying to make a political statement:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/ny15_rangel/sharedsacrifice010703.html
But still... Be a bitch for you 26-and-unders if this thing makes it to the House floor.
MikeSofaer
12-16-2003, 07:15 PM
There's a feeling that young people in this country aren't involved with the govenment. Switzerland has something like this, as does Israel (for obvious reasons, I hope no more Israel in this thread,) the hope is that people feel connected.
Rangel keeps doing this, despite the fact that US Army doesn't need or want a whole pile of draftees. The armed forces are not mechanisms for social change, they're there to win wars and keep us safe. The fact that sometimes social change comes about because of them is completely accidental.
Midnight Son
12-16-2003, 08:17 PM
Ve must haff a reliable source off cannon fodder for the fodderland! As the Oil Wars continue and intensify..... (Well, back to work on the ol' apocalyptic novel...)
Jason McCullough
12-16-2003, 08:34 PM
Talk about the worst possible time to introduce a good idea.
Talk about the worst possible time to introduce a good idea.
Its a horrible idea.
Jason McMaster
12-16-2003, 08:45 PM
Its a horrible idea.
Agreed, though I'll be 27 in a little under 2 months, my wife is only 23
Bob Violence
12-16-2003, 10:01 PM
Switzerland has something like this, as does Israel (for obvious reasons, I hope no more Israel in this thread,) the hope is that people feel connected.
Practically every country in Europe had something like this until fairly recently. I'm sure there's lots of countries elsewhere with a similar practice (I think Taiwan is one, not surprisingly). AFAIK the U.S. has never ever had a peacetime draft, which is fairly unique.
Gary Whitta
12-16-2003, 10:10 PM
There's nothing wrong with the idea of national service, as it's known in Europe. A year or two in the army might just slap some discipline and respect into our whiny punk-ass youth and go some way to doing away with the entitlement culture that's under the discussion in another thread.
I'd vote for it.
Jason McCullough
12-16-2003, 10:16 PM
Switzerland has something like this, as does Israel (for obvious reasons, I hope no more Israel in this thread,) the hope is that people feel connected.
Practically every country in Europe had something like this until fairly recently. I'm sure there's lots of countries elsewhere with a similar practice (I think Taiwan is one, not surprisingly). AFAIK the U.S. has never ever had a peacetime draft, which is fairly unique.
Yeah, our history is.....unique. Letting rich people buy their way out of the civil war, for example.
Kevin Perry
12-16-2003, 10:18 PM
Probably not in the army, as they neither want nor need millions of people who don't want to be there. Probably a CCC or local Peace Corps. The Clinton administration founded something like this, but I can't remember the name offhand.
It would be a really good idea if it fell between the high school and college years. If I'd had had the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of people my own age and screw around for a couple years first, I might not have wasted my college opportunities like I did. Now that college has become expected for all lower-middle class and above in America, it's not taken very seriously at all by the students. Moving the college experience that much further past the last remnants of adolescence would help.
Bob Violence
12-16-2003, 10:28 PM
Yeah, our history is.....unique. Letting rich people buy their way out of the civil war, for example.
That's not unique.
Welcome to america, the land of freedom -Except those 2 years of indentured servitude....
bee cubed
12-17-2003, 06:44 AM
hrm. i think it is an interesting idea, and not necessarily a bad one. until it was accepted, though, it would be hellish to administer and enforce. and i think it would take a looong time until it was accepted.
and like other people already pointed out, what the hell is the armed forces going to do with millions of generally immature short term recruits that don't really have any interest in being there?
Switzerland has something like this, as does Israel (for obvious reasons, I hope no more Israel in this thread)
Actually, the reasons for it in Israel are not entirely obvious, and they do relate directly to why you might want to have it in the US.
Israel's a very fractured society, with lots of little groups (Yemenits, Russians, Western Europeans, and on and on...) that don't interact with each other very much on a regular basis. The army (in theory) provides a big melting pot, forcing folks to get to know each other at least a little bit, and to create at least one common bonding experience.
Does it work? To some extent it probably does.
Gav
DennyA
12-17-2003, 07:46 AM
Not just the armed forces -- it says social service, too. So the government could make you care for the infirm or build highways.
Hey, it's a great idea for punk kids. But it'd throw a hell of wrench into the plans of kids who have their act together and are planning to go to college after high school and launch their career path.
Plus it doesn't take into account kids. What about about those 18 to 20 year olds who have children? (Yeah, I'm of a firm mind that nobody should be allowed to breed before 25, but it happens.)
Squirrel Killer
12-17-2003, 07:52 AM
Israel's a very fractured society, with lots of little groups (Yemenits, Russians, Western Europeans, and on and on...) that don't interact with each other very much on a regular basis. The army (in theory) provides a big melting pot, forcing folks to get to know each other at least a little bit, and to create at least one common bonding experience.
While I won't deny this as one reason for Israel's required service, I think the most important reason would be the fact that Israel is surrounded by populous countries who would like nothing better than to see Israel destroyed (especially earlier in Israel's history).
MikeJ
12-17-2003, 08:08 AM
Damn punk kids. I'll send you all to the ARMY, that'll teach ya. <shakes cane>
Seriously, I hope everyone over 26 who supports this has already put in their 2 years.
nutsak
12-17-2003, 08:14 AM
It's a stupid idea - heck I don't even live in the US of A and I think it sucks.
Mr Whitta, going out on a limb here, but have you ever been in the army? If so, did you volunteer or were you drafted? (I don't know how old you are), if you got drafted did you like the idea,.. then again - if you got drafted why didn't you volunteer?
Do you have kids that would fall into this age group? Would you be happy for them to be put into the army , possibly sent off to another country instead of going on with what they want to do with their lives and possibly killed?
There's other ways to teach good discipline, one of them is good parenting and education. :roll:
I have really mixed feelings on this.
On one hand, this works in Europe because those nations are substantially smaller than the US, and it's important that all citizens be trained in the use of arms in the unlikely event they have to fend off an invasion. On the other hand, with the US launching little mini-wars all across the globe in the name of "preventative maintenance", I'd really hate to give them an incentive to expand their operations, especially with my child. Defense is one thing, offensive maneuvers are another matter entirely.
I've certainly seen a fair number of utterly useless 18-20 year olds who no doubt would benefit from a little discipline and teamwork training. On the other hand, you're asking kids who already have a plan to put their lives on hold while they learn skills that really have no application outside of the military.
So I really have to ask what the point of this bill is: to bring a little discipline to our kids, or to keep the military nice and fat for those extra little incursions with a low possibility of success?
awdougherty
12-17-2003, 08:26 AM
I have really mixed feelings on this.
On one hand, this works in Europe because those nations are substantially smaller than the US, and it's important that all citizens be trained in the use of arms in the unlikely event they have to fend off an invasion. On the other hand, with the US launching little mini-wars all across the globe in the name of "preventative maintenance", I'd really hate to give them an incentive to expand their operations, especially with my child. Defense is one thing, offensive maneuvers are another matter entirely.
This is why I don't like it at all. I don't trust my government's ability to decide what actions are worth risking my life for. As said in the quote, defense is one thing, but the way Bush has used the military hasn't made me feel all that comfortable.
Also, just how big of a standing army do we need to have?
DennyA
12-17-2003, 08:27 AM
It would be a really good idea if it fell between the high school and college years. If I'd had had the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of people my own age and screw around for a couple years first, I might not have wasted my college opportunities like I did. ... Moving the college experience that much further past the last remnants of adolescence would help.
Depends on the kid. Some kids would probably decide not to go back to college after they got out of the habit of going to school.
I had originally planned to get my PhD, but after our company was sold and my tuition reimbursement plan got pushed back another year, I was far enough removed from academia that I was ready to move on. And I can imagine some kids would be the same way about returning to college after a two-year break post high-school.
Most of all, though, I don't think the f*ing government should be able to tell you how to spend two years of your life. Sure, if the Nazis are sinking American ships or the Russians are crossing the Bering Strait, draft away. Otherwise, let the heroes who want to defend our country do their job and let my kid make his own choice about how he wants to spend his life.
Jason McCullough
12-17-2003, 08:42 AM
This is why I don't like it at all. I don't trust my government's ability to decide what actions are worth risking my life for.
That's part of the point - politicians won't be so eager to get kids killed if they're not all poor. Note that Vietnam's "draft" force was even poorer than today's AVF; it's part of the reason it went on so long. No one with power had to worry about anyone they knew dying.
Anyway, it's "how dare they government tell me what to do for one or two years!" vs. "how dare the government only use the poor to fight wars!" I totally don't get the objection to the first - the government (also known as "the voters") does lots of things without your personal approval. If you don't like it, vote against it.
DennyA
12-17-2003, 08:54 AM
If you don't like it, vote against it.
That only works when the majority of voters aren't bigger idiots than the government.
When you have senior citizen Jews accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan, I'd rather not put my life in the hands of the results of a popular vote.
It's time to end this democracy tomfoolery and just put me in charge. I know what's right. I'd be a loved, benign dictator. Really!
Kyle Wilson
12-17-2003, 09:32 AM
I find the groundswell of support for involuntary servitude in this thread very troubling.
Jason McCullough
12-17-2003, 10:52 AM
Suddenly democracy is on the ropes!
That's part of the point - politicians won't be so eager to get kids killed if they're not all poor. Note that Vietnam's "draft" force was even poorer than today's AVF; it's part of the reason it went on so long. No one with power had to worry about anyone they knew dying.
That's part of the point. To make the military more ineffective and increase the number of casualties of americans deployed in combat areas. Why not just start issuing infantrymen BB guns as well? The losses in any action would be so high that it would force the leaders to "rethink" the use of force.
A rather sickening rationale.
They already brought back Selective Service. That should be sufficient.
Israel's a very fractured society, with lots of little groups (Yemenits, Russians, Western Europeans, and on and on...) that don't interact with each other very much on a regular basis. The army (in theory) provides a big melting pot, forcing folks to get to know each other at least a little bit, and to create at least one common bonding experience.
While I won't deny this as one reason for Israel's required service, I think the most important reason would be the fact that Israel is surrounded by populous countries who would like nothing better than to see Israel destroyed (especially earlier in Israel's history).
Not really (and, again, this ties into the US question). You can take someone through basic training in 3 weeks (although 18-yr-olds get 3 months); after that, unless they're in a combat unit (which you have to volunteer for), they're not particularly useful.
At any given time, most of the 18-20 yr olds in Israel's army aren't doing a whole helluva lot. You could probably dump 1/3 or more of them with no significant changes. When I was in the army (before intifada 2), that proportion was probably even higher.
How does this relate to conscripting Americans? Well, for one thing, the army would be spending a lot more money, and not getting a lot back for it, unless we were in another war. And it wouldn't necessarily create a whole lot of discipline. When soldiers aren't training or fighting, there's not much to keep them occupied--it's hard, and kind of pointless, to make people get up at, say, 6 AM when they're going to spend the whole day sitting around, maybe doing administrivia. Referring back to my experience in Israel, which is on more of a war footing than the US, you'll have 3 people in a room counting pairs of pants to make sure there's the right number, when 1 could do the job just fine.
Gav
Squirrel Killer
12-17-2003, 03:02 PM
Not really (and, again, this ties into the US question). You can take someone through basic training in 3 weeks (although 18-yr-olds get 3 months); after that, unless they're in a combat unit (which you have to volunteer for), they're not particularly useful.
At any given time, most of the 18-20 yr olds in Israel's army aren't doing a whole helluva lot. You could probably dump 1/3 or more of them with no significant changes. When I was in the army (before intifada 2), that proportion was probably even higher.
Well, given that you've gone through it, I have defer to your knowledge. The closest direct experience I have is IDF deserter in college who portrayed the service as anything other than as a "melting pot" (unless getting shot at is a typical melting pot experience.) Still, I would be kind of surprised if Israel would have developed this particular type of forced "common bonding experience" had it not been for the Arab hordes seeking with every fiber of their soul to destroy Israel.
They already brought back Selective Service. That should be sufficient.
It never went away.
Well, given that you've gone through it, I have defer to your knowledge. The closest direct experience I have is IDF deserter in college who portrayed the service as anything other than as a "melting pot" (unless getting shot at is a typical melting pot experience.) Still, I would be kind of surprised if Israel would have developed this particular type of forced "common bonding experience" had it not been for the Arab hordes seeking with every fiber of their soul to destroy Israel.
Well, lets compare Israel to the last major European country with universal conscription: Germany. Germany is considering dropping their draft, because they can't afford it anymore. Without the Warsaw Pact, why does Germany need a large army -- especially one that they don't want to fund and can't deploy?
Now, I gather than one problem is that people that object to serving in the army do various other tasks (afore-menitoned road building, healh care, and what not), and so stopping conscription would stop that supply of volunteers.
So you go "well, let people do military OR social service..." But I read more and find out indeed, that "national service" was used with great effect by the Nazis to indoctrinate people.
So yeah, Nazis. End of discussion. If you're for a national service program, you're a Nazi. Unless you're McCullough -- then you're a Commie-Nazi. :lol:
They already brought back Selective Service. That should be sufficient.
It never went away.
I think it was a year after me that kids who turned 18 didn't have to sign up for it. After September 11th, they started making them sign up again. I guess they figured that by the time I turned 18, they already had enough people signed up for it. Though at 30, if they draft me, they'd really be scraping from the bottom of the barrel.
Woolen Horde
12-17-2003, 03:29 PM
Conscription-based armies are a relic of the past. They were great when wars were fought WW2-style; giant slugfests with nations fielding numerous army-sized formations in the field. But the problem is that conscription-based systems are limited in what they can do. You can't equip dozens of divisions with modern equipment, it would cost trillions. And the problem is that it takes over a year just to turn a teenager into an effective soldier, but they're only in the service for two years. So you're spending most of your time training them, and then letting them go just after that. It's a total waste of money and effort.
I think most European nations are actually looking to get rid of conscription-based sevice and going with the American and UK model of smaller, professional armies. It's better to have a few really well-trained and well-equipped divisions, rather than a bunch of useless ones.
But 10 active-duty divisions for the Army is too small. That's where we're at now. We need to get back to at least 12. We could bring back a couple of the Light Infantry divisions. The two we have right now get a lot of work (the poor 10th Mountain Division gets deployed everywhere), and as Iraq shows, we need more infantry and less heavy armor in post-war scenarios. We should also expand Special Forces, and we could use more Armored Cavalry Regiments. But the answer isn't drafting every 18 year old in America.
But 10 active-duty divisions for the Army is too small. That's where we're at now. We need to get back to at least 12. We could bring back a couple of the Light Infantry divisions. The two we have right now get a lot of work (the poor 10th Mountain Division gets deployed everywhere), and as Iraq shows, we need more infantry and less heavy armor in post-war scenarios. We should also expand Special Forces, and we could use more Armored Cavalry Regiments.
Tell that to Rumsfeld -- he doesn't seem to have much interest in expanding the army.
Squirrel Killer
12-17-2003, 03:43 PM
I think it was a year after me that kids who turned 18 didn't have to sign up for it. After September 11th, they started making them sign up again. I guess they figured that by the time I turned 18, they already had enough people signed up for it. Though at 30, if they draft me, they'd really be scraping from the bottom of the barrel.
I'm 31, and I don't remember them getting rid of Selective Service two years after I had to sign up. Considering that I was on a liberal college campus for four years after I signed up, I think I would have heard some of the commie-hippy-freaks squeal with joy had they disbanded it.
On the SSA's web site, they don't mention anything about whether or not they've been disbanded only to be reorganized right after 9/11, but this quote:
On May 18, 1994, President Clinton informed Congress that: 'Maintaining the Selective Service System and draft registration provides a hedge against unforeseen threats and a relatively low cost "insurance policy" against our underestimating the maximum level of threat we expect our Armed Forces to face...'
indicates that SS was still active in 1994, which, if my math is correct, is about 2-3 years after you had to sign up. Acting Director Lewis C. Brodsky has been with the program since 1986, further indicating that the program stayed open in the '90's. The closest to "continuous years Selective Service has been in effect" that I've been able to find is implied from one of their news releases, "Since 1982, Federal Pell Grants and student loans have been denied to men who fail to register with Selective Service." If the program was shuttered in 1992, there'd be no reason to deny student loans to men that didn't register with a closed program. Of course, I have no idea why they would note "Hey, just in case anyone asks, we weren't shut down in 1992 and opened back up in 2001!" on their site.
As for whether you'd get drafted at 30:
A lottery based on birthdays determines the order in which registered men are called up by Selective Service. The first to be called, in a sequence determined by the lottery, will be men whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed, if needed, by those aged 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. 18-year-olds and those turning 19 would probably not be drafted.
You're safe.
Wow, good to know that as of Sunday, Selective Service no longer applies to me.
Squirrel Killer
12-17-2003, 03:49 PM
Wow, good to know that as of Sunday, Selective Service no longer applies to me.
Heh, yeah I know. I double checked about a year ago, just in case the anti-war crowd was right... :wink:
Well, shit. I mis-remembered.
DennyA
12-17-2003, 04:29 PM
Selective Service was gone for a while after the Vietnam draft ended. Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980. I was in high school and was quite annoyed at him.
Anders Hallin
12-17-2003, 04:44 PM
I'd bet on a professional army over a conscription one any day of the week, without a doubt.
Jason McCullough
12-17-2003, 05:27 PM
Hey, I'm not going to argue that a conscription army will be more effective. I just don't think military service should be income-based.
One interesting possibility would be to make the military pay, oh, I don't know, $100k to start. Might fix most of the problem.
Hey, I'm not going to argue that a conscription army will be more effective. I just don't think military service should be income-based.
Huh? What does that mean?
I just don't think military service should be income-based.
How is military service "income based" in a way that every other freely selectable job isn't?
Midnight Son
12-17-2003, 07:42 PM
You civilians show your ignorance of military life. New recruits get paid below the friggin' poverty line.
You civilians show your ignorance of military life. New recruits get paid below the friggin' poverty line.\
What does that have to do with a draft?
Midnight Son
12-17-2003, 07:54 PM
Well, gee, they were just talking about income, man.
Midnight- Maybe you should do more than just scan for your list of liberal talking point words before jumping in to talk with the adults. McCullough isn't saying that wars are fought by the poor because we don't pay our soldiers very much, he's saying that the people who become soldiers are generally poor. It's sort of a Howard Zim thing, or he's trolling.
McCullough- Are you trolling? In a non-draft situation, of course the military is going to be composed of the poor and uneducated, because it's a shitty job that doesn't pay very well. Are you serious about willingly trading combat effectiveness for nebulously defined social good?
In a draft, we shouldn't be drafting the educated. Cruel as this may seem, but doctors have better things to do with their time than dig foxholes. Draft some loser with 2 years of high school, because we can always get somebody else to flip burgers part time if he bites it. We can't so readily replace our supply of doctors and lawyers are shit.
Jason McCullough
12-17-2003, 09:09 PM
Hey, I'm not going to argue that a conscription army will be more effective. I just don't think military service should be income-based.
Huh? What does that mean?
Who do you think joins an AVF? It sure as hell isn't a broad cross section of society.
Military service *shouldn't* be income based because unlike every other job out there, you have a disturbing chance of getting killed. Yes, yes, I know, with the current bout of mostly peace it doesn't matter; truck drivers probably have a higher fatality rate. The point is that in a real war you do have one.
On procedural grounds, in an income-stratified society like ours politicians will be a lot less cavalier about sending troops off to die when it's not just the poor. I'm of the opinion that the reason Vietnam lasted so damn long was that the establishment didn't have a dog in the fight; it was all careers and chess pieces on a board to them. I'm not saying they're callous assholes; it's just that "my son or my friend's son might die in this" tends to focus the mind.
In a draft, we shouldn't be drafting the educated. Cruel as this may seem, but doctors have better things to do with their time than dig foxholes. Draft some loser with 2 years of high school, because we can always get somebody else to flip burgers part time if he bites it. We can't so readily replace our supply of doctors and lawyers are shit.
Yeah, that's the American ideal right there - you're worthless! Go get yourself killed to keep the doctors and lawyers safe!
In a draft, we shouldn't be drafting the educated. Cruel as this may seem, but doctors have better things to do with their time than dig foxholes. Draft some loser with 2 years of high school, because we can always get somebody else to flip burgers part time if he bites it. We can't so readily replace our supply of doctors and lawyers are shit.
Bullshit. If your number is called in a draft, you go. Then the army goes "shit, you're a doctor! We can use you in a hospital...." If you've got a job that's essential to the war effort, you get a deferment. This happened in WW2 if say, you were an aircraft designer.
And who really needs lawyers here anyway... to the trenches! Remember that awful Civ variant with the lawyer?
Brad Grenz
12-17-2003, 11:27 PM
McCullough- Are you trolling? In a non-draft situation, of course the military is going to be composed of the poor and uneducated, because it's a shitty job that doesn't pay very well. Are you serious about willingly trading combat effectiveness for nebulously defined social good?
Have you met Jason? He's always pushing some illconceived program to radically reform the social landscape to acheive some nebulous equitable ideal. Basically he's a commie. He's never so happy as when he's advocating the government spend someone else's money for some crazy idea that no one could say will work. Like a while back he thought we should force rich people to live next door to poor people. He had some bizarre idea that this would make them interact or something, and keep property values from becoming disperate between rich and poor areas. He's kooky that way. He's so over the idea of personal freedom. Witness his advocating the draft, something I'd consider unconstitutional. But we've had this argument before and he's not convinced something is unconstitutional until a new amendment comes along expressly forbidding it. Up to that point he's all about mob rule (you do whatever the mojority tells you!).
McCullough- Should cops and firemen and deep sea fishermen and all the other dangerous jobs get some sort of magic McCullough income equality treatment?
Ah, I see, that was a logical dead end you don't even agree with. You think that having the wars being fought by the rich will stop war. I think our politicians are little more mature than that. They may be evil liars out for personal gain, but I don't think they are that simple.
But yes, it's insane to draft productive citizens. Doctors and lawyers and computer programmers are more useful to society than burger flippers. There's nothing wrong with a draft that gives exemptions for being valuable to civilian society. Drafts are bad enough ideas as is.
To summarize the McCullough income-based draft plan:
Cons:
Society back home loses productivity
Morale of army suffers
Pros:
McCullough feels better about the issue
Doug Erickson
12-17-2003, 11:44 PM
If we're gonna use the poor as cannon fodder, then they're not QUITE as worthless as current Welfare opponents would have you believe, eh?
LAZY BASTARDS ALL THEY'RE GOOD FOR IS STOPPERING A FOXHOLE WITH THEIR FAT DRUG-ADDLED MINIMUM-WAGE CORPSES
Jason McCullough
12-18-2003, 12:01 AM
McCullough- Should cops and firemen and deep sea fishermen and all the other dangerous jobs get some sort of magic McCullough income equality treatment?
Oh please, the fatality rate in those jobs is not even remotely in the same class as the army during a real war. I also have a hell of a time believing you seriously consider "the way the state carries out its responsiblity to defend itself" comparable to "deep sea fishing."
I'm also amazed by the naked rhetoric that comes out on this subject - "the lives of the rich are worth more!" Jesus. I also have to say it's a miracle we won WWII, considering how incompetent draftees are and everything.
Anyway, a perfectly acceptable compromise to me would be paying soldiers an absolute fuckload of money. Somehow I bet that's not ok, either.
Though the highlight is Grenz suggesting the draft is unconstitutional.....
Jason McCullough
12-18-2003, 12:11 AM
Oh, congratulations on reinterpreting my statement that politicians would be more careful if the best and brightest were at risk into a carte blanche opposition to war itself.
So what's the fatality rate that makes income distribution relevant? As to paying soldiers more, uh, we don't have a problem with our peacetime volunteer rates, so I'd say we pay just about the right amount.
Paying them more would just give us a bunch more soldiers, who all cost way too much. That might work in the old days where the only training you needed was "the sharp part goes in the other guy" and you'd send everybody back to their hut and field after the war, but current doctrine calls for a small army of well trained professionals.
It's not about the value of a life, it's about what's best for society. If we have to send somebody to war, and one of them is a doctor and the other a burger flipper, I'll keep the doctor home. If it makes you feel better, the US Army provides life insurance to it's soldiers at pretty low rates given that they do have dangerous jobs.
Hey, and whatever happened to
Hey, I'm not going to argue that a conscription army will be more effective.
Doug Erickson
12-18-2003, 12:17 AM
It's kinda funny that you can value a war, but not those who actually fight it.
Oh, wait, I'd forgotten that we pay our soldiers in patriotic platitudes and the occasional overwrought speech -- mere dollars are saved for the doctors and lawyers and CEOs.
Jason McCullough
12-18-2003, 12:39 AM
I didn't argue it'd be more effective; I just don't think it'd make too much difference.
Though if you're worried about effectiveness, I've got to wonder why you'd oppose paying them more - seeing how, you know, it'd attract people who are better able to perform the job, the same as every other market transaction. And I'm not following how paying them more leads to a higher number of soldiers, seeing how head count is set by Congress.
Edit: the more I look at just really raising their pay, the better it looks. About a million draftees, $37k average salary, so it'd cost $100 billion or so, which is around a 25% one-time increase in the Pentagon budget. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Jason McCullough
12-18-2003, 01:45 AM
Oh, I just realized something: are you using "value to society" in a "necessary for the home front" type of meaning? Like, "doctors (if the military already has all the ones it needs) are more valuable to society at large to be home treating people, but you can't really say the same thing about stockbrokers"? I could see that. My apologies if I misinterprated that into "rich people's lives are worth more."
That kind of reasoning led to the egregious Vietnam draft exemptions, though, so I'm not sure where to draw the line there.
Squirrel Killer
12-18-2003, 09:42 AM
Can we just leave out the lawyers on this discussion of "worth to society"? I don't mean this as a stereotypical "Kill the Lawyers" reaction. I just mean, if we lost 10% of the lawyer population, I think the nation would manage to carry on (after grieving for the inherent loss of life). If we lost 10% of the doctors, the nation would have a lot more problems dealing with vital health care needs. Even with that, however, doctors should still be eligible for the draft, just instead of sending them to a foxhole, send 'em to a medical unit.
I have no problem with an AVF generally coming from a poorer background, since it's a choice that they themselves make to enter service. During a draft, however, it would be immoral for the military to continue pulling from the poor. The idea that politicians would stop being militarily adventerous if Paris Hilton was in uniform is not grounded in reality. Did Clinton really think he could get away with going into Somolia because it was just kids from the barrio? It's a nice pat theory, but there's no meat to it.
Woolen Horde
12-18-2003, 09:53 AM
gah
This "well, you make more money, therefore you should be exempt from a draft" idea is just as stupid as the "we should have a peacetime draft" idea.
If a draft is ever reinstated, I hope its not the Vietnam-era draft. No outs for people in the National Guard -- and college students get the chance to finish their semester, or their final year if they're a senior.
Oh please, the fatality rate in those jobs is not even remotely in the same class as the army during a real war.
Which would be far worse under a draftee based army. How many were lost in the last 2 US wars fought by a volunteer military? About 500 total over 20 years? I can name MANY more professions far more lethal than that.
Derek Meister
12-22-2003, 09:05 AM
But yes, it's insane to draft productive citizens. Doctors and lawyers and computer programmers are more useful to society than burger flippers.
current doctrine calls for a small army of well trained professionals.
It's not about the value of a life, it's about what's best for society. If we have to send somebody to war, and one of them is a doctor and the other a burger flipper, I'll keep the doctor home.
... in that case, you will end up with a military that will lose any battle it enters.
In case you missed the memo, modern combat involves far more than merely standing large numbers of soldiers with rifles on opposite sides of a field and hoping you hit more of them than they do of you.
Nearly all of the big "important to society" professions mentioned are also needed by the military as well, even in combat.
When people are being killed and hurt, obviously you're going to need doctors. And not just back in some nice safe hospital, but out with the units themselves.
Lawyers are always needed, as even in combat there's eventually a number of cases that will have to be decided, whether it be court marshals of our own troops, or even more likely, field trials of enemy combatants. The biggest use for lawyers in the military is to help take care of legal issues back home, including everything from bankruptcy, divorce, taxation, power of attorney for family members, etc for the troops fighting so that those troops can worry more about shooting sharp things into the enemy rather than whether they filled the proper forms so that their wife can legally handle their financial matters.
Computer techs are always needed, as the modern military relies on technology rather heavily these days. Networks are everywhere, and most modern encrypted radio communication equipment is a far jump from the simple walky-talkies you had as a kid. The number of computer systems running on the modern naval ship alone is enough to take the care of several well-trained computer specialists.
In the end, if there's a profession that is truely useful to you as a civilian, chances are, it's equally, if in a slightly modified version, useful to you as a soldier as well.
I say this having a sister who has a medical degree, and is a doctor for the US Air Force, and a brother who has a degree in psychology and another in mathematics who flies Chinooks for the US Army, and has been to Afghanistan and currently Iraq. I say this as having served with several headquarter units and field units where my degree in computer science came in useful: Burger flippers alone will not win you a war.
You want fries with that?
Derek- Uh, our small army of well trained professionals has done pretty freaking well over the past quarter century.
The point is that we didn't need to draft your sister and whatever. We draft when we need soldiers, and the primary reason we'd need soldiers is because they are dying. We'd need infantry.
Doctors and lawyers don't die much in the military. Not a lot of frontline discovery hearings.
Derek Meister
12-22-2003, 04:15 PM
Derek- Uh, our small army of well trained professionals has done pretty freaking well over the past quarter century.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but there's been doctors and lawyers and technical specialists in the US military for the last two centuries.
The point is that we didn't need to draft your sister and whatever.
Actually, that's not entirely correct. The US Air Force paid $125,000 for my sister's medical training, and only required as repayment a few years in the Air Force Reserves, simply because they needed trained medical staff enough that it was worth such incentives. She ended up just going as a full-time officer on her own.
The US Army paid $40,000 to get my brother his degrees because they needed well-trained soldiers for the position he ended up in, and most ROTC units will pay for most, if not all, of your college education simply because they need degreed soldiers in leadership roles.
You can go to any post-secondary education organization and see numerous attempts to recruit law school, medical school and even veterinary school students, as such are heavily needed in the modern US Military establishment.
We draft when we need soldiers, and the primary reason we'd need soldiers is because they are dying. We'd need infantry.
That was only always true in the past, but if you'll take the time to read the reasons given for a new draft, you'll find one of the main reasons being the lack of volunteers.
Recruitment has always been a tough sell, to the point where you'll see everything from television commercials, sponsored atheletes and race car teams, and even video games, all in an attempt to raise the numbers as the times of people rushing off to join begin to slowly drop towards those numbers found after the Vietnam War.
Additionally, I think you may be mistaken as to the actual make-up of the modern military. On average, for every one infantryman, you'll need between six and ten soldiers in support positions, a good number of which will require exactly those qualified professonals you believe should be exempt. The military cannot survive merely on burger flippers with an M16A2.
Doctors and lawyers don't die much in the military. Not a lot of frontline discovery hearings.
You're actually incorrect there, but regardless, if we took what you're saying to be true, that's actually a good reason not to preclude such individuals from the draft. After all, if death isn't an immediate concern, why should they be afraid of something that the poor and uneducated should be forced to face?
However, the truth is that death isn't the main reason we lose troops. During the entire time in Operation Iraqi Freedom we've lost a few hundred troops due to combat. In the same time period thousands of troops reached the end of their terms of service and retired.
I don't agree with the idea of a draft, as it will certainly negatively impace our military's readiness factor, but if it were instituted, there's no good reason not to use it to recruit professionals whose services are just as badly needed as those of the ground pounders.
Uh, I'm having trouble arguing with you as it appears that you have absolutely no idea what "draft" means.
Actually, that's not entirely correct. The US Air Force paid $125,000 for my sister's medical training, and only required as repayment a few years in the Air Force Reserves, simply because they needed trained medical staff enough that it was worth such incentives. She ended up just going as a full-time officer on her own.
The US Army paid $40,000 to get my brother his degrees because they needed well-trained soldiers for the position he ended up in, and most ROTC units will pay for most, if not all, of your college education simply because they need degreed soldiers in leadership roles.
Huh?
Derek Meister
12-22-2003, 09:10 PM
Uh, I'm having trouble arguing with you as it appears that you have absolutely no idea what "draft" means.
That's okay, you just seem to have no idea what "army of well trained professionals" means. ;)
Believe me, I have an excellent idea of what the term "draft" means.
My point in showing just how far the US Air Force and US Army went to get my brother and sister to join, along with thousands of others through massive amounts of money for higher education in the more "professional" degrees was to counter your statement that "we didn't need to draft your sister and whatever."
Your statement implies that the US Military has no need of skilled professionals, which is untrue. For nearly all of its existence, the US Military has done its best to recruit those individuals into their ranks, and has gone to great lengths to do so.
The point of showing exactly how much money was given to my sister, especially in light of how little commitment they wanted from her, was to show just how important these individuals are to the retention departments, such that they spend over a $125,000 just to get even a part-time doctor into their ranks.
If the US Military feels that such individuals are so important that they will spend an order of magnitude more money recruiting even one of them versus the regular burger flippers, then there's a pretty good chance they need such individuals.
Hence the reason, should an imaginary draft of all able bodied people be enacted, trained professionals should in fact NOT be excepted from such.
Of course, in the real world discussion of H.R.163 (aka, the Universal National Service Act of 2003), the bill would require all men and women between 18 and 26 to perform a two year period of national service in a military or civilian capacity as determined by the President. Obviously within that range there's not going to be such a huge number of "vital trained professionals" such that our nation would be at risk of not having a large number of older, more experienced doctors, lawyers, etc around as your reasoning for excluding such professions would suggest.
Additionally, since the requirement isn't purely for military service, for those who conscientiously object to war, the bill assures that any military service would not include combat, or that the "draftee" would be put into civilian service.
Using Israel as an example, again (sorry, it's the one place with a draft that I have personal experience with), doctors spend more time in the army than others, not less. (That is, for reserve duty, the army can theoretically call you up for 45 days/year. Doctors/medics are one of the few groups that consistently get called up for all 45 days)
In general, highly trained folks are more useful to the army than not. One of my buddies used to get called up for the full amount, b/c he was good at analyzing intelligence. Truck drivers also get called up frequently, IIRC, b/c they're good at driving transports. But my memory is vague on that count.
So this idea that highly skilled people are too valuable on the home front, so the army won't take them just strikes me as bizarre.
Gav
Lenin said that he would force the capitalist nations to maintain military conscription until the uniform became a symbol of servitude rather than patriotism.
JeffL
12-29-2003, 11:19 AM
Lenin said that he would force the capitalist nations to maintain military conscription until the uniform became a symbol of servitude rather than patriotism.
Lenin also said that capitalism would implode upon itself and communism would be the dominant and natural order for all nations.
marxeil
12-31-2003, 12:39 PM
Switzerland has something like this, as does Israel (for obvious reasons, I hope no more Israel in this thread)
Actually, the reasons for it in Israel are not entirely obvious, and they do relate directly to why you might want to have it in the US.
Israel's a very fractured society, with lots of little groups (Yemenits, Russians, Western Europeans, and on and on...) that don't interact with each other very much on a regular basis. The army (in theory) provides a big melting pot, forcing folks to get to know each other at least a little bit, and to create at least one common bonding experience.
Does it work? To some extent it probably does.
Gav
Gav - If you are still living in Israel, you might want to read Ofer Shelach's "The tray and the silver" discussing subjects such as "Kur hahituch", mandatory enlisting and others. Very interesting read.
Gav - If you are still living in Israel, you might want to read Ofer Shelach's "The tray and the silver" discussing subjects such as "Kur hahituch", mandatory enlisting and others. Very interesting read.
I'm not living there any more, but I could get hold of it--my only question is how hard it is to read; if it's much harder than, say, the front page of Ma'ariv then I'll never get through it :( ; my Hebrew's too rusty.
The subject's still of interest to me, b/c I have family there, and you never know what will happen with my family (we'd probably be there now if my wife hadn't developed cancer)
Gav
marxeil
01-03-2004, 06:30 AM
Gav - If you are still living in Israel, you might want to read Ofer Shelach's "The tray and the silver" discussing subjects such as "Kur hahituch", mandatory enlisting and others. Very interesting read.
I'm not living there any more, but I could get hold of it--my only question is how hard it is to read; if it's much harder than, say, the front page of Ma'ariv then I'll never get through it :( ; my Hebrew's too rusty.
The subject's still of interest to me, b/c I have family there, and you never know what will happen with my family (we'd probably be there now if my wife hadn't developed cancer)
Gav
Sorry to hear about your wife :(
The book is not hard to read. The author is actually a reporter for "Yediot". It's written quite plainly.
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