4 ms·

You could give up being a lawyer. A slave can't give up being a slave.

• vkou 10y ago
  You can't give up being a military-age male, when it comes to the draft.
  • jeff_petersen 10y ago
    You can shoot yourself in the foot or try to be a conscientious objector, I suppose.
    • vkou 10y ago
      That's only because of policy - there is no legal backing for, or against it. The policy's only in place because there's no shortage of able-bodied men. Once things get grim enough, the army will take anyone. Towards the end of the second world war, the Germans were drafting children and old men.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > You can't give up being a military-age male, when it comes to the draft. Right, you can't quit the militia, as that term is understood in the interpretation of the Constitution, and there is an express Constitutional power of the federal government to call up the militia. OTOH, the existence of that express Constitutional power and the long-understood Constitutional meaning of "militia" means that military conscription isn't a good reference point for the Constitutionality of any other type of mandatory public service.
    • vkou 10y ago
      Amendments are supposed to change the Constitution. Why does the original document supercede the amendment? Why even have amendments, if the unamended document takes precedence?