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Drafting Only Men for the Military Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules
- adamnemecek 8y agoHow about getting rid of draft altogether?
- koolba 8y agoOn the contrary, make it mandatory with no exemptions. That way rich or poor, we all have skin in the game and suddenly people’s opinions on foreign policy directly impact their sons and daughters.
- whatshisface 8y agoThat didn't prevent Vietnam.
- aethros 8y agoYea because a fuckton of rich white men were able to get their sons deferments. Have you not listened to Fortunate Son? Also women were not in the draft, to the previous commenter's point.
- RickSanchez2600 8y agoWomen, transgender, non-binary etc should all be included in a draft.
- nerflad 8y agoIt's a nice thought but look at, for example, Donald Trump's deferment to see how it actually plays out for rich people.
- maxerickson 8y agoHow is that an interesting response to "make it mandatory with no exemptions." You could explain why you are cynical about it happening, but just saying you are cynical about no exemptions is pretty boring.
- ndnxhs 8y agoJust make all the politicians go to war. See how their decisions change.
- peterwwillis 8y agoThen you get Israeli politicians. Service is compulsory so they've all got at least an idea how the military works, and the older folks were involved in wars, and therefore ex military or intelligence officers. Some work toward peace and improvements, and some become hard-liners. So, sorry, but it's still hard to pidgeonhole them even if they've been to war.
- ekianjo 8y agoYou know what will happen then? They will never be exposed to actual combat.
- geowwy 8y agoIf society believed it was immoral to start a war unless you're personally exposed to the risks of warfare then there would be outrage every time it happened. In my opinion any politician calling for war needs needs to at least have a family member fighting in real combat. If I find out they don't then I will happily vote against them, even if it means voting against my ideology.
- ekianjo 8y ago> If I find out they don't then I will happily vote against them, That would not work because it would work only after the fact. You want to prevent this kind of things from happening BEFORE they are even elected.
- geowwy 8y agoThat's true but if it's an expectation we all have and violating it comes with social consequences then they will at least think twice before doing it
- 8y ago
- aiyodev 8y agoSo we should force a quadriplegic to join the military? We should force a hemophiliac to crawl under barbed wire? A blind person should have to learn to shoot a rifle? You said "no exemptions".
- dbcurtis 8y agoOnly a fraction of military assignments are combat positions. I knew one Viet Nam vet that spent his entire tour in an air conditioned bunker in Saigon hanging tapes on the computer that printed payroll checks. Another, technically in a combat role, spent his tours in the radio room of navy destroyers banging out Morse code. The problems you list are mostly surmountable.
- aiyodev 8y agoSomeone who enters the military goes through military training. If we're just forcing people to work, it's not military service. It's slavery.
- superkuh 8y agoNow that all people will be effected by the selective service's demands it's much more likely to happen. This is progress on that path.
- netheril96 8y agoThat is simply impossible. We’ve been at peace for a long time, but one day war will break out, and not enough people will join the military voluntarily.
- komali2 8y agoSounds like that might factor into the country's willingness to enter war at all.
- ndnxhs 8y agoSo now the war has been prevented. Seems like a good solution.
- anoncake 8y agoEvil Communist Islamic Fascist Caliphate of Mexico, Canada and China: "We're declaring war." USA: "We done have an army." ECIFCMCC: "Nevermind then."
- CamperBob2 8y agoEvil Communist Islamic Fascist Caliphate of Mexico, Canada and China: "We're declaring war." Drone operators in air-conditioned office buildings in Nevada: "Bring it."
- anoncake 8y agoNot a native speaker, I confused army and military.
- baroffoos 8y agoNo, it means countries would be much more willing to negotiate a fair deal rather than die over it. Why would you start a war over resources when you can cheaply buy them.
- anoncake 8y ago
- CalChris 8y agoHow about expanding it instead? If upper middle class families knew that their sons+daughters were going to Iraq, we wouldn't have done that stupid thing. Instead, we relied on a 'volunteer' class who didn't have anything better to do and then we kept them there with a backdoor draft. The Vietnam War protests ended when the draft ended. The war didn't end. Just the draft. Having a draft means that if you're opposed to a dumb war then you have to get out in the streets and in the politicians faces.
- adamnemecek 8y agoThey would still get out of it.
- panzagl 8y agoIf you think the military is mostly composed of those 'who didn't have anything better to do' then you don't really have any idea about the composition of the US military.
- opo 8y ago>How about expanding it instead? In the US the draft just allowed the US government to continue the Viet Nam war far longer than it otherwise would have gone. Over 2.7 million Americans served in Viet Nam. If the politicians could have possibly gotten millions of young people to drop what they were doing and go 5 thousand miles to fight in a civil war in a country most had never heard of before, they would certainly have done so. There is simply no obvious way they could have gotten that many troops on a volunteer basis, or they would have done so. >...The Vietnam War protests ended when the draft ended. The war didn't end. Just the draft. Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. The war continued, but US involvement ended. Having a volunteer force means the soldiers have to treated better and paid more than a draftee. Having a volunteer force in the 1960s would have meant that if the USA got involved, the Viet Nam war would have been fought with a lot more concern for the loss of life of the solders, and it likely wouldn't have been fought anything like it was fought.
- propter_hoc 8y agoIndeed, the abolition of the Selective Service System appears to be an option: "The ruling comes at a time when an advisory panel, the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, is studying the draft system, considering whether it should continue and whether women should be included." Makes sense too: the government already has all of its citizens' personal information. Why keep maintaining the SSS as a separate and redundant database - after all, they can draft whomever they wish at any time by decree, whether or not they're registered with the SSS.
- rdl 8y agoGetting rid of selective service registration seems like the best outcome. In the case of need for the draft again, we could implement it without the SSS. There's also the weird problem that a truly existential war which would otherwise justify the draft is also the kind of war which would likely escalate to WMD and thus make the draft irrelevant. My preference is, in this order: 1) No draft 2) Universal draft registration-only 3) Universal draft and national service of some form 4) Male-only registration-only 5) Female-only registration-only 6) Male-only universal draft/service 7) Female-only universal draft/service
- slowmovintarget 8y agoGood news! There already is no draft.
- jcranmer 8y agoIt's highly unlikely that the US will return to conscription, particularly for anything less than WWIII. The problem with draftees is that they tend to be less effective soldiers (since they didn't sign up to be a soldier), and the terms of conscription are too short to effectively train them--if someone is in the army for a year, and it takes 6 months to train them, you're spending a lot of money to little effect. The main value of undertrained infantry soldiers is to provide literal boots on the ground to bolster the mass of a fighting force, but modern warfare tactics have generally lessened the effectiveness of this kind of mass: an integrated combined arms team can easily steamroll a fortified infantry line, as was shown quite clearly in the First Gulf War.
- Steel_Phoenix 8y agoI think if they do that now, women will regret it for decades to come. Ending the draft the moment they would have been asked to stand beside their brothers, matching their promise to risk themselves in defense of our shared values? It would be a hollow victory for peace, and a great defeat for equality and solidarity. Expand the draft. Have all women of age sign up. Give it a few years to sink in, and then decide together whether to abolish it.
- curtis 8y agoWe haven't had the draft since 1973. What's in question is registration for the draft in case we ever decide we should need it again. I think this is largely a moot point, since we're well into the information age, and identifying all American citizens of a draftable age is likely pretty easy whether they are registered or not.
- lsiebert 8y agoI suppose the draft doesn't necessarily have to be for military service for a war with other countries. For example, if we learned that something large was on a collision course for the earth, we might have years to prepare to deflect it, or to build shelters, or something along those lines, but I can absolutely see a mobilization being necessary. Of course, there's no legitimate reason why we'd mobilize men and not women.
- henvic 8y agoThere is no legitimate reason to draft anyone. People aren't your slave. It doesn't matter that there might bad consequences if there is something 'to be done'. If you don't respect human beings as individuals in the first place, we already lost.
- ethbro 8y agoIf individuals would rather not participate in a society, with all responsibilities and privileges thereof, there are many alternatives to choose from. And the path to doing so is quite clear: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Renunciation-US-Nationality-Abroad.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI feel like "the human race will literally be wiped out if we don't all pitch in" is a perfect example of a legitimate reason for the draft. If you benefit from a society, then you have a certain degree of responsibility to that society. I personally don't think the draft is defensible for anything less than an existential threat to the nation, but the popular notion that the government shouldn't be able to make you do anything you don't want to is silly.
- badrabbit 8y agoMandatory military service would alleviate so many social problems in the US. * people from different backgrounds and walks of life would live and work together at least once in their lives. * people would recevie excercise and discipline training at it's most basic form. * there wouldn't be a caste of people that serve in the military from one generation to the next. * a lot more people would be exposed to the world outside of the US * exposure to different types of work and training opportunities can alleviate labor shortage issues. * last but not least, unity! America is dying as a result of extreme social fragmentation. I'd bet a lot less people would see issues as affecting the country as a whole as opposed to their "tribe" this way. Look at how the society is in countries with mandatory military service (S. Korea,Switzerland to name two)
- psychometry 8y agoSounds fine if we can replace "military service" with "civil service".
- baroffoos 8y agoExactly. You would get so many more benefits if you got those people planting trees around the city instead of shooting each other.
- c22 8y agoMaybe the military should just be tasked with more civil service work during times of peace. Then people will notice the absence of this work during times of war, putting political pressure towards ensuring wars are short and extremely justified.
- hermitdev 8y agoHow about we replace both with "service"?
- psychometry 8y agoBecause that's vague enough to be meaningless.
- newnewpdro 8y agoCompulsory service across the board has always seemed more appropriate to me. It would help with the lack of discipline in the civilian population, while engendering a better understanding and appreciation for the realities of combat and war. On the military side I think it'd add some much needed diversity and perspective to a group dominated currently by "America, Fuck Yeah!" types who volunteered to go kill people and blow things up.
- WalterBright 8y agoThere have been several wars where the slaughter of men was so extreme that the countries involved would have collapsed if the women were slaughtered as well, because the population could not have rebounded. I heard long ago (sorry, no reference) that the average French soldier was a couple inches shorter in WW2 than in WW1, which was attributed to the male slaughter (though I suspect that food shortages were a more likely cause). In France and Germany, after WW1 and WW2, it became commonplace for the women to marry foreigners and old men. I don't know if that happened in Britain as well. Baby booms are common after the end of terrible wars. I read once that people were copulating in the streets of London after the WW1 armistice was declared.
- randyrand 8y agoHow would that work? If there were 80 women left and only 20 men would the expectation really be that the remaining men knock up 4 women each? That doesn’t seem like it would ever fit our social norms and seems like a completely unimportant point.
- WalterBright 8y agoSocial norms tend to get suspended when mugged by reality. In your scenario, given no other supply of men (foreigners, old men) I would expect polygamy to become tacitly acceptable.
- spectrum1234 8y agoCertainly this would be less of a stigma considering 75% of men would be gone.
- dbt00 8y agoMen outside of mandatory service ages can father children.
- WalterBright 8y agoAs I mentioned, that indeed does happen. But there are downsides to that, too. Older fathers are a risk factor for abnormalities in the offspring.
- paxys 8y agoPeople here are mixing up the concepts of registering for the draft vs actually having a draft. Ending the SSS would just eliminate the registry, NOT the possibility of a future draft. Conscription has already been ruled constitutional, and there are a million better ways for the government to look you up today than a partially complete registry of where some people lived when they were 18.
- kypro 8y agoPerhaps it's unconstitutional, but there are biological reasons why across all cultures throughout history (as far as I'm aware) men are the ones who are sent to war. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but the idea of being okay with sending my mother, or daughter onto the battle field is more unethical than treating the different sexes as if they have biological differences. If women want to apply, then fine, but I do worry about a society whos men are willing to send their women to war.
- baroffoos 8y agoI worry about a society that sends anyone to war. Its completely unethical no matter who it is you send.
- globlist 8y agoNot into defending yourself or your country? You sound idealistic at best.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI think we're talking about sending people to war against their will, i.e. the draft.
- aynsof 8y agoWhat would you would do if you were attacked by another country? What if your peaceful trade partner was being attacked? What if there were a genocide occurring in another country?
- whatshisface 8y agoI'm willing to have a draft if everyone on the draft roll gets veto power over whether or not the war happens. I think your questions boil down to, "what if you were drafted to fight a war that you would have volunteered to fight anyway?"
- baroffoos 8y ago
- berbec 8y agoEqual rights mean equal opportunity and equal responsibility.
- MyHypatia 8y agoAgreed. Expanding the military draft to include women came up in 2016 as well. In 2016 Republican representative Duncan Hunter introduced an amendment to include women in the draft. Unfortunately his amendment was not a good faith attempt to address equal responsibility. He proposed the amendment as a joke, thinking that the left would never vote for it, and therefore demonstrating that the talk of "gender equality" is all hypocrisy. It turned out that the amendment actually had broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. However, it was fiercely opposed by conservative law makers. Hunter ended up voting against his own proposal (he is a vocal opponent of women serving in combat). The amendment ended up being stripped from the final bill in a procedural move. It seems that there is a lot of support for including women in the draft both on the Democrat and Republican side. It's disappointing that in 2016, instead of having a genuine conversation about equal responsibility, the amendment was proposed to mock the idea of women being drafted, and to make the idea of gender equality seem hypocritical. Here are some relevant news articles on the topic from 2016: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unlikely-birth-and-unseemly-death-of-an-amendment-to-draft-americas-women/483599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unl... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-women-military-draft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-wome...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kendallpark 8y agoI do share this "equality" sentiment, but I think there's a valid counterpoint in that only women assume the risks and responsibility of pregnancy and childbirth. Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to produce more members of society. There quite simply isn't a way to equalize this burden between the sexes for the foreseeable future. Some people see a male-only draft as a means to artificially balance this biological inequality. EDIT: Point out another group's reasoning that hasn't been mentioned yet, get downvoted. ??? For all the "forced impregnation" replies, forced impregnation isn't analogous to the draft. The draft and pregnancy are fundamentally different things that can't be made equivalent. The argument being cited here never implied that this would be an equivalent exchange. It's not.
- johan_larson 8y agoEnding the Selective Service System is certainly an option. It's unlikely the US will need a mass draft any time soon, and if it did need to draft young people (or just men) in large numbers, it wouldn't be all that difficult to assemble lists of them through other records. Just use high-school records, or drivers licenses or census lists.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoVaguely related question. Should a draft begin, and you’re not keen on shipping out to the front lines. What could you do to avoid that that isn’t illegal? Say I have a lot of experience in something that I would think the military would make better use of like ML. Is the move to sign up pre emptively to do that? Or would you assume to be assigned to such a role if capable?
- snek 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector You can also pursue higher education. I don't have answers for what choices you have once you've actually joined the military.
- hahajk 8y agoProbably your best bet, given that there’s no college loopholes or similar, is to work for a DoD contractor like Lockheed. Active Duty doesn’t need ML experts (and active duty has little control over their assignments, so you’ll just as likely be configuring networks on the front lines.)
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI believe if you volunteer, you have more input into where you're assigned, and if you have a valuable non-front-line talent that would factor in as well. So if you can't find some way to avoid it entirely, then I think volunteering before you're drafted would serve best.
- paxys 8y agoBone spurs
- rmcpherson 8y agoYou could become a conscientious objector, and it’s even possible to get out of the military this way (my father did). Unfortunately, the Selective Service does not recognize conscientious objectors when there is not a draft so it’s hard to get that status now.
- 8y ago
- tiredwired 8y agoDrones and robots fight the future wars.
- mnm1 8y agoThis pretty much guarantees we'll never have a draft in America again for bullshit reasons like Vietnam if it's upheld by the Supreme Court.
- hirundo 8y agoThere was one occasion in my life where Selective Service registration mattered. I applied for a 911 operator job for a large urban county and it was a question on one of the many stacks of application paperwork. It was on a questionnaire with others like have you ever used marijuana, have you ever lied to your parents, how many traffic tickets have you received. Most of a year later, after a detailed background investigation that included questioning old friends and people in the neighborhood, they offered me the job. Can't prove it, but I got the feeling they wouldn't have unless I had registered for the draft, denied smoking pot, etc. The registration record was used as a test for lawfulness by that law enforcement agency. Ladies, you might want to keep that in mind if you think you might ever want a government job or a security clearance. Your choice will be remembered.
- pandaman 8y agoMost likely it's not just a test. Even though it's a county government job, the Feds probably made it a requirement to receive federal funds so it's enforced on state/county/city levels too.
- remarkEon 8y agoI'm amazed at how naive a lot of the comments in this thread are. You can hop over to other corners of HN or Reddit and you have people convinced that WWIII is around the corner, or the rise of China is going to lead to a hot conflict in the Pacific again, or that migration and refugee crises will continue to dominate political discourse and cause other security problems. I don't think it's controversial to state that we've returned to the regular flow of history and Great Power conflict. But a lot of what I'm seeing here amounts to discounting the importance of this because the "likelihood" of a draft is low, or the usual (wrongheaded) arguments about how because the percentage of people in the military who actually fight is low, so adding women to selective service requirements isn't a big deal. Serious countries don't think like this - especially a country that, allegedly, is supposed to shoulder most of the global security responsibility. You don't get to make hand waivey dismissals and still expect peak performance from these huge complex organizations, nor do we get to put off thinking about it because we think an event like WWIII is "unlikely for a while". On what time horizon does it have to be "likely" for us to have to actually engage with it? 50 years? 20? 10? I don't think we've thought deeply enough about this at all, and frankly I don't view the prospect of my daughter or sister being drafted into a war as "progress".
- x220 8y ago> I don't view the prospect of my daughter or sister being drafted into a war as "progress" Neither is the prospect of only drafting men.
- remarkEon 8y agoMore complete naiveté. The world is not a playground full of hipster cafes where people actually take statements like that seriously.
- eesmith 8y agoNorway and Israel have female conscription. Are you really trying to say that those countries are full of hipster cafes and only populated by naive people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Drafting_of_women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Drafting_of_women > As of 2013, countries that were actively drafting women into military service included Bolivia,[58] Chad,[59] Eritrea,[60][61][62] Israel,[60][61][63] Mozambique[64] and North Korea.[65] Israel has universal female conscription ... > After a law passed in March 2003, Tunisia became the first Arab country to universally conscript women. > In 2015 Norway introduced female conscription, making it the first NATO member and first European country to have a legally compulsory national service for both men and women
- ykevinator 8y agoIt is lamentable that we have come to devalue gender in the name of equality. An army of women will lose and that is independent of wanting equality for women.
- charliebrownau 8y agoYet we have examples over the last few years to give women an unfair advantage in arm forces, police, fire and workplace Funny how DIVERSITY quotas is not unconstitutional or REAL DISCRINATION or actual examples of Australian armed forces Refusing to hire women to force more wamans into the role and lowing the bar for women dramatically Nothing will make women more "equal" by - Discriminating against men - Lowering the bar of entry and job requirements Typically since 70s women have gained rights, with ZERO accountability and ZERO responsibilities and still today in 2015-2020 you have a lot that CLAIM they support "equality" yet DEMAND and EXPECT special treatment because they are females ------------------- Feminism since 70s * Replace Democracy with Socialism * women dependent on state for resources * women HATE MEN+Democracy/west * Misinformation + change words * Remove individual accountability for women via - abortion - No fault divorce - Duluth model - pussy pass in courts - Metoo - Kangaroo courts in education/uni - Removal of due process+video evidence - change concept "consent" - Allow "abortion" after the child is BORN , its "her choice" (Feb 2019)
- opo 8y agoThe USA should use this opportunity to step back and re-think whether registering for the draft is needed in this age. The whole draft registration program is simply a waste of millions of dollars a year.