Military Enlistment Processing Command(MEPC) is insane.

[UgghTheCaveman]

Because a National Guard, first off, has to be funded, has to create and maintain job slots for the "one weekend a month and two weeks a year", has to maintain the full time personell to handle administration and duties that CAN'T be handled by a bunch of two and three day a month "part timers", etcetera...there's alot of bookkeeping and administration involved in running an active reserve or National Guard outfit, and it ain't cheap. Whereas a voluntary draft is VERY low maintenance and low cost...a small office of clerks and a DB technician can handle it in peacetime...because all you're talking about doing is taking names, doing a bit of data entry, and that's it...physical fitness checks, and all of that ONLY come up IF AND WHEN there's a call-up.


For the second part..."why not go active right away?"...same basic reason...lots of expenses involved, need to create and maintain job slots, etcetera, etcetera. No reason to do so, if we're not going to hugely INCREASE our military budget. I've already gone into (at some length), the problems caused by our "we don't NEED to put two million into training each soldier when we can put three hundred grand into training each soldier, and train four times as many" thought processes...you get four times as many soldiers, and TRAINING costs less, but those soldiers are less effective, less professional, and TRAINING is not only not the ONLY expense involved in maintaining an active soldier, but it is honestly one of the LOWEST expenses involved...housing them, feeding themn, equipping them, providing medical, family support services, etcetera, all adds up to about five times what the "paycheck and training" budget per soldier amounts to.



I object to pure conscription...there should be NO "mandatory draft" or "mandatory draft registration"...this does NOT mean I don't support an inactive reserve...which is what a "voluntary draft" would be...an inactive reserve of untrained soldiers, willing and ready to be called upon in need.

[Major Maxillary]

although your argument has merit, I think i can finally articulate what it's flaw is; You assume that there would be a surplus of willing volunteers in this event. during such a time a draft would be wholly unessisary. because there would be so many people willing to join.

Conscription is only used when they need to fill the ranks real quick and they have fewer volunteers than slots to fill.

[Tellner]

Conscription is only used when they need to fill the ranks real quick and they have fewer volunteers than slots to fill.

As I said earlier, during popular wars like WWI and WWII there isn't a shortage of volunteers. The draft organizes things and keeps the levels where the military can handle things efficiently. In unpopular wars it's a way of forcing meat to step into the grinder.

[Major Maxillary]

In unpopular wars it's a way of forcing meat to step into the grinder.

Which is why I think we're better off without it.

[UgghTheCaveman]

And again, you ignore when someone points out that your earlier stated opinion is not just wrong, but DEAD wrong, Max.

A draft is NOT always "forced service"...as was just pointed out with WWI and WWII as examples.

I've repeatedly stated I object to forced or mandatory draft registration. That doesn't mean I object to having a "draft" law in place, so as to maintain an "inactive reserve", which is EXACTLY what our draft law is worded to do...my only objection to it (and the part that makes it "conscription") is that it MANDATES registration. If registration was voluntary, I'd have no objections to it whatsoever, and would, in fact, think it was a pretty damned good idea, since it reduces the expenses involved in keeping ANY sort of "active reserve" or "active military" and STILL dodges the moral/ethical problems involved in conscripted service. It doesn't bloody MATTER if they'd "have plenty of volunteers" or not, if they DIDN'T have enough volunteers, between voluntary draft registration, active military, and active reserve, as you said before, the country wouldn't deserve to survive.

[Major Maxillary]

And again, you ignore when someone points out that your earlier stated opinion is not just wrong, but DEAD wrong, Max.

No I'm not.

I've repeatedly stated I object to forced or mandatory draft registration. That doesn't mean I object to having a "draft" law in place, so as to maintain an "inactive reserve", which is EXACTLY what our draft law is worded to do...my only objection to it (and the part that makes it "conscription") is that it MANDATES registration. If registration was voluntary, I'd have no objections to it whatsoever, and would, in fact, think it was a pretty damned good idea, since it reduces the expenses involved in keeping ANY sort of "active reserve" or "active military" and STILL dodges the moral/ethical problems involved in conscripted service. It doesn't bloody MATTER if they'd "have plenty of volunteers" or not, if they DIDN'T have enough volunteers, between voluntary draft registration, active military, and active reserve, as you said before, the country wouldn't deserve to survive.

You know, I just realised that that's pretty much what I said in my origional post on this subject. why the hell are we arguing about this?

mandatory draft? no, we agree on that....

[Swordsman3003]

Interesting though, some people think putting every citizen through two years of military service is benefitial because every citizen can be called upon in a time of war.

[UgghTheCaveman]

swordsman, very true, many people do think that's a good idea...yet it's still MANDATORY service...and whether every citizen is trained or not isn't the issue, IMO.

I could give a rat's ass how "trained" someone is for a job, if they don't honestly feel the government has any business employing armed agents, then no matter how well trained they are, they'll be as worthless as a wet sock when you stick a gun in their hands, and tell them "defend your country".

Thus you CAN'T "call on any and all citizens", even if they've been through their "mandatory two years".

OTOH, a citizen who's VOLUNTEERED for a four year hitch has a hell of alot less to base any stance of "I didn't agree to risk my life, they FORCED me to" attitude on, even if s/he doesn't agree with the particular situation they're being placed in, because they volunteered for service, knowing that they'd be deployed if the command they volunteered to obey decided to send them, and taking an oath voluntarily to follow ALL legal orders, whether they agreed with them or not...they can't, in any way, use the "duress" or "I was forced into the military, and don't think we should be doing this" excuse to build a moral high horse to stand on, or to justify actions such as "fragging" or even passive resistance.

[Major Maxillary]

Interesting though, some people think putting every citizen through two years of military service is benefitial because every citizen can be called upon in a time of war.

That's okay, since it's only training, and not making them go into the military.


Of course, then you have what Israel does, pretty much everybody is in the military.

In the end it comes down to what works for who. And America doesn't need a draft. too many fat kids who would go crazy in basic from too much responsability.

[Ce6]

Or else you end up with problems like they have in Russia

[Swordsman3003]

Shit man, that is nuts.

[Moo Cow]

*pops in* Just wanted to say i really enjoy reading these discussions even though they often get to semantic arguments there are some good points brought up!

~Sara

[Putaro]

There's always the system that Heinlein proposed in Starship Troopers - only those who serve get to vote.

Heinlein said that he meant "Federal Service" which included military service and other things (like Conservation Corp) although the book seems to favor military service.

[Tellner]

There's always the system that Heinlein proposed in Starship Troopers - only those who serve get to vote.

Heinlein said that he meant "Federal Service" which included military service and other things (like Conservation Corp) although the book seems to favor military service.

A nice idea in some ideal world. In the real one the results are easy to predict. Pick your favorite unpopular group - Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, Chinese, Queers or First Nations. Three guesses what their success rate in National Service will be. And the wonderful thing is, once you throw them out they'll never have a voice in politics. It would be worse than the poll taxes and literacy tests because the victims would be permanently disenfranchised. No need to gerrymander. Only the right sort ever get to vote.

[Major Maxillary]

There's always the system that Heinlein proposed in Starship Troopers - only those who serve get to vote.

Heinlein said that he meant "Federal Service" which included military service and other things (like Conservation Corp) although the book seems to favor military service.

You're missing one very important detail; Federal service was entirely voluntary. evryione there was there because they made a concious choice to, in spite of all advice and persuasion to the contrary. also, they were all unable to vote until after they get discharged.

In addition, there wouldn't have been much point to talking about other parts of the federation, because this was a very narrow story about one man's experience in a very elite group within the service.

A nice idea in some ideal world. In the real one the results are easy to predict. Pick your favorite unpopular group - Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, Chinese, Queers or First Nations. Three guesses what their success rate in National Service will be. And the wonderful thing is, once you throw them out they'll never have a voice in politics. It would be worse than the poll taxes and literacy tests because the victims would be permanently disenfranchised. No need to gerrymander. Only the right sort ever get to vote.

Your theory relies on the assumption that such a nation would be bigoted, and unable to accept people who differed from the norm.

[Nithos]

Your theory relies on the assumption that such a nation would be bigoted, and unable to accept people who differed from the norm.

Not neccissarily; it could just be a population easily scared by percieved threats, real or imagined, and easily lead to do things that otherwise violate their stated principles in the name of security... like, I dunno, rounding up a population and keeping them in camps, or heaping more and more power in to a single executive's hands in the name of fighting this enemy.

[Putaro]

A nice idea in some ideal world. In the real one the results are easy to predict. Pick your favorite unpopular group - Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, Chinese, Queers or First Nations. Three guesses what their success rate in National Service will be. And the wonderful thing is, once you throw them out they'll never have a voice in politics. It would be worse than the poll taxes and literacy tests because the victims would be permanently disenfranchised.

Umm, hello? Blacks were disenfranchised as were women under the original Constitution. It was changed. And it would only take a 2/3'rds majority to amend the Constitution and disenfranchise any group you care to.

Not neccissarily; it could just be a population easily scared by percieved threats, real or imagined, and easily lead to do things that otherwise violate their stated principles in the name of security... like, I dunno, rounding up a population and keeping them in camps, or heaping more and more power in to a single executive's hands in the name of fighting this enemy.

You're not making much sense. All of the things you mentioned happened in a democratic country with universal franchise.

Some of our troops coming back from Iraq are running for office in the next election. And, interestingly, they are overwhelmingly running as Democrats. http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Fighting%20Dems

I think that Heinlein's key point was that rights cannot come without responsibility. Thoughts?

[Major Maxillary]

Your theory relies on the assumption that such a nation would be bigoted, and unable to accept people who differed from the norm.

Not neccissarily; it could just be a population easily scared by percieved threats, real or imagined, and easily lead to do things that otherwise violate their stated principles in the name of security... like, I dunno, rounding up a population and keeping them in camps, or heaping more and more power in to a single executive's hands in the name of fighting this enemy.

I fail to see how this invalidates my response.

[Tellner]

Bigotry and hatred of the Other is a common part of the human condition. Barring some great change in human consciousness (we can only hope) there is no reason to believe that future cultures will be any freer of it than past ones. The names change. The tendency remains.

We had to fight a devastating war to make Blacks anything except 3/5 of a person for purposes of Enumeration. Once that happened it took about a century including Reconstruction and all the rest to make it real. During that century it was damned difficult even with Blacks technically having political rights. Make those rights explicitly dependent on the whim of members of the class in power and permanently revocable and it would have been essentially impossible.

Nope. It's a nice idea in theory. But given human nature anything that makes civil rights a privilege to be granted at the whim of the government is a sure recipe for tyranny.

[Major Maxillary]

Bigotry and hatred of the Other is a common part of the human condition. Barring some great change in human consciousness (we can only hope) there is no reason to believe that future cultures will be any freer of it than past ones. The names change. The tendency remains.

So hating an artificial grouping is natural? The civil rights movement succeeded ten years ago. give it a rest. I don't hate anyone, i distrust many, but it's not all in one group. racism is not a natural condition. it's a learned behaviour based entirely around deep rooted notions of superiority. and we only stoped condoning such thoughts very recently. with time and education, it will fade away.

Nope. It's a nice idea in theory. But given human nature anything that makes civil rights a privilege to be granted at the whim of the government is a sure recipe for tyranny.

Did you even read the damn book?

They all had the full rights and priviles of citizens, the only thing they had to earn was their franchise, which they did through service to their nation.