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40 years ago - Clay v. United States
Posts
Also, its only a fantasy in that it doesn't exist in the US. Similar systems exist in other countries.
That your for a fantasy doesn't make that fantasy possible. Nor does your fantasy render me incapable of believing in the constitution as a valid legal document.
The technicality that it is still slave labor done for people who would rather not do it themselves? Tell me, what's the dollar amount it's okay to force people to kill other people against their will?
I'm aware. I'm also aware that it's an incredibly small number of countries. I'm acutely aware that none of those countries are America right now.
The American draft exists for times of war.
It doesn't exist to give young people a chance to get out in to the world, get some experience, save some cash, and learn some discipline.
It exists to send people to fight for an indefinite amount of time.
What we do have are selective service numbers every eighteen year old male in America is supposed to have, just in case the draft comes back.
You are pretty much forced to condone / agree to war if you're male in the United States. Which is insane.
We don't need it. If we're actually attacked, we're not going to have a problem finding people to fight.
What about Ali's civil disobedience? Should he have been arrested?
No, he shouldn't have. But the draft also ruined people that didn't resist it. I had a grandpa that was in WW2 (drafted) and one that was drafted but was not medically cleared.
Military grandpa got fucked up by war. Drafted but rejected Grandpa got mocked and made fun of by people for being a 'failure' and lived with survivor's guilt for the rest of his life when friends of his didn't come back from the war, even though he didn't do anything wrong.
It was because of my mom's experience with his guilt and the draft that she told us that if a draft were to ever occur, she was going to drug us and throw us in the trunk of a car and we were going to wake up the next day in Canada whether we wanted to fight or not. And I think she was dead fucking serious.
The process just serves to chew up as many young men as it can and spit them out.
I don't think anyone should for any reason. If you can't find people to fight your war you should strongly reconsider why it's being fought. Or go yourself if it's so important.
Do you think the draft was okay for a time like WWII? Just wondering (i'm guessing no)
A military draft can very much become institutionalized slavery, and if you're butthurt over that prospect because of a misguided sense of patriotism you should probably re-evaluate some things philosophically.
Edit- Also I agree with Feral's point that there needs to be a more aggressive expansion with funding and promoting civilian service organizations like Americorps, in order to get people to notice that there are more options than "go into the military or go to college/learn a trade." I am actually going to be doing an americorps contract this summer, and hopefully a year-long one following the seasonal one!
My argument is that if you believe in the constitution then you have to accept that congress has the authority to institute a draft, like it or not. The Moral issue, which is what you are arguing, is wholly separate from my constitutional justification for the draft. The constitution says a lot of things, back in the day it allowed slavery. Back in the day I would have to accept that, much as our founding fathers did. That doesnt mean I couldn't also be morally against slavery.
Feral: back to your banality of evil argument, I am conflicted as to what should happen there. The government should always provide outs for a situation like this. If it doesn't do so, then civil disobedience in my mind is justified. Is the disobedience punishable, i have serious quandries about that.
Currently, yes, it does make it law. No one denied that. What you said was
This has failed to ever, ever happen. I believe in the constitution. I do not believe the draft has ever been fairly implemented. In fact, it hasn't! See: Women.
Also, unfree labor does not a slave make, I guess if I used whatever hazy definition of slavery you seem to have, a mcdonalds worker is a slave. To me slavery encompasses a general separation of society denying the slave class from full and meangingful participation in the citizenry either economically or substantively. What you keep referring to as "Some rights" are generally the kinds of rights slaves do not have:
Freedom of worship, denied to most slaves
Voting: Ha!
Juries: Nope
Due Process; Fundamentally not given to slaves
Equal protection: They wouldn't be slaves if they got equal protection
So again, we agree to disagree: Fundamentally about what a slave is. Apparently to you military service = slavery, or at least mandatory military service.
And also you can drop that I claimed you dont' believe in the constitution. I never said that, my argument about the constitution is one of congressional authority.
If you think being forcibly enlisted into a military isn't involuntary then you are lying to yourself.
Courts martial do in fact require due process, (if you want cites I can get them) but that isn't the point, the point is that when you're a slave, you don't get process period; see dredd scott. Slaves get next to no, if any rights. I dare say any "rights" they may have aren't similar in any part to the rights service members enjoy, voluntary or otherwise.
I can answer this. He was black and muslim. He also spoke his mind and while not the speaker many others were, he spoke out about civil rights. And he spoke often. I know exactly what went through the draft board's mind. They were getting rid of an uppity *bong*.
Nine very smart people have also historically made countless truly cringeworthy decisions.
It's CO on religious grounds. So you treat him like any other CO. The error wasn't on Ali's part, it was on the Draft Board's part.
EDIT:
Thomelelas I agree Ali should have been given CO status, but since he was denied I wonder what to do with him then when all the legal options are out. Im 1/2 on the side of no punishment and 1/2 on the side of some kind of legal punishment for dodging the draft....
Seriously? They have wiccan chaplains in the Navy.
Of course, religious tolerance still doesn't mean being forced into perpetual service for them differs from indentured servitude.
Which is basically slavery.
I'm not sure what "on this point the supreme court dismisses out of hand the notion that a draft equates to slavery" is supposed to mean, in lieu of what I said. The supreme court has, does, and barring some miracle will continue to sometimes make awful decisions. Further, citing them as some inarguable authority on whether or not the draft is slavery (in a lexical and, yes, moral sense) in a discussion on whether or not the draft should be eliminated because it is slavery is a wholly circular argument.
Edit: More to the point: I'm quite certain that if I forced you to work the fields for me under threat of imprisonment, my giving you a pittance of a paycheck and "allowing" you to retain some of your rights would not go far to convince you that you are not my slave.
My argument is that the draft, as a legal matter, isn't unconstitutional, and that congress has the authority to call for a draft in the future. Walrus tried to tell me its slavery. In response i said the constitution doesn't see the draft as slavery. Because Supreme court says what the constitution is, and they say draft != slavery, my my premise is correct. And mind you, i've tried to separate the two types of arguments, the legal from the moral.
This matters to me because whether or not something is constitutional is the starting point for whether government action should happen, in my head.
You're argument is that the supreme court makes bad decisions and will continue to do so. Thats fine. But it doesn't remove the Supreme Court's discussion on what is and isn't constitutional.
Now as to the moral issue of a draft, and should there be a draft, part of my justification is that it is constitutional, part of it is duty and obligation to my country, and the other part is that the government has the authority to demand me to serve the country in times of war.
SCOTUS's insistence that, "congress has the power to raise and maintain armies" means "force people to be in them" as opposed to merely "pay for" or "is allowed to have at all" is based on literally nothing but their gut.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=245&invol=366
He even goes on to point out that the Articles of Confederation did not permit the Feds to have an army, and had to ask the states to volunteer a quota of their private forces. However, rather than interpret this as a reason for the constitution to permit the Fed to control it's own forces, he uses this to point out that since some of the states had draft laws in their constitutions, that the framers probably meant to put it in the constitution with the military clauses.
I guess they forgot. Forgot to itemize the thing in their constitution that the pro-draft states had in theirs. Because conscription was such a common sense notion that those states felt the need to explicitly permit it in their constitutions. Because it was obvious and implied, right? So, you know, why bother stating it clearly in the federal constitution that the federal government can conscript the citizens of the states into the army that it unilaterally controls.
None of these can't be afforded slaves. That you really really really think so doesn't make it so.
No, you are wrong about what a slave is. Unless you can actually explain why any of the above prevents one from being a slave, you're merely making up a definition. Cause guess what, mine's covered by the dictionary. Yours is not.
Nope.
Yup.
Hey so is it cruel and unusual punishment to kill someone?
How about racial segregation?
Well, I'm sure you'll at least agree corporations are people.
You seem to be having trouble separating what the law is from what the law should be. Also, those 9 really smart people you're citing disagree all the time. So... that's kinda an awful argument you have in trying to call slavery not slavery.
No, it is not.
This is going to be hard for you to grasp
but
The supreme court is wrong about what is and is not slavery. If they all said the sky was green they'd be wrong about that too.
I can't believe wet in the midst of a polite and at least somewhat productiveD&D thread!
Slavery is an awfully perjorative word. The way you're reading things, compulsory education is slavery. The draft is a democratic guarantee that we can provide for our collective security and that burdens should be shared equally. I think almost everyone on the board would prefer a draft not except people for education or their sex, but the point remains that when the state does it like this it isn't slavery, any more than the federal government imposing import duties is robbery.
BattleTech campaign at: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/169696/battletechmegamek-fight-for-gan-singh#latest
You're making the comparisson that that indentured servitude to the state is OK because the state can lay claim to certain types of property?
The only case in which
Compulsory Military Service : Slavery :: Taxes : Theft
Is one where you subscribe to the notion that you are property, because that is what you are permitting the state to lay claim to. Not your stuff: You.
Education isn't labor. No one is actually being forced to work. Being forced to be somewhere and being forced to be somewhere and actually perform labor are two entirely different things.
It is not democratic. It's done at random, much more easily avoided by the rich, and doesn't apply to women at all.
I still want you to explain how stripping people of their freedoms and forcing them to work against their will is different from slavery. The excuses given so far have been "They get paid" which slaves have been before, "They have arbitrary rights" which is, well, arbitrary, and "Some judges said so" which as I pointed out, while it makes it currently legally classified as not slavery, doesn't keep it from being slavery in the real world.
And as Arbitrary pointed out if you want to equate people to property, your reasoning has already failed.
Jury duty also slavery?
e: Really the idea that a country can make claims to its citizens isn't exactly novel. Any claim to my stuff is in some way a claim on me, since I work to get said stuff. A payroll tax is a claim on my labor.