Posted on 09/15/2012 1:11:26 PM PDT by vet7279
Whatever one thinks of the morality of the draft, I believe that the war will continue to drag on as long as upscale Americans see it as an abstract issue that has little relevance to their day-to-day lives. Unless their toilet overflows, these denizens of the Nike and Chablis milieu of our society seldom have any meaningful contact with, or concern for, the strata that furnishes the bodies to be killed or mutilated in our military crusades.
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There are always people who think it’s just fine to make us all property of the state. Like Obama said, government is the one thing we all belong to!
My son spent 5 honorable years in the Marine Corps (E5) including a tour to Iraq. Like most Marines, he was a combat soldier. The last thing I would have wanted was for him to have some saggy pants africanhyphenamerican draftee from Detroit having his back. I don’t want any of our warriors, USMC or otherwise, to be in that position. We took a hell of a beating from the homegrown communist trash because of the draft during the Vietnam War (not conflict) and their crap gave aid and comfort to the enema. Never again.
“we weren’t running around being the world’s police force”
Yes we were. I think Korea might have literally been referred to as a “police action.” Containment had more in common with policing the world. Japan attacked us largely because we slapped them for invading China and acting like we were the gatekeepers of the Pacific (ask yourself what out navy was found on Hawaii, anyway) . The Germans posed no direct threat to us, aside from to transatlantic shipping which was fine until it wasn’t, even though they declared war. We fought them twice more because they were supposedly guilty for starting it and were fighting it criminally.
You may be partially right about the congressional act part; I’d have to check Korea. But we haven’t declared war since WWII. Open-ended vague commitments held for Vietnam as much as for Iraq/Afghanistan.
I was a draftee. Viewed it as my duty to serve and did so to the best of my ability. By the time I got to be truly effective it was time to go home -— and that’s just as true of the “shooting action” part of it as well as my normal MOS.
Years later as I read more and more about the war I was in I came to understand how ineptitude and duplicity got us into it in the first place and in the end what a nearly total waste it was. Thank God I wasn’t wounded or killed, as the “sacrifice” would truly have been in vain.
That said, it I believe it was for me and most everyone I know in the same situation a growing, maturing, character building experience -— and one that taught me to NEVER again trust any government including ours.
So, while the idea of everyone owing their country military service arguably has certain attractions, I doubt the American public will be any less manipulable by virtue of bringing back the draft, and it would certainly lower the overall effectiveness of our military.
What’s peacetime? It’s not peacetime now. Probably hasn’t been since 1941.
Interesting that the Germans couldn’t make it 20 miles across the English Channel but supposedly posed a threat to us ...
I suppose one could argue there some sort of obligation to keep supporting the S. Vietnamese after Kennedy destroyed their government by letting Diem get whacked. Whether it needed to go so far as half a million US troops and 58,000 dead is another matter, IMHO.
well whats your solution
That is rank sophistry. The draft is not necessary to raise and support an army or provide and maintain a navy. We have those now without a draft, duh. Raising an army via draft is also not proper, since it violates the 13th amendment.
“We won WWII with draftees”
Oh, really? I guess they can do anything, then./s
“service in the military...has become something for other people to do”
So it was also for almost all Americans for the majority of US history. So it should be in a free republic that isn’t the world’s police fighting perpetual wars for perpetual peace.
I sometimes wonder if the political system envisioned by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers wouldn’t be better than what we have now. Only those who served in the military were considered Citizens with full voting rights. Everyone else was a civilian. If you weren’t willing to risk your life for your country you didn’t get a say in setting government policy.
The SCOTUS has already ruled at least a few times on the constitutionality of the military draft, and its conclusions differ from yours. They held that the draft was constitutional under the "necessary and proper" clause in that it was deemed necessary and proper in order for Congress to fulfill its constitutional power to raise an army and navy and other military services. That power superseded any Thirteenth Amendment consideration of involuntary servitude because, according to the SCOTUS, it was in the original Constitution and was not explicitly overridden by the Amendment.
I don't necessarily disagree with the argument that a military draft is involuntary servitude, but merely point out that there is already established constitutional law on this question.
There is no government solution, aside from stopping it propping us up with other people’s money. There are too damnable many causes of the decivilizing process of the past few centuries. Egalutarianism, statism, and egotism are obviously causes. But how do you get people to want to work on themselves and stop living for present satisfaction? Restoring family values? How? Rebuilding old timey community? How? Establishing a justly distributive society? How? And what’s the main culprit? Consumerism? The Welfare State? Lack of religion? I don’t know.
Appropos of the Vietnam obligation, whence did that derive? From the containment policy. And why did we care so much about thwarting the international communist conspiracy? Most directly because of our responsibility incurred in Europe and Asia following victory in WWII. Also because of guilt over complicity in the expansion of the Soviet Empire.
One war leads to another.
SCOTUS has ruled Obamacare legal, too. SCOTUS us wrong alot. What do you expect, anyway? Why would they deny such shiny toys to the central government? They are the central government.
“They held that the draft was constitutional under the ‘necessary and proper’ clause in that it was deemed necessary and proper in order to fulfilled its constitutional power to raise an army and navy”
No, it would have ruled it was necessary for that reason. It ruled it proper by pretending the 13th amendment didn’t exist. It wasn’t necessary to draft people in order to raise an army and navy, of course. Lincoln, Wilson, FRD, et al had armies and navies already and also called fir volunteers. What was necessary in their mibds was to raise an army of a size appropriate to fight the wars they wanted to fight, for which volunteers were insufficient.
But that’s not the goal to which the necessary and proper test applies. Too bad, the Constitution doesn’t grant Congress the power to “raise and maintain an army and navy by whatever means possible for the mission you have in mind.” It only empowers them to raise armed forces, purely and simply.
We are reducing the size of the military. 42 cents of every federal dollar spent are borrowed. Our total tax revenue just barely covers the costs of the entitlement programs, other mandatories, and debt servicing costs.
In the future we will be engaged in the age old battle that affects nations in decline: guns versus butter. And butter usually wins because it has more constituents. Mike Mullen, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the greatest threat to our national security is the national debt.
Interesting to me that Eisenhower was willing to provide support to the French and later to the S. Vietnamese government -— but far short of committing troops and boundless treasure in either case.
Even in the case of Europe, he was willing to field a “trip wire” force -— a force large enough to trigger a deep reaction here at home if it were run over by the Soviets. The military wanted more, but he refused, saying that we would simply go nuclear if WE truly threatened. So much for “responsibility”.
“That power superceded any Thirteenth Amendment consideration...because...it was in the original Constitution and was not explicitly overridden by the Amendment.”
Balderdash! (Not that it wasn’t their reasoning, but that it is nonsense.) That is about the worst legal reasoning I’ve ever heard. First of all the draft wasn’t in the original Constitution. Secondly, earlier sections do not have precedence. Thirdly, assuming the draft power is in the original portion, oh yes it was explicitly overridden. What the heck else does a ban on involuntary servitude mean? If the draft isn’t involuntary servitude, I don’t know what is.
If they meant the 13th amendment didn’t say verbatim “article so and so, section blah blah is hereby null and void,” well, no, it didn’t. I might say this is so because there was no such thing as draft power. But since when did it have to, anyway? The older clause doesn’t get the benefit of Constitutionality just because it’s older. Show me one other examle where that’s the case.
Want to know what really happened? SCOTUS was applying the phantom emergency clause. When we’re at war or otherwise in a state of emergency, which we have been continuously for about 80 years, unspecified powers pop up with only a vague connection to enumerated ones.
Established court precedence, yes. Constitutional law, no. Throw it on the ash heap with Obamacare, Kelo, Wickard, Helvering, Dred Scott, Korematsu, Penn Central Transportation, Bakke, Roe, Shreveport Rate Cases, Butler, Raich, Home Building and Loan, Buckley, McConnell, Gold Clause Cases, Carolene Products, Bollinger, etc.
One thing about Eisenhower I liked, though, was his preference for the nuclear threat over McNamarian graduated pressure. Not that I like brinksmanship, but you can rely on both sides not wanting nuclear war. Going the other way and wiping out our strategic air command and IRBM advantage in favor of mutually assured destruction and limited wars is what sucked us into the war nobody wanted in Vietnam. Ike, contrarywise, got us out of Korea.
Not that I enjoy talking grand strategy. I’d much prefer us not being world police and minding our own business.
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