Posted on 06/07/2016 7:39:55 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
LOUISVILLE — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, will soon be filing stand-alone legislation to end the practice of registering for the Selective Service.
The bill titled ‘The Muhammad Ali Voluntary Service Act’ will be presented to Congress in honor of the famed boxer who refused to serve in the Vietnam War.
On April, 28 1967 the heavy weight champion was stripped of his title for refusing to be inducted in the United States Army. Ali, a Muslim and conscientious objector, was convicted of draft evasion — a conviction that would later be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“One thing I liked about Muhammad Ali is that he would stand on principle even when it was unpopular,” Paul told reporters in Louisville on Monday. “You know, the criminal justice system I say now has a racial justice disparity, selective service had a racial disparity, because a lot of rich white kids either got a deferment or went to college or got out of the draft. I’m opposed to Selective Service.”
If the bill is signed into law, Paul said that the military would stay the same as we know it now, and use an all-volunteer force. Since 1973 the United States has used an all-voluntary military force.
Most men who are 18-25 and are U.S. citizens or are immigrants living in the U.S. are still required to register with Selective Service.
Ali passed away at the age of 74; a public memorial is planned on Friday.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
I think that’s Rand’s point.
Silly me. I was thinking white.
I was ready to force myself to swallow Rand Paul as a VP choice to bring in the burned Bernies. But now that horse pill looks as big as a volleyball.
In THAT case, they wouldn’t be drafted. Everyone gets conscripted at that point. The good news is that there would be full employment. The bad news is most of America would be dead.
Honor a man dedicated to Islam? No thanks.
I’ll ask my WWII vet dad and get back to you.
“The Draft” of the 20th century bears little resemblance, if any, to what occurred in Revolutionary times...
I'd like to see him reelected.
I don’t believe there was a draft during the Revolutionary War.
Well, if your dad isn’t available to set you straight anytime soon, let me point out for you that conscription is one of the specific grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence as reasons for the Americans to break from the rule of the King of England - making it the exact opposite of patriotic.
I’ll tell him you said that. I’m sure he will be equally impressed with your intellect and your patriotism.
Selective Service as constituted is a ludicrous waste of money and should have been abolished in 1991.
We needed six weeks to spin up a real draft in 1941, from a standing start with zero employees and a budget of $0. Every cent spent on this travesty since 1991 has been wasted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#Colonial_to_1862
In colonial times, the Thirteen Colonies used a militia system for defense. Colonial militia laws—and after independence those of the United States and the various states—required able-bodied males to enroll in the militia, to undergo a minimum of military training, and to serve for limited periods of time in war or emergency. This earliest form of conscription involved selective drafts of militiamen for service in particular campaigns. Following this system in its essentials, the Continental Congress in 1778 recommended that the states draft men from their militias for one year’s service in the Continental army; this first national conscription was irregularly applied and failed to fill the Continental ranks.
For long-term operations, conscription was occasionally used when volunteers or paid substitutes were insufficient to raise the needed manpower. During the American Revolutionary War, the states sometimes drafted men for militia duty or to fill state Continental Army units, but the central government did not have the authority to conscript except for purposes of naval impressment. President James Madison and his Secretary of War James Monroe unsuccessfully attempted to create a national draft of 40,000 men during the War of 1812. This proposal was fiercely criticized on the House floor by antiwar Congressman Daniel Webster of New Hampshire.
” I think it’s ridiculous that men still have to register for a draft that doesn’t exist.”
Ridiculous - and expensive.
In November 1941 Congress passed a draft by one vote.
Men were being inducted six weeks later.
There is no reason to maintain a gigantic apparatus to register men, when in order to start involuntary inductions Congress would have to pass ANOTHER law.
That’s wonderful. It’s so nice when others are helped when one provides new information, and that they share it with others as well. It creates a healthy virtuous cycle of enlightenment that is truly a blessing.
In other news I read today that Bill Clinton will be delivering the eulogy for Ali. Apparently they were friends. Nuff said.
At 96 nothing surprises him anymore. I suspect he thought that the 60s were the nadir of what passes for patriotism. A far cry from what he and his friends lived as young men.
Yes, Muhammed Ali gave himself Parkinson’s disease 30 years ago so he could die slowly and manipulate Rand Paul into naming a bill after him in 2016.
You’re a real genius.
Rand is smart. The SS is never going to be invoked by a Democrat-run Clowngress anyhow - the Dems Senators/Reps don’t want to, the army doesn’t want the useless idiots they’d get out of it, and the average Dem voter doesn’t want it. Why not use this to get some much-needed support?
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