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Does a Country have the right to the draft during a time of war.

Draft?

  • Total voters
    85
of course how would else that country will survive?
 
I would have said yes prior to Clinton's silly excursion into Bosnia and Haiti and now Obama's mindless ricocheting around the Middle East. Now, it's tough to consider one man's political or bribed military exercises around the world sufficient to subject our young people to his uncaring madness.
 
I believe in conscription in peace time and during war. Someone who is part of society should take it as a duty to defend their nation if they are threatened or attacked.

This is where the Israelies are smart. They have a trained populace as military service is compulsory. They can rely on civilians who know how the military works, know how to use weapons and know how to take care of themselves. Tis a bit late when a country is attacked, to begin training because it takes some weeks to go through training. Smarter to have it already done.
 
Ray410 said:
I would have said yes prior to Clinton's silly excursion into Bosnia and Haiti and now Obama's mindless ricocheting around the Middle East. Now, it's tough to consider one man's political or bribed military exercises around the world sufficient to subject our young people to his uncaring madness.
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:lol: There were no frivolous wars prior to the 1990's?
 
cpgrad08 said:
Do you believe that a country was the right to draft it's citizens into it's armed forces during a time of war.
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Not so much a right as a power, but yes. The Congress has the power to raise and fund an army for war, part of that would include calling upon, and organizing the Militia via conscription. The Militia is every able bodied male between the ages of 17 and 45, according to Title 10 Chapter 13 Section 133 of the US Code. Having been against it in the past due to the unreliability and low quality of draftees who aren't exactly thrilled about mandatory service, I will say that it's a hell of a lot better than the stop loss program.

I will add that if they draft me, they better not still have the ACU.
 
cpgrad08 said:
This came up in another thread. Do you believe that a country was the right to draft it's citizens into it's armed forces during a time of war.

I personally believed that it does if that country is going to survive.


Added in:

In regards to the United States I'm talking about an official declaration of war being declared.
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To repel an invasion, yes. Not so much for a war of convenience. In that case the government can settle with volunteers.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Well that is an interesting concept as it argues that the state has rights. What if the draft is for something like the war in Iraq or any other number of military adventures that don't actually increase the security of the country? Are drafts OK then?
As an anarchist, I say no, the state does not have the right to force me into its armed forces.
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We'll wait and see how that works out when you get your notice to report for duty.
 
Ad_Captandum said:
Hell, I think some mandatory form of military/public/government service for a year would be great for the UK, and probably every other nation.
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I would not favor that until the US is restricted to only its Constitutional roles and only under a Sate militia not Federally.
 
shrubnose said:
Because if you don't do what the government tells you to do it can lock you up in prison?
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Funny you seem to think that gives it moral authority. Must be a European thing.

My answer is absolutely not, under no circumstances. A government might have the moral authority to require that all of its citizens receive military training-- something I support-- but if it can't sustain its foreign policy on the efforts of a professional volunteer military, it needs to rethink that foreign policy. And if the people are incapable of defending themselves in a homefront guerrilla war, their weakness and lack of moral character marks them as unfit to govern themselves in the first place.
 
Sherman123 said:
Doesn't the Judiciary also weigh the intent of an amendment or constitutional clause as well as it's textual literalism?
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Only if a case is brought forth concerning it. That, of course, did happen, and in The Selective Draft Law Cases, the Supreme Court simply dismissed the question without discussion:

Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation, as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people, can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.
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Considering that we maintained a conscripted military and continued to draft troops after the amendment was passed during the Civil War it seems that this was hardly the intent of Congress.
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No, conscription enrollment had ended (last done in December 1864) by the time of the Amendment's passage (April 1865). The conscriptees had not all been released yet, though.
 
Harshaw said:
Only if a case is brought forth concerning it. That, of course, did happen, and in The Selective Draft Law Cases, the Supreme Court simply dismissed the question without discussion:
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Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation, as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people, can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.
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"I don't understand how the Constitution can say what it says, so it must be saying something else."

I suppose it's comforting, on some level, to know that the Court's and the government's inability to read and comprehend plain ****ing English is not a recent development.
 
So there are people who want a social contract to exist when it is something they want to force on others, but when it is something that they don't want forced onto themselves, the social contract doesn't apply.

Then there are others who want to be able to pick and choose when something applies. Bad "foreign adventures" are to be avoided, good "foreign adventures" are to be supported. By that logic, eventually you are just left with the people willing to pick up the pitchfork when the foreign troops are marching up their street but not their neighbors street.
 
shrubnose said:
Because if you don't do what the government tells you to do it can lock you up in prison?
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No matter if its the government or a common thug if you don't obey their orders they could cause a great deal of harm on to you. I'm not overly convinced that the actions of the government are warranted simply because they go by the name of the US government and not by the name of a common thug.
 
shrubnose said:
We'll wait and see how that works out when you get your notice to report for duty.
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I will thank them for the heads up and disappear.
 
cpgrad08 said:
This came up in another thread. Do you believe that a country was the right to draft it's citizens into it's armed forces during a time of war.

I personally believed that it does if that country is going to survive.


Added in:

In regards to the United States I'm talking about an official declaration of war being declared.
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If the war is being fought against an existential and imminent threat, then yes. But if that were the case you'd think that people would be voluntarily signing up anyway.
 
sure it has the right just make sure you are in college ,rich and not black lol!!!!!! but it cannot be a war for a private corp. like iraq and cheney
 
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The OP question is an extension of the current munging of the word "right". It's not a matter of rights, has nothing to do with rights. It's a matter of authorization, ability and will. The answer here in the US is yes to all three.
 
cpgrad08 said:
This came up in another thread. Do you believe that a country was the right to draft it's citizens into it's armed forces during a time of war.

I personally believed that it does if that country is going to survive.


Added in:

In regards to the United States I'm talking about an official declaration of war being declared.
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I voted yes based on the caveat that the draft was only after an official declaration of war. The United States hasn't done an official declaration of war since World War 2.
 
shrubnose said:
Anyone who makes that choice will have to bear the consequences.
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You know, I didn't even register for the draft and I had no plans to do so, but my mother realized my plan to disobey and registered me before anything came about from it. Still, I had no plans to do anything the government asked of me and if left to my own devices I wouldn't have. You can threaten me with whatever you desire and I assure you I will still stand by my convictions.

If you really believe you want to draft people in the military than you better be willing to deal with people that have no plans to listen to your commands and show up completely unwilling to listen to anything any of the military officers have to say.
 
Henrin said:
You know, I didn't even register for the draft and I had no plans to do so, but my mother realized my plan to disobey and registered me before anything came about from it. Still, I had no plans to do anything the government asked of me and if left to my own devices I wouldn't have. You can threaten me with whatever you desire and I assure you I will still stand by my convictions.

If you really believe you want to draft people in the military than you better be willing to deal with people that have no plans to listen to your commands and show up completely unwilling to listen to anything any of the military officers have to say.
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Meaningless bravado. In times of peace you'll just be fined and they end up signing you up to selective service anyway, in times of war it could easily mean sharing a cell with Bubba. Refuse once they've put you in uniform, especially during war and you'll know what hell is. I saw folks with your expressed views stand in line at AAFES induction, they were only ever rebelious once.
 
clownboy said:
Meaningless bravado. In times of peace you'll just be fined and they end up signing you up to selective service anyway, in times of war it could easily mean sharing a cell with Bubba. Refuse once they've put you in uniform, especially during war and you'll know what hell is. I saw folks with your expressed views stand in line at AAFES induction, they were only ever rebelious once.
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I would have no plans to pay the fine either, so I would assume they would just take it from me only providing me further evidence to not respect their authority. In times of war if they decided to jail me, assuming they caught me, then so be it. I have no plans to assist them or to do their will. There is really nothing they can do to me to make me listen to them and the more they try the more I will rebel against them.
 
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I had to sign up for the draft as a corporal in the Marine Corps. If I had gotten drafted, would I have had to go home?
 
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