Maybe they have all read Smedley’s little book?
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If men were raped at an equal rate, would that also satisfy your criteria?
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Our current army is a slave army too. Sure, now they “voluntarily” sign themselves into slavery, but that just changes who gets enslaved. Rather than being a cross-section of all society, it’s only the poorest, most desperate people who get enslaved.
When I say bring back the draft, what you hear is “I want you to have to die for the government!” but really what I’m saying is “Poor black and brown kids shouldn’t have to die for the government any more than you or I.”
In ending the draft, the US Government ended the war for middle class America. But the war continues, and we’re content to let it. Because rather than us having to die for our leaders, now we’re the ones that other people have to die for.
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Hell no, I HATE euphemisms for war. I was referring to the last seven decades of foreign policy that keeps us in a perpetual state of small bloody wars. That policy is what has to change, and I despair of it ever doing so because only hawks get presidential nominations and the two parties are both firmly invested lock, stock and barrel in the status quo.
This should be required viewing for all American school children, though I expect most BB regulars are already familiar with it:
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I tried hearting that eleven times, but it only counted once. 
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If all were murdered, perhaps. I’m not an easy grader.
I would consider it my duty to serve in my nation’s military to defend her borders, my home, my friends and family and way of life. I wouldn’t like it, I have always tried to preserve life where possible. I hope it’s never necessary.
Assuming you are from the US, you are a survivor of the last draft your nation ran, because it chose to do more than defend her borders and instead ran into people who were defending theirs to the bitter end.
The more people who are forced to face the realities you faced as a draftee and to personally see the consequences of the decision to go to war —or to face the possibility they themselves might come under fire and die— the less likely we are to have wars.
At the moment, wars are fought by young men at the behest of old men with women needing to show little interest, so they are free to cheer from the sidelines with less skin in the game. I reckon if forced to think about it, that more women than not would wish to choose not to fight. An equal draft would force them to make the choice.
If that position makes me a monster, then that’s what I am and unrepentant. 
You are tough. Murdering rape victims sounds very… ISISish.
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I didn’t limit everyone to a subset. It’s the great equalizer.
Yeah. When that starts happening, America is going to lose its fucking mind.
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I agree, a larger number of dead female soldiers isn’t likely to make any real difference in our foreign policy.
Hell, a bunch of dead children isn’t even enough to spur any changes in our gun policy.
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This comes to mind.
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True Scotsmen wear kilts.
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Touché.
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I wonder if there’s a possibility that the physical requirements for the SEALS and other units with ridiculously high requirements for entry might eventually drive some kind of transgender/gender-fluid acceptance within the military.
I really don’t think women have historically been the ones calling for war, and the world already owes a lot to their efforts for peace.
Wasn’t there a story some time ago about the lowered combat strength when women are part of special forces? I thought this was discussed because a female soldier passed the tests of some special ops unit.
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Today’s army is a heckuva lot whiter than the drafted army of Vietnam.
If you pay volunteer soldiers what soldiers deserve, then it’s inevitable that soldiering will always be an attractive option for the poorer classes.
The problem lies in assuming that a draft will somehow be more egalitarian. The last one wasn’t, and the next one almost certainly won’t be - because the rules will still be made by the same rich people who always make such rules.
You really ought to look at the demographics of our current military. They publish them. Then compare them to the Vietnam-era draft armies.
The oft-repeated belief that only the poor and nonwhite volunteer is bullshit.
And even if it weren’t, the idea that current enlistees are ‘slaves’ is an insult to everyone who ever endured slavery, and pretty much everyone currently enlisted.
[quote=“zikzak, post:23, topic:70163”]
When I say bring back the draft, what you hear is “I want you to have to die for the government!”
[/quote] Wrong. I hear “I want some shlub who isn’t me to be forced to die for their country in order to suit my (supposedly) egalitarian agenda”
Forcing anyone to to give up their civilian life, join the military and die for their country is morally repellent. THAT’S slavery.
Paying entry-level volunteers a wage high enough to be attractive to the poor is NOT slavery.
Conflating the two, and then claiming that that false equivalency justifies a resumption of real slavery (even assuming it’s the egalitarian sort of slavery that would suit your egalitarian impulses - which it won’t be) is still morally bankrupt.
It proposes to sacrifice the lives of unwilling strangers (either for a period of several years, or permanently, as chance may have it) to suit your political goals.
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Yeah, some actual women passed Ranger training. And immediately the haters came out of the woodwork to say, with authority, that it was only because the standards were lowered (they weren’t), because of the agenda (the standards still weren’t lowered), etc.
One of the best responses to that bullshit is reposted here.
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Is this the point where I remind you that George W. Bush and his cohort faced the same realities of the draft that I did?
Of course, his personal ‘realities’ were a bit different than mine, what with his rich, connected dad. But your proposed draft would be different, I take it?
I agree entirely with your first paragraph, BTW.
I just think that your ideas of what a draft would accomplish are hopelessly naive, and would be far too expensive in terms of ruined.lives, even if it DID work the way you imagine.
