Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/that-text-informing-you-that-y.html
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OK, so I can add this to the “advantages of being over 50.” That gets me to…
Carry the 1…
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As someone who recently turned 58, I can tell you that it’s also convenient when shouting at those damn kids to get off your lawn – this is just something that old farts do, so no one thinks you’re particularly crazy.
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We already have the draft. It’s called poverty, ultra-nationalist culture, and lack of affordable education.
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The draft hasn’t been a thing since '73, IIRC.
Trying to bring it back now would be ill advised, it should go without saying.
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I wonder if Trump got one… hopefully he can find a doctor to verify which foot has his bone spurs since he’s forgotten.
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It’s a good thing that the people running the country would never do anything ill advisedly,then, isn’t it?
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Guys are still required to register for the draft when they turn 18 (well they’re automatically registered and receive a card.)
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Well, having an all volunteer army and not having a draft makes it a lot easier to convince a country to go to war
True, and yet if Biff gets a second term I can almost guarantee you that some kind of draft and/or mandatory national service for young people will be put in place (with exceptions for his cronies’ kids and grandkids and for the ultra-wealthy, of course). One more reason we need to make sure he’s defeated.
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Yes, in Juky it will be forty years.
I was in South Dakota and the first day of registratiin people rushed to tge post office to register. I gather lots of womem tried, I know one told me she tried to register, was rejected “you’re a woman” and she said “prove it”.
I hadn’t realized that Ford had shut down draft registration in 1975, almost concurrent with Phil Ochs declaring the war over for tge last time. 45 years ago, in two months. So draft registration was only out for five years.
Some publicly resisted tte registration, making it so public that it was hard to ignore it. So about 20 were charged and convicted. People like Ed Hasbrouck, though it’s been so long that I can’t remember other names. I think generally they considered themselves pacifists.
After about five years, it stopped, except for those who didn’t register, they lost out on some things.
I know in February 1980, when Jimmy Carter said something about turning registration back on, there was debate over whether it should inc!ude women. Some argued, and I can’t remember if they were after fairness or trying to impede draft registration, that women shouid be included. That didn’t happen, but wikipedia says that recently it was judged unconstitutional, since women are no longer kept out of combat.
Though, wikipedia also says a bill was introduced last month to stoo draft registration, so stay tuned.
Ed’s page is hasbrouck.org he writes about travel, but he does put in things related to draft registration. He did four months for refusing to register, not a lot of time, but then it would have been so easy to just keep quiet.
I’m sorry I can’t remember the names of the others who did time, I read about them in WIN magazine (from the War Resisters League) but it has been decades. Ed posted about The Amazing Race for years, and in an aside I suddenly realized he had resisged draft registratjon.
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I’m not sure there’s much value in distinguishing between registering for selective service and registering for the draft necessarily. Considering how it seems to imply all the same penalties and how loose the US plays with war rules I wouldn’t be surprised if a president could just decide that there was going to be a draft and start mailing out the “you’ve been drafted” cards.
That is true, and pretty much the best argument for a draft. Folks are less likely to vote to send their own kids to come home in bags. If it’s just “those people” it is way easier to see them as disposable.
I remember a “friend-of-a-friend” story back in late 1990 or early 1991, someone receiving a notice in the mail along the lines of “there’s no draft now, but had there been one, or if there’s going to be one, your number is up.” I was 20 at the time and my friends and I were quite sure the draft would be reinstated.
Well, also, the government would not notify you by MF text message people. Come on now. Governments do everything in writing, by mail, by law. Just like the IRS will never phone you, the military will certainly not text you. Agencies remind people of this periodically now, because of the robocall nightmare we all live in.
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