The Draft and Ethics

[Michael Davis]

Alright, I don't really want any "the social contract is garbage" responses, although that may be the right answer.

Anyways, suppose there was a draft and I am drafted. I am obligated to fight. However, the cause is something I do not support at all. (If you need to hypothesize this, assume the government is drafting people to invade France for the stated reason of "being tired of apathy...")

So, I can either go fight or go away.

But, suppose as a citizen of this country who is voluntarily remaining here at this very moment or any given moment, I feel it is my duty to fight when called upon. This could be argued ad infinitum, but I am making a conscious, aware decision to stay in the country despite my qualms with the (hypothetical...) government. Is there any way to escape this conundrum but leave now? Many would say this is an extreme, but it seems to me that it may be the (rare) right thing to do.

I guess I am saying that if I am unwilling to abide by the requirements of this country, the decision should be made now. Even if it is not, dodging a draft may still be better than fighting for other reasons, but that still ranks below making the decision immediately.

Thoughts?

-Michael

[elwoodblues]

I suspect that more people on this forum would suppor your French war that you would think.

If I were ever drafted for a war of choice/opportunity, I would fight it --- in my opinion, it's a form of slavery and should be held unconstitutional. If I lost my fight, I would choose to go jail on principle. Fleeing to Canada isn't an option as I believe there are 2 integral parts to civil disobedience --- disobeying and facing the consequences of disobeying.

[HDPM]

"I guess I am saying that if I am unwilling to abide by the requirements of this country, the decision should be made now. Even if it is not, dodging a draft may still be better than fighting for other reasons, but that still ranks below making the decision immediately"


I don't think this is right. Assuming you are a citizen, you have the right to stay here. The fact you may choose to disobey a requirement of the country at some point in the future does not require you to leave now. Particularly if the requirement shifts around. In the case of a possible future dilemma, I think you have the right to stay or leave pending the future, whichever is better for you at the moment. IOW, I don't think it is necessary to leave ahead of time. It may be more consistent with your philosophy, which would mean it is better for you to leave; you might have a happier life. But I do not think there is any obligation to leave or that it is automatically better. It depends.


France would at least be better duty than Iraq. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[ThaSaltCracka]

Interesting question.... I don't really have an answer for you, but i no how you feel. The idea of a draft is a somewhat scary thought. I don't know quite how those of you felt during Vietnam, but man, I can honestly say I am worried that this might happen, and many of my friends have this in the back of their mind.

The world is indeed [censored] up right now, and I am starting to lose faith that it will get better. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[ACPlayer]

Fleeing to Canada isn't an option as I believe there are 2 integral parts to civil disobedience --- disobeying and facing the consequences of disobeying

Well said.

[Ed Miller]

I guess I am saying that if I am unwilling to abide by the requirements of this country, the decision should be made now.

You have no obligation to leave YOUR HOME now because the government might adopt an unjust policy in the future.

The "love it or leave it" people can go screw.

[jdl22]

I somewhat disagree with the idea that one must decide now and hit the high road to Canada or Europe.

I'm currently of drafting age (24) so I wasn't around during the Vietnam era but as I've heard it when they started out it was relatively easy to get deferments. Later they slowed this down. If this were the case today then they would start out and you could get a concsientious objector or student deferment.

As for the rest I agree. If they draft me and I am unable to get out of it legally otherwise I'm going to the big house. If we were fighting a war where the goal against a country that actually was a threat to the country it would be different.

[jdl22]

Did Mason approve this post?

You may have lost some of the conservative customers with that.

[Ed Miller]

Did Mason approve this post?

You may have lost some of the conservative customers with that.

This is one area where my opinion happens to coincide with the prevailing libertarian sentiment of this board.

Besides, everyone who reads this board is far too intelligent to let a small political difference of opinion stop them from buying my kick ass book. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Ragnar]

ThaSaltCracka wrote[ QUOTE ]
I don't quite know how those of you felt during Vietnam,. . .

[/ QUOTE ]

This is how I felt and what I did. I was in college during Vietnam. I had a deferment, but I knew that eventually it would run out. I was opposed to this particular war because Congress did not declare it, and we were not attacked. I also thought that conscription was immoral. That is still my position.

So I mailed my draft card back to my draft board as a protest. They ordered me to a physical. I appeared and refused to participate. They ordered me to induction. I appeared and refused to participate.

The US Supreme Court ruled that draft boards could not punitively order men to induction for sending their draft cards back, or refusing to carry them. So we started over. I was out of school and not eligible for a deferment, so they ordered me to a physical. I decided to take the physical and they flunked me on some minor grounds. I suspect that they didn't want me in the Army at that point.

The authorities could have prosecuted me for sending back my draft card, which was a crime punishible by up to five years in prison, or for not carrying it. They chose not to do so. I do think that they would have prosecuted me for refusing induction, if they had gotten to that stage again and it was a legal induction.

Why didn't they prosecute me? I don't know for sure, but I suspect that it was in part because I did all of these things in the SF Bay area, and the sheer numbers were difficult for them to deal with. Some of my friends in the draft resistance movement were prosecuted, but only for draft card burning or refusing induction. Some went to prison.

I don't think that there will be any serious attempt to revive the draft until after the election. If that occurs and if they succeed I will protest again. I thought that we won this fight in the 60's and 70's and it would piss me off to no end if the draft we re-instituted.

Ragnar

[ThaSaltCracka]

Ragnar,
My dad and his brother both enlisted in the air force during Vietnam to avoid being drafted. My dad went all over the US and the world, stopping in such hot locations as Turkey and Thailand. My uncle was sent to the DMZ in Korea maning a radio outpost. I guess, neither one of them was really out of harms way, but I guess it goes to show some of the places you can still go even if you enlist.

I think if they drafted me I would go, even though I don't want to. It seems like it is my duty to my country to serve them when called upon. I guess thats sort of naive or "super patriotic", but I have little respect for those people who went to Canada and Europe to dodge the draft. Carter never should have gave them amnesty, IMO. However, I do have a lot of respect for those people who protested the draft actively in the U.S. That required a lot of courage... part of me thinks some of those people would have been good soldiers too.....

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyways, suppose there was a draft and I am drafted. I am obligated to fight. However, the cause is something I do not support at all. (If you need to hypothesize this, assume the government is drafting people to invade France for the stated reason of "being tired of apathy...")

So, I can either go fight or go away.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that the possibility of being drafted in the future to do something you could not do in good conscience does not mean that you should leave the country now.

There are two reasons to refuse military service. One is if you are morally opposed to any war. Under the American draft system, you would be granted conscientious objector (CO) status, and subject to service in a non-combatant position, such as a medical assistant. You cannot get CO status because you object to a particular war or military action.

Objection to a particular war as immoral is an extremely cloudy issue. In good conscience, you can't refuse just because you don't support it, you have to really believe that it is immoral. I don't believe the US court system has ever made a full and binding legal determination on this issue. If I remember correctly, during Viet Nam, American citizens who refused to be drafted on moral, but not CO, grounds were in legal limbo, if not jail, until the whole thing was swept under the rug with an overall amnesty for draft dodgers.

The legal precedent for moral objection to a particular war, it seems to me, is well established by the US. In the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals, the US and the other allied nations rejected the "I was just following orders" defense, and held that individuals have the right and obligation to refuse to obey orders to do anything that is immoral by their standards.

The practical side of that is that if you refuse to follow such orders, or you avoid being drafted to support what you consider to be an immoral cause, your options are limited. Assuming the government aggressively pursues the issue, your options are to leave the country or to go to jail until the legal issues are resolved, which could be years. If you felt strongly enough about the issue, the decision would then be whether you would better serve your cause by leaving the country and working to fight the issue from Canada or wherever, or going to jail. Or just forget the whole thing and move to Costa Rica and work for an online casino.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

A nation has no right to force it's citizens to serve. Government exists to serve the people, not vice-versa.

Each individual citizen should be free to decide whether or not the cause warrants his/her sacrifice. The government has precisely zero right to demand *any* sacrifice from individuals.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

This is one area where my opinion happens to coincide with the prevailing libertarian sentiment of this board.

Absolutely. Anyone who believes in liberty should oppose any mandatory government service.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

wasn't around during the Vietnam era but as I've heard it when they started out it was relatively easy to get deferments. Later they slowed this down. If this were the case today then they would start out and you could get a concsientious objector or student deferment.

Not precisely true. CO status was always available. Student deferments were phased out because they were deemed class discrimination. I actually had one of the last 2-S deferments, but gave it up when I got #307 in the lottery.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I suspect that more people on this forum would suppor your French war that you would think.

IIRC, Michael Moore had a TV special in the early-mid 90's where he polled the audience as to who we should fight our next war against. France won hands-down.

[MMMMMM]

I pretty much agree, except perhaps in the case of a foreign power directly invading or massively attacking the homeland. For example, I don't think it would necessarily have been inappropriate for the Polish government to require service from its citizens to resist the Nazi invasion. As they didn't have the time or force to do much of anything, in that case it didn't matter much./images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[jdl22]

The government should serve the people. If the homeland is invaded and the people decide that they prefer the invading country's government to their own they should have the right to make that decision and not fight. If they feel that the government in power is doing its job then they can choose to fight. It's that simple.

Do you think the people of Iraq should have had the right not to fight in the war against US? While we are not the Nazis we certainly did invade their country with the soul purpose of eliminating the government in power.

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
You have no obligation to leave YOUR HOME now because the government might adopt an unjust policy in the future.

The "love it or leave it" people can go screw.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have to agree with Ed here. I am a Vietnam vet also. Remember that it is not your obligation to fight a war. Let Bush go fight it. (Oh yeah, he's a deserter so forget that idea) As a Vet, I had no problem with those who chose not to fight. Especially since Vietnam was an unjust war. (I didn't know it at the time.

Also, this country is "we the people", not "we the rich oil bastards". So let em go fight themselves. And like Ed says, screw the 'love it or leave it' crowd. I've found that most of them never fough a war themselves. They just want you to go put your ass on tlhe line so they can do what they want. (Sorry, I just got into a conversation with one of those and he never had been in the service. I came close to clocking the bastard but would lose my plush job).

[MMMMMM]

"The government should serve the people. If the homeland is invaded and the people decide that they prefer the invading country's government to their own they should have the right to make that decision and not fight. If they feel that the government in power is doing its job then they can choose to fight. It's that simple."

No, it isn't that simple--because not everyone who believes that they don't want the invading power's government would be willing to fight--more especially, the draft age men. Do you really think every young French man ran eagerly to join the fight against the Nazis, even if they knew it was the "right" thing to do? Think just maybe some were too damn scared to do what they knew had to be done, and thus had to be nudged a bit?

"Do you think the people of Iraq should have had the right not to fight in the war against US? While we are not the Nazis we certainly did invade their country with the soul purpose of eliminating the government in power."

Most Iraqis were not in favor of Saddam's regime anyway and wanted to see it deposed, so that's a non-applicable argument. The Saddamites are a minority compared to the other Iraqis whom he killed, tortured, terrified and oppressed (the Shiites, Kurds, Marsh Arabs, and any remotely imagined political threats). In other words his was not a government represenatative of the people, so if his government required people to fight against invaders it is not the same as an elected government which is representative of the people defending itself and the people, or requiring its citizens to help with defense in time of crisis.

[Nepa]

[ QUOTE ]
My dad and his brother both enlisted in the air force during Vietnam to avoid being drafted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Once the draft comes out I'm sure there are going to be holes. I would try to exploit on of the holes to aviod the draft.