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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (15544)	1/4/2002 4:32:37 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

since everyone would be able to share a common experience upon embarking on adulthood. I was in from '53 to '56, and was "RA", surrounded by draftees. I know a lot a people share the sentiment you posted, but I look on it as Slavery. The Author, Robert Heinlein, wanted it to be mandatory, a condition of citizenship. I used to agree with him, but have changed my mind over the years. This war we are now fighting now sure doesn't need draftees!

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (15544)	1/4/2002 5:21:20 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 281500

<But I still believe it's a great idea, which would eliminate many of the perceived social injustices in society, since everyone would be able to share a common experience upon embarking on adulthood.> Hawk, I believe the idea of conscription is self-serving. Slavery could be justified by saying they were slaves anyway in Africa and their local chiefs were happy to sell them into servitude or just to get rid of surplus people who could be a problem. Hey, life's better pickin' cotton for massa than hoping to survive in the African world. Certainly, the descendants aren't packing their bags and moving en masse back to Africa. But that doesn't mean that somebody else should decide what's good for them, especially when they have to be dragged against their will into your service. I am amazed that you don't see the conflict with the idea of freedom which I suppose you think is worth preserving. Freedom means literally free to express and act according to one's own will. NOT somebody else's, even if that somebody else is sure they know what's good for you [and of course, that other person makes sure it's very good for their own interests]. Also, would you draft homosexuals into the service? Would you make them wear a yellow star or something and live in a separate barracks? What about women? Compulsory service for them? Your idea of freedom is not mine. If a community can't afford to pay for their defence and is unwilling to give those serving in their defence enough to make it worthwhile, then I don't see why somebody should choose to be killed or risk being killed in their service. Should firemen, police, parking wardens and teachers be drafted? The draftees couldn't complain about their lives being put at risk [actually, I think more firemen, police, teachers and parking wardens are killed in action more frequently than USA servicemen these days]. The press-gang and slavery are from another era Hawk, where freedom meant less than it does today. Dragging Einstein and others from their creative energies, right at the age when people are peaking, is madness. It's like drafting Cassius Clay and then banning him from boxing when he refused to co-operate. The world never saw him at his best. He came back years later, older, slower and the dancing was a pale shade of the original. But in a way we did see him at his best. The world saw the courage of an individual versus totalitarianism. Crushing individuals in subordination to political and military ideology is not the way to run a railroad. Give it away, Mqurice