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

To: one_less who wrote (209364)	11/28/2006 10:01:34 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Rough cut, re: There are, as you suggest, volunteers who have a change of heart and for which rewards and incentives may not be adequate to compel them to continue. There is a lighted tunnel out of this problem. Freedom of Conscious is a natural right to all human beings. It is a violation of human nature to be forced to perform a duty that poses a personal conflict to your conscience. Sure, but that's only a way out for those who have a genuine issue of conscience. What about those who are just too scared, too "busy" or too "smart" to risk their lives in service of their country? And what do you do with all the free riders, i.e. those who believe in the "mission," agree with the conflict and want to pursue the end goal but who want to "let the other guy" carry the load? There are lots of reasons why some really important things don't get done and "free riders" is one of them. That's why we have to regulate the environment, force people to pay taxes for roads and schools and provide government welfare for children who would be destitute without help. If you assume that a war is truly a just war that is necessary to preserve a critically important keystone of our lives, and if you assume that a war has a realistic chance of being "won," then why not put all our names in the hat and see whose turn it is in the barrel? It's only when we're engaged in a bad war that the majority of us have to talk about nuances like whether it's "just" to force people to fight. When we're truly fighting for the essentials of freedom and liberty then we would probably almost all agree that fighting that war is our duty and that we should not be excused from service, even compelled service, absent some conscientious objection. Ed