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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (276507)	10/24/2008 4:14:59 PM
From: ManyMoose	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793801

The flower children are now old enough, and they got a haircut. I don't like the dwindling numbers of veterans in congress or government in general.

To: goldworldnet who wrote (276507)	10/24/2008 4:24:05 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 793801

I have my own bias, but I don't like the dwindling numbers of veterans in congress or government in general. As long as you allow deferments and exemptions you will probably get that anyway. Maybe you would want a draft with few or no deferments (every able bodied man between 18 and somewhere between 26 and 40 goes in to the lottery, even if only a small portion get picked) The biggest downside of an all volunteer force to me is the fact that personnel costs are higher. OTOH in a very real sense they aren't higher, the budget costs are higher, but if the government doesn't budget and pay the amount it takes to get people, and just forces them, than its just imposing the cost on those people, partially in dollar terms (they will on the average probably make less money), partially in non dollar terms (forced servitude, harsher conditions etc.) True its providing training and benefits, but if people would have otherwise decided not to accept that package of service for pay, training, and benefits, then you are imposing a net cost on them. The 2nd biggest downside may be the one that you mention, fewer people, and esp. fewer in government or in other areas of power, with a military background or connection to the military. This is probably a smaller factor, but its less mitigated since its a real (if not really measurable) cost, rather than a transfer of an existing cost to the government's budget. But the draft has big downsides to. In addition to any moral, political and/or constitutional problems with the idea of forced service (which are the biggest issues for me), there is the issue that if you rely on a draft than you have a large percentage of your force in as short termers and thus have less average experience (people who are drafted are on the average less likely to sign up again, since they are less likely to have wanted to be there in the first place). This is esp. true if either 1 - You pay less because you can lower the budget by forcing people to join (lower pay provides less incentive to reup, but I guess you could pay draftees less, and volunteers, or at least those who reenlist or otherwise have more time in service more), or 2 - Your trying for a mass draft (you want to have as many people with military training, and a connection to the military and the idea of national service as possible, so you draft for short terms and cycle people through, rather than having a very tiny percentage of people be drafted) or 3 - Both.