Tell your Congressman to support HR487

[shanek]

So, there's not gonna be a draft, right? It's all just hoo-hah and no one is even seriously considering it, right? Fine; then your representative should have no problem supporting HR 487: To repeal the Military Selective Service Act. After all, what do we need it for if there's not going to be a draft?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.487:

If you want an easy way to write them, just visit:

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

and type in your ZIP code in the box under "Write Elected Officials."

 

[Just thinking]

... what do we need it (H.R. 487) for if there's not going to be a draft?

Don't you think it should be there just in case (not now, but perhaps sometime in the future that we can't now forsee)?

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Tell your Congressman to support HR487

Don't you think it should be there just in case (not now, but perhaps sometime in the future that we can't now forsee)?

"Just in case" what? "Just in case" we need to violate the 13th Amendment and force people to kill or even die against their will? Don't you think if there were a legitimate need to mobilize the army there would be plenty of volunteers? What does it say about a country that needs to use force to make its people defend it?

 

[WildCat]

Re: Re: Re: Tell your Congressman to support HR487

What does it say about a country that needs to use force to make its people defend it?

If it wasn't for the draft your part of the country might well still have slavery. Just a thought...

 

[UserGoogol]

Shanek's argument, which I don't neccesarily disagree with, is that drafting itself is a form of slavery. (Or involuntary service, at the very least.)

 

[WildCat]

Shanek's argument, which I don't neccesarily disagree with, is that drafting itself is a form of slavery. (Or involuntary service, at the very least.)

He also asked what kind of country needs a draft to defend itself. My reply pointed out that w/o the draft during the Civil War, he probably wouldn't be living in this country as people weren't exactly volunteering for the Union army in numbers necessary to win the war. He'd be living in a state of the CSA, and one can only speculate how that would have turned out. Probably wouldn't have been pretty, given how the south had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Jim Crow era, which ended only recently from a historical perspective.

 

[karl]

A draft is politically impossible today, but I tend to think that another major terrorist attack on US soil could change all that -- if the current government played their cards right. Massive appeal to patriotism in a time of crisis, and the US could soon follow Israel's example.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Tell your Congressman to support HR487

"Just in case" what? "Just in case" we need to violate the 13th Amendment and force people to kill or even die against their will? Don't you think if there were a legitimate need to mobilize the army there would be plenty of volunteers? What does it say about a country that needs to use force to make its people defend it?

That it conatians people who value their own lives quite highly? However a careful examination of european history show that you claim that would be plently of volunteers is just slightly wrong.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Probably wouldn't have been pretty, given how the south had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Jim Crow era, which ended only recently from a historical perspective.

Perhaps there would've been less resentment and racial division in the South had they not suffered so greatly during the Civil War. A CSA that was allowed to cede peacefully might have been able to reform itself too.

 

[Hutch]

Re: Re: Re: Tell your Congressman to support HR487

[B Don't you think if there were a legitimate need to mobilize the army there would be plenty of volunteers? What does it say about a country that needs to use force to make its people defend it? [/B]

Well, Wildcat mentioned the Civil War (both sides had draft laws in place, IIRC the South didn't use thiers. I would also point out that both WWI and WWII, which had public support and sstirring calls to patriotism, also resorted to the draft.

Volunteers will come out in the first burst of patriotism to swell the ranks, but if the war is extended and produces heavy casualties, volunteers are not enough (even, if like the Civil War, you offer cash bounties (North) or pass a law that volunteers have enlisted for the duration of the war (South).

But history tends to be that if a nation is practicing total war(rather than the smaller conflicts we've had since 1945) then a draft is going to be necessary.

IMHO, of course.

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell your Congressman to support HR487

If it wasn't for the draft your part of the country might well still have slavery. Just a thought...

Ridiculous. Please let's not start up with a lot of misinformation about the Civil War again...

 

[shanek]

He also asked what kind of country needs a draft to defend itself. My reply pointed out that w/o the draft during the Civil War, he probably wouldn't be living in this country as people weren't exactly volunteering for the Union army in numbers necessary to win the war.

And as a result, the people of the north rioted and Lincoln used military forces against his own people.

He'd be living in a state of the CSA, and one can only speculate how that would have turned out. Probably wouldn't have been pretty, given how the south had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Jim Crow era, which ended only recently from a historical perspective.

PLEASE, learn some history!

 

[CFLarsen]

"Just in case" what? "Just in case" we need to violate the 13th Amendment and force people to kill or even die against their will?

Just in case of a war. It has happened, you know. Gee, your own country is at war right now.

Don't you think if there were a legitimate need to mobilize the army there would be plenty of volunteers?

Could you depend on it? We are not talking about a peaceful situation, where people would decide whom to vote for, but a very grave, dangerous situation, where many, many people die.

Nations have fallen, when they lacked sufficient armies. You would know that, if you had learned any history at all.

What does it say about a country that needs to use force to make its people defend it?

What does it say?

 

[CFLarsen]

Ridiculous.

Why is that ridiculous?

Please let's not start up with a lot of misinformation about the Civil War again...

Ah, yes, like your notion that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery....

 

[shanek]

Just in case of a war. It has happened, you know. Gee, your own country is at war right now.

Yes, and do we have a draft right now?

Could you depend on it?

Yes, I think history has shown us that we could. Historically, at least in the US, it's only the questionable wars that have required a draft.

[Claus's typical personal abuse deleted]

What does it say?

That maybe the country isn't worth defending that much? There was only one time in the first 140+ years of this country that a draft was even attempted, and that led to riots.

 

[shanek]

Why is that ridiculous?

Because no other country had to wage a civil war to free the slaves, and as I have pointed out in numerous other threads, slavery was on the way out as it was. No war was necessary to stop it. It's certainly questionable at least whether or not it was worth 600,000 lives.

Ah, yes, like your notion that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery....

Nice strawman you resort to there, pseudo-skeptic.

 

[CFLarsen]

Yes, and do we have a draft right now?

No, but that does not rule out the necessity of a draft.

Yes, I think history has shown us that we could. Historically, at least in the US, it's only the questionable wars that have required a draft.

Aha. You consider every war the US has fought under conscription a "questionable" war? No matter the reason for the war, simply because there was a conscription, the war is deemed "questionable" by you?

[Claus's typical personal abuse deleted]

This is what you refer to:

We are not talking about a peaceful situation, where people would decide whom to vote for, but a very grave, dangerous situation, where many, many people die.

Nations have fallen, when they lacked sufficient armies. You would know that, if you had learned any history at all.

I am pointing out your lack of historical knowledge, and you refer to it as "typical personal abuse".

That maybe the country isn't worth defending that much?

So you will leave the US in case of a draft?

There was only one time in the first 140+ years of this country that a draft was even attempted, and that led to riots.

So? There have been drafts after that. You cannot live in the past, however imaginary rosy it seems to be.

 

[CFLarsen]

Because no other country had to wage a civil war to free the slaves, and as I have pointed out in numerous other threads, slavery was on the way out as it was. No war was necessary to stop it. It's certainly questionable at least whether or not it was worth 600,000 lives.

It is pure speculation that slavery would have been abolished.

Nice strawman you resort to there, pseudo-skeptic.

Really?

The Civil War wasn't about slavery.
Source

Don't you just hate it when your old posts catch up with you.....?

 

[Rob Lister]

Just posting to say that I wrote my congressman to ask him NOT to support HR487. It's foolhardy.

 

[Ian Osborne]

It is pure speculation that slavery would have been abolished.

Well of course it is - without going back in time and talking Lincoln into letting the South cede, there's no possible way it could be called anything else. But look at the evidence:

* Davis offered to abolish slavery in return for European recognition of the CSA as a sovereign state.

* At the outbreak of the civil war, there were around 15 slave states and 18 non-slave states, and slavery was guarded by the US constitution. I believe it takes a 3/4 majority to amend the Constitution, so surely the best way for the slave states to preserve slavery would've been *not* to cede? If they'd stayed, it would've taken around 42 more non-slave states to gain the 3/4 majority needed to amend the Constitution, and this wasn't likely to happen in the forseeable future.

* Robert E Lee didn't agree with slavery, and had freed his own slaves by the outbreak of war. Lincoln offered him the command of the Unionist forces, but he chose to stay with his home state of Virginia.

Sure, slavery played its part in the outbreak of the Civil War, but the simplistic, written-by-the-victors view that the South was sodden with slavery and the North invaded to liberate the oppressed is fanciful in the extreme. To say slavery was on the way out is indeed speculation, but it's backed by evidence.