Something tells me fragging (the original kind) might have a chance of becoming de rigueur again.
Kinda a nothing burger really. The military doesn’t want conscripts unless there’s an existential threat to the country.
So there’s two scenarios:
- Selective service continues to exist and is only used if there’s an existential threat to the country
- Selective service is eliminated and is re-instated only if there’s an existential threat to the country
Option 2 is preferable since it eliminates the cost of a program that will likely never be used again. But it still doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a draft since if the country were under an existential threat in the future, legislation can be passed to bring it back. So Option 2 isn’t effectively different from Option 1, other than the cost savings.
As it is, selective service is basically just a political talking point, and a way to “own the libs” or whatever. The best way to argue against it is to make an argument around the cost of a program that doesn’t really accomplish anything. But the libs take the bait and argue about not wanting to be drafted, which isn’t wrong, but that makes the libs look weak in the eyes of many, and it allows Republicans get to make hay about their opposition being weak.
Fully automated luxury war slavery
Remember kids, you can be a draft dodger and be president 😎👉👉
Which would be fine if said draft dodger wasn’t a chickenhawk.
Things are only bad if Donald Trump does them.
You mean like John Kerry? No, wait, he served in Vietnam and was shot at. Who are you thinking of?
No, it’s also bad when Rush Limbaugh and Ted Nugent do it.
Also Bush II’s questionable service record.
You’re going to have to be more specific, I can think of at least 2 that could fit that description.
Automatic draft, but notvoter registration…
Just because the politicians want to grab you out of your life and use you as cannon fodder doesn’t mean they want to actually be as accountable to you as they’re supposed to.
Politicians voting for mandatory draft should be on the frontline. Pieces of shit.
Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor?
Because we are expendable.
Why don’t presidents fight the wars?
Woops just passed a pack of a few billions to Israel. Healthcare? Not for you goy
Automatic registration for Selective Services, not automatic draft. That’s very different. This is actually helpful in keeping people out of prison or getting fined for not registering.
But yes, this absolutely proves that they could automatically register people to vote with no designated party affiliation.
As a European I have always been confused when Americans talk about “voter registration”. The way it works in my country is you are legally required to register your residence with the government and that registration is automatically used to determine a voter registry (just filtering by age, citizenship and exclusion due to criminal convictions all of which is information already known to the government). I always just get a letter a few weeks before elections informing me where my polling place is.
In France you have to register to vote as well. It takes about a minute and you can do it online or at the town hall
Btw it’s insane to exclude people in a supposed democracy based on criminal convictions.
It’s by design, if everyone voted, there would only be a very limited few republikkklowns in office, if any.
It seems that they exclude people wherever the commenter lives too.
Can exclude, not all of them do, I think it has to be a specific part of the sentence (ie not automatic) because some high court ruled that some years ago.
Can exclude, not all of them do Who are “them”?
Who is excluding people where you live and why can they do that? Isn’t it handled centrally by a single governmental body?
you are legally required to register your residence with the government
Bit depressing.
Even in the US, you’re legally required to for quite a number of things. The most obvious being driver’s license/ID cards.
The standard is good behavior, not other people.
Also ID cards don’t require it. License’s do.
Well you see, in the United States, the way some politicians, specifically ones belonging to a certain very authoritarian political party manage to get elected is by making sure people don’t or can’t vote.
This is often coupled with throwing a huge hissy fit about “voter fraud” which doesn’t actually exist on any remotely meaningful level.
Well, voting fraud is a thing in Russia. Stuffing when one person throws multiple ballots at once, carousel when one persion votes one multiple stations, dead souls(reference to Gogol) where dead or absent people vote and Venedictov’s box - when Sobyanin repeatedly claims that electronic voting results will come immidiately when voting ends, but don’t long after all physical stations reported results.
Comparing Russian elections to US elections may as well be comparing Vichy France elections to US elections. They are quite different beasts.
Maybe, but I am more familiar Russian elections. Personal experience.
Also important note: election fraud != voting fraud. Voting fraud is just one type of election fraud. In Russia most widespread type of election fraud is not registering candidates.
Yep. Same. You just go get stamp in passport once, then you just go to voting station with passport. That’s it. Oh, also by default(when you get passport) you get stamp that you live where you lived during filing.
I’m for this. Don’t vote for war mongers when you or your kids or grandkids could be drafted for war.
Unfortunately there are no non-warmonger candidates in r or d and voting third party is a vote for trump so I guess we’re all fucked amiright
Registration is already required,and has been for decades. This only automates the thing so people aren’t breaking the law. Super simple stuff.
So I’m not sure what your point is?
It’s unlikely to be picked up by the Democrat-controlled Senate because of numerous amendments regarding abortion, diversity efforts, and transgender medical treatments.
That seems about right. Tired of bills having all this non related crap shoved into them.
Automatic registration would replace the coming-of-age tradition that all 18-year-old male U.S. citizens experience when they get a card in the mail from Uncle Sam informing them that they’re required under threat of criminal penalties to register for the Selective Service.
This ~2 decades ago for me but I have no recollection of this ever happening.
I’m not male but I did register for the draft when I turned 18. I remember doing it on my taxes as weird as that sounds.
Idk about your state, but mine basically forces you to register for the selective services to even get a license/learner’s permit
§ 46.2-221.1. Registration with Selective Service required for issuance of learner’s permits, driver’s licenses, commercial driver’s licenses, and special identification cards to certain applicants.
A. Every male applicant for a learner’s permit, driver’s license, commercial driver’s license, special identification card, or renewal of any such permit, license, or card who is less than twenty-six years old and is either a citizen of the United States or an immigrant shall, at the time of his application, be registered in compliance with the requirement of section 3 of the Military Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3801 et seq
Seems like a pretty good Common Sense legislation really. You already have to register by law so making it automatic would be easier for all of us and avoid anyone getting in trouble for something stupid. I don’t see a downside to this. I would like to see it apply to voting registration too however.
Haha good one…voting registration is not exactly in vogue these days.
Well, voting registration as it’s implemented in America isn’t exactly in vogue. As in “oh, you just need to get an ID to vote from now on.” And people without ID need to do some extra paperwork and the office is open 5 minutes every other week, just go through the door located behind the acid moat and bear traps.
Over here in Finland: Government has a comprehensive record of citizens, they know where everyone lives and who’s eligible to vote. So they send you a letter. “Here’s how to do the advance voting, here’s the polling location you need to go to on election day, Also here’s how to draw the numbers, so this will be less confusing. Just bring this notice card with you. And an ID. If you don’t have an ID, visit the police station and they’ll give you one for free.”
In Italy, you have to travel to whatever city you have residence in to vote. A lot of (mostly progressive) people have to fly across the country to cast their vote, apparently it sucks for them
This will help bring down Inflation!
For one, I think this was already required. I remember having to enroll in selective service.
For two though, whoever calls another draft is dead in the water. It’s commonly accepted that starting an actual draft is political suicide.
That said, it would be nice if we could codify that and ban the draft.
Yeah, honestly as long as we aren’t willing to change things in a meaningful way, this is somewhat nice. It’s like voter registration. It should be automatic (assuming it’s required anyway). Sadly we are more likely to make draft registration automatic before voter registration.
I never registered. I got my draft card while I was in boot camp in the '80s. Never filled it out.
You are required to sign up but they usually only can enforce it in ways such as applying for a driver’s license or voter registration. Maybe more kids aren’t applying for drivers licenses and therefore aren’t signing up.
the federal student loans and grants would not be dispersed if you were not signed up by a certain date
That was apparently repealed in 2020.
Wish it would’ve happened sooner. There was some issue with my school’s financial aid office every freaking semester. A week before classes started, I would get a letter that all my financial aid was canceled for failing to register, and I’d have to go in and prove I had. After the 4th time, they finally took a photocopy of my registration and had me sign an affidavit and appended it to my file.
I had to apply at the post office. I’m pretty sure there was a penalty if I didn’t, like a fine or jail
if you never sign up you’re excluded from a number of government jobs such as at the post office.
That would make sense, I never pay attention but it would make sense why so many applications ask about it
It’s bonkers that you have to actively sign up for it. Canada had conscription on the books as an available tool but like… you never actively signed on or were penalized for not doing that paperwork. In 2021 they ended all mandatory military service and two months ago they removed conscription entirely. Not that it’s possible for conscription to not come back as technically it’s not actively banned, but if it did it would have to be written and implemented as law entirely from scratch and be re subject to the full process of new constitutional challenge and could now be subject to gender discriminations to strictly men as required by current civil rights .
There’s something about coercing someone to sign their name to paper to register for conscription that feels wrong to me that just accepting a call to conscription doesn’t. Like they want to reduce your resistance to it by making it “voluntary”.
Many people don’t pay attention. My mother (63) didn’t know me or my brother were egistered when a conversation came up about it last year. Most people are so complacent in accepting every day life because they are worried about living day by day. The concept that a mother who is legally responsible for 2 kids didn’t know they both signed themselves to serve in the military at 16 is baffling from a stand back and look at it mentality. (Only two kids, both sign to give their life away while her and her husban(my father) are the only ones who legally could sign our lives away at that age.)
Anything that actually required a draft would result in a nuclear exchange before the draft could be called.
If there is a legitimate reason for a draft, a draft may not be necessary anyway. Unless the enemy is offering a peaceful arrangement to everyone they meet, or there’s no way to get your family to safety, I think most people would willingly fight.
I wouldn’t put it past the Republican party to bring conscription to the table. Probably with all kinds of exceptions and loopholes to either keep their own kids out of it entirely or guarantee cush domestic desk jobs to show how patriotic they are. Everybody else gets to line up with a rifle.
It would be disastrous for Republicans. Independents and moderates would be furious
And with extra psychological torture to the undesirables, and will be sold to their voting base as “antidote to the LGBTQ+ movement”.
I wish they would institute another draft. Whatever party was behind it would be gone inside of the decade.
That would be nice. It is rather demeaning to sign a paper promising to die for your country when needed, in order to get voting privileges.
I know I’m not the smartest fork in the kitchen, but how are they able to just pass this when it should be something we get to vote on?
I mean if you wanna argue that that is the way it should work, I guess we could have that conversation.
(Way too many people I know won’t keep themselves informed enough to vote on representatives, let alone understanding every individual bill well enough to vote on those.)
But if you’re under the impression that that is how it currently works, I guess all I can really do is recommend you take a civics class or something cause that’s wild lmao
Prove to me right now that the average congressional rep knows everything they vote on as much as they should.
Prove to you a thing you just made up that nobody said?
I’m go with nah.
Fine don’t. Continue to believe that Moscow Mitch is better informed and makes wiser decisions than a well read 15 year old.
The US is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. You elect representatives to represent your interests. Or these days, you elect representatives to not represent the other people you don’t like.
Thanks for the reply that helped :)
