Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom by Ron Paul Page B
Book: Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom by Ron Paul
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Authors: Ron Paul
Tags: United States, General, Political, Political Science, Philosophy, Political Ideologies, Political Freedom & Security, liberty
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military advantages for using conscripted soldiers for conflict. 2
A draft can never be fair; it can’t be universal since there’s never a need for everyone to be put on active duty. Discrimination by age is the first tool used to pick and choose those who must go. In our times, someone over thirty-five is just as capable of serving in the military as someone eighteen. Yet rarely are those over thirty-five, forty-five, or fifty-five ever forced into the military. And there are also many other reasons for deferrals or exemptions: health, student status, religious beliefs, needs in a family business, needs in industry, etc.
There are always plans to make the next draft fair and without exemptions, but it has never worked that way in the past. The rich were allowed to pay a substitute to fight in their place in the Civil War, and ever since then there have always been exceptions, many of them political. The wars since World War II were never declared, and Korea and Vietnam were fought with draftees. The example set by some famous “chicken-hawks” not only should draw severe criticism from all Americans but show how a draft can be manipulated by privileged individuals.
Chicken-hawks are individuals who dodged the draft when their numbers came up but who later became champions of senseless and undeclared wars when they were influencing foreign policy. Former Vice President Cheney is the best example of this disgraceful behavior. When it became knownthat Cheney got five student deferrals and never served in the 1960s, he was quizzed about it and blew it off by saying that he had “other priorities.” At the time he said this he was the chief architect of the war in Iraq, and he has remained dedicated to our omnipresence in the Middle East for the purpose of remaking it in our and Israel’s interest.
In Congress, at this time, there is essentially no interest in reinstating the draft, but neither is there any interest in my legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act. The strongest current support for the draft comes from the Congressional Black Caucus, which is a bit ironic since minorities were discriminated against in the 1960s in implementing the draft. Minorities served in greater numbers during the Vietnam and the Korean wars and suffered a greater percentage of fatalities and casualties than whites. At times there were justified outcries from minority groups because the Dick Cheneys of the world were able to evade the draft while minorities suffered disproportionately.
Now the argument against this position is that, though it’s a voluntary army, blacks disproportionately serve and suffer casualties compared to whites. And this is true. But today no one serves who doesn’t volunteer. It hardly makes sense that the draft is the salvation to this dilemma since it was and always has been arbitrary. But the proponents argue that the next time there’s a draft it will be different. It never is.
One thing that has helped recent recruitment has been the weak economy; people join for economic reasons, possibly explaining why minorities volunteer in greater proportion than whites. But even before the recent downturn, a weaker economy than the government admits to over the past decadepushed a lot of people into augmenting their pay by joining the Reserves and the Guard units, never expecting that Bush and Obama would be so dependent on the reservists for multiple tours of duty to the Middle East.
Prohibiting members of the military to leave when their tours are up is essentially a de facto draft—this stop-loss program has been severely criticized by the personnel and the families who suffer from it.
With the current military exhausted and the increasing odds of armed conflict, the specter of the draft is once again raised. For now, though, the disastrously weak economy will serve the interest of the state by prompting many individuals to volunteer, despite the risks involved.
Conscription should never be part
A draft can never be fair; it can’t be universal since there’s never a need for everyone to be put on active duty. Discrimination by age is the first tool used to pick and choose those who must go. In our times, someone over thirty-five is just as capable of serving in the military as someone eighteen. Yet rarely are those over thirty-five, forty-five, or fifty-five ever forced into the military. And there are also many other reasons for deferrals or exemptions: health, student status, religious beliefs, needs in a family business, needs in industry, etc.
There are always plans to make the next draft fair and without exemptions, but it has never worked that way in the past. The rich were allowed to pay a substitute to fight in their place in the Civil War, and ever since then there have always been exceptions, many of them political. The wars since World War II were never declared, and Korea and Vietnam were fought with draftees. The example set by some famous “chicken-hawks” not only should draw severe criticism from all Americans but show how a draft can be manipulated by privileged individuals.
Chicken-hawks are individuals who dodged the draft when their numbers came up but who later became champions of senseless and undeclared wars when they were influencing foreign policy. Former Vice President Cheney is the best example of this disgraceful behavior. When it became knownthat Cheney got five student deferrals and never served in the 1960s, he was quizzed about it and blew it off by saying that he had “other priorities.” At the time he said this he was the chief architect of the war in Iraq, and he has remained dedicated to our omnipresence in the Middle East for the purpose of remaking it in our and Israel’s interest.
In Congress, at this time, there is essentially no interest in reinstating the draft, but neither is there any interest in my legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act. The strongest current support for the draft comes from the Congressional Black Caucus, which is a bit ironic since minorities were discriminated against in the 1960s in implementing the draft. Minorities served in greater numbers during the Vietnam and the Korean wars and suffered a greater percentage of fatalities and casualties than whites. At times there were justified outcries from minority groups because the Dick Cheneys of the world were able to evade the draft while minorities suffered disproportionately.
Now the argument against this position is that, though it’s a voluntary army, blacks disproportionately serve and suffer casualties compared to whites. And this is true. But today no one serves who doesn’t volunteer. It hardly makes sense that the draft is the salvation to this dilemma since it was and always has been arbitrary. But the proponents argue that the next time there’s a draft it will be different. It never is.
One thing that has helped recent recruitment has been the weak economy; people join for economic reasons, possibly explaining why minorities volunteer in greater proportion than whites. But even before the recent downturn, a weaker economy than the government admits to over the past decadepushed a lot of people into augmenting their pay by joining the Reserves and the Guard units, never expecting that Bush and Obama would be so dependent on the reservists for multiple tours of duty to the Middle East.
Prohibiting members of the military to leave when their tours are up is essentially a de facto draft—this stop-loss program has been severely criticized by the personnel and the families who suffer from it.
With the current military exhausted and the increasing odds of armed conflict, the specter of the draft is once again raised. For now, though, the disastrously weak economy will serve the interest of the state by prompting many individuals to volunteer, despite the risks involved.
Conscription should never be part