What about the draft?

Marty wants to know how I feel about the draft. Well, Marty, unfortunately, I don’t know. Or perhaps that is fortunately, because the draft has not been active in my lifetime, at least not to that point where I was able to talk. So I don’t really have an opinion on the matter. But I’m sure I can come up with one.

I think that my main problem with the survey, which generated Marty’s question, and things of similar nature, is twofold. First and foremost is the forced nature. I don’t mind telling the government who lives here. After all, it’s not like they don’t know. What I do mind is having to tell some minion how much I make a year.

It’s not like they couldn’t find out if they are authorized – but it’s a royal pain. I think perhaps it’s the inefficiency that bothers me. The government knows who lives here. They know how much I made (not how much I made last year, not yet, but the year before that), they know just about everything. Why in the world is there a need for someone to walk around taking a census? That’s just insane.

So how does that apply to the draft? I’m not sure that it does apply to the draft. I suspect that it would probably mean that if you wanted to fight in a foreign war, go for it. But if you didn’t believe in it, and didn’t want to, that’s just fine. After all, look at Iraq. I’m not saying I am for or against it – but there seem to be plenty of people to fight the war, and we don’t have a draft right now.

Other than that, I would probably limit the draft to the defense of the country – and by that I mean the defense of the actual country, not an obscure defense of our way of life or something that often seems to fuel the wars that we’ve seen in the last half-century. Specifically I find it odd that we fight for freedom in Iraq while New Orleans struggles to recover. I find it strange that we help others gain freedom while our freedoms are not only being restricted, but the weight of the freedom grows more by the day because of the bureaucratic nonsense inherent in our bloated government.


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3 responses to “What about the draft?”

  1. Ted Avatar

    The military does NOT want a draft. It costs a ton of money to train a soldier. Volunteers are always much more efficaious that draftees.

  2. Chad Everett Avatar

    I understand your point, but there is a large difference between doing our duty and anarchy! There is also a huge difference between the rights that are outlined by the constitution and what passes for rights these days. Read this piece by Walter Williams for more.

    In this case, what concerns me are stories like this one, outlining how our government first de-classified documents roughly a decade ago, and now is re-classifying them. For no particular purpose.

    This includes such alleged items as a 1948 CIA memo that told of a plan to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain to drop propaganda leaflets. A: Why is this secret in the first place and B: Why are we now spending even more money to make it secret again?

    That’s nothing but waste, and we have so much of it that it’s a burden to our populace, not a benefit. The framers of our country would likely be sickened if they saw the full-time loafers that we have in “office”.

    And sorry we missed you. We were off gallivanting.

  3. Marty Avatar
    Marty

    Heh, thanks for the reply.

    FWIW, the question came in response to your comment:

    “What bothers me is the fact that in what is purported to be a free country, it seems more and more that the government requires certain actions be undertaken. I think that’s wrong.”

    Even in a “purportedly free country”, we are all required to do our duty. Freedom is a much bigger concept than pure anarchy, although they do share certain common themes…

    PS: We missed you sunday.