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Your argument assumes the words "slavery and involuntary servitude" in the 13th Amendment include the draft. This assumption is false. Words in the U.S. Constitution have meaning, and the meaning is not what you can presently attribute to those words but rather the meaning of the words and phrases in the U.S. Constitution came into existence at the time the provision in question was created and ratified. At the time the 13th Amendment was drafted and ratified, the words "slavery and involuntary servitude" did not include the draft and consequently, such words cannot include the draft today.

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It's arguable that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," was intended by many within it's historical context to only refer to white, male landowners, but does that mean that people who don't fit that category shouldn't point out that it IS in the constitution, and that it clearly says "ALL men"?

This is a non-parallel example. You are referring to a non-legal document which had the purpose of explaining why the U.S. colonies were seeking to secede from the government of Britain, and such words do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. This rebuttal is predicated upon a fiction, myth, because such words appear in the Declaration of Independence and not the U.S. Constitution. You are not going to make a convincing argument by referring to and relying upon fictional facts.

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ORIGINAL: B-Swan

The vast majority of them are not what I would consider "good character" people. Alcoholics, addicted smokers, using swear words and innuendo like they are their primary language and English just fills in the blanks, and most don't seem to respect people who haven't had service time. They also make a lot of decisions, but they routinely rush into those decisions without taking the time to make sure they've got the necessary or correct information (causing people like me who had the information they needed, but whom they didn't ask, to have to publicly "clarify" their decision). They also almost all have some level of disability/sickness and/or "issues" when they get out.

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ORIGINAL: greatdivide46

maybe I just hung around with a bunch of people who primarily Christians first and soldiers second.

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I guess my experience is why I would never denigrate the military or look down on those who have served in it.

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ORIGINAL: David-West

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Your argument assumes the words "slavery and involuntary servitude" in the 13th Amendment include the draft. This assumption is false. Words in the U.S. Constitution have meaning, and the meaning is not what you can presently attribute to those words but rather the meaning of the words and phrases in the U.S. Constitution came into existence at the time the provision in question was created and ratified. At the time the 13th Amendment was drafted and ratified, the words "slavery and involuntary servitude" did not include the draft and consequently, such words cannot include the draft today.

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It's arguable that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," was intended by many within it's historical context to only refer to white, male landowners, but does that mean that people who don't fit that category shouldn't point out that it IS in the constitution, and that it clearly says "ALL men"?

This is a non-parallel example. You are referring to a non-legal document which had the purpose of explaining why the U.S. colonies were seeking to secede from the government of Britain, and such words do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. This rebuttal is predicated upon a fiction, myth, because such words appear in the Declaration of Independence and not the U.S. Constitution. You are not going to make a convincing argument by referring to and relying upon fictional facts.

The point I'm trying to illustrate is that the government often makes laws that go against the very principles America is founded on, regardless of whether or not they are against the letter of the law. Would it have been a better example if I had said that slaves simply conveniently didn't receive constitutional rights? Would the argument that "well, 'the people' wasn't meant to refer to slaves," still be valid? And, if technically arguable, is it moral?

And B-Swan, your assessment is pretty accurate from what I've seen. I don't trust my leadership to make moral decisions at all. My CO is constantly talking about how much he hates Muslims and wants to kill all of them and my FSNCO is constantly saying the most horrifying things, including, "100 of them aren't worth 1 of us!" in reference to foreign civilians. He was explaining to me why I was "wrong" for saying that I wouldn't call for fire on a building full of innocents to save one of our guys.

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I understand that the declaration of independence holds no actual legal bearing on any of us, but it certainly serves as a sort of "thesis" for the rest of America.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

So don't sign up. Seems simple enough.

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ORIGINAL: David-West

Several of us have given reasons why the draft is immoral. Here's a few of them:

8. It's antithetical to freedom and personal liberty, which are not only the basis for America but God-given rights. Even God doesn't force people to conform and do what is right, so what gives you or the government the right to try to force conformity?

How hard would it have been to add in a sentence or two about conscription if that was REALLY the framer's intent? Who knows, maybe it was left intentionally vague because no one could agree on whether or not the draft was acceptable.

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No matter which way you argue it, the constitution does not expressly authorize a draft, and if it doesn't, that means the authority to draft is reserved for the states.

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1. It forces someone into a job they may not want to do for no wrong of their own. It forces them to get involved in other people's problems. It basically treating them like a pawn or a number. How is this not slavery?

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It's antithetical to freedom and personal liberty, which are not only the basis for America but God-given rights. Even God doesn't force people to conform and do what is right, so what gives you or the government the right to try to force conformity?

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It tears apart families and they have no say in it.

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4. It endangers other soldiers by subjecting volunteers to people that very likely don't want to be there. 5. It forces people into military service who could probably do a lot more good elsewhere.

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3. It may force people to do a things against their beliefs.

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I'm curious how you would refute those.

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No matter which way you argue it, the constitution does not expressly authorize a draft, and if it doesn't, that means the authority to draft is reserved for the states.

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I know you're going to argue that "raise an army" means to draft, but that argument just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

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How hard would it have been to add in a sentence or two about conscription if that was REALLY the framer's intent?

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Who knows, maybe it was left intentionally vague because no one could agree on whether or not the draft was acceptable.

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ORIGINAL: NotreDame

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ORIGINAL: David-West

Several of us have given reasons why the draft is immoral. Here's a few of them:

8. It's antithetical to freedom and personal liberty, which are not only the basis for America but God-given rights. Even God doesn't force people to conform and do what is right, so what gives you or the government the right to try to force conformity?

How hard would it have been to add in a sentence or two about conscription if that was REALLY the framer's intent? Who knows, maybe it was left intentionally vague because no one could agree on whether or not the draft was acceptable.

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No matter which way you argue it, the constitution does not expressly authorize a draft, and if it doesn't, that means the authority to draft is reserved for the states.

Incorrect...I refuted this notion on more than one occasion already. I presented an argument rebutting his argument on the previous page.

I previously said the following on page 3.

The U.S. Constitution. Specifically the following provisions in the U.S. Constitution.

To declare War...To raise and support Armies...To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

These three provisions appear in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. These are the powers for the government, specifically Congress, to exercise. One of those powers is to raise and support Armies. An important emphasis is placed by myself on the word "raise." To "raise" an army will undoubtedly include conscrpition, i.e. drafting people into the army. Raising an army was nothing new, and historically raising an army included, in some form or another, conscription. Conscription, as part of raising an army, is as old as Hammurabi. Conscription persisted through the Roman Empire, the middles ages in Europe, and importantly in England.

Prior to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, conscrption was a power most if not all adult males in the colonies were familiar with precisely because the colonies instituted a draft to create state militias in an effort to successfully negotiate the Revolutionary War. The Framers and founding generation understood this provision to grant to Congress the authority to institute a draft. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison all advocated for the passage of legislation requiring all men be registered for service and assigned to military units for training. These men certainly did not understand or perceive such legislative efforts to be a power Congress lacked.

Undoubtedly Congress was vested with an authority the colonies had during the Revolutionary War, and it was the power to draft, and such a power is included in the phrase of "To raise armies."

Second of all, logic and common sense dictates such a conclusion. It is unfathomable to think Congress was vested with the authority to declare war and not provided with any power to effectively wage the war they have declared, i.e. incapable to draft men to fight in the war. It is inconceivable to think Congress has the authority to raise armies but not given the power to draft when a reliance upon volunteers is not sufficient to constitute an army at all.

Third, and finally, the necessary and proper clause, which I cited above, justifies the institution of a draft. Instituting a draft is necessary and proper for Congress to execute its powers of raising an army and declaring war.

Therefore, under the U.S. Constitution Congress is vested with the authority to institute a draft and your suggestion they do not have this authority is false in light of this argument I just espoused.

The fact is, a draft is constitutional and congress has the authority to institute a draft.

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1. It forces someone into a job they may not want to do for no wrong of their own. It forces them to get involved in other people's problems. It basically treating them like a pawn or a number. How is this not slavery?

Well, it is not slavery under the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, I reject your contention a draft coerces people to get involved in other people's problems. There are times when a conflict is a national problem, i.e. national security is at risk, and consequently, this becomes everybody's problem in the U.S. A draft then would be incorporating people to address a problem which affects everyone of us, including those drafted.

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It's antithetical to freedom and personal liberty, which are not only the basis for America but God-given rights. Even God doesn't force people to conform and do what is right, so what gives you or the government the right to try to force conformity?

There is not any verse in the Bible which condemns a draft as sinful. Neither is there a verse in the Bible where we can infer a draft is sinful. Yet, there are verses in the Bible where God instructs us to obey all human government and in the absence of any verse indicting a draft as sinful, then we as Christians are obliged to obey the government's conscription efforts.

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It tears apart families and they have no say in it.

So what! This does not make it immoral. War in general tears families apart without any say in it. Moses and Joshua's conquest of the promised land undoubtedly tore families apart, and God never declared this immoral. Furthermore, there is some Biblical evidence Moses instituted a draft.

Numbers 1:1-3: Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' households, according to the number of names, every male, head by head 3 from twenty years old and upward, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies.

Finally, Numbers chapter 2, verse 32 reads, "32 These are the numbered men of the sons of Israel by their fathers' households ; the total of the numbered men of the camps by their armies, 603,550 *****. 33 The Levites, however, were not numbered among the sons of Israel, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

God exempted the Levites from this procedure, quite simply because the Levites were not to go to war. This entire procedure was a draft, commanded by God, and instituted by Moses. This draft was not immoral, unless we believe God did something immoral. However, here is a Biblical example of a draft instituted by Moses as a result of a Godly mandate. It is incomprehensible to think a draft is immoral.

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4. It endangers other soldiers by subjecting volunteers to people that very likely don't want to be there. 5. It forces people into military service who could probably do a lot more good elsewhere.

So what. This does not lead to the conclusion a draft is immoral. This is a non-sequiter.

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3. It may force people to do a things against their beliefs.

This does not make it immoral. Engaging in some action against our beliefs does not necessarily make the conduct immoral.

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I'm curious how you would refute those.

I just did.

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No matter which way you argue it, the constitution does not expressly authorize a draft, and if it doesn't, that means the authority to draft is reserved for the states.

The U.S. Constitution does expressly authorize a draft under the argument I made above analyzing those provisions in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. As a result, this is not a power reserved to the states. Furthermore, the government's inability under the Articles of Confederation to raise an adequate army to fight the British was one of the defects the Framers sought to remedy under the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, the colonies instituted a draft during the Revolutionary War and the federal government was granted a power the colonies themselves had exercised already. Those provisions I cited from Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution were understood to include a draft.

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I know you're going to argue that "raise an army" means to draft, but that argument just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Well, it may not make a lot of sense to you but this does not change the fact it makes sense! The power to "raise an army" included the power to institute a draft. The power to "raise an army" would be an ineffectual and empty power without a draft in those instances where A.) nobody joined the military on their own volition or B.) insufficient numbers joined the military. It is inconceivable to think the federal government was vested with a power to declare war, and defend itself in a time of war, but not provided with the means necessary to carry either into effect when necessary, such as instituting a draft to adequately field an army to properly defend this nation. The fact is, your contrary provision is what does not make any sense.

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How hard would it have been to add in a sentence or two about conscription if that was REALLY the framer's intent?

This is an empty argument. We can virtually make this same remark for any provision in the U.S. Constitution and consequently, come to deny any power to the U.S. government on this basis, even those powers the Framers and founding generation understood the government to possess. The fact they Framers could have, in your estimation, wrote some provision in the U.S. Constitution better, or in your estimation with more clarity, does not nullify an argument the provision in question already says and accomplishes something in particular.

This is especally true when the provision, as written, was understood to include the very object or action! The phrase "to raise an army" was understood to include a draft! Since they understood such a phrase to include a draft, there was no need to specifically reference or mention a draft. They did not have in mind cynics and skeptics 200 years into the future. Rather, they wrote a U.S. Constitution by use of a language, phrases, verbs, adjectives, nouns, and so forth, understood by their audience in 1787. The phrase "to raise an army" was understood to include a draft and as a result this rendered it entirely unnecessarily to reference the draft at all!

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Who knows, maybe it was left intentionally vague because no one could agree on whether or not the draft was acceptable.

This is not supportable by any historical fact but rather contradicted by the historical evidence. As I said before, the colonies had instituted a draft to fight the British in the Revolutionary War. It is unfathomable to think they disagreed as to the propriety of a draft when they all came from colonies/states in which the draft was heavily relied upon to send men to fight the British.

Second, the use of a draft was a long established practice in Europe, and England, and many of the people alive in the colonies/states from 1770-1790 migrated from these locales. In essence, these generations of people in the U.S. during this tenure of time were familiar and acquainted with the use of the draft in Europe, and subsequently made use of the draft in the colonies/states to fight the British during the Revolutionary War. This idea the use of a draft by the government was generally or widely unacceptable is baseless. The objections to the use of a draft, if any, were in the minority, not the majority, and certainly was not the prevailing view during the Revolutionary, framing or adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

Furthermore, some rather very important men from this era demonstrated they did not consider the imposition of a draft to be a power the federal government lacked. I previously said and reiterate, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison all advocated for the passage of legislation requiring all men be registered for service and assigned to military units for training. These men certainly did not understand or perceive such legislative efforts to be a power Congress lacked.

You are articulating an argument lacking support in facts and evidence.

Now, if my remarks here do not refute your argument, then nothing ever will.

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ORIGINAL: GodandGuns

i still say lets be like isreal, make all serve 2 years min.

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ORIGINAL: GodandGuns

in time of war you man up or face ridicule and the fate of what waits you.

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but remember, the being able to have the rights you have comes from the blood shed by soldiers. and if you dont respect that. go to work on Memorial Day. and Veteran's Day. don't disrespect those days by enjoying the days set aside in their memory by someone who doesnt care less or would cry and whimper at having to wear the uniform I, others on here, and so many yet so few have worn and died for those same rights.

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ORIGINAL: David-West

Several of us have given reasons why the draft is immoral. Here's a few of them:

1. It forces someone into a job they may not want to do for no wrong of their own. It forces them to get involved in other people's problems. It basically treating them like a pawn or a number. How is this not slavery?

2. It tears apart families and they have no say in it.

3. It may force people to do a things against their beliefs.

4. It endangers other soldiers by subjecting volunteers to people that very likely don't want to be there.

5. It forces people into military service who could probably do a lot more good elsewhere.

6. It lets politicians who likely wouldn't dream of putting themselves in danger exploit people.

7. It assumes that the state or the majority have more rights to your body and your life than you do.

8. It's antithetical to freedom and personal liberty, which are not only the basis for America but God-given rights. Even God doesn't force people to conform and do what is right, so what gives you or the government the right to try to force conformity?

I'm curious how you would refute those. Another argument as to how the draft is unconstitutional is that it violates the 10th amendment (as do arguably most current functions of the federal government).

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

No matter which way you argue it, the constitution does not expressly authorize a draft, and if it doesn't, that means the authority to draft is reserved for the states. I know you're going to argue that "raise an army" means to draft, but that argument just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How hard would it have been to add in a sentence or two about conscription if that was REALLY the framer's intent? Who knows, maybe it was left intentionally vague because no one could agree on whether or not the draft was acceptable.

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ORIGINAL: zamdad
I posted a while back. I have no clue if you responded or not. I used to be a regular here and don't get here very often anymore. Seems to me, David West, if you think selective service or the draft is immoral, then don't sign up.

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While you wrestle with your emotions over the matter, there are many men and women who will put your right to express your beliefs above themselves as they fight those who seek to destroy the freedom and liberty you profess to value so much. They will willingly leave their families to defend your freedom so that you don't have to do something against your beliefs.

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ORIGINAL: GodandGuns

greatdivide, unless he /she was a coward who hung in the background, you never come out of war the same. i changed so much. some good, some bad.

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ORIGINAL: iluvatar

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ORIGINAL: zamdad
I posted a while back. I have no clue if you responded or not. I used to be a regular here and don't get here very often anymore. Seems to me, David West, if you think selective service or the draft is immoral, then don't sign up.

That's a bit harder to do if signing up is mandatory.

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While you wrestle with your emotions over the matter, there are many men and women who will put your right to express your beliefs above themselves as they fight those who seek to destroy the freedom and liberty you profess to value so much. They will willingly leave their families to defend your freedom so that you don't have to do something against your beliefs.

The last war waged against "those who [sought] to destroy the freedom and liberty [we] profess to value so much" was WWII. That doesn't mean that other wars weren't justified, and while the soldiers may sign up to do what you claim (protect our freedoms), that also doesn't mean that that's what the commanders actually have them doing. Economics and politics have factored more heavily in more of our wars than have the defense of a basic right to freedom and liberty.

-Dan.