You still took your choice of job voluntarily. How about if your employer could send the cops to your house to force you to be an employee at whatever wages the company wanted, and whatever duties it chooses to assign you?
Let's not compare compulsory service to slavery. Compulsory service benefits many people, including the people participating in it. Slavery benefits the slaver. You don't like the idea of compulsory service - that's fine. But it's not slavery. What's more akin to slavery than compulsory service is how your clothes and goods are made.
Well I see two flaws here. One, slavery benefited many people too and getting sent to a shooting war doesn't benefit the people participating in it much.
Denny, I'm not an expert on the 13th, so please help. How is the draft legal when that is in place? Seems that fills the exact same criteria of involuntary.
No, just disingenuous. Okay - good points. Still, comparing compulsory service to slavery is nothing more than hyperbole. Maybe compulsory service doesn't ALWAYS benefit the participants, but it at least has the potential for benefit during peace-time.
Both the selective service and the draft have been challenged at the supreme court and the court has ruled that the government has the power to raise and support armies, per Article I, Section 8, Clause 12. Our founding fathers did not want a standing army at all. They felt a standing army would lead to a sort of tyranny; you know, where the government could demand taxes or worse. Nor did they want us to become some sort of militaristic society. They specifically wrote about any standing army being small (like 1,000 troops, really!) and the govt.'s power to support armies simply to pay the payroll and buy bullets. I've not seen that the courts have ruled for or against conscription during peace time, which is a very different thing than needing troops for an actual war (not a police action tho). The selective service has been ruled constitutional during peacetime, but that's not actual conscription. After Vietnam, Ford terminated the Selective Service. Carter reinstated it, anticipating a war with Iran. We've had it ever since. During the Gulf War I, Kosovo (and Clinton's other military excursions), Gulf War II, and Afghanistan, we had no draft nor need for one. Service is just that - service. There's a contract element to it, as well. In exchange for military duty, we give our vets VHA loans, VA medical care, GI Bill for education. The GI signs away various rights, like the right to quit, submits to MCOJ, 1 weekend/month+1 week/year (or whatever) for reservists, and serve where you're told, do what you're told, etc. Right now our active military is 1.4M people with 851K in reserve. If we were to force people to join the military for two years, there'd be between 15M and 30M active military at all times. It would cost us an additional $1T in salary for the low end (15M) level, and another $1.5T for their health care. That's not counting the cost of the bases, housing, "operation/maintenance" etc. (about $1.8T). Then figure in the cost of GI Bill, VHA loans, etc., for all those people. I seriously doubt it is a good idea from any perspective.
Most people who propose compulsory service don't mean compulsory military service. Either you serve in the military, or you serve in some other way. We don't need a huge army - but we do have lots of other stuff we could be working on. barfo
Also depending on the job being done, There could be great positives or negatives to the GDP. Costs to feed them might stay the same, but the good they do could offset that through a better place to live or even through a better resulting economy, depending on how it was implemented.
Perhaps I wasn't careful enough with my words. By no means am I suggesting more troops. Our fighting force should be DRAMATICALLY reduced. But with the idea of compulsory service, you would have the choice to serve as a government weapon if you wanted. I think most people would choose to serve in other ways though - providing health care, building infrastructure, teaching, etc. For many it could act as a form of apprenticeship to prepare them for their future career. Or perhaps their service would be paid after finishing the necessary education so doctors would get a free education but then provide community health care for X years before going into their desired field.
The call was for a couple years of service. You're not going to pay them for those 2 years? No pay makes it slavery moreso. The call was also to provide education and free health care (free? hahaha). If everyone had to serve, in about 80 years, you'd be providing free everything to everyone in exchange for 2 years of picking up litter.
Take a look at the military pay scale. I don't care if you hire 16M to fight or to pick up trash, it's going to be massively expensive. At some point, you'll have 16M+ people repaving perfectly good roads. The asphalt costs money, as do the machines to lay down the road, paint the lines, etc.
You are being unreasonably rigid. The length of service and benefits of service can be adjusted as desired. If all we need is 6 months from everyone to do every useful public project, then 6 months it is. barfo
Seriously! They were just numbers to help illustrate a rough idea. Fucking hell - it's not like it's a fully fleshed out piece of legislation! The point is for people to provide useful service for the common good (that the government is already paying for!) in return for some individual rewards. And I sincerely doubt that everyone is going to elect to pick up trash...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmeriCorps#Costs_and_benefits Already exists, and you don't have to haul people away in handcuffs if they refuse.
