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Obama administration weighs making women eligible for military draft
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Mr Fahrenheit
Member
Well that is equal
Nostremitus
Member
Equality
freenudemacusers
Member
Tricky way to increase the birthrate in millenials. I see you Obama.
JoeyJungle
Banned
Wrong direction, should look at eliminating the draft instead :\
The draft isn't a thing right now. You better believe it will come back if we face another existential crisis like a world war and no amount of getting rid of it now will stop that.
lol, what the fuck? Do you know what the purpose of the draft is?
cpp_is_king
Member
Instead of having the draft, maybe we should require 2 years mandatory military service upon turning 18 or graduating high school.
Veritigo_X
Member
That's an even worse idea. What country do you think this is?
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
I'm all for this. The world isn't like a video game, I'm sure there will always be dialog options that will never involve fighting or sacrifice if we choose the right dialog tree and save often.
cpp_is_king
Member
The one where people don't have enough appreciation for what their ancestors fought so hard defending.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
I've seen some stupid ceremonial dilemmas before, but are you fucking kidding me. There will never be another draft, this literally will never be an issue.
I have a lot of friends who have gone through this in various other countries and honestly, it seems to have been a good thing for most of them. I wish I'd been able to do something similar without a huge long term commitment.
Terrible idea. We would have no need for that many people and you'd just be holding people back 2 years.
cpp_is_king
Member
Exactly. It's 2 years. It's nothing. And kids might learn some respect and basic life skills for once, which is something too many people are not getting at home anymore.
Of course we have need for that many people. And it's not holding people back, it's giving them a leg up. All those people working minimum wage jobs because they have no education and fighting for $15 / hour, they could actually learn something useful in the military. Genuinely useful.
bottom line: talk to anyone who has been through this in their own country. ALL of them came out the better for it, and they will admit it to you straight up
AnathemicOne
Banned
Or you could eliminate the draft entirely? I'm all for more equality but if the US is going into another Vietnam ala draft it doesn't seem prudent to send an entire generation of youth into war.
You have to be in shape.
Mandatory 2 years of PT might not be a bad thing.
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Two words: "Battle Hardened!"
(""Army Strong" also acceptable answer)
The problem with this is, while people like to joke about how America loves militarization, is that the different branches are all having issues with too many people serving and not enough places to put them(even though it isn't as bad now as it was a few years ago). Here in the Navy they were pushing people out, even allowing people in certain rates to terminate their contracts early. To this day some rates have terrible advancement quotas simply because there is so many people in the rate.
Making it compulsory to serve, even for two years, would be a horrible strain on all the branches, considering there are millions of 18-20 year olds in this country.
no, we don't need millions of people and not everybody gets something out of it. These are blanket generalizations that you are making about the usefulness of military service.
family_guy
Member
I have no problem with this.
cpp_is_king
Member
Sure, you'd have to undergo some organizational changes to figure out where to put them. It doesn't just have to be army/navy/air force marines. You've got coast guard, national guard, peace corps, lots of other things. If you frame it as "national service" there are lots of places to put people.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
Agreed.
What was the last draft? Oh right, for the long pointless drawn out Vietnam War that we lost in the end; costing the lives of over 60,000 soldiers, because commies are bad. Now we got McDonalds in Vietnam and it's a tourist destination.
If we are forced into a war with draft again, we must be so totally f' in the A on the world scale at that point.
I agree.
cpp_is_king
Member
How many people do you know that have been through mandatory military service? Because I know a lot, and every single one of them believes they are better for it.
But I mean, let's not use real data to base our arguments on. America is just different, right?
SenorPopOff
Banned
I know plenty of people who served in our own military who say they only did it because otherwise they couldn't afford college and if given the chance they would have rather just went to school. To say that forced military terms are good for 100% of people is just absurd.
Lord Thrappleper The 49th
Member
Yes, yes. Keep the draft. Have unskilled, slovenly civilians fight in your military. It shall make recolonizing you that much easier for us.
AnathemicOne
Banned
As a military brat I've seen some asshole marines who destroy their families ala divorce and domestic violence. But yeah, go military!
Edit: I can use this so-called "real data" as well, and I bet my real data is better than your real data.
If you re-classified it as National Service/public works and them work in with the military as well as in the interior on public works projects I could see this. It's not an awful idea but as pointed out it would probably be a logistics nightmare. The benefits however, mainly of exposing people to their fellow citizenry, fostering good relations, teaching discipline, work ethic, health benefits of boot camp I could see an argument for. Not sold on it though
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
There is no conscription presently, even for wars waged by those evil nefarious republicans that take on large enemy forces (i.e. Iraq 1 and 2). But keeping the books open in case it's ever needed in the future isn't a bad idea. Will allow faster response to an impending crisis situation.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
I think we should eliminate the draft instead. If your nation can't get people to volunteer for the war, then perhaps they should take a look at wither or not it should be fought anyways.
Now, I wouldn't be opposed to a voluntary draft, that is, for situations where you have so many people signing up that you cannot train and equip them all, so they instead register, and get called up when the government is ready for them.
Now, I wouldn't be opposed to a voluntary draft, that is, for situations where you have so many people signing up that you cannot train and equip them all, so they instead register, and get called up when the government is ready for them.
Given that it hasn't been used for over 40 years I don't think anyone knows what the purpose of the draft is.
I don't believe the draft will ever be reinstated. Most people nowadays take it for granted that the draft is over. Any politician who tried to start it again would be killing their career.
What "real data"? The example you give is an anecdote!
Hamster Plugin
Member
I'm from Finland where we have a mandatory military service system. It was just a waste of time and I wish I could have spent that time doing something more productive.
And we also have a shitty system where it's mandatory for men, while women are allowed to choose whether they want to go or not. And this is apparently the 2nd most gender-equal country in the world.
Almost all of our wars have been us on the offensive...
We don't have a draft right now. It is a signup sheet that is not used. It's a just in case someone invades us next week kinda thing.
Yaphett Kotto
Member
Have you even served (serving) yourself? You should know how people are in all branches. People don't magically change because they are in the military.
Sending men and women would probably be less socially disruptive than only sending men.
Because we don't live in a polygamous society, ever 18-year-old who dies in war means that another 18-year-old will likely be unable to have children. We halve our potential population shrinkage by sending both men and women.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
American Revolution
Civil War
WW2
Does another nation have the ability to say that it had three good, meaningful wars in its history? Probably, but I haven't read their histories enough to say for sure, so take that.
It's not as if some politician is going to pull it out of his ass for the hell of it. It'd be more like, "oh shit the world is going down in flames, and we need about 5 more divisions."
Mr_Antimatter
Member
And again, that changes nothing. If needed, folks woudl volunteer, if they don't, then you have to ask 'why?' instead of 'well tough, we'll just force you to do it anyways'.
And that sign up sheet? It's not voluntary, you get heavily penalized for not going with it. I believe that to be a violation of basic civil liberties.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I don't really want to appreciate the fight of our genocidal ancestors. And there's a significant contingent whose ancestors were sort of forced here without option. It's an insignificant portion of our ancestors who you could truly say fought for the country. We were meant to be a country of immigrants after all.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
It is.... Equality.. Sadly 
Eh fair enough. I'm still opposed to it though. I doubt the U.S. will go down in flames any time soon.
In an existential crisis I doubt the government wants to rely on volunteers. I agree generally with you about most wars the U.S. Has fought in recent history. Vietnam springs to mind. And I also agree that the penalties incurred if you don't signup are harsh. Neither of those two points change what I said however. The draft can't be eliminated because right now it already is.
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