U.S. Plans Targeted Draft for Computer Personnel

waytoomuchcoffee writes "The US Selective Service System is drawing up plans for a 'special skills draft'. There is already a system in place to draft health care personnel, and this system would be expanded in order to 'rapidly register and draft' computer specialists."

Comments

Move along, nothing to see here.

[LostCluster]

The present operation of the US Selective Service is more or less trivial because the draft system not active, and it takes an Act of Congress in order to activate it. However, an Act of Congress can also totally rewrite the rules,

The draft in its present form is also very unconstitutional because it discrimates between men and women. In this day and age, that makes it a political untouchable. To require women to register will spark protests, but to not require them to do so would lead to court injunctions halting the draft process.

Congresspeople also have learned something from the Vietnam war. If a war is so unpopular that we are out of "weekend warrior" reserves and we can't convince people to join on their own, as a politician you should be voting to force a withdrawl rather allow the war to continue. To be depleted to the point that a draft is needed in modern times is a sign that we've already lost and just can't admit it.

The only people in Congress who called for a draft during recent years have been those who oppose the president's military plans. By rolling out a draft, or even raising the possiblity of a draft, a war effort suddenly becomes less popular.

Bottom line... the Selective Service exists only as a tool to be used in a doomsday situation, just like all of the city fallout shelters that were built in the USA during the cold war to be prepared for a nuclear bomb that never came. I'd consider anything new we hear from the Selective Service to be a rarely-used bureaucracy trying to justify its existance because in tight budgets, cutting the Selective Service's staff is always a low-pain cut.

Re:Move along, nothing to see here.

[Cocteaustin]

In the absence of an Equal Rights Amendment, discrimination between men and women is absolutely constitutional. At any rate, military necessity has trumped virtually every constitutional guarantee ever extended to Americans, so whether it's constitutional or not is pretty much moot.

A much better idea

[PapayaSF]

Why not just offer large enlistment bonuses and perhaps raise the age limits? I'll bet there are a lot of 40-something geeks who'd be willing to sign up. It would also be a lot easier politically than restarting the draft, and probably get better results: volunteers tend to do better work than draftees.

Re:never too late...

[vipw]

Perhaps you're thinking of a different USA than the one being discussed. The last time the draft was instituted was during the Vietnam War, a conflict that didn't threaten the existence of the country. Not every American is willing to fight and die to keep their country the most powerful in the world, and there is no reason someone should be expected to.

Re:You're all safe

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the feeling it's not my country any more. There was a coup, and a right-wing fascist group seized control. Why the hell should I want to fight for them? If anything, fighting for MY country would be assassinating Bush, Rixe, Powell, and all their slimy corporate CEO buddies.

Re:never too late...

[gaijin99]

Perhaps if you have no sense of what it means to serve your country in the first place, you ought to strongly consider moving to Canada, or some third world country where you belong.

Well Bub, I don't know what country *you* want to serve, but *my* country is the USA and we're based on the idea of freedom. Slave armies are not, by definition, something that can be associated with freedom. The draft is the singular most un-American idea that has ever been put forth, and as a patriot I find it revolting that we've allowed it to continue as long as we have.

I'm continually astonished that people who will object to environmental regulation, "because it violates my property rights", will at the same time support the notion of the draft. Working to abolish the draft, in all forms, sounds like my patriotic duty. Blind support of the government, and forcing others to die for, and to kill for, policy they disagree with hardly sounds like serving *my* country. Maybe you live in a dictatorship, but I live in the USA.

"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." -- Senator Carl Schurz -- February 29, 1872. That's patriotism. The word for what you are endorsing is "jingoism". I prefer patriotism, it takes more thought, and requires more bravery.

Re:sure, why not?

[gaijin99]

You mean because you can't opt out of it? I don't think this is equivalent to slavery. As citizens, there are several obligations we have to the government, some of them onerous: like taxes. This is just one of them--a particularly onerous one--but since it's temporary and reasonably humane I don't think you can compare it to slavery.

Disagree. Taxes are non-fatal. The draft requires that a person who disagrees with the policy of his government risk his life for the policies he disagrees with. This is similar to a measure requiring that you vote for a particular party.

Voluntary military service can be thought of as the ultimate form of democracy: can't get enough people to volunteer to fight your war? Too bad, guess you can't fight it then. I can't see how forcing me to kill for a cause I disagree with is anything but slavery.

Taxes are a different deal, mainly in that they don't force me to kill, or force me to risk my life. I may disagree with how my tax dollars are spent, but as a civilian I still have all my rights and can aggitate for change. A soldier can, quite legally, be punished for disagreeing with government policy (this is why you no longer see non-anonymous interviews with soldiers who disagree with the Bush Government's policy. The first few who did so non-anonymously suffered retribution). A civilian can protest, write nasty letters, run for office against the politician who is spending his money, etc. A soldier can do none of those things. The draft is not equivilant to paying taxes.

The draft never stopped a war!

[tarranp]

Since when has the draft stopped a war? The only thing the draft ensures is that politically unconnected people are forced to fight and die for causes supported for the politically connected, while their kids get cushy jobs in the Air National Guard, where no one cares if they show up or not.

The draft is slavery. I am a veteran, and I proudly volunteered. But if they were to show up claiming they had a right to my life and time - I'd go to jail first.

Re:Booyah!

[mp3phish]

Are you on fucking crack?

What do you think the draft is? WHat do you think happened in WWII and vietnam? Do you think people were trained in "facilities to house or train that many new recruits"? Do you live in 2004?

The draft is real, like it or not. The government maintains the selective service specifically so they can draft people immediately when needed. Volumes of poeple, Hundreds of thousands if needed.

You are sadly mistaken if you believe for one second that the US Government has no infrastructure to draft people. It can happen in a heartbeat. It doesn't take "years of planning and building"

It sounds like you are the one with the tinfoil hat on. I think the metal is seeping into your bloodstream and giving you poisoning.

Re:Running Scared like all the politicians.

[Mr. Slippery]

Personally, I'm with Robert Heinlein: No service, no vote.

So long as we understand "service" properly:

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. -- Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Never confuse serving the state with serving your country.