I agree that it's very similar to an extreme form of taxation... you're on the right track.
Ask then, just how much of a "free society" it is when people are forced to work for it against their will.
Then ask how much of a "free society" it is if people are forced to pay for it against their will.
The key here is not that taxation justifies conscription, its that conscriptions provides an extreme example of just how wrong taxation was/is in the first place.
"The reason for a draft is that your country needs you."
Needs you but doesn't have a good enough reason that you'd volunteer would be more accurate.
However much name calling you or John Mills wants to do, I'm not going to kill anybody. Put me in prison if it makes you feel better. Just remind yourself that you're doing it to "keep me free".
Of course the enlisted troops actually want to be there.
The income isn't too discretionary if one can't, for example, decide they're made enough money and don't want to work there anymore.
What exactly does someone who lives in a dorm and eats what he's given spend this money on, anyhow? Personally I'm guessing it would be various drugs to ease the pain of knowing one is being forced to work against one's will.
Save the self righteousness for someone who will be impressed by it.
If these people didn't already have a "trained career path" they wouldn't be subject to this draft, and if the pay and benefits were really so great they could fill the position without putting a gun to anybody's head.
This is forced labor... no matter how sugar-coated it is, that's slavery.
You'd be right if we were talking about people who signed up. These are conscripts, their education has no bearing on that, because the same rules don't apply to them.
The whole reason to have a draft is so you can pay far below market rates.
Conscription is logically equivalent to slavery. Consider yourself lucky if you get minimum wage, most of the plans to draft unskilled troops won't even give them that much.
A pre-1981 penny is 100% copper, and worth about 0.85 cents. Modern pennies are mostly zinc, and are nearly worthless. No currently circulating coin contains metal worth more than its face value, the nickel is the closest, worth about 3 cents.
Here's a neat experiment. Take a penny dated 1981 or before, and a new one. Heat both of them on the stove. The old penny will come out unscathed, but the new one will be a pile of goo.
The "illegal to melt" law was a product of the debasement of the coinage in 1964, because dimes, quarters, halves, etc. were made of 90% silver at the time. Inflation thanks to an increase in the amount of unbacked federal reserve notes and increased industrial demand for silver made it impossible to continue minting coins out of it.
When Silver made its run up in the late 70's, the law was revoked in the hopes that enough people would melt their old silver coinage to meet the demand. It was generally unsuccessful, because most of the coinage had already been melted either by the US Mint or in illegal smelting operations.
That law was intended to prevent shaving of precious metal coins and numismatic fraud, like changing the date on ones coin to a more rare date in hopes of selling it to an unwitting collector. Destroying a coin is not the covered, because there is no method of fraudulently passing a coin which no longer exists.
For what its worth, there was a seperate law that forbade the melting of US coins, and it was taken off the books during the Hunt Brothers silver bull market... in the hopes that it would bring the price down and save the Silver Users Association members.
There are presently several private smelting companies who will take American silver coinage and melt it down for you into ingots. The practice is perfectly legal.
Guess they didn't believe you about "not flaming":)
But yeah, it varies from state to state, but its absolutely true. Money is hard to trace, so anyone using cash for a large transaction is generally assumed to be doing so because they want to hide it from the government.
Of course stuff like taking your money without any evidence of a crime seems like a pretty good reason to try to keep ones transactions a secret.
Here in MI if you have that kind of cash on a state highway the state police can seize it and hold it until you prove it wasn't being used in a drug transaction.
My guess would be it involves taking resources away from indiginous peoples, like in the Insurrection movie.
The Federation has such total control over its citizenry and their property that taxation is no longer neccesary. Since nobody outside of starfleet appears to have a significant amount of wealth and they don't pay their employees anything, what's the point of taxation?
Slashdot Mirror
" Do you then advocate the abolishment of all taxation? "
Yes
"Paying taxes isn't much fun, but I wouldn't want to be without the services they pay for.."
So? If these services are so generally desired people will be willing to contribute to them without being forced.
" Looks like we've got an anarchist over here."
You are correct.
"You clearly haven't thought through this view..."
What drew you to that conclusion?
I agree that it's very similar to an extreme form of taxation... you're on the right track.
Ask then, just how much of a "free society" it is when people are forced to work for it against their will.
Then ask how much of a "free society" it is if people are forced to pay for it against their will.
The key here is not that taxation justifies conscription, its that conscriptions provides an extreme example of just how wrong taxation was/is in the first place.
"jury duty is forced labor. paying taxes is forced labor."
I agree... those are immoral as well.
"The reason for a draft is that your country needs you."
Needs you but doesn't have a good enough reason that you'd volunteer would be more accurate.
However much name calling you or John Mills wants to do, I'm not going to kill anybody. Put me in prison if it makes you feel better. Just remind yourself that you're doing it to "keep me free".
Of course the enlisted troops actually want to be there.
The income isn't too discretionary if one can't, for example, decide they're made enough money and don't want to work there anymore.
What exactly does someone who lives in a dorm and eats what he's given spend this money on, anyhow? Personally I'm guessing it would be various drugs to ease the pain of knowing one is being forced to work against one's will.
From the organisms' perspective they are.
Save the self righteousness for someone who will be impressed by it.
If these people didn't already have a "trained career path" they wouldn't be subject to this draft, and if the pay and benefits were really so great they could fill the position without putting a gun to anybody's head.
This is forced labor... no matter how sugar-coated it is, that's slavery.
You'd be right if we were talking about people who signed up. These are conscripts, their education has no bearing on that, because the same rules don't apply to them.
Slavery is forced labor.
Conscription is forced labor.
Yeah, that's a real stretch of a comparison.
Its just a lot easier to add "put you in prison if you won't work for us" to below market rates.
I mean, if you're already morally bankrupt.
"Don't need you, don't want you... if you're not willing to become a slave..."
is that where this was going?
If they were willing to pay a decent wage they wouldn't be running short on workers.
Its not like most of the people here have any moral objection to being complicit in murder.
The whole reason to have a draft is so you can pay far below market rates.
Conscription is logically equivalent to slavery. Consider yourself lucky if you get minimum wage, most of the plans to draft unskilled troops won't even give them that much.
A pre-1981 penny is 100% copper, and worth about 0.85 cents. Modern pennies are mostly zinc, and are nearly worthless. No currently circulating coin contains metal worth more than its face value, the nickel is the closest, worth about 3 cents.
Here's a neat experiment. Take a penny dated 1981 or before, and a new one. Heat both of them on the stove. The old penny will come out unscathed, but the new one will be a pile of goo.
The "illegal to melt" law was a product of the debasement of the coinage in 1964, because dimes, quarters, halves, etc. were made of 90% silver at the time. Inflation thanks to an increase in the amount of unbacked federal reserve notes and increased industrial demand for silver made it impossible to continue minting coins out of it.
When Silver made its run up in the late 70's, the law was revoked in the hopes that enough people would melt their old silver coinage to meet the demand. It was generally unsuccessful, because most of the coinage had already been melted either by the US Mint or in illegal smelting operations.
That law was intended to prevent shaving of precious metal coins and numismatic fraud, like changing the date on ones coin to a more rare date in hopes of selling it to an unwitting collector. Destroying a coin is not the covered, because there is no method of fraudulently passing a coin which no longer exists.
For what its worth, there was a seperate law that forbade the melting of US coins, and it was taken off the books during the Hunt Brothers silver bull market... in the hopes that it would bring the price down and save the Silver Users Association members.
There are presently several private smelting companies who will take American silver coinage and melt it down for you into ingots. The practice is perfectly legal.
Guess they didn't believe you about "not flaming" :)
But yeah, it varies from state to state, but its absolutely true. Money is hard to trace, so anyone using cash for a large transaction is generally assumed to be doing so because they want to hide it from the government.
Of course stuff like taking your money without any evidence of a crime seems like a pretty good reason to try to keep ones transactions a secret.
I'd love to know how taking my money would ever be "for my own protection".
I wonder if pickpockets would use a similar excuse?
Here in MI if you have that kind of cash on a state highway the state police can seize it and hold it until you prove it wasn't being used in a drug transaction.
It used to be... not anymore.
Back in the late 70's melting coins was a federal offense.
Sometimes, people who fled totalitarian countries are the most ardent supporters of American freedoms.
And sometimes they write draconian laws that dramatically increase the power of the government to oppress the common citizen.
How can we not hold Mapblast (how's that name for irony!) partially responsible for the Two Towers tragedy
I'd pin most of it on Saruman.
My guess would be it involves taking resources away from indiginous peoples, like in the Insurrection movie.
The Federation has such total control over its citizenry and their property that taxation is no longer neccesary. Since nobody outside of starfleet appears to have a significant amount of wealth and they don't pay their employees anything, what's the point of taxation?
And if the United States government wants to persecute people for having incorrect Whois data, there's nothing wrong in making that hard for them.
That would seem to fall under "deliberately misleading".