
Drafting Only Men for the Military Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules - yasp
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/us/military-draft-men-unconstitutional.html
======
curtis
We haven't had the draft since 1973. What's in question is _registration for
the draft_ in case we ever decide we should need it again. I think this is
largely a moot point, since we're well into the information age, and
identifying all American citizens of a draftable age is likely pretty easy
whether they are registered or not.

~~~
lsiebert
I suppose the draft doesn't necessarily have to be for military service for a
war with other countries.

For example, if we learned that something large was on a collision course for
the earth, we might have years to prepare to deflect it, or to build shelters,
or something along those lines, but I can absolutely see a mobilization being
necessary.

Of course, there's no legitimate reason why we'd mobilize men and not women.

~~~
henvic
There is no legitimate reason to draft anyone.

People aren't your slave. It doesn't matter that there might bad consequences
if there is something 'to be done'.

If you don't respect human beings as individuals in the first place, we
already lost.

~~~
lsiebert
If you mean unpaid labor, then that's not how drafts work, but I'll assume you
mean forced labor.

I've seen the same argument used regarding taxation.

I'd argue that people have duties and obligations to their government, just as
a government has duties and obligations to it's citizens.

So I absolutely believe that the government has a right draft people to defend
the country. Drafting people just to wage war to advance our interests I have
a lot more qualms about.

~~~
Pristina
Do you think slavery is fine then? If compelled labour in the military is
permissible by you because people have 'obligations' to the government? What
is a government except as an entity to ensure people's natural rights are not
infringed. And we are somehow obligated to be slaves to this entity?

~~~
lsiebert
I understand there may be a need for compelled labor by the government, in a
time of war or national emergency.

Am I okay with it?

I think that depends on whether it's a defensive war or a real national
emergency. China invades, or yellow stone's super volcano erupts, yeah, those
are legitimate reasons to force humans to cooperate, because survival is at
stake. Vietnam type situations, or the Border Wall thing... I'd be protesting
a draft.

U.S. law and supreme court precedent both say that a draft is not slavery, but
I understand your opinion, or definition of slavery, may differ.

I also believe quarantine laws for infectious people are valid, that police
should be able to arrest violent criminals, etc. Basically, I believe if your
actions or failure to act endangers the health and well-being of others, then
the government has a legitimate interest in compelling or restricting
behavior.

Most people would consider providing for the national defense and preserving
the lives of citizens to be part of what a government does.

~~~
Pristina
>preserving the lives of citizens

this is completely false. a war is never about killing citizens but about
imposing political will. without a defense, the occupier would simply impose
their political system on the occupied. a government, being a political
entity, is only forcing people to DIE so they can maintain their political
hegemony over some people.

~~~
gbear605
That’s just false, since a lot of times political will involves killing
civilians. For example: Stalin, Mao, Andrew Jackson

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WalterBright
There have been several wars where the slaughter of men was so extreme that
the countries involved would have collapsed if the women were slaughtered as
well, because the population could not have rebounded.

I heard long ago (sorry, no reference) that the average French soldier was a
couple inches shorter in WW2 than in WW1, which was attributed to the male
slaughter (though I suspect that food shortages were a more likely cause).

In France and Germany, after WW1 and WW2, it became commonplace for the women
to marry foreigners and old men. I don't know if that happened in Britain as
well.

Baby booms are common after the end of terrible wars. I read once that people
were copulating in the streets of London after the WW1 armistice was declared.

~~~
randyrand
How would that work? If there were 80 women left and only 20 men would the
expectation really be that the remaining men knock up 4 women each? That
doesn’t seem like it would ever fit our social norms and seems like a
completely unimportant point.

~~~
jackpirate
In 1871, only 12% of Paraguayans were male due to massive losses in war. Women
were happy to share men in order to have babies.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9hg68w/in_18...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9hg68w/in_1871_only_about_12_of_paraguayans_were_male/)

~~~
magicalist
> _Women were happy to share men in order to have babies._

That not supported by your source.

~~~
jackpirate
My answer is perhaps too facetious, but I think mostly supported by the link.
In particular:

 _So, what about dating? It 's not difficult to see a continuation of pre-war
Paraguayan society in this regard. Back then, there were less men than women.
After the war, this was still the case. Women were still commonly the head of
the family and births out of wedlock were a common occurrence, something that
was also the case in the pre-war society._

There is essentially no research into the exact numbers and status of these
children born out of wedlock. All that's really known is there was essentially
no stigma at this time due to being born out of wedlock:

 _This is unfortunately where, as Pottshast herself points out, documentation
fails us. We don 't know. In fact, the documentation in general considering
how many of these children were born is not entirely known. With the mother
being the identifiable stable force in the family, it seems that identity was
tied to the mother rather than the father as in the case of children born out
of wedlock. A lack of stigma could therefore be seen as a continuation of pre-
war Paraguayan society._

------
berbec
Equal rights mean equal opportunity and equal responsibility.

~~~
kendallpark
I do share this "equality" sentiment, but I think there's a valid counterpoint
in that only women assume the risks and responsibility of pregnancy and
childbirth. Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to
produce more members of society. There quite simply _isn 't_ a way to equalize
this burden between the sexes for the foreseeable future. Some people see a
male-only draft as a means to artificially balance this biological inequality.

EDIT: Point out another group's reasoning that hasn't been mentioned yet, get
downvoted. ???

For all the "forced impregnation" replies, forced impregnation isn't analogous
to the draft. The draft and pregnancy are fundamentally different things that
can't be made equivalent. The argument being cited here never implied that
this would be an equivalent exchange. It's not.

~~~
berbec
I would be fine with pregnancy & child-rearing responsibilities being a valid
reason to avoid the draft.

Of course, in the interest of equality, both parents would be eligible for the
child-rearing exemption but only one parent would be allowed to claim it.

~~~
kendallpark
In some ways, the reasoning I cited above might simply be shortcutting a
system like what you've described (via binning by biological sex). Simpler
rules, but less comprehensive.

~~~
berbec
But once the child is born, their is little reason the parent who gave birth
to be the one to provide care. It should be the family's decision who gets the
post-birth exemption.

~~~
kendallpark
I think that makes sense for the average case. How would you work this out for
divorced couples with shared custody? Also, any consideration for stuff like
breastfeeding? In times of war, formula could become scarce.

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paxys
People here are mixing up the concepts of registering for the draft vs
actually having a draft. Ending the SSS would just eliminate the registry, NOT
the possibility of a future draft. Conscription has already been ruled
constitutional, and there are a million better ways for the government to look
you up today than a partially complete registry of where some people lived
when they were 18.

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johan_larson
Ending the Selective Service System is certainly an option. It's unlikely the
US will need a mass draft any time soon, and if it did need to draft young
people (or just men) in large numbers, it wouldn't be all that difficult to
assemble lists of them through other records. Just use high-school records, or
drivers licenses or census lists.

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kypro
Perhaps it's unconstitutional, but there are biological reasons why across all
cultures throughout history (as far as I'm aware) men are the ones who are
sent to war.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but the idea of being okay with sending my mother, or
daughter onto the battle field is more unethical than treating the different
sexes as if they have biological differences.

If women want to apply, then fine, but I do worry about a society whos men are
willing to send their women to war.

~~~
baroffoos
I worry about a society that sends anyone to war. Its completely unethical no
matter who it is you send.

~~~
aynsof
What would you would do if you were attacked by another country? What if your
peaceful trade partner was being attacked? What if there were a genocide
occurring in another country?

~~~
baroffoos
What are the reasons to attack? Mainly for resources and religion. Resources
was solved by better global trade, religion is mainly in decline.

>What if there were a genocide occurring in another country?

How does a military solve this? Create an even bigger genocide?

~~~
lamarpye
I would think a military solves a genocide by preventing it. Reading the news
or history would provide many examples of genocide being stopped by military
action.

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b_tterc_p
Vaguely related question. Should a draft begin, and you’re not keen on
shipping out to the front lines. What could you do to avoid that that isn’t
illegal? Say I have a lot of experience in something that I would think the
military would make better use of like ML. Is the move to sign up pre
emptively to do that? Or would you assume to be assigned to such a role if
capable?

~~~
mter
Be the average american male who is too fat and medicated to serve, or be in a
skilled job that is important to the war effort.

Do keep in mind that 90% of the jobs in the military aren't fighting on the
front lines so chances are, you would be some support clerk.

~~~
scruple
Poor vision, as well, is becoming a serious problem for recruitment.

------
remarkEon
I'm amazed at how naive a lot of the comments in this thread are. You can hop
over to other corners of HN or Reddit and you have people convinced that WWIII
is around the corner, or the rise of China is going to lead to a hot conflict
in the Pacific again, or that migration and refugee crises will continue to
dominate political discourse and cause other security problems. I don't think
it's controversial to state that we've returned to the regular flow of history
and Great Power conflict.

But a lot of what I'm seeing here amounts to discounting the importance of
this because the "likelihood" of a draft is low, or the usual (wrongheaded)
arguments about how because the percentage of people in the military who
actually fight is low, so adding women to selective service requirements isn't
a big deal. Serious countries don't think like this - especially a country
that, allegedly, is supposed to shoulder most of the global security
responsibility. You don't get to make hand waivey dismissals and still expect
peak performance from these huge complex organizations, nor do we get to put
off thinking about it because we think an event like WWIII is "unlikely for a
while". On what time horizon does it have to be "likely" for us to have to
actually engage with it? 50 years? 20? 10?

I don't think we've thought deeply enough about this at all, and frankly I
don't view the prospect of my daughter or sister being drafted into a war as
"progress".

~~~
x220
> I don't view the prospect of my daughter or sister being drafted into a war
> as "progress"

Neither is the prospect of only drafting men.

------
hirundo
There was one occasion in my life where Selective Service registration
mattered. I applied for a 911 operator job for a large urban county and it was
a question on one of the many stacks of application paperwork. It was on a
questionnaire with others like have you ever used marijuana, have you ever
lied to your parents, how many traffic tickets have you received.

Most of a year later, after a detailed background investigation that included
questioning old friends and people in the neighborhood, they offered me the
job. Can't prove it, but I got the feeling they wouldn't have unless I had
registered for the draft, denied smoking pot, etc. The registration record was
used as a test for lawfulness by that law enforcement agency.

Ladies, you might want to keep that in mind if you think you might ever want a
government job or a security clearance. Your choice will be remembered.

~~~
pandaman
Most likely it's not just a test. Even though it's a county government job,
the Feds probably made it a requirement to receive federal funds so it's
enforced on state/county/city levels too.

------
opo
The USA should use this opportunity to step back and re-think whether
registering for the draft is needed in this age. The whole draft registration
program is simply a waste of millions of dollars a year.

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mnm1
This pretty much guarantees we'll never have a draft in America again for
bullshit reasons like Vietnam if it's upheld by the Supreme Court.

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tiredwired
Drones and robots fight the future wars.

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badrabbit
Mandatory military service would alleviate so many social problems in the US.

* people from different backgrounds and walks of life would live and work together at least once in their lives.

* people would recevie excercise and discipline training at it's most basic form.

* there wouldn't be a caste of people that serve in the military from one generation to the next.

* a lot more people would be exposed to the world outside of the US

* exposure to different types of work and training opportunities can alleviate labor shortage issues.

* last but not least, unity! America is dying as a result of extreme social fragmentation. I'd bet a lot less people would see issues as affecting the country as a whole as opposed to their "tribe" this way.

Look at how the society is in countries with mandatory military service (S.
Korea,Switzerland to name two)

~~~
PostOnce
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription)

The majority of the developed world has no mandatory service, and "look at the
society" in all of those places, many of which border Switzerland that you
mentioned as an exemplar. Are Iceland, the Netherlands, or Canada violent
hellholes of tribal insularity? No, and they didn't need conscription.
Meanwhile there are plenty of horrible places with mandatory conscription, per
the maps on Wikipedia.

You can't magically make people love each other by putting them in proximity
or the middle east would not currently be on fire.

Particularly in America, mandatory conscription would be a fantastic way to
get people to resent the government more than they already do, which is
probably currently at an all-time high.

Finally, you go serve if you want to, but it's tyranny to tell other people
what they have to do, esp. when you're talking about many months or years of
their life. What's next, mandatory church? Wouldn't that also be great for
society, according to some opinions. Church attendance, also, is extremely
high in South Korea, are you sure it's the conscription and not the Church
responsible for the society you admire?

~~~
manigandham
Your comparisons are all off.

Iceland, the Netherlands, and Canada are much smaller and more homogenous than
the US which greatly reduces tribalism. And proximity alone isn't the point,
it's about working together and sharing a higher purpose while learning
discipline, teamwork, leadership and other valuable social skills.

There's also a massive difference between church vs state. Serving your nation
isn't exactly a high price for the privilege of being born in the US.

~~~
PostOnce
There aren't any diverse, developed nations of 330 million to compare to so I
used the nearest proxy.

Ah yes, the great privilege of no healthcare, stagnant wages, the worlds
highest incarceration rate, and largely nonexistent public transportation...
and I'm to pay for this privilege with mandatory military service and perhaps
cast carelessly to my death with no say in the matter.

Strong sales pitch. If I don't like it, it'll cost me over two months of
minimum wage to file the paper to renounce my citizenship.

That's tyranny. If it were such a privilege, conscription would not be
necessary, since people would join up for their great nation that they love
and that loves them back. That's not where we are, though, is it?

Lastly, I mentioned the church because it's yet another thing some people
think ought to be mandatory for the good of society.

Everybody has an opinion about what everybody else ought to be doing.

~~~
manigandham
They don't work as proxies when they're so different.

Healthcare is available. Incarceration rate won't affect you if you're not a
criminal. Wages are the only serious issue and more related to global trade
and changing industries than any country-specific policy. There are far worse
conditions in other countries but my experience has shown people who list
these complaints usually do not have any understanding of the plight of
billions of poor around the world.

Nobody likes to pay taxes either and won't willing do so if we didn't have
laws and enforcement, but it's obvious that it's needed and positive.

Yes, everybody has opinions. That's irrelevant to this discussion. If you
really don't like staying in this country though, please do leave. Why would
you stay? There are plenty of ways to raise the funds to move and renounce
your citizenship, ironically many of which are way harder in other countries.

~~~
PostOnce
Healthcare is available, yes, and so are gold-plated Lamborghinis -- these
both apply to a certain class (not the same class, mind you, but there is an
economic floor here).

Minimum wage is about $1300/mo, good luck paying rent and health insurance
with that and not starving. Good luck paying rent and food and power on double
that income and still being able to afford even remotely decent health
insurance.

As for incarceration...

When everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal. Famous lawyers are writing
books about that. [https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/1594035229)

If you don't think just about everything is a crime, then you're uninformed.
You probably committed a felony when you violated a website TOS today.

I have no problem with taxation as a concept.

Everyone says "if you don't like it leave", but that's a bluff -- until 2010,
it was free to renounce your citizenship, and in 2010 it became $450. Four
years later, it became $2350. If more people leave, it'll go up again. We say
it, but we're afraid of people actually doing it.

I won't renounce my citizenship, but I do think it's silly for us to pretend
we want people to do it when we provably don't.

~~~
manigandham
You are stretching everything to such absurd levels that you effectively have
no argument. Not everything is a crime and enforcement makes all the
difference.

Nobody is afraid of people leaving the country famous for individual liberty,
it's just administrative cost. You're attributing another reason without any
evidence. And really, why blame the fees as if that's what's really keeping
you here. Get your visa, move your stuff, and then worry about the renouncing
when it matters.

Perhaps we can have free and automatic citizenship renunciation and revocation
for failure to register for service, would you take that deal?

------
ykevinator
It is lamentable that we have come to devalue gender in the name of equality.
An army of women will lose and that is independent of wanting equality for
women.

------
adamnemecek
How about getting rid of draft altogether?

~~~
netheril96
That is simply impossible. We’ve been at peace for a long time, but one day
war will break out, and not enough people will join the military voluntarily.

~~~
mrob
If there's not enough volunteers then pay them more. Conscription is slavery.

~~~
XorNot
Nail on the head here. The US increases the military budget year over year yet
soldiers pay does not increase.

Instead the president looks to raid funding for military housing for his own
boondoggle.

------
newnewpdro
Compulsory service across the board has always seemed more appropriate to me.

It would help with the lack of discipline in the civilian population, while
engendering a better understanding and appreciation for the realities of
combat and war.

On the military side I think it'd add some much needed diversity and
perspective to a group dominated currently by "America, Fuck Yeah!" types who
volunteered to go kill people and blow things up.

