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December 24, 2006

Feeling a Draft

With a recent report stating that the Selective Service Administration is going to test its systems in case the government decides to initiate a draft, and the Bush administration apparently leaning towards a 'surge' (or dribble, as Jim Henley more accurately observes) of troops into Iraq, people are getting a touch excited about the possibility of a draft. Ezra Klein takes home the prize for his admirably honest observation that, while he's all about using the power of the state to force others to do what he thinks is right, since he's in the window to be drafted, he's wholly opposed to that particular use of government power. (Actually, I'm putting words in Ezra's mouth. He doesn't want his life to be placed in the hands of the fools and knaves who run our government. I'm in agreement with him on that as well, but I find it oh-so-amusing that when his life isn't on the line, he's more than willing to have those selfsame fools and knaves run so many other aspects of people's lives.)

As most people who look into the issue discover, those of us who are actually in the military are not enamored of the idea of a draft. As I have been pointing out in my ongoing series on the military, military service requires a lot more than just a warm body these days. You need people who are disciplined, tough, intelligent, and able to think on their feet. Our current military doesn't accomplish all of those things every time now, and that is with an all-volunteer force. I shudder to think what we might end up with were we to start grabbing people off the street and forcing them to serve overseas. It is difficult enough engendering discipline in troops who have volunteered to put their lives on the line. A conscript who has been forced to go to war is far more likely to shoot first and ask questions later in order to preserve his own life. This is a natural reaction, and it's one of the biggest problems we face in counterinsurgency warfare. Adding conscription to the mix would only make things worse.

But there is a far better reason to leave the draft where it belongs, in our past: the 13th amendment to the Constitution. That amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, and conscription is nothing less than involuntary servitude. We institute governments to protect people's rights; that is the primary function of government, which is why I argue so often against the use of government to take freedom away from people. But I should hope that even those who disagree with me regarding the basic purpose of government could agree that government exists for the people and not the reverse. That being the case, the idea that government can tell people to fight and die to preserve it is utterly wrong. If the government is not able to survive because people are unwilling to fight for it, than the government has no right to survive. To state that the government has the right to force us to take up arms to defend it is to completely invert the proper relation of the people to the government.

Once upon a time the people of this country chose to stand up and fight rather than submit to an unjust government. There is little more unjust in this world than a government that threatens violence against its own citizens in order to preserve its existence. The draft was a bad idea 30 years ago and it is a bad one now, and it should be fought by any and all means necessary to prevent it.