How Could the Draft Not Be Slavery?
From the Free Dictionary:
slav·er·y 1. The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household.
con·scrip·tion 1. Compulsory enrollment, especially for the armed forces; draft.
To me, you’d have to be blind to deny the libertarian truism that “conscription is slavery.” Slavery is involuntary servitude; conscription is involuntary military servitude; therefore not only is conscription slavery; it’s a particularly heinous form of slavery that often ends in maiming and death. Yet most people disagree – and so did the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1918:
[A]s we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.
It’s tempting to dismiss all this as doublethink, but after many years of reflection I think I finally figured out what most people are thinking. Namely: They implicitly regard slavery not as mere involuntary servitude, but as low-status involuntary servitude. Since most of us honor, respect, and even adore all our soldiers, conscripts have high status – and therefore can’t be slaves. From this point of view, saying “conscription is slavery” isn’t righteously standing up for the rights of conscripts; it’s wickedly denying them their high status. Sigh.
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What i would say to people who think conscription is not slavery because it is high status is that conscripted soldiers did not want that status, and people who do want the status of a soldier can freely volunteer. Look, I hate leading and being responsible for large groups if people, so I would never choose to be a CEO of any organization. If someone forced me to run a company and claimed that this wasn't a form of slavery because of the high status of the position, I would strongly disagree. Conscription is slavery, full stop.
I speak as a draft dodger and volunteer sailor.
What amazes me most about the pro-conscription arguments is how weasely they are. Oooh, it's not real slavery, you get paid and can vote. Gosh thanks.
The difference between slavery and free markets is entirely in the coercion. No matter how detestable a job is, an employer can always offer more money to find someone willing to do it, even suicide bombers whose families get paid. But at some point, the value returned from having the job done is less than the pay it would take to attract a willing worker.
That's when a free market employer finds another business, and when a slave society employer resorts to kidnapping, imprisonment, and slavery. From a purely economic point of view, slavery enables and encourages inefficient industries. Justifying that with low pay is bonkers ignorant.
I spent four years in the Navy, had a great time, and learned first-hand how inefficient slave labor is. We worked our buns off for one project, got done early, and instead of congratulating us and letting us have a couple of hours off, he found scut work. We never finished early again. Coordinate lunch so someone was always in the shop? You must be joking -- we learned to wait til 15 minutes from the mess decks closing and all go at once.
Stop conflating government, society, and country. A government which can't find willing volunteers to defend against invasion is a government which deserves to be replaced.
For that matter, the US doesn't need a military, period. We are immune to coastal invasion, and the panics over Japan invading even Hawaii, let alone California, in 1941, are as overblown as the similar fears of invasion by China or Russia today. Canada invade? Go hide in your mother's skirts if you are that naive. Mexico? Those cartels wouldn't last long and they value Mexican corruption too much to stray very far. Overseas bases, offensive weapons like carriers? Offensive is indeed the word, and it's fitting that Trump changed the name back from Department of Defense, but he's too ignorant to understand that.
Fuck the draft.