(06-12-2024, 01:31 PM)Michigan Swamp Buck Wrote: I forgot to mention one thing and I'm surprised no one brought this up. Might this bill and possibly other measures be a prelude to actually, dare I say, a real draft? Is this a forewarning that the current administration is beginning to gear up for a war and they need to ensure that everyone of age is registered?
Let's keep our eyes open and see what else they are doing that relates to direct involvement in world conflicts that may be a sign of impending war.
Prolly not. That is the same thing we thought when they re-started draft registration years ago. Why register us if they weren't intending to get us into yet another war and start drafting us for it? But it never happened.
I got caught in that re-start of draft registration lo those may years ago, which was in the late 1970's or early 1980's - I can't recall now whether it was under Carter or Reagan, although I want to say it was under Carter. It was some time around that transitional period, and the world was just as dangerous and volatile as it is now. I was incensed then, too. How dare they try to force me to fight in their wars, which more often than not had nothing to do with defense of me or mine, or actual "national security" or defense of America? But it was the law, a brand new one, so I marched my happy ass right down to the post office and registered. Nothing ever came of it.
Instead, I pre-empted them and started the individual pursuit of foreign policy my damned self - thataway, I got to pick where and what I fought for, rather than being told where to go and who to shoot. My thinking was that if they did actually start a draft, they'd not be able to get their hands on me if I was already in a war zone somewhere, fighting for what I thought was right rather than being told to fight for what THEY thought was right.
But, at the time, we were all certain they were getting ready to kick off another war somewhere that had nothing to do with actual national defense, and we all sat on tenterhooks because of it. That was during the Iran Hostage Crisis days, and we figured that a universal draft and war in Iran was the next stop. Never happened.
Years later, my son turned 18, too, so he marched his happy ass down to the post office and registered, too. He's never gone to war over it, and is now too old to get caught in any first-round draft. He's still eligible to be drafted, but they'd have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel age-wise to grab him.
I don't agree with any "automatic" registration, either. I thinks folks should have to actually DO something, like march their happy asses down to the post office, to willfully opt-in to registration. "Automatic" registration denies them the privilege of refusing to do so should they choose to. When something has that much potential to change your entire life, you should have to willfully have to do something to opt-in to it, and you should have the option to refuse to do so, and face the consequences of refusal.
Denying young men that option is simply not the American Way. Just another sign that this is not Your Father's America, just another indicator that this is no longer the nation I grew up in.
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