I wonder if this is true?

[The Brain]

It is often asked: \"But what if a country cannot find a sufficient number of volunteers?\" Even so, this would not give the rest of the population a right to the lives of the country's young men. But, in fact, the lack of volunteers occurs for one of two reasons: (1) If a country is demoralized by a corrupt, authoritarian government, its citizens will not volunteer to defend it. But neither will they fight for long, if drafted. For example, observe the literal disintegration of the Czarist Russian army in World War I. (2) If a country's government undertakes to fight a war for some reason other than self-defense, for a purpose which the citizens neither share nor understand, it will not find many volunteers. Thus a volunteer army is one of the best protectors of peace, not only against foreign aggression, but also against any warlike ideologies or projects on the part of a country's own government.

Not many men would volunteer for such wars as Korea or Vietnam. Without the power to draft, the makers of our foreign policy would not be able to embark on adventures of that kind. This is one of the best practical reasons for the abolition of the draft.

I think herein lies the problem: the argument for the draft is that citizens should not be able to opt in and out of the military based on personal ideologies-- that is, picking and choosing which battles each individual person believes to be just. When the country needs to be defended for <i>any reason</i>-- even if we are the aggressor, as in the case with Iraq (if you wish to discuss "preemptive striking")-- one's own opinions or rationales for entering the military to defend the country cannot apply.

If it did, it opens up too big a can of worms: "Oh, I'll join the army, but only if I get stationed in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. I have no quarrel with Iraq/Korea/Vietnam (or whatever other country you want to name), and I don't think we should be in there." You know what? Too bad. Right now, we have battle fronts in both countries, so if you sign up (or in this case, get conscripted into service), you go where <i>the country requires you to be</i>, not where you feel like going.

We simply put cannot have such individual subjectivity when it comes to preserving our freedom. It's why this is a <i>democratic republic</i> and not a democracy-- we entrust a small representation of the public to act on our behalf as a whole. So if that small group decides we need to go to war to protect our foreign or internal interests, then so be it, that is what we all will do.

Believe me, this government's beaucracy is already too bogged down-- the last thing we'd need is to have to track down every last person in this country and ask their opinion on how things should be done, on what actions should be taken.

Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right--the right to life--and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.

If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling, in a war declared at the state's discretion, for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom--then, in principle, all rights are negated in that state, and its government is not man's protector any longer. What else is there left to protect?

<i>E pluribus unum</i>... "from the many, one". By extension, the inherent belief that this society, and the individuals which create this society, are one and the same. Yes, each individual has the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; that is not being questioned. At the same time, the individual must realize that those rights can only exist as long as the society that grants them exists-- if this country and its ideals fall, those "certain inalienable" rights go right out the window.

Just to be clear: Yes, Bush has made an awful (<i>horrendously awful</i>) mess of things in Iraq-- we see or hear about it every day. He has acted rashly, with no clear cut way of getting us out of this mess. But we are in the mess now, and it is up to us (<i>all</i> of us) to do our part as the government deems necessary.