There are those of us opposed to the draft, too.
How is it NOT a loss of freedom to have to spend year or more serving your government? I'd love to hear someone explain how that's NOT what it is.
Jury duty is different as:
1- it's far shorter, and
2- it's part of what makes our system work the way it does. It's necessary.
Forced military service isn't necessary - there are plenty of volunteers.
Comparing jury duty to military services is ridiculous. 1 day, maybe a few weeks of jury duty is very different then forcing everyone to serve years in the military. Also, signing up for the draft at 18 is very different then forcing everyone into the military. I have no problem with a draft if it is deemed necessary but would never agree to forced military service to earn your citizenship like some are suggesting. That idea just seems so un-American to me that I can't even wrap my head around it. To think that my 3 kids would not be American citizens until they are in there 20s after they had been forced to join the military and serve a number of years is just a ridiculous thought IMO. What a sad country that would be to live in.
First, the required for citizenship thing has nothing to do with what I was asking about.
Second, as far as time time goes jury duty can last for up to a few weeks to up to a few months. How much difference is there between a few weeks to a few months and 1 to 2 years? It's not that much, really.
Third, there seems to be some sort of weird thing distinguishing "military" civil service from other types of civil service. Why? How is it really that different? In [relative] peace time those who are serving their time simply to serve their time would almost never, if ever, placed in harm's way. Those who are sent abroad to serve would still be those who have volunteered to make military service their career. In times of major war, as in the instance of a third World War, those people would then all be put in harm's way along with any others who would also be drafted. The only difference would be that, with that short, mandatory, military service time in place, we would have most of a generation's worth of citizens who would already have most of the training needed in order to be deployed as opposed to coming in off the street with no training whatsoever, as was the case in previous drafts.
It seems to me like the arguments against it, excepting the fiscal based arguments, always seem to revolve around the "military" term as if it's something terrible in and of itself.
Every time I've seen this concept being discussed in person the arguments against it almost always follow the same lines. You have most people, especially those with no service, who rail against the idea as if it is some sort of personal accosting of American citizens, as if it were some sort of torture or a violation of a person's human rights. If that were really the case then we wouldn't have many people volunteering, would we? Then you'll have that one guy, every once in a while, who may not disagree with the concept but doesn't want it because the government/military wastes enough money as it is.
The discussion on here has followed the exact same pattern, which is what I was mostly curious about.
And it is the "military" term that gets people. If, rather than hiring lifetime civil servants for most government programs, the government decided to implement a program where most citizens would be required to work for a short period of time in various programs - be it doing paperwork, handing out welfare goods and services, or whatever - in order for those programs to continue and, in return, the workers would receive compensation and benefits equal to and/or above their costs of living during that time the railing against the idea wouldn't be nearly as vehement. Why?
If the government decided that the only feasible way to continue the multitude of social services programs would be to implement such a program then most people would choose to allow that program rather than lose the social services. After all, people would just go somewhere - maybe even be able to stay at home - and work for a couple years in these programs, helping people. The government would take care of their living arrangements, their meals, and give them a little spending money. When they finished, they would receive work and/or education credit for the time the spent. Most people would look at that as a pretty good deal, and there are lots of programs and organizations that garner many volunteers under basically the same principles, e.g. working in foreign aid for a couple years in exchange for forgiveness or payment of student loans, etc. People don't have a problem with those types of programs, from a fairness or moral standpoint, and most people would accept those types of civil service programs to be mandatory if there was a demonstrated need for it to be so.
Why does that change when you add the word "military" to the front of the term "service"?