[icespeed]

i love living in australia, and i love being a girl.

[vyper]

The second part doesn't protect you these days - you'd be called up penis or not.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by vyper
The second part doesn't protect you these days - you'd be called up penis or not.

First's got her pretty much sorted, though it will be interesteing to see if Bush the uber conservative will draft the women or just the men...

[Taristin]

Push comes to shove, I'm heading to Oz.

[Dunbar]

First thing's first, the reason these draft bills were presented had nothing to do with being able to point to Bush for anything.  They were presented because our current army is volunteer, and frankly the majority of people who sign up for a job that carries such high risks as the military are the poor and minorities, because in many cases better options (like college) aren't possible.  The draft bills were proposed to call attention to that, and promote discussion on the subject.  They were never meant to be even remotely likely to pass.

[Clave]

It's a shame really.  I'd like to see some people chanting like the old documentaries:

"No more war!"  "Four more years!" etc..

[.::Tin Can::.]

I think the people have a limit and the draft would be the breaking point. The general population could quite possibly just say "no" and they couldn't do a damn thing about it. Then again, why would Republicans want to commit political suicide? The party would cease to exist because of massive unpopularity. Hell, even I wouldn't vote for em, and Im a conservative.

[vyper]

But the evangelical right will support them till hell freezes over.

[.::Tin Can::.]

What makes you say that?

[vyper]

Because they're the driving force behind modern republicanism. They spent decades trying to get into political power and almost every time they failed miserably. Then Bush became one of their own - and he's surrounded himself with neo-cons who are the epitomy of the evangelical right's ideology.

This is not conservative politics, this is religious politics.

[.::Tin Can::.]

So religious repuclicans wan't a draft?

[Rictor]

Not as such. You're confusing means with ends. They support, rather unquestioningly, those who want to liberate/conquer as much of the world as they can, and having a large army (larger than the one currently available) is a very effective way to achieve that. So, in order to take the "War on/of Terror" to new fronts, which is what both the Dems and Republicans, but more so the Republicans, want to do, you need fresh bodies to serve as shock troops.

Though I still think there's no way they would be able to pull it off. Its simply too unattractive as idea to the general population.

[.::Tin Can::.]

Basically what Rictor said. The draft hasn't been in effect unless we desperately needed troops. An example where a draft might become lightly acceptable is if we had landing craft from enemy nations landing on our coast and were actually INVADING the mainland from both sides. Then it might become necessary to recruit as many citizens as possible to defend the country itself.

[Grey Wolf]

In the U.S., it's currently considered illegal to force females to register with the Selective Service System, as decided by Rostker v. Goldberg in 1981.

[WMCoolmon]

OK, what I heard of the draft bill that was just shot down on the House floor was this:

• It would apply to males and females
• It would also allow for maternity leave (Which could have an interesting effect on the whole privatizing social security issue)
• It would also allow for 'conscientious objectors.' Instead of being one of the people shooting people, you'll be one of the people making food for people shooting people.

As you can tell, I don't exactly have a very positive opinion of the draft, but I think (given Bush's current policies) he would hesitate before trying to get it reinstated. Privatizing social security is hard enough to swallow, the draft might just be too much. People would choke and the policies, much like that one pretzel, would be spat out in disgust.

I think if the US is invading countries, it should at least have enough consent of its citizens to supply the manpower to invade those countries.

A "domestic draft", as I believe it's called, would be another story entirely. But I would be against that too; for a country founded on the ideal of freedom, that doesn't seem like it would do much for furthering that particular ideal.

[Swamp_Thing]

Actually, serving in the military for a few months isn´t all that bad.
How many here have actually served time in the military? Because it´s not a complete wasted experience. You get fit as a fiddle, eat like a horse (especially in the Navy), you get to fire guns (a big plus), and you learn to love your country. I am not being sarcastic, mind you. I actually liked my time in the Air Force and the Army. I even applied to the special forces, the Airborne, but alas that took place when i was a hopeless junky. I entered "cold turkey" the day of the inspection, and signed myself out just to score some dope... Now looking back, i was a real arsehole.
Being in the army isn´t all that bad. A draft isn´t all that bad either. The problem lies in the crap they make you do after you´re in. The problem is that most people know that if a draft is instated in the US, the smart money says you´ll be going to some middle eastern country and get blown up.
Draft in peace time is ok. Draft in Bush´s time is a ticket to suicide.
For example, if the US was invaded or attacked by Russia, or Mexico, i bet 99% of the people would say a draft is a good thing. But with Bush, they would be fighting the wrong kind of war, the immoral kind. And no one wants to see their son killed 10000 miles from home in another immoral war.

[Clave]

I did 12 years in the RAF...

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by Clave
I did 12 years in the RAF...

Yeah? In what capacity? I served in my country´s equivalent to the Top Gun school. The pilot Academy. Good stuff. But i did bootcamp in an army base, with all the "green peas".

[WMCoolmon]

Well, I'm not sure if I agree or disagree, Swamp_Thing. Right now, I'm pretty skeptical of the USA. I'm sure there are decent people who live in it, hell, better people than I am, but I'm not sure those are the people making decisions. Short of just conforming to the situation of having people around me who can beat the crap out of me if they can remotely justify it, I don't really see the military changing that opinion. I would see some sort of change at the national/international level changing that, but atm I have no idea what to think. On the one hand, the Bush administration says "We're bringing freedom to the Iraqis! They love us!" On the other hand, we didn't invade Iraq to establish freedom, I remember a whole lot of noise about weapons of mass destruction, and I have a hard time believing the US administration is risking the bad publicity of soldiers dying solely without any sort of return. I have faith that our elected officials are better politicians than that.

But I also have trouble believing there's a mass conspiracy underfoot by the major corporations to, basically, take over the world.

If the US was invaded/attacked I would see a draft as a necessary evil. And, no, 9/11 doesn't really count - we're bringing freedom to the Iraqis, remember, not hunting terrorists. Oh wait. Everybody opposing us in Iraq is terrorists. How convenient.

A draft in peace time I dislike, but that's because I like having control of my life, basically. I am a control freak in that sense, I suppose. I recognize the need for a well-trained military force, even though expansion by conquest is generally frowned upon.

So it's a toss-up. I won't be at any peace rallies - that seems a little idealistic to me. But I'm not about to support a war that doesn't have a clear-cut reason for there to BE a war.

[Clave]

Nothing that exciting, just run of the mill radar and missile defence stuff.

These were the things I worked on most:

http://www.picture-newsletter.com/missile/

servicing the electronic systems and the like.  

Guns and that sort of running around thing was not that frequent....