The Senate Armed Services Committee just voted to add females to required Selective Service Registration
Weāll see if the House Bill passes the Senate.
Most people file income taxes. Your Selective Service number can be cross-referenced with your Social Security number. The government already does this with Medicare. Not a problem.
All or none at all.
Seems reasonable(auto registration)but I would disagree on strong penalties for moving and failing to notify. This would vastly affect lower income people vs high where moving is much more common.
This thread needs a soundtrackā¦
I agreeā¦
Agree needs to be everybody.
I am in the minority as I believe in mandatory 2 year service for all. Also remove most (not all) of the medical disqualifications. Just set people with medical issues in roles they can support.
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Do you mean mandatory military or other type of service too ?
If mandatory 2 year military service, what would this do to the volunteer service with the
educational benefits and all ? Do you see a hybrid mandatory + voluntary system ?
I am thinking military. I am open to hear/read what other service you may be referring to.
By volunteer service with the educational benefits, are you referring to the GI Bill?
elaborate on hybrid mandatory + voluntary system. From my thought, 2 year mandatory and going further would be voluntary (certain roles would require longer commitments than 2 years so some voluntary aspect), but I am not sure that is what you are referencing.
What I think is funny is some people online thinking making it automatic means people are getting drafted soon. Also already seeing the conspiracies about this being about some national digital tracking ID. Usually the people complaining about that are posting from their smart phone.
Some type of civilian duty. Could be in support of military, healthcare, education, etc.
Really pretty much anything federal, state , or local governments hire people to do jobs.
Yes
I believe specific military. Healthcare, education and random desk jobs are not equivalents, IMO.
GI Bill is a great thing, but with mandatory for everyone, I would reduce (not eliminate) benefits for everyone, then have those that do voluntary years, after the two, get more benefits. There are quite a few benefits for military.
It seemed odd to me that a conservative would be advocating for mandatory service. Didnāt sound like current mindset to me. Looked it up, the very conservative Heritage Foundation is against it, at least 6 years ago.
I read this morning that around 92% of draft-age males are registered. If adding women is not the intent of the legislation, why bother other than to make some kind of point I canāt fathom?
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And after that automatic voting
Well, Iām actually opposed to mandatory military service, and mandatory any other type of service, except for convicted criminals as a form of punishment or restitution,
A military draft should only be implemented in the event of a total war, the likes of which we havenāt had since WWII.
BUTā¦.if we have registration in the unlikely case of a draft, or have to implement a draft in the future, then it should be ALL INCLUSIVE.
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Okay, I see what youāre saying now. A compulsory 2 year military service for everyone, done somewhere between your 18-30 birthdate ? Iād think you would need a variable time to complete it if you had already done college prep courses in high school, or did pre-med in college, probably would not be good to take 2 years off.
We have about 3.8 million high school grads, with a peak of 3.9 million in 2025 predicted. That would be big increase in number of people serving and a big expense too. There are probably
some dropouts or GED candidates too, but for sake of discussion, just ignoring those numbers for now.
Related topic on army recruits, recent recruiting problems due to big drop in white
volunteers.
In 2018, 56.4% of new recruits were categorized as white. In 2023, that number had fallen to 44%. During that same five-year period, Black recruits have gone from 20% to 24% of the pool, and Hispanic recruits have risen from 17% to 24%, with both groups seeing largely flat recruiting totals but increasing as a percentage of incoming soldiers as white recruiting has fallen.
Agree, but I like imagining what some type of compulsary military program would look like,
how it would be implemented, pros and cons, impacts, etcā¦just a thought exercise on the idea that was mentioned.
Follow upā¦
Some nations, such as Israel, require a specific amount of military service from every citizen, except for special cases, such as limitation determined by a military physical or religious belief. Most countries that use conscription systems only conscript men; a few countries also conscript women.[1] For example, Norway, Sweden, North Korea, Israel, and Eritreaconscript both men and women. However, only Norway and Sweden have a gender-neutral conscription system, where men and women are conscripted and serve on equal formal terms.[2] Some nations with conscription systems do not enforce them.
Not in favor of the concept except in the case of a total war.
A total war is defined as āarmed conflict between major powers in which the total resources of the involved powers are employed and the national survival of one or more belligerents is at stake.ā
We have only had three of those: Civil War, WWI, and WWII.
Were a WWIII or other total war to break out, of course we would need to have a draft, which could be anticipated by registration, as it currently is.
In my world, such a draft registration would include men and women, and any draft likely would as well.
The only educational exemptions allowed would to allow a student to complete their current term or semester, and only if they are already enrolled at the time a draft notice is received.
In the event of a draft, I would allow only VERY LIMITED exemptions for reasons of conscience. The only ones that I would allow would be for members of well-established religious groups whose stated credos absolutely prohibit their members from performing military service (such as the Amish). Iād only allow those because we might run into first amendment āfree exercise of religionā issues if we do not.
There would be NO non-religious conscientious objections permitted. Merely being opposed to a war shouldnāt get you out of one if our elected leaders have declared it and voted to start up a draft in order to execute it. If your highest authority isnāt a God or a religion, then it should be the state, simply because if you donāt recognize a higher authority, then the state and the law should be and presumably are your highest authority.
In other wordsā¦in my worldā¦Muhammad Ali and Bernie Sanders would NOT be granted exemptions as conscientious objectors; thereās nothing in the credo of eitherās religion (Islam and Judaism, respectively) that prohibits its members from serving in the military.
Of course, not everyone could be drafted. Some people would be unfit for medical or mental health reasons, age, disability, etc.
And naturally, we still need people to work in factories, grow food to feed the forces, mine and refine resources and minerals needed for the war effort, etc.
So even in a total warā¦NOT all persons would be drafted, or even eligible/qualified for service.
Whatās the point of this bill?