Would you support a draft that gave an option- military or peace corps?

Question

Military receives pay but peace corps or similiar program-is non-paid

Answer 1

Every boy and girl at some time between the ages of 18 and 21 should serve eight to twelve weeks in the military. They should learn how to shoot and care for firearms some place far from home. It should be a requirement for citizenship.

One really big benefit--if everyone knew their child might have to fight in some foreign war, it might make us think twice about launching unprovoked war to bolster corporate profit. I think only one US congressman (out of 535) has a son in Iraq. That isn't even representative of the nation at large.

Answer 2

Coercion to serve the government is immoral and shameful, no matter what the government's purpose.

If the American people believe that a foreign war is worth fighting, they don't need the government to be involved at all.

When Franco's Fascists made war on the Spanish democratic republican regime, with the aid of the Nazis' Luftwaffe, three thousand Americans volunteered and went to fight there in 1938. They lost nine hundred lives. The entire project was funded by private donations, not by taxpayers.

The draft is an evil feature of coercive government-sponsored defense. The true defense of the United States is the Second Amendment. Weapons - not just handguns, but serious weapons - in the hands of private citizens, who train regularly in their use. A highly-armed civilian population deters a potential invader from attacking the country, because while a nation of armed citizens can be destroyed, it cannot be conquered, so a potential attacker is less tempted to attack.

When a nation's defense is all in the hands of its government, all the enemy needs to do to seize the people is to seize the the government. The government will then deliver its unarmed civilians to the enemy on a platter.

Answer 3

No - universal service. Otherwise, the people who don't need money to live on or support people at home can go Peace Corps. It'd be kind of like the $300 substitution fee the rich were granted by Republicans during the civil war.

Answer 4

No. As a veteran of the all-volunteer Army, I see the value of having only those people there who choose to be there.

I imagine the same would be true in the Peace Corps, though the consequences of having conscripts there who are doing the bare minimum or less while waiting to go home would be less hazardous than in the military.

Answer 5

Sounds like Israel... that is what their young people have to do!