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Comment by klplotx | Hacker News Reader

FYI, Schenck v. United States was overturned in 1969 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States):

"In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot)."

So we can tell other people to avoid the draft now, even in a dry bureaucratic sense. In real life of course the draft is slavery and immoral, as Ayn Rand and many others have pointed out.

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> the draft is slavery and immoral

I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.

If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?

Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war.

EDIT: for an even better example you should look up what the Japanese did to most civilians in WWII and really ask yourself if a draft to avoid that at home is bad.

>would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?

I think the response to the 9/11 attacks shows that when something major happens, lots of people feel motivated to get up and do something. Volunteers flooded the different branches and even gov't services. My point being that I'm not sure a draft would be needed in your proposed situation.

I mostly agree with the broader point here, but 9/11 is IMHO a bad example. People were signing up for essentially a war of adventure against adversaries that were really no match. It’s a very different situation that the people of the Philippines up against the imperial Japanese army in WWII.

WWII saw similar response, so precedent is there when Americans see a direct threat. Some political action that nobody agrees with like Vietnam/Korean conflicts is where you see the lower interest. That's more in line with your example.

Like I said, I agreed in general.

> I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.

It is, and the two examples below aren't comparable, you want a real-life recent example?

Look at Hong Kong and Taiwan: since at least the early 2000s after the hand over to the CCP in 97 many in HK knew the writing was on the wall of what Life would be like (look at films like 10 years for the most stark and sobering use of foreshadowing I have ever seen since maybe the works about East Germany). In the case of HK you have an affluent, highly educated population focused on what you think most modern developed nations seek: careers, status, salary, etc...

Their fight was a valiant one, starting in earnest in 2014 with the Umbrella Revolution, but the sad truth is HK was never in a capacity to thwart a real attack from the CCP in any real capacity since it's population didn't have any combat training or knowledge beyond the ad-hoc problems solving they were left with, coupled that with being unarmed and then seeing how Russia has invaded Ukraine and you can see why a similarly affluent and well educated country like Taiwan has had a massive up-tick in civilian combat and weapons training.

I'd hate to even contemplate what it would take to require the civilian mobilization in the US as even a thought exercise because f the obvious realities, but at that level I think we saw enough evidence from COVID how polarized people are in Society that I doubt how effective that even would be, and that is not even mentioning how unfit people are to be of any use in such situations given how prevalent obesity is in the Country.

> Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war.

This is the conclusion any sane person comes to, and you'd think during/after COVID we would have come out with a better understanding of just fragile our World really is and how quickly it can turn to utter chaos because of unnecessary fragmentation that you'd think we would collectively regard War as the scourge of Mankind and yet some how it persists. It wasn't long into 2021 that Israel and Palestine were starting to kill each other again.

The REAL question is how to render War moot in modern Society, and my only conclusion is to elevate all of Humanity's standard of living such that they have a greater vested interest in stability and diplomacy as the sole form of conflict resolution rather than default to our basic instincts of tribalism that always leads to the perpetual senseless destruction of people and property at the behest of a political class and a few multi-national weapons dealers who profit from it.

If War is indeed immoral, than one has to also realize that War is the health of the State [0].

0: https://www.newsweek.com/war-health-state-151813

> I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion.

So, if the government decides to go to war, this opinion becomes irrelevant then?

And if the US can't convince people to enlist when they're under threat of invasion, I guess people just don't support the regime as much. I'm sure North Koreans are telling people "But what if the Americans invade? We must have the draft".

I think the point of that argument is that citizens generally can't predict what will happen well enough. Before the US entered WWII, I expect most Americans thought of it as "that far away European war that won't hurt us". Leaders in the US may have understood that the stakes were much higher, and allowing Nazism to take over Europe would be devastating for the US, but I figure regular Americans may not have gotten that, at least not in large enough numbers.

But I think it's fair to say that the US really did need to enter WWII. What if the US military needed more recruits, but no one wanted to enlist?

At least, I think that's what the argument is. I'm still not sure I buy it though, because, still, it's up to government leaders to convince people that there's actually a huge threat to the country, that war is necessary, and that people should put their lives on the line. If they can't do that, then maybe they don't deserve to be able to go to war. And if that does end up being disastrous for the country (or even the world) and its people, maybe that's just how things have to go down.

> Leaders in the US may have understood that the stakes were much higher, and allowing Nazism to take over Europe would be devastating for the US, but I figure regular Americans may not have gotten that, at least not in large enough numbers.

So they may have claimed. In reality it would have been pretty fine for the USA, Nazi Germany was fundamentally unstable and would be struggling with suppressing dissent in its conquered population for at least a century if it didn't collapse outright.

> But I think it's fair to say that the US really did need to enter WWII.

Sure it needed to enter the war - it wanted to put down Japan and take control of the pacific. Plus, the war allowed it to gain massive influence over Europe and better containment of the USSR.

But that doesn't mean the people of the world needed the US to enter the war. Just like they didn't need the other imperial states to engage in their world wars.

> If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

If you cannot get enough volunteers to fight in your war then tour population early doesn't care that much about winning it.

Even if there might be some hypothetical war where for some aliens-with-mind-control type reason the populace doesn't want to fight but losing the war would be even worse, having a draft as an allowed policy is still net bad because of all the times it will be used when there isnt some existential threat!

In almost every case the draft has been used, losing the war would be far better for the people than being drafted into the war.

The relevant population for “was the draft better?” seems to be the people eligible to be drafted not those actually drafted (and, depending on the question, might be everyone who has been or could be eligible)

I heard Iran is bad. You need to go die right now. No questions, no opinion, they MIGHT BE BAD SO YOU MUST DIE.

But seriously - you don't get to tell me to die because you are afraid. If you want someone to be sacrificed to your fears, start with yourself - you want someone to die, it better be you.

Now, get out there and suffer. I wish all the "glory"[1] of war to you - go die because (and i can't stress this enough) Iran MIGHT BE BAD.

[1] glories like: having your limbs torn off, permanent disfigurement, intense pain for the rest of your life, TBI and all of the difficulties they cause, PTSD, and mystery diseases! These glories assume you survive of course... but listen if you do good they will give you a shiny bauble to pin on your uniform.

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