Category: The Draft

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

There’s a Word for It

Government Property, draft, selective service, slavery, commission,

The word is “effrontery.”

With shameless boldness, two gentlemen testifying for mandatory “National Service” at a recent hearing of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service pitched the notion that social dysfunction and directionlessness among the young could be best solved by forcing them to work for government for a year.

I indicated the effrontery — the maximum chutzpah — in a video last weekend. But it is more than “just” the case that forcing labor on people in a free society is a whopping internal contradiction — we can only be free if we are unfree, and we should push servitude for freedom’s sake? It is also astoundingly presumptuous. 

Consider the context.

The rap about the young is that they inhabit a gimme-gimme culture, always taking, never giving back. But when was the last time the two parties in Congress took a stand on a difficult issue that required doing something inconvenient, like saying no to their own constituencies? When did they decide not to spend to please their various political interests because going further into debt was perilous for the entire nation?

Spending other people’s money is easy, the ultimate “gimme.”

Meanwhile, Congress bogs down in pointless partisan “investigations,” idiotic virtue signaling, and defense of their own wayward members.

It is absurd to suggest that experts in Washington, D.C., could “fix” a generation of young people, since official Washington is far more dysfunctional than the citizens they think they can remold in their craven image.

Effrontery, indeed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Government Property, draft, selective service, slavery, commission,

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Congress Considers the Draft

Resist the Draft, Paul Jacob, National Service

Yes, “mandatory national service” is a live topic — again!

Mandatory National Service? on Vimeo.

But the situation is not hopeless. This is not a “done deal.” Indeed, there is something you can do to prevent universal, intersex/all-gender mandatory conscription. Click here to find out more.

Why not click right now?

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

National Disservice

Paul Jacob, draft, registration, selective service, slavery, freedom

Common Sense focused on the draft, last week, specifically the idea of “national service,” too often portrayed as a wonderful enriching experience.

My midweek commentaries “Old Codger Draft,” “The Opposite of Freedom,” and “Green New Conscript?” pinpointed the plethora of problems with enslaving folks. 

On Thursday, I traveled with two threatened members of that now vulnerable population known as “young people” to a public hearing at American University. There I testified for three-and-a-half minutes of the two allotted to me by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. I implored them to “forswear any forced service whatsoever.”*

“That shouldn’t happen,” I said, “in America.”

Then, late Friday, a federal judge ruled that the Selective Service System’s male-only draft registration program is unconstitutional. Since all combat positions are now open to women, a draft registration program excluding women violates the equal protection rights of men. The lawsuit brought by the National Coalition for Men doesn’t ask that registration be extended to women, only ended in its current discriminatory form. 

The judge, however, did not issue an injunction, and there will be an appeal.

“This ruling is going to force the government eventually,” the group’s attorney told the Washington Post, “to either get rid of the selective service requirement or require both sexes to register.”

Between now and the 2020 election, the issue of conscription — for men and for women, for war or for street sweeping — will be before the Congress, the President and candidates for those positions.

Let’s ask them: Whose life is it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And I offered important advice on the proper website domain name for the Commission, to boot. 

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Paul Jacob, draft, registration, selective service, slavery, freedom
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links The Draft

Townhall: Uncle Sam Wants to Nationalize You!

…this weekend at Townhall….

Some folks cannot leave well enough alone. They want not only your money and access to your property. They want you. And seek to compel you. To do what they want.

And they see this because . . . freedom?

This weekend’s column will appear on this site mid-week.

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by Paul Jacob The Draft video

The Coming Draft?

Paul Jacob and two young activists who accompanied him to the hearing.

With talk of forcing young people to provide a year of “national service” to the government, why was Paul Jacob offering this exalted congressionally-established Commission advice about their website address?
You must watch to discover.
Sure, Congress may not be quite on the verge of legislating a mandatory year of national service for those guilty of being young, but Congress is certainly looking into the idea through the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.
On Thursday, Paul Jacob traveled to American University to address the Commission, where for three minutes he implored them to recognize the not-so-subtle difference between inspiring citizens to serve and enslaving them, forcing citizens to serve. “Forswear any forced service whatsoever,” he urged. “That shouldn’t happen in America.”
Oh, and consider changing your website address. Just watch.

Event: National Commission Hearing on Mandatory Service Policy (second hearing) 
Date: Thursday, February 21, 2019
Location: American University, Washington College of Law; Claudio Grossman Hall; 4300 Nebraska Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20016

Make your voice heard: contact the commission here: https://thisiscommonsense.org////dont-draft-our-kids/

The full video can be viewed at the C-SPAN site: National Commission Hearing on Mandatory Service Policy.

Paul Jacob would like to thank two great young people (pictured above), Sophia and Marquis, for volunteering to travel with him into Washington. “May they never be robbed of one second of their lives to the enforced designs of Congress . . . much less a year or two.”

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft too much government

Green New Conscript?

selective service, draft, slavery, submissive dog, freedom, involuntary servitude

It can happen here. Congress could simply identify a group of citizens and pass a law forcing them into servitude.

At least, Congress thinks it has this incredibly abusive power . . . even though the 13th Amendment specifically prohibits it.*

In fact, the idea of conscription — not merely for military service, but also for performing the most routine civilian government functions — is this very day being debated in Washington by a congressionally-empowered body: The National Commission on Military, National and Public Service. The commission is charged with advising Congress on whether to expand draft registration to women or end it for men, as well as whether or not to create a mandatory “national service” program for young people.**

“Should Service be Mandatory?” is the title of the afternoon hearing at American University. 

The Brookings Institution’s William Galston and author Ted Hollander will advocate for drafting all young Americans and sentencing each to a year of compulsory service to the federal government. Thank goodness, my friend Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, will speak against mandatory national service, as will soon-to-be-friend Lucy Steigerwald, a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. 

The public can comment for up to two minutes, and I certainly will demand the commission abandon any contemplation of assaulting the freedom of young people under the false claim of “national service.” 

True public service is not involuntary servitude to the government. And vice-versa. Americans, even young Americans, have rights.

Tell the Commission to tell Congress: No forced service.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

TELL THE COMMISSION: NO

MY STATEMENT: Leave Those Kids Alone

* Regarding the military draft, the U.S. Supreme Court has somehow sidestepped the Amendment’s very clear language.

** No surprise that politicians and “experts” are targeting the politically least established adult age group.

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general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies The Draft

The Opposite of Freedom

service, mandatory, draft, slavery, hearings, involuntary servitude

Do your young adult children need the government to take over their lives for, say, a year, to whip them into tip-top citizenship shape?

Forced service could be the new rite of passage into adulthood. Right after our kids finally get through high school or college, slap 12 months of “service to the nation” on them to help foster appreciation for the freedom . . . they had, instead, hoped to start enjoying. 

Sound good?

No. Not even to the folks at the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS). Appointed to advise Congress on whether to end draft registration or expand it to women, and whether to force all young people to give up a year of their lives doing military or civilian “national service” for the federal government, the commissioners seem to eschew compulsion. 

Their emails, their website address expresses “inspire2serve.gov” . . . not “force2serve.gov.” Because inspiring people is noble, while conscription is despicable and wrong. 

Commissioners talk about a “personal commitment,” “a culture of service,” and the “overwhelming desire to serve” they’ve found among young people. Is it all just a rouse in route to a recommendation to Congress that young people should be forced against their will into government service?

And not even to repel invading hordes, not for any real emergency, but for basic government make-work and pretend nation-building.

Tomorrow at American University in the nation’s capital, the commission is holding a public hearing entitled, “Should Service be Mandatory?” 

No. Involuntary servitude is a stupid idea. And the opposite of freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Old Codger Draft

Dan Glickman, draft, selective service, slavery, freedom

Stay calm. Dan Glickman has discovered serious problems. 

“Washington is a divided town in a very politically divided nation,” Glickman wrote in The Hill last year. “From the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, to the extreme rhetoric on social media, to the bombs mailed to public officials, to the mass shooting in Pittsburgh, to the inability of our elected leaders to reach consensus on nearly all major issues facing the country, it is not easy to see a way out of this mess.”

Nonetheless, he’s found one: less freedom.

Specifically, he wants to take away young people’s freedom. 

For how long? Say a year or so, he argues, right after high school or college, when they don’t have a hold yet in society and are less able to fight back; force them to join the military or some non-military federal conscript workforce. It’ll be good for the little buggers. And very egalitarian. 

Always-adult-acting Washington knows best.

“Not only does this benefit the individual,” asserts this current Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program and former Cabinet Secretary,* “but helps our national community move away from division and towards a more cohesive society.”

Wait a second. The exceptionally well-connected Glickman and friends screwed up our world. So, make young people pay for their mistakes?

And where does Congress conjure up such power?

This Thursday, a congressional commission debates mandatory “national service” for young people.** 

It would make more sense to draft 74-year-old Glickman, who actually helped cause the problems . . . or even 58-year-old me, who couldn’t stop him.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Glickman’s career path, prior to his current position, has been illustrious: a former nine-term congressman; Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton; Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and Motion Picture Association of America Chairman.

** Please go here to submit your own comments on forcing young people to give up a year of their life to the federal government.

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Ronald Reagan on the Draft

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Service Sans the Smile

registration, draft, selective service, slavery

“A personal commitment of time, energy and talent to a mission that contributes to the public good by protecting the nation and its citizens, strengthening communities or promoting the general welfare.” That’s how the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS) officially defines service. 

“It’s time to talk about a culture of service,” Commission Chairman Joe Heck told reporters Wednesday at the release of an interim report, “where Americans not only aspire to serve, but face no barriers.”

Remove the impediments where possible, sure.

But the Commission, as created by Congress, is primarily charged with looking into whether draft registration should continue, and if so, whether to expand it to women.*

Face it, military conscription doesn’t have anything at all to do with “service.” Not by the NCMNPS’s own definition — or any reasonable one. Surely the commissioners weren’t thinking that “personal commitment” could simply be coerced. 

The NCMNPS is also “exploring what a program that requires every American to complete a dedicated period of military, national, or public service might look like.”

Stop. It won’t resemble freedom. 

Why even consider coercing young people? The All-Volunteer Force is working well and creating a massive civilian chain-gang will be expensive. 

“There is an overwhelming desire to serve,” Chairman Heck confirmed. But he explained that while young people “want to do it. They just don’t want to be told to do it.”

Sounds 100-percent American to me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Nearly four decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the current male-only registration program specifically predicated on women being blocked from combat roles. All those roles are now open to women. Eventually, a case will get back to the High Court, which will very, very likely strike down a registration program that does not include young women.

You can share your own opinion with the Commission here.

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registration, draft, selective service, slavery

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