Tag: women

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies Popular The Draft

Daughter Draft

draft, registration, conscription, women, war

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” 

For years, the Selective Service System — the friendly folks who bring us the military draft — used the above slogan to portray registering for the draft as a rite of manhood. 

If macho draft registration is now expanded to women, perhaps the slogan will change to: “Men and women have to do what they’re told — equally.” That’s where the issue is headed: to equality. Equality before the law is important, sure — but we don’t want equal servitude. Equal freedom is better.

“It appears that, for the most part, expanding registration for the draft to include women would enhance further the benefits presently associated with the Selective Service System,” stated a Pentagon report to Congress recommending the mandatory registration of women.

What benefits are those?

Spending $25 million each year on a Washington bureaucracy to keep a woefully inaccurate and incomplete list of young people between 18 and 25 years of age for a possible future military draft doesn’t hold any benefit for me. 

If a draft were conducted, many observers believe the Selective Service would throw away its coerced list of young people (gathered by threatening and punishing and imprisoning young people*) and simply purchase a list or lists on the open list market.

But there is no need for conscription. Never has been. Citizens in these United States have always stepped forward. Today, the All Volunteer Force is the best military in the world. 

Most of all, conscription is anathema to the idea of individual liberty. We can and will defend ourselves, but without registering or forcing our daughters into the military. 

Or our sons. 

Ending registration, forswearing conscription, that’s equal freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* I know, I was one of those prosecuted back in the 1980s. 

 

Additional Reading:

Common Sense: For Genderless Freedom

Common Sense: Needless List?

Townhall: Obama’s New Rite

Common Sense: Equal or Free?

Common Sense: Junk the Law

Townhall: Draft the Congress and Leave My Kid Alone

Townhall: Americans Gung-​Ho to Draft Congress

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Categories
folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

A Special Place in Heck?

Hillary Clinton, Trump voters, Trump, women, woman, vote, election, democracy,

Former First Lady scolds women for not voting … for a former First Lady.

Yes, “Michelle Obama,” the BBC headlined last week, “scolds female Trump voters.”

Need you ask why? You probably have already guessed.

“Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice,” Mrs. Obama remarked at a Boston conference.

Though a majority of women who voted cast their ballots for Mrs. Clinton, a slightly smaller majority of white women voted for Donald Trump.

And to those women who did not vote for Hillary? “Well, to me that just says, you don’t like your voice.”

The idea that one woman candidate can serve as “the voice” for all women is not merely absurd. It is sexist. But it is something that this most recent First Lady shares with the former First Lady who just lost a major election. Yes, Hillary Clinton has said much the same kind of thing. And Madeline Albright, Secretary of State under Clinton’s husband’s command, famously argued “there is a special place in hell” for women who refuse to toe the line and vote Clinton II.

Heck, there is a special place for women who think, appraise and choose against social pressure: America. Here people matter as individuals, as persons, not as members of their race, religion, sex, or … political party.

But the arrogance of these women leaders shows no understanding of effrontery. “You like the thing you’re told to like,” Mrs. Obama belittled female Trump voters.

Truth is: women were repeatedly told to like Hillary for president. But they refused to do as they were told, which is why Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Obama are attacking them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
folly ideological culture nannyism

The Problem of No Problem

A scientist has a problem: no problem. 

Sounds like a Zen riddle, but it’s really about the riddle of victimhood-worship. 

Emily Yoffe writes an advice column called Dear Prudence. A female reader reported a problem pertaining to workplace bias against women. Although she works in a “very masculine scientific field … I have never really suffered from sexism.” 

Hmmm. Why not? “Maybe I’m just awesome at playing the man’s game (or in denial and don’t have an eye for sexism?).” 

It is probably not denial. It is pretty easy to detect abusive treatment when you’re on the receiving end and not rationalizing it away. The bigger problem, though, is that “even quite reasonable and pleasant women” of her acquaintance get nasty when she can’t “contribute to their list of crimes committed by the patriarchy.” 

What to do? She dislikes unpleasantness, but doesn’t want to lie. 

One thing to do is recognize it’s not up to you to make unreasonable people reasonable. When no discussion is possible, take your conversation elsewhere. I also advise skipping gratuitous self-doubt.

Happily, Ms. Prudence and I are on the same wavelength. 

“My general advice,” she writes, “is that it’s best not to engage with unpleasant people.… But if you feel like it, you can also counterpunch by saying something like, ‘It’s funny, but the only people who try to bully me are women who aren’t in my profession.’ ”

Commonsensical minds think alike, I guess. Ask me for advice any time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.