"Universal military service is perhaps the extreme example of the power of the State, and the supreme illustration of the difference between its attitude to its own citizens and its attitude to the citizens of other States. The State punishes, with impartial rigor, both those who kill their compatriots and those who refuse to kill foreigners. On the whole, the latter is considered the graver crime. The phenomenon of war is familiar, and men fail to realize its strangeness; to those who stand inside the cycle of instincts which lead to war it all seems natural and reasonable. But to those who stand outside the strangeness of it grows with familiarity. It is amazing that the vast majority of men should tolerate a system which compels them to submit to all the horrors of the battlefield at any moment when their Government commands them to do so. (...) Why not leave war to those who like it and bring it on? "
"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!"
"The soldier no less than the rest of us is worth his hire. How can we justify paying him less than the amount for which he is willing to serve? How can we justify, that is, involuntary servitude except in times of the greatest national emergency? One of the great gains in the progress of civilization was the elimination of the power of the noble or the sovereign to exact compulsory servitude. "
"These wars served to intensify nationalistic sentiment throughout the whole of Europe. Nationalism became crystallized in a number of new idolatrous religions dividing the world. To nationalism we owe military conscription at home and imperialism abroad. (...) It led to the futile waste and slaughter of the Napoleonic wars; to the imposition in perpetuity of military slavery, or conscription, upon practically all the countries of Europe; and to the rise of those nationalistic idolatries which threaten the existence of our civilization. A fine record!"
"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?"
"Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man’s fundamental right — the right to life — and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man’s life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle."
"Only just powers may be delegated to government. Since individuals do not have the right to expropriate the possessions of others, enslave others, or threaten others with bodily harm for their peaceful religious practices, romantic attachments, or pharmacological preferences, then government cannot have a right to nationalize property, conscript soldiers or hospital orderlies, or enforce victimless crime laws."
"One day the men that rule us all
Decided we must die,
Else pride and freedom surely fall
In the dim bye and bye.
They told me I must write my name
Upon a scroll of death;
That some day I should rise to fame
By giving up my breath.
I do not know what I have done
That I should thus be bound
To wait for tortures one by one,
And then an unmark’d mound."
Decided we must die,
Else pride and freedom surely fall
In the dim bye and bye.
They told me I must write my name
Upon a scroll of death;
That some day I should rise to fame
By giving up my breath.
I do not know what I have done
That I should thus be bound
To wait for tortures one by one,
And then an unmark’d mound."
“ The question then will amount to this; whether it be just in a community, that the richer part should compel the poorer to fight for them and their properties for such wages as they think fit to allow, and punish them if they refuse? (...) I cannot persuade myself it is equitable.”
“ In fact, with conscription this pitiless dilemma arises before every one. Every one is forced to take up murderous weapons; and even if he does not get as far as murder, his weapons must be ready, his carbine loaded, and his sword keen of edge, that he may declare himself ready for murder. Every one is forced into the service of the courts to take part in meting out judgment and sentence; that is, to deny the commandment of Jesus, "Resist not evil," in acts as well as in words. ”
"What is conscription—the military draft—if not temporary slavery (with permanent consequences, for those draftees who don’t come home alive)? No issue today more clearly separates libertarians from those who put the collective ahead of the individual. The libertarian believes that people will voluntarily defend a country worth defending, and that no group of people has the right to force another group to give up a year or two of their lives—and possibly life itself—without their consent. The basic liberal principle of the dignity of the individual is violated when individuals are treated as national resources."
"Yes, governments have been known to boldly contradict common-sense morality. Conscription is an obvious example. Common-sense morality says “Your body, your choice.” Conscription says, “‘Your body?’ Where do you get these treasonous notions, private?”"
The draftee is performing “slave” labor and the enlisted man “free” labor, and there is evidence that slave labor is less efficient than free labor, particularly in the skilled jobs. Slave labor has traditionally been condemned on economic as well as on moral grounds. It is often claimed—particularly by military men but also by economists—that the military couldn’t obtain (say) three million men without conscription. This assumes either that the present military pay scale is the only possible scale or that the supply curve is completely vertical. In this naive form the argument is clearly erroneous.
"The draftee is performing “slave” labor and the enlisted man “free” labor, and there is evidence that slave labor is less efficient than free labor, particularly in the skilled jobs. Slave labor has traditionally been condemned on economic as well as on moral grounds. It is often claimed—particularly by military men but also by economists—that the military couldn’t obtain (say) three million men without conscription. This assumes either that the present military pay scale is the only possible scale or that the supply curve is completely vertical. In this naive form the argument is clearly erroneous."
Ronald Reagan was one of Carter's most articulate critics. Reagan argued that the draft sign-up
not only would "do little to enhance our military preparedness" but could "actually decrease our military preparedness,
by making people think we have solved our defense problems." An even more "fundamental objection," said Reagan,
was moral: "draft registration destroys the very values that our society is committed to defending."
"The draft is a poor way to provide an effective common defense. It discourages the adoption of military technologies that can reduce the loss of life and improve effectiveness during military operations. It increases the full economic cost of producing defense capability. And it does not make the military more representative. In a free society, individuals who serve by choice and not by compulsion should meet the call to arms."
