In the event of a draft

[cpk]

I would join if (a) we were being invaded, (b) we were retaliating against someone who used a nuclear weapon against us. In both those cases I would not need a draft to convince me to join, though.

Otherwise, I would tell them to stick it up their ass. Given that fleeing the country probably won't work, I'd probably just go to prison.

[NT!]

[ QUOTE ]
And the honest thing to do is to separate oneself from that family/tribe/nation when not willing to follow it into battle, instead of trying to keep deriving the benefits of belonging without making the sacrifices others are making. And at the very least, as noted by NT about COs, one can serve in non-combat capacities like being an unarmed battlefield medic. If one isn't even willing to do that, then one can properly be labeled a coward and a deserter.

[/ QUOTE ]

First, I said I would likely never serve overseas, and that includes as a noncombat reporter, medic, tuba player, anything. I am saying this because I simply do not view any foreign war the US has engaged in in the last 50 years as legitimate or just, and would not risk my life for it. If my homeland got invaded I would feel very differently.

Your argument about duty to a nation is imperfect, Bluff, because being born within the borders of a nation does not mean that is your only loyalty, in practice or in theory. You have to consider your family, your religious values, your regional interests and principles, the legitimacy of the state in whose territory you happen to fall, the legitimacy of the conflict, etc. Personally all of these trump national loyalty to me.

"Love it or leave it" type arguments are glib and unacceptable. I can be born here and have values and interests that conflict with those of the state. That doesn't mean I have to leave. On the contrary, if the state's values are in conflict with too many people living within its borders, I think it's the state that ought to go, not the people.

NT

[AScorz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost it's civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
Harvard graduation ceremony, 1978

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you saying? Courage=killing and dieing for things you don't believe in? That's pretty jaded.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm saying I love my country, and I love my freedoms. The U.S. is the greatest country in the world. Our government dosent make it great, they are far from perfect. What makes it great is our constitution, which is nearly perfect, or close enough. If I didnt have my fiancee and the chance to own my own buisness in this great land I would be a Marine by now. Thats what I would fight for. Thats what I belive is at stake. Our constitution has come under attack, and if need be I would go and fight for it. That jaded?

[NT!]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost it's civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
Harvard graduation ceremony, 1978

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you saying? Courage=killing and dieing for things you don't believe in? That's pretty jaded.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm saying I love my country, and I love my freedoms. The U.S. is the greatest country in the world. Our government dosent make it great, they are far from perfect. What makes it great is our constitution, which is nearly perfect, or close enough. If I didnt have my fiancee and the chance to own my own buisness in this great land I would be a Marine by now. Thats what I would fight for. Thats what I belive is at stake. Our constitution has come under attack, and if need be I would go and fight for it. That jaded?

[/ QUOTE ]

So you're going to storm the White House?

NT

[Coffee]

If I was drafted without being disqualified for medical reasons(herniated disc in my back, reconstructed right ankle), I would go without question. What is most important to me is how I can live with the decisions I make, and I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I dodged. I'm not indicting those who would escape service by any means. I'm speaking about myself, personally, and I would much rather answer the call and die than have to live with knowing that I avoided my duty to my country.

Strange sentiment from a libertarian, but I tend to go conservative on this one. NOBODY wants to go fight in a war, except people that aren't going to be doing the fighting. There's no reason why I should have to go, but there's no reason why I shouldn't have to go, either.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
"Love it or leave it" type arguments are glib and unacceptable. I can be born here and have values and interests that conflict with those of the state. That doesn't mean I have to leave. On the contrary, if the state's values are in conflict with too many people living within its borders, I think it's the state that ought to go, not the people.


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't make a total "love it or leave it" argument, as I left room for both situations where one morally believes the nation is totally in the wrong in an individual issue, and for serving in non-combat capacities. But if one is just unwilling in general to fight, overseas or not, and not because one truly believes the fight to be immoral, and one is in the minority in a democratic country, then leaving when refusing to fight is the honorable thing to do.

[AScorz]

To start kicking out some politicans? I'm down.

[ShakeZula06]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost it's civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
Harvard graduation ceremony, 1978

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you saying? Courage=killing and dieing for things you don't believe in? That's pretty jaded.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm saying I love my country, and I love my freedoms. The U.S. is the greatest country in the world. Our government dosent make it great, they are far from perfect. What makes it great is our constitution, which is nearly perfect, or close enough. If I didnt have my fiancee and the chance to own my own buisness in this great land I would be a Marine by now. Thats what I would fight for. Thats what I belive is at stake. Our constitution has come under attack, and if need be I would go and fight for it. That jaded?

[/ QUOTE ]
OK read what you just typed and compare that to quote you wrote. What do the two have to do with each other? Also I have no idea why you think our constitution is under attack, and also, does anyone remember that word Andy Fox used to describe how people look at the constitution as holy writing? It applies here I think.

[tolbiny]

I ask you what value was there in commanding thousands of 18-25 yr old men (boys) to charge through hundreds of yards through barbed wire directly toward machine gun nests? Those who refused, or shot themselves to avoid it, or hung back are labled cowrds and those who lie dead in a ditch called heroes.
People who dispute the nessecity of dropping bombs on civilians in Tokyo, Hiroshima or Nagasaki are labled unpatriotic. Dresden? Naplam and agent orange in Vietnam? How are these things "marginally" wrong? War is taking a bunch of people, training them, giving them guns and telling them its ok to go shoot other people. Support personal feed clothe and arm those doing the actual killing. Medics bandage the wounded and hospitals get them back on their feet so they can return to battle, so they can "legally" kill more people. If one believe that the war itself is immoral ther eisn't (imo) a whole lot of room to ethically justify helping those who continue to do so.

[ QUOTE ]
and certainly when it is in the right

[/ QUOTE ]

What does that mean? What wars has one side cleary been "in the right" and didn't stray off that side and commit actions that would certainly be labled as "war crimes" had the other side committed them?

[ QUOTE ]
So instead of making sophistical semantic arguments to indirectly deride those values

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not indirectly deriding them, i am very direct in my disgust for people who use words like patritism to justify murder, as much so as for people who use religioustexts to justify murder. Its the same principle made palatable because its "my side" thats doing the killing.

[ QUOTE ]
When one is part of a family, tribe or nation

[/ QUOTE ]

So i have some obligation to a guy in alaska because government officials bought some land from other government officialsyears before i was born? Or i owe allegiance to a ssoman because my mother has a brother who has a child who has a child?

[ShakeZula06]

BluffTHIS,
[ QUOTE ]
Words like "courage" and patriotism" signify values.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree
[ QUOTE ]
So instead of making sophistical semantic arguments to indirectly deride those values, a person refusing to fight should just admit he holds other more selfish values to be more important.

[/ QUOTE ] What if one just believes that the war being waged is an immoral one?
[ QUOTE ]
When one is part of a family, tribe or nation, one doesn't have an obligation to blindly follow that unit if what it is doing is obviously and totally wrong, but one does when it is only possibly or marginally wrong, and certainly when it is in the right. And the honest thing to do is to separate oneself from that family/tribe/nation when not willing to follow it into battle, instead of trying to keep deriving the benefits of belonging without making the sacrifices others are making.

[/ QUOTE ]
I own my property, not the government. The benifits I recieve I paid for in the form of taxes. Not to mention that just because there's a draft that doesn't mean the things I benefit from are at stake.
[ QUOTE ]
And at the very least, as noted by NT about COs, one can serve in non-combat capacities like being an unarmed battlefield medic. If one isn't even willing to do that, then one can properly be labeled a coward and a deserter.

[/ QUOTE ] I said earlier that just because one doesn't want to kill or die in a war he doesn't believe is moral doesn't make him a coward. By the same token that person would find it immoral to contribute to that war effort, no?