Michael writes:
> Given that there will be an army for a while, a cold-blooded
lefty might ask himself, what is likely to make it the most inoffensive army, the army least useful for mad imperial projects like the Iraq war?
That is not being cold-blooded. It is being logical.
> The only tolerable alternative is not having an army.
The ideal, but until that time a conscript army is the only fair alternative which spreads the burden across all levels of society.
Chuck writes:
> If a free society is going to have a military, it has to
be based on volunteers.
But what we have now is not voluntary. There is coercion going on. It would be voluntary if everyone who volunteered had a viable alternative they were turning away from to join the military. Since this is not the present case, then what would be fairest is creating a lottery whereby chance determines who serves thereby negating privilege (of course such a system will piss off to the extreme those whose privilege is obviated by this new element of randomness).
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister