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Class War
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Hey if anyone’s a lawyer or knows what they’re talking about what’s the current consensus or constitutionality of conscription in the US? I think it’s illegal under the 13th amendment (which literally bans servitude AKA forced service) and the only court case I could find had the opinion of “well everyone else does it!”
If I remember my constitutional law classes correctly, conscription was canned after a series of Supreme Court cases where conscientious objectors successfully argued that under the 1st amendment they could not be made to serve. Since "religion" is very loosely defined in the US, pretty much anyone can claim that conscription violates their free exercise of a peace-loving religion.
Hm thanks.
Can you expand on what “canned” means?
IANAL, but in this context, it means "disposed of," or "abolished," probably based on some usage involving "throwing [something] in the trash can," just like one might say something was "binned" in the UK.
It can also mean "fired (from a job)," as in "Donny showed up to work drunk, so he got canned."
You Anal, huh? That's cool, I'm not big into it myself.
It's a somewhat informal "discarded."
It is, and I apologize if my informality caused any confusion. Good night!
During the Vietnam era, several people used the 1st Amendment to avoid getting drafted. To quote Wikipedia, "United States v. Seeger, 1965, ruled that a person can claim conscientious objector status based on religious study and conviction that has a similar position in that person's life to the belief in God, without a concrete belief in God.[4] United States v. Welsh, five years later, ruled that a conscientious objector need have no religious belief at all." Widespread opposition to the draft during the Vietnam era led to official termination of the draft system in 1973. Since 1980, adult males are again required to register for military service in case their country enters a state of war. But there is no real punishment for failing to sign up, and the country hasn't officially been at war since 1945.
Edit: sorry I can't get the quote to work and it's late at night here. This'll have to do.
No that’s perfect thank you.
Yeah I think there's enough precedent at this point that it wouldn't just be a flip a switch and make it happen. I mean, they would make a new switch. Couple of quick shuffles, some policy. The thing is, even if it was cut and dry and clear in current law, The ability to compel the general public is essentially non-existent. What happens when 50% of the population refuses to answer the call? Hell what happens when 10% of the population refuses to answer the call? We can't even incarcerate 0.1% of the population more at the moment. Do you compel the banks to stop working with them? Void their social security numbers? How would you even have enough people to enforce any punishments against them?
On the flip side, what do you do when the homeland is invaded? What happens if China decides that we're looking kind of weak in the middle of a civil war. It's one thing to be conscripted to fight a war for other people trying to stabilize a geopolitical climate, but what happens when they're knocking on your door? Do you just accept them openly and hope that they will let you keep your things?
The US has something like 0.6% of the country as military troops anyway (both active and reserve). That’s over 2M people.
Hard to tell which part of my questions you're answering.
But on one hand you wouldn't be able to use them to compel the other people to come into the military because they'd already be in use.
On the other hand if China was actually serious about invading, those numbers are utterly insignificant. Hell, if they feel at the same percentage for their military, It would probably be bigger than our damn population.
I meant that the US has a huge standing army despite the constitution not wanting that. Even in the event of a large geopolitical war they’d probably not even need extra persons.
Yeah but the US has as a gun behind every blade of grass.
They do, but 99 out of 100 of them would be completely useless against any form of coordinated insurgency.
Arming yourself is pretty effective against a single person trying to get you, or even against a local security force that really doesn't want to die for their job. Look at Uvalde. If that was a military off it would have been over in seconds.
The actual number of people that take the time to do target practicing and can hit a moving target, The number of people that can properly maintain a firearm, It's nowhere near the number that are actually armed.
And to be honest it probably wouldn't be a D-Day style invasion. They'd probably work their way into government. Spread a bunch of propaganda around. Sew discontent, feed infighting. Attack education, gerrymander and otherwise rig the votes, Dismantle the branches of government and place their own agents to take over laws and legal rulings. By the time real boots were hitting the ground would be so entrenched in internal combat we wouldn't know it hit us.
Yet, young us men still have to sign up for 'selective service' when they turn 18.
Gillette sent me a free razor as a reward, at least.