From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!whuxlb!mag
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: More Historical Material on Universal Service
Article-I.D.: whuxlb.772
Posted: Fri Nov  5 17:16:23 1982
Received: Sat Nov  6 04:27:40 1982
References: eagle.599

I would like to address one point made by Charles Wetherell in his
last article, namely:

Third, the draft is not involuntary in any case.  You may break
the contract with the community and not be drafted.  Of course,
to do so you must give up your citizenship and leave the country.
This seems eminently fair; if you will not serve, why should the
rest of the community extend its protection?


To say that it is "eminently fair" that you should be forced to
leave the country if you wish to "break the contract with the community"
really does havoc to another "American" concept--freedom.

If we indulge in legalisms, I was always under the impression that when
one of the parties to a contract was forced into it, then the contract
is void.  Agreements made under duress are not "fair" in my book.
In fact, I think that calling one's status under the law a "contract
with the community" is a distortion in itself of where our draft
liability comes from.  It's really a form of collective tyranny,
which is one of the negative sides of a democracy.

This discussion is very interesting, and I would like to see it
continue, but I hope that some differentiation can be made between
legal and historical facts  and  moral opinions.  I was very interested
to read Charles' historical information, but it's polluted when
an opinion such as I quoted above is injected.  We're talking about
the use of force to impose the will of some citizens on others (and
themselves, in a sense).  I agree that the founding fathers thought
that this was OK sometimes.  I don't think that the fact that they
think it OK means that I should be content to follow the rules of
the system (and go to Vietnam and fight and die or whatever).

Anyway, I vote to hear more comment on the issue.

Mike Gray, BTL, WH