Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site unmvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!houxm!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!lanl!unmvax!cliff From: cliff@unmvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Military conscription/slavery Message-ID: <618@unmvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 27-Jan-85 23:46:52 EST Article-I.D.: unmvax.618 Posted: Sun Jan 27 23:46:52 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 07:52:48 EST References: <308@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque Lines: 138 > Jeff Sonntag writes: > > You are hereby challenged to provide a definition of slavery which > > excludes conscription. > > Most dictionaries have something like "the condition of being a slave." Not > good enough? Here is how the OED defines "slave": > > One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, > whether by capture, purchase, or birth; a servant completely > divested of freedom and personal rights. I maintain that any person that can be sent to certain death is completely divested of freedom and personal rights. Now how can you sit there and tell me that a poor person is less free than a rich person, yet claim that a person who can be killed at anytime has any bit of freedom or personal rights. How many of the Vietnam casualties are free? If being dead had anything to do with being free this discussion would be totally moot, for we living make up only a tiny fraction of all the humans that have walked/crawled on this planet. This is no longer theoretical material. During the time the U.S. participated in the Vietnam atrocity (it wasn't a U.S. war) real people were sent to their deaths. They were servents ("serving their country" HA!) and they were completely divested of freedom and personal rights. > Aristotle defines slavery as the ownership of one person by another as his > personal possession. I doubt that even libertarians believe that a > commanding officer owns his subordinates and can sell them at the local > slave auction. Maybe the analogy isn't so bad. If your C.O. sends you somewhere you must go or face court martial. Great, most likely he won't be sending you some- where else for obvious personal profit, but remember that this person is most likely a career military man who very badly wants that next promotion. Old soldiers never die--Young ones do. It hasn't always been that way but the median age of dead U.S. soldiers in Vietnam was the lowest of all the median ages for dead U.S. citizens in previous wars or periods of prolonged fighting. > Also, the authority of officers, and even of the Commander- > in-Chief, is strictly limited by law and military code under a republican > form of government. Yes and the authority of slave owners was strictly limited by law under a republican form of government. True the limit was negligible but a slave- owner couldn't have his slave burn down the capitol building. Just because the law and military code does not allow something today doesn't mean it won't be changed tomorrow (esp. since many things can be done in military law that can't be done by federal law or state law under our present Constitution). But seriously, how much more authority does it need when it can have you beaten to death during peace time with impunity? > Your superior cannot order you to marry his daughter, He can't today...who knows about tomorrow. > shoot yourself, No, but he can ask that you beat a fellow soldier for a fixed amount of time, even if it kills the other soldier. > or buy shares of IBM with your salary. Actually since your salary is taxed much of it will go to the companies supplying the goods for war...DuPont, etc. > Draftees and other > military personnel have well-defined rights in the US armed services, > although they are not identical with the rights of civilians. Please tell me what they are and explain why they are static when there is no Constitution or similiar fixed set of rights to work under. > The 1984 Libertarian Party platform declares that conscription is > "involuntary servitude"; Well, it isn't voluntary and it is servitude... > "servitude" as generally used is a synonym for > "slavery." Libertarians believe that conscription is unjust. It is also > rhetorically effective to denounce the draft as "slavery"; therefore, by > Libertarian Logic, it IS slavery. By the same process of reasoning we can > arrive at the conclusion that mandatory seat-belt laws constitute slavery. Actually, by definition (submission to a dominating influence) it is. The point is that when you are drafted you have to rescind your own sense of morals and obey your C.O. He can send you to certain death if he thinks it would benefit his status. > There was a story in the NYT a few days ago about a New York woman who > claimed that the lives of her two sons, who had been in an accident, had > been saved by NY's new seat-belt law. They had not used seat belts before, > but buckled up this time "because it's the law," they said. In a letter to > Gov. Cuomo their mother expressed gratitude, for some peculiar reason, for > the seat-belt law. It doesn't matter what the woman claims. If her sons lives were saved, it was by the seat belt, not the seat belt law. Sounds like a good idea to me: only behave responsibly when the law tells you what to do. In the mean time aren't we doing the same mother a severe diservice if we don't have a law prohibiting making toast in the bathtub? Of course I doubt that Gov. Cuomo even thought about replying to the lady and telling her that there are all sorts of dangerous practices in the world and that it would be unlikely that big brother would get around to making them illegal by the end of this decade, so she should consider raising children to have minds of their own. Maybe ten years down the road people will no longer have to think for themselves...but it is still a good idea today. > Too bad the lady wasn't a (consistent) libertarian: she > would have screamed at the governor for taking away her family's freedom and > the story might have made Page One, to the great satisfaction of > libertarians no doubt. That's right. I consistently "scream" at my "representatives" when they try to pass motorcyle helmet or auto seatbelt laws. Not only are they taking away freedom, but they are encouraging people to be dependent on the state for guidance away from safe practices (the same state that brought you love canal and agent orange). > Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes Summary of conscription as slavery debate: Richard Carnes favors conscription. He presents no points in its favor, but complains that libertarians choose to call it slavery and involuntary servitude. In the past he has been deeply concerned that a person with little money is sufficiently less free than one who is well off, yet he seems not to care that government thinks it has the right to arbitrarily send some of its citizens to certain death. Cliff Matthews is against conscription. Whether it is called slavery, involuntary servitute, selective service or the draft, it still directly results in the ultimate deprivation of liberty/freedom: death. U.S. history has shown that even in a democratic republic conscription has been used to selectively oppress minorities (males) for trivial pursuits that don't even require congressional declaration of war. --Cliff