Conscription in the United States

The New Neo has an old post from September 28, 2004 about an e-mail campaign to scare young people into thinking that Bush was about to reinstate the draft for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It turns out that President Bush had nothing to do with it and that it was actually Democrats who proposed this legislation to promote an anti-war political message.  Snopes also did an article about it about a week later.  In my book I suggested this plan for the draft:

Congress shall have the authority to create a draft for the military if the need arises.  Every citizen who is at least nineteen years old and up to a maximum of sixty-five years old shall be eligible for the draft.

If I'm ever fortunate enough to do an updated version of my book I plan to lower the age limit to "less than sixty".

On February 24, 2019, Ed Driscoll posted an article to Instapundit about a lawsuit that may require women to register with Selective Service.  I shared my proposal on the draft, and someone compared it to slavery and said the 13th Amendment prohibits it.  I've also heard that forcing a business owner to do work in violation of his or her beliefs is a form a slavery and I think that is a much better comparison.  And actually the 13th Amendment doesn't completely ban slavery but leaves it for punishment of a crime.  One book reviewer accused me of supporting slavery because I included that quote in my book.

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution lays outs congressional authority over defense and war and militias and that is used to justify a draft.  It has been used in six major wars: American Revolutionary War, American Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War.  Even though nobody is currently forced to join the military, requiring young men to register for the Selective Service System is like having a partial draft.  It is currently required for ages 18 to 25, although federal law allows conscription from ages 17 to 45.  Setting the limit at 45 definitely makes a lot more sense than just 25 and there are a lot of people in their 40s and 50s who would be healthy enough to serve.  I raised the minimum age to 19 because I also think that should be the voting age and by then most people have graduated from high school.  Democrats think the voting age should be lowered to 16 and yet they also think you should have to be 21 to purchase alcohol, marijuana, or guns, and 26 to purchase your own health insurance.  If you're not mature enough for those other things, then you're not mature enough to vote.  I say let the states decide the rules on alcohol and drugs and leave the federal government out of it unless it crosses state boundaries.

While I think an all-volunteer military force is the ideal situation, if it is not enough to defeat the enemy and defend our freedoms then I think a temporary draft is an important idea.  I'm sure there are a lot of patriots who would love to defend this country if the need arose.  There are several peaceful and democratic countries with mandatory military service, and it seems to work fine for them: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Israel, South Korea, Norway, and Switzerland.  Military service can provide important skills like survival, first aid, and weapons training.