Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Should U.S. reinstitute the conscription?

Only if they repeal DADT and the exclusions for trans people.

(LoL, just kidding)

While the repeal of DADT and the exclusions for trans people is the right thing to do, it has little to do with this question.  It has little to do with trans people as well so I question the question a little bit.  May we have an explanation of what motivated you, tswoman, to ask this?

hugs & smiles
Emelye

In case the draft comes under the current legistation the selective service system and the army has right to call all transwomen (pre-op and post-op) to serve as male. So I am think thath the lady here above me who voted Yes, for selective service priorize Military interest for ANY transpeople rights. 

You can personally think what you want. But you accept that the army forces nearly fully transitioned ts-woman to serve as man. I all guess you have deep Republicans sympathies. It is nonsense to say that I support TS-rights but army has right cancel succesfull transition. I think the community in these days does not need members who think like this.

In that case I do not see any problem with that. I personally support universal national service in theory but because I know what it leads in the practice I am against it. (Military finds way to use the law to draft poor men to endlenss wars like Iraq. )

tswoman sounds a whole lot like like DarkLady reincarnated. It was probably the reference to conscription as well as mentioning being from Finalnd in another post lol

^ I think so.

I'll give the topic a whirl anyway.

Universal service with all citizens accepted for who they are, that is best.  This is the morally responsible action, because in the US, our volunteer military is being asked to do too much -- they've served extended tours with shortened rest, and many soldiers have been stop-lossed, and they've been asked to deal with a particularly stressful battlefield (mainly one in which soldiers don't know where the enemy will come from, who the enemy is, or when the enemy will strike).  The rest of the citizens (myself included) must accept the-luck-of-the-draw and accept our obligation rather than continue to squeeze and abuse those who volunteered and stepped in first (that, and private mercenaries who get paid at a higher rate).

That said, once nearly every family is at risk of having a relative drafted and being more seriously engaged in these wars (right now this just concerns relatives of those volunteer, a very small portion), public support for said wars will plummet, potentially forcing them to end.  For this very reason, we need to use the draft at the start of any war ... to make sure our citizens are actually serious about it and feel the urgency to hold leaders accountable before we even commit to and invest ourselves in a war.

From my own viewpoint, individuals from across the gender spectrum (male-female-and beyond) should have to serve if their was a conscription.  The reason for this is because everyone is affected by the grave decision to conscript.  It is unfair that only people born with a functioning male chromosome, or pre-op have to serve; for the simple reason that they did not choose this condition and thus should be treated equally as everyone else. 

On the question at hand, I don't think that they should conscript at this current time.  The current policies for the draft are: 1) Scream inequality 2) Loosely applied 3) Unrealistic.  In addition, though I completely think that our soldiers are over stressed and over deployed, the answer can not be re-instituting this approach that may of worked 60 years ago but may not work today.  My reasoning for why it may not work today is that people are not raised in the environment that one day they are going to war.  In contrast to my father's generation, where young men expected to go to war like their fathers and forefathers before them, individuals are raised now to gain a college education and support their families in general.  This disparity, between this generation and last, means that the draft may not be as readily supported as WW2 or even as much as the ravenous protests of the '60s.  America needs to come to the conclusion that lets make due with what we have.  This is not for the reason of getting our money's worth of our soldiers, but to empathetically realize that human life has a cost and must be deployed valuably and efficiently. 

I see no reason why only men must be registered to Selective service. However at least the sex that matters should be the current legal sex, not ''birthsex''. This last is discriminatory, transphobic, sexist and a way to serious human right violations. When the general discussion about the draft will evolve after the election of the next Republican majority congress in 2010 I hope that GLBT-community has courage to bring this up.

How about we go back to no one being required to register.

The only realistic thing to do will be 1) require all people of the  both sexes of certain age to register   (as president  Carter meant it to be in late 1970's) or
                                                2) repeal the hole selective service system

I am personally taking DOD of my European country to the court. It recognizes some legal sex changes (FTM) in conscription status but not other (MTF).

I was in the Army. An all volunteer Army. That is the strength of the US military. We have no soldiers who are drafted, we do not need to worry that these men will start a mutiny over being drafted. In a military that uses conscription you need more NCO's and Officers just to keep control over these men.
People who are forced into duty resent that duty and do not preform at optimum levels. They are more apt to retreat when the pressure rises. People who are forced to serve are rarely top notch soldiers. You can never put them in a high level position due to fears of a vengful reaction once power is recieved.
We have an all volunteer military for a reason.

Now, I believe that this is a pointless topic.

And I will refuse to say what a country I do not live in "should" and "should not" do.

I can openly express whether or not I personally approve of either chouce, but "should" is not an appropriate term for me to use in this context.

Lastly, If the OP is another incarnation of DarkLady, I will simply remind her that her obsessions got her the boot last time.

I believe that men and women should serve.


Gennee

I disagree strongly. Violent criminals and sexual predators are last to be given a gun and society's permit to kill. Just think about innocent civilians in warzones.

Forcing long-sentence criminals to fight our wars is untenable -- they will do their best to escape, and we will be arming them with high-powered weapons to boot.  It's not like they have anything to lose by trying to get away.

Regarding the US military being its best when it is all-volunteer, we seem to be having considerable trouble with overextending it.  And maybe that's just going to be how it is -- maybe this is the most our country can be militarily, short of our soil being invaded by an established entity (namely another country).  There is a question I have -- and I don't mean it to be confrontational, it's just that I really want to find the answer to it -- if possible, what will it take for the masses to understand the gravity of war and hold its government accountable so it does not engage in wars of choice and get away with false-justification?

Destruction of war sounds cool but will never happen. Nor do I see government doing anything that would lose face whether right or wrong.

No. But then again, this monkey has always been a filthy little anarchist, even before I would have admitted it, so I'm prejudiced.

I found your comment about me highly offensive.

I'm locking this topic.

People seem to be wanting to stir a flame rather than discuss sensibly


Cindy