I tend to avoid talking politics with my parents (mostly because they watch CNN and MSNBC all of the time), but in rare instances where war comes up, I ask them, "what if they reinstate the draft?" Their immediate response is, "that will never happen" and that is the end of the conversation. I sometimes think they say that because they don't want to even entertain the idea of the possible outcomes of a draft for their children, though perhaps they genuinely believe that the draft would never be reinstated because of potentially how unpopular it would be. I have seen similar strong opinions on this board about the impossibility of a draft in the United States, and I have to wonder why you are all so certain about it?
Time and again we have seen decisions by the government being made that defy logic, especially politically, only for the average citizen to look on in complete apathy at best, and sheer joy at worst. Years of the Syrian Civil War being plastered everywhere with criticisms of US inaction have made the left more hungry for war. The Ukraine War has seen leftist individuals (even the trannies who you would expect to whine and moan about doing anything) actually travel to Ukraine and participate in fighting. The propaganda is powerful, and the apathy towards resisting is even stronger.
I think you would have to be foolish to not even entertain the idea of the Establishment reinstating the draft. It doesn't matter if the logistics would be impossible as that has rarely stopped the government before. As far as I see it, the Silent Generation and the Boomers are not satisfied with merely passing away quietly, they want to go out in a blaze of glory, consequences for their children, and the human race as a whole, be damned.
Because Vietnam was the last time they did it and it gutted their officer class in friendly fire, unless you were E4 and lower you weren't guaranteed your safety.
Combine that with an armed and disenfranchised population and put it this way, when even the cucked and blackpilled UK population says "FUCK OFF!" to the draft, you think you can make Americans sign up?
This time it won't be the officers it will be the politicians.
One can only...
I mean.
Damn.
That would be terrible.
Boy.
I hope that doesn't happen.
its also not going to happen :
anyone smart enough to pull it off and get away with it, is also smart enough to keep himself and his family away from all this globohomo crap. so why would he bother.
anyone smart enough to pull it off but not get away with it, is also smart enough to understand that he'll be dead and they'll then come after his family. so he won't dare.
anyone dumb enough to try anyway is also dumb enough to believe globohomo lies, so he won't do anything either.
which explains why the only attempts at shooting politicians come from the people supporting the globohomo side.
how many officers died in Vietnam compared to enlisted? and was that % higher or lower than other wars?
Enough that it got it's own term 'fragging' for the more popular use of frag grenades to do it.
Compare that to the Gulf War or even the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and you can see the difference in drafting in the reluctant to fight.
But when you say "enough" was it more or less than other wars? I don't doubt that it existed, but death by US issued fragmentation grenades would presumably leave obvious injuries and would be trivial to track and tally.
Lots of naive people in this thread.
The public was over 90% against joining ww1 and ww2. We said all the same shit. Still happened.
All it takes is one attack on the US.
Yes that's true but there's a key part you're missing of your examples:
We live in a HUGE patriotism disparity
You ask the MAGA crowd and they are patriotic only to their LOCAL communities and fewer to the state and none to the country. The left? They're running around with the flags of OTHER countries.
You don't have the belief in a country needed to do a draft, you try without that and everything collapses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots
Did not stop the Civil War and the north still won.
When they still had law and order everywhere else.
Things have devolved so much now that drafting would be bad FOR the establishment as IF the normies fell for it you know who won't?
The 'urban youths and Basketball Americans' who enjoyed their 'summer of love', less normies working being productive, they aren't going to suddenly obey the law and fill the gap so it results in a STEEP acceleration into collapse and those 'migrants' won't fill the gap either so you remove the productive side of you population for a draft with NOTHING to fill it.
Incorrect. There is 1000x more controls available now for the state to use against you. Back then no central banking, no buearacracy, no managerial caste. Way more levers to pull now to get their way. People have no self determination anymore they don't know how to disobey the state.
Yeah the minority coalitions won't go, and a dindu brigade will be a disaster, but you still have plenty of normies to cull from.
Because anyone who arrives at my door telling me I have to drop everything to fight in a stupid foreign war will be asked to leave. If they don't leave, or if they use force, they will be shot.
They're not going to come to your door, they'll arrest you at the store or during a traffic stop.
good quote, where is this from?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn talking about the USSR’s rise to power
yeah great quote, good idea in theory. Has it ever happened at any place or any time in history?
They don't have enough enforcers to do that more than a few times.
how did they arrest draft dodgers in the vietnam war era?
CCW
They come to your door because they want a perp walk of shame in front of neighbors/cameras.
https://policestatefilm.net/
ok then they'll do it at your work then.
True war at home. Why travel?
if you're gonna be forced to fight people with guns either way, might as well fight the right guys closer to home sweet home...
Exactamundo.
Might be a sewer, but it's our sewer.
we got a real internet tough guy right here.
there's a lot of things I would pussy out on. but if the options are 1) get shot at abroad for a pointless war caused by the greed and incompetence of our betters, or 2) get shot at here fighting against an unjust conscription, you can bet your ass I will pick 2.
The Draft is a concept that only works when there is a unified belief in the fight you're being drafted for. The Draft was made so wildly unpopular during Vietnam that they changed its name entirely to "The Selective Service." Rebrands are when you know something has had its reputation tarnished.
Today, the US is split very strongly along political lines, and more directly along 'establishment' and 'new wave' politics. Trump proved that the constant warring and agitation in other countries is done purposefully and is not organic. My Default Liberal upbringing pounded the idea into my head that Republicans were the war presidents, and Democrats were the peace presidents. This is now obviously a lie. This is part of the façade of the parties' roles.
Because of this fracturing in the belief that the wars in foreign countries are necessary, the support for "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" has lost its weight. We don't have to do any fighting at all. The longstanding Military Industrial Complex is at odds with Progressivism destroying the feelings of attachment I have to my country, its government, and institutions. Why would I go fight for something I don't believe in? Why risk it all to protect miscegenation, fagification, death of the Church, the paving over of my hometown, or the dissolution of my country's sovereignty? The political bias of the Deep State is on full display, and its ability to maintain its grip is beholden to how much any of us believe in its legitimacy. It's no longer a joke when I say "I wish Trump was half the Mega Fascist Terrorist Dictator the Left says he is." I want this to be the era of the downfall of Federal power and authority.
A draft in the current day would be a blast point that would endanger the country's unity even more than it already is. No one on MAGA's side would believe it wasn't a covert Op to try to eliminate political opposition among the citizens. There is no reason to "respect the office" when the office and everyone scuttling around within it are illegitimate. Now, when the Government asks "don't you want to save America?" the Patriot answers "yes, from you."
I could put forward many arguments...
But "but covid" shoots holes in most of them.
Fuck.
I get that what you’re going for is “people will comply,” and maybe that’s true, but the incentives are completely different. With covid, they could lie that it made you safer. They could appeal to people who could work remotely; for them, the restrictions had a real upside in getting to avoid commuting. They could appeal to the lazy and/or unethical—“sure, just sit around doing nothing. We’ll give you stimulus checks occasionally and make it illegal for your landlord to evict you, so don’t worry about rent.”
There is no way to convince anyone that being drafted and sent to war does not drastically increase their discomfort and place them in danger. None. You may be able to minimize the perceived danger, but not even the dumbest NPC will think “I will be safer and be able to enjoy the guilty pleasures of being a slob if I am drafted into an active wartime military.” With the covid restrictions and the covid shots, you could sell lots of perceived upside. With a draft, there is none.
I mean, muh Global Democracy, muh weapons of mass destruction. They can spin anything, and sadly a lot of people will still buy it.
I mean, as appealing as it is to believe it's that simple, I think even the people who directly benefitted, still actually bought into the hype. They were concerned that we were Killing Grandma. They were concerned about Stopping the Spread. It wasn't just a matter of convenience.
Alright. But here's the question. Does the potential discomfort outweigh their obedience toward the state? Perhaps more importantly, their obedience toward The Narrative? Russia is, after all, Bad. Ukraine, it's Good. As an example.
Yes, plenty of the people would be pissed off, plenty of them would seek and likely be granted exemptions - both left and right - but it would be a non-zero and in fact significant number - again, both left and right - who would let themselves get drafted.
But, again, will the dumbest NPC think "It's more important to buck the trend, break with the narrative, than it is to obey the state and the narrative?" NPCs are NPCs. Plenty will go along.
I contend that "but Covid" isn't quite as powerful as it first appears. It's one thing to say that people laid down and let the Government take things from them and made them stay home, but that was in service to "saving lives" and didn't put anyone in immediate danger. Their comforts were not as negatively impacted as they could have been. Recall also that many people still went outside anyway to enjoy fiery but mostly peaceful protesting to let off some steam.
When the G-man arrives at you door with your Draft Card, it essentially means death. It means boot camp, shipping out, leaving all your friends and family behind and losing what little control over your life that you thought you still had. Covid responses kept many locked inside their own homes, but at least it was home, not Desertstan. Military work drops that entirely. You're not a human being anymore, you're a Government employee who will be jailed for many years if you slack off or try to quit.
I think the more accurate comparison would be a "draft" for working during Covid, where you were actually in danger of contracting the disease, failing a PCR test at work, and being trapped in a hospital for an indeterminate period of time, or maybe until you just died from poor treatment and conditions. Being able to avoid such a fate would be preferred and, ignoring how non-lethal Covid actually was, would mimic the fear someone would have for a draft to war much better. I don't think 'people rolled over to let their rights be taken away' fits as well. War scares people, but forced vacation doesn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPViK3LK-o
I differentiate between "stay home" and "take this mystery injection." I also will not be convinced that isn't the Big G Himself smiting that vain woman in particular.
Most of the people complying with the mask and vaxx were city women and soyboys, or the paranoid elderly. The draft would be for men age 18-35, and I wonder how many of them actually complied, especially in more rural areas.
CoViD : "Stay at home and we pay you, or you might die ( from a cold )"
Conscription : "Die for ZOG."
Yeah no.
I don't think conscription is a solution to the West's recruitment problems. The West's recruitment problem is primarily that our leadership are traitors undeserving of your service, and so there's a significant risk that if they press-gang someone and hand them a gun, they will turn that gun on the government.
The US is really big in relation to its ability to enforce its will, so it tends to over-project its power with the hope of encouraging self-compliance. This is best done with a combination of soft power and high visibility examples of hard power.
A draft would require hard power. You can only do a hard power move when you're sure people will fall in line; otherwise you just look weak. Feds tried this with the OSHA vaccine mandates, and there were even big companies who refused to enforce it. I don't think they're in a position to exercise hard power, and I think they know it.
If the institute the draft and then can't actually do it because of logitistics what, functionally, is the difference between that and not instituting it at all?
Besides, the Establishment doesn't want a bunch of conscripts, they want True Believers.
To be fair, one way to achieve that is to get all the people who aren't True Believers fucking killed.
Am I saying there will be a draft? Nope, and I think they'd be pretty retarded to try. But it's not inherently contradictory.
Which they are already accomplishing just fine with Great Replacement movements of migrants in every nation.
So even the idea of using it to "just kill everyone who opposes us lol" fails the test, because A) the stronger one is opposed to them correlates highly with not complying with a draft (or your orders if you get shipped over anyway) and B) they are already accomplishing it just fine in a socially accepted and much less damaging manor.
Its becomes contradictory the moment you add in even a single detail, so its close enough to inherently so.
The easiest way to get an army full of True Believers is to just not let anyone else in.
Lots of young men don't want to fight for feminism, faggotry, and their own replacement
Because they have a near unlimited supply of illegals they could use instead. Then they'd use it as a way to give citizenship to the survivors. Two birds, one stone. Push the ruling class's agenda abroad, shift the demographics of the US, and a with a much-reduced chance of civil unrest. And the right would accept them with open arms because of their service.
I don't really trust any accounts of the time period but it seemed that the vietnam war was to "fight communism" and it backfired because the communists were at home and used to to create a social revolution movement against the government.
Now the marxists are even more entrenched within government and wider society. So a similar outcome would benefit them even more.
Why wouldn't they institute the draft again? especially when they can force large amounts of White Men from rural areas into war zones. It's a draft, and if they literally have a hunger games style system they can pair it with a social credit score and doing "pro social" or "environmentally sustainable acts" or some shit can get you removed from this months drawing you'd have the draft as a wonderful social weapon. Imagine if you kept your carbon score under a certain level for the month got you an exemption. (Of course you'd have to sign up for a digital ID and not use cash etc to even attempt to qualify) How do you think something like that would float in todays political environment.
boomers dont want to think it could happen again because in their minds they all fought against it and defeated it. By proposing it could happen again you are insulting their fake legacy.
People believe the boomers about this for some reason.
You are looking at trying to disprove an imaginary hypothetical with no details and the best you can come up with is "they are crazy! anything could happen!"
You've created an impossible position to argue against, and then are coming to ask people to argue against it to act smug.
Try finding a reason why they would reinstate the draft, really think through the reasons and the immediate consequences, especially those of self interest to the Establishment, and you'll quickly come to the point where there is no actual reason to ever do so. They'd lose more than they'd gain by a massive margin in every sense, and no one has enough unquestioned power to push it through without their overlords stopping them to protect business relations or carefully laid social manipulations.
This presupposes the people in charge are rational and logical, which is incorrect. In fact given that a draft would certainly be disastrous means it's more likely to happen. Or did you not just watch the leadership collectively lose their minds over Ukraine?
I was also able to see their objectives and reasoning for the Ukrainian choices. They weren't smart or capable but they had reasons and a lot of certain powers highly benefited from it going badly, which is why it happened the way it did.
So again, you need to bring a reason why they would take that option other than "they are so crazy and bad of course they'd do something terrible!" Everything the draft would accomplish, they are already accomplishing fine with no issue.
They want to invade a bunch of countries and there's no way to do that without a draft. China is gearing up to take Taiwan, we're losing Ukraine, and we're being chased out of the red sea. All of this will invite even more adventurism accross the globe. It is normal for empires in their death throes to lash out militarily in all directions.
And a draft wouldn't help any of that. Patriotism is a fraction of what it was in the 60s and even then it barely managed to scrounge up a bunch of retards that could barely be controlled and lost the war thanks to a combination of their retardation and the backhome protests.
So they'd manage to bump recruitment a fractional amount, incite mass revolt back home, and accomplish maybe taking a single country that thanks to Global Politics we couldn't truly conquer and instead have to "rebuild."
And that's without getting into how much it would ruin the CIA level undermining going on in every country as well as the Globalist Business deals and trade exploiting every nation's resources.
Because again, you've got a bunch of guys who barely want to be there and absolutely would be barely controllable once they are. Anything you hope to accomplish in those nations besides full glassing and genocide is in huge risk by using drafted troops.
The entire "they are gonna draft us" relies on thinking soldiers are empty numbers they could use as pawns and that the Powers That Be are so retarded they think that. When all the reasons why those powers seem retarded is because people aren't as controllable as they want them to be and keep fucking up their plans. Adding a draft turns every American into a possible threat to those plans.
You keep repeating the argument that they won't do it because it's a bad idea, but I can pont to dozens things they did in the last few years that were bad ideas and they did it anyway. Claiming the Ukraine war was lost intentionally is insane, they honestly believed Russia would collapse in a couple of weeks. You probably did too.
And how many of those bad ideas somehow ended up only advancing their goals anyway? Almost like the surface level plot was mostly superfluous and their real intentions were far more subtle. Unless you really think the wars in the Middle East were about terrorism and democracy and so clearly it was a "bad idea that failed."
I'm actually providing details and arguments foolishly, while you just keep repeating "they are crazy and made 'mistakes' before!!!"
Its just the same as OP, vaguely posting hypotheticals based on their "insane idiocy" and then brushing off actual details by falling back on that insanity making it meaningless.
I don't think they'll ever successfully institute a draft. I think that for several reasons.
One, the population is too fat, too stupid and too lazy to function in the military. Much though I'll go on and on about various military retardation (My unit once accidentally ordered a disassembled Humvee because somebody got the NIN wrong), the reality is that civilians are about twenty years ahead in terms of degeneration into dysfunction.
And that's not even discounting the fact that millennials, gen z and gen @ are riddled with mental weakness and incapability.
Second that it would cause at best a general strike from the sliver of the population that is actually capable of functioning in the military, at worst outright rebellion and outbreaks of secession. I come from a family with many generations of unbroken military service, and the problem the current regime has right now is that the people best suited to serving are stridently anti government and anti leftist. In fact I'd go so far as to say that a lot of us hunger for leftist blood.
And third, the government lacks the political will not only to confront these realities but to actually deal with them as well.
We can't train two million new soldiers. We don't have the facilities, the equipment, or the personnel to train them. We certainly don't have the material to succeed in the field with a force of that size. Thanks to the treasonous left, the military capacity of the United States has been hamstrung over the last few decades.
You know what we'd have to do to make that happen? Cut our bloated social services and welfare budget. The party of parasites isn't going to do that and the party of cuckolds has cucked out about it decades ago.
And this is bad, because otherwise you'd be able to wage more useless, endless wars?
It's bad for several reasons, most of which I wouldn't expect a eurotrash to understand.
From your limited perspective, it's bad because your decadent, self indulgent societies cannot defend yourselves. You've relied on the United States for most of a century while pissing away resources fomenting parasitism. Your anemic military capabilities aren't even worth the name, and your historical enemies know it. Your continent could be conquered by the California Highway Patrol.
Thus, the decay of the United States will strike Europe first and hardest. And since the EU has irritated nearly everywhere else on earth with their policies of debt slavery, promoting faggotry and proliferation of censorship...
Sniff... so unfair...
That is correct, but we don't need to. After all, we face no threats... except the one emanating from the US.
That's a damn lie!
The California Highway Patrol could only conquer 2/3 of Europe. It would have to leave some troops behind to keep order in the areas it had conquered.
Well, I'm not fighting for any EU, nor for any national government. Why would I be an enabler to my enemy?
You don't face any threats? Let me know how that goes for you. Your bloc government is on the verge of committing multiple acts of war against the Russo Sino alliance, and you're well within reach of their reprisal.
But why are we doing such stupid things? Cause the Americans told us to.
If we were to mind our own business and not warmonger for a change, we'd be fine.
"the Americans" are the right hand of the enemy as the EU is the left. The masters of both are ordering these actions.
As you're well aware, although I'm sure this will result in another of your characteristic outpourings if denial.
I am aware that the EU obeys the Americans in all things...
Because it's expensive and they don't need a bunch of grunts when they have drones and Aegises, which takes specialists not grunts.
Every Western society, without exception, is far less cohesive than it was back in 1968. Ever-growing numbers of people are mentally and physically ill (particularly obese), and are simply incapable of being effective at doing much of anything at all, let alone engage in war-fighting. Operating drones is probably all that they could manage. Forget trying to get them to build or repair the things. The willpower isn't there either. There is far more ideological polarization: 'The war is -ist &or -phobic', 'The war is that of [the bourgeoisie, the patriarchy, the tyrannical State, the Zionazis, &c.]', 'We'll all die from climate change anyway, so what's the point?', 'This is the trans genocide we've all been warning about! They'll go door to door and we'll be forced to choose at gunpoint between being genocided overseas or being genocided in our homes!'.
Not to mention the racial problems: just try a draft in 2024 America and see how well that goes down in non-white areas. 'It's a White supremacist plot! They're getting us to fight their wars, and all so that they can seize America in our absence!' It'll make the George Floyd riots look like child's play. Furthermore, there is no real way that they could only draft Whites in order to avoid antagonizing the other races. Even a Whites-only draft would be 'racist'. Consider a narrative like the following, how easily it would spread: 'The Whites are training their young people to kill non-whites overseas, which is all in preparation for the genocide that they are to commit against us when they bring them back to America! It's a White supremacist plot!' (Yes, again!) In short, there is no draft that is not racist and White supremacist. Next, look at the racial demographics of people of fighting age: drafting non-whites is practically inescapable. Finally, a racially-discriminatory draft probably requires massive changes in law.
It's clear that the vast majority of them aren't up for it, as evidenced by the fact that they're still in our societies today. Years before that, similar idiots went to Rojava to fight against Islamic State on behalf of the Kurds and their libertarian socialist nonsense. You'll always find a few outliers, like the kind of Leftists in the Socialist Rifle Association and Pink Pistols.
You also have to keep in mind that the Russians and Belorussians are painted by the West as 'White Far-Right Nazis': the very worst thing that you could possibly be in late-modernity. Everything from education to Hollywood to mass media has whipped up existential fear and hatred of this group for almost a century: they are Satan for secular people. By contrast, you can't convincingly paint the 'yellow' feminist Marxists of East Asia and the brown Muslim world as goosestepping Hollywood Nazis. Mass repression of Tibetans and Uighurs doesn't elicit the same response that the 'Holocaust' does. Likewise, the world isn't cheering on Israel's mass murder of Palestinians the way they would be if they were killing literal Nazis.
Someone else mentioned 'but Covid' (i.e. lock-downs and vaccine mandates) in the comments as a point in your favour. I don't see that as remotely comparable. Re-read my first paragraph and observe that none of it happened during Covid. Mental and physical illness wouldn't impact most people's ability to get vaccinated. Nor does ideology matter. Kamala was the original Covid anti-vaxxer, saying on air that she wouldn't take 'Trump's vaccine' because it was 'rushed' in time for the election. Then the Biden Administration came in and suddenly being an 'anti-vaxxer' was 'Far-Right'. And look who violated the lock-downs when the Fentanyl Floyd riots occurred? If anything, not violating the lock-downs was what would cast suspicion on you at that time. 'Why aren't you out there protesting for racial justice? You some kind of Nazi or something?' What about Afghanistan? They were all for withdrawal during the Obama Administration, but look at how many of them blamed Trump when the Taliban seized it back? Suddenly, many of them openly wished that the Biden Administration would continue the occupation.
All this demonstrates that the Left has no serious commitment to pandemic lock-downs, vaccine mandates, or being 'anti-war'. They become instrumentally committed to them under select circumstances, such as when they need an excuse to prevent their perceived enemies from protesting or for oppositionist, 'enemy of my enemy is friend' reasons: the Republicans don't like these things very much, we don't like the Republicans, therefore we will go the other way and embrace said things. They will disobey pandemic lock-downs to fight 'racism'; they will be 'anti-vaxxers' if they think that the vaccine in question has something to do with the 'Right-wing'; they will support wars that they see the 'Right-wing' as opposing. The only thing to which they are intrinsically committed is maintaining the pace of degeneration of all kinds: positivizing it, promoting it, and combating anything that could slow it, let alone stop or reverse it. Since public health and foreign policies are largely amoral, they do not matter. But since the 'neo-Nazis', Republicans and Russians are at a lesser stage of degeneration than they, all three matter, all three are forms of the same 'evil' (i.e. regeneration), and all three must be destroyed.
Look at the 'draft' in the Ukraine: literally abducting random men off the street and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. And yet look at how many resist: many successfully run away, some successfully manage to beat up the 'recruiters', and many of those they succeed in abducting still struggle against them. Maybe a month ago, one even blew himself up with a grenade that he must have saved up for the occasion, one that he must have felt was inevitable, severely wounding at least one 'recruiter'. A few days ago, I saw a video of a Ukrainian who stole a tank and drove straight to the Russian frontlines to surrender. Once they figured out what he did, they gave him a pat on the back and let him walk free. All of this happened within a few minutes. In conclusion, you can't even draft the comparatively normal Ukrainians. What makes you think that you can draft the much more dysfunctional people of the West? The America, Australia, Canada, &c. of 1968 no longer exist: these countries simply can no longer manage the things that they once could.
There is 100% chance the draft will come back, unless the country collapses completely. History shows us this. They won't have a choice. What's more, your parents will completely support it, while forgetting that they were ever against it, and call you a coward if you avoid it.
The only reason the boomers turned on the draft was because it was being used to fight commies.
I don't see why it would be in their interests to do something so stupid. In theory, they could, but why would they do it?
It's one thing to pay no attention to the will of the population. That's par for the course everywhere in the West. It's quite another to force them to fight in your useless endless wars. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not doing enough to oppose my government, because of laziness and fear of retaliation, but if they wanted to put me through a meatgrinder for their nonsense? Hah. Even the laziest would go into open revolt.
Would it hit the rich kids though? You assume that there wouldn't be built-in exemptions that the rich could easily get around, just like the Vietnam War.
Have you considered the fact that nothing ever happens?
look at the state of men in the USA. if they decide to start conscripting them to sit on some sweaty pacific island to guard missile trucks they'll all do it with minimum complaint. maybe they'll enlist egirls to shame them, which I think would be a winning strategy. modern men are such bitch-brained pussies.