Draft Unconstitutional

| February 16, 2021

The draft ended in 1973, and the U.S. converted to an all-volunteer military. However, registering for Selective Service is still pretty much required for male U.S. citizens, and male aliens living in the U.S., who are 18 through 25 years old.

For the ladies of any age, registering is not necessary despite the elimination of most, if not all, ‘non-combat roles only’ rules. And because I know someone will ask, yes, there are transgender rules: If you were born female and had a gender change, you don’t have to register. If you were born male and had a gender change, you must register.

Some find this now obvious discrimination unworkable and unfair.

Former NSA director, retired top officers ask Supreme Court to declare military draft unconstitutional

Todd South

The former National Security Agency director and nine prominent retired general and flag officers have signed on to legal brief asking that the U.S. Supreme Court rule that the military draft is unconstitutional.

Their filing is in support of a petition that argues the Selective Service System is unconstitutional because it applies only to men ages 18 to 26 and not women.

Former Director of the National Security Agency Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force four-star, and retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal top the list of supporters on the legal brief.

The group’s attorneys filed their brief Wednesday to support the petition filed by the National Coalition for Men, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Selective Service System on Jan. 8.

The original claim argues that the high court should overturn a ruling it made in 1981 when the same challenge was made. At the time the justices ruled that the draft was constitutional because its primary function was to ensure combat ready forces for defense of the nation. At the time, women were excluded from combat roles. (emphasis added)

Now will SCOTUS agree to hear the case? Yearly there are about 7,000 cases petitioning the court to be heard. SCOTUS only takes around 100-150. Read the entire article here: Military Times

Category: Big Pentagon, Legal, SCOTUS

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Martinjmpr

We’ve had draft registration since the Jimmy Carter era and we’ve never used or needed it.

Keeping the Selective Service act seems to be more about protecting some high paying government jobs than anything else.

I mean, who WOULDN’T want a job where you literally don’t actually have to do anything? And these are not chump change jobs, either. My wife’s ex was a LTC whose full time job was funded by Selective Service. Calculate what an O-5 gets on an annual basis and multiply it by probably several hundred (or thousand) US government employees and you can see this is not a small amount of money.

The kinds of wars that require a draft are not the kinds of wars we fight anymore. It’s time for us to stop looking at WWII as the “typical” war scenario with thousands of soldiers being deployed across a battlefield the size of a continent. Nuclear weapons made that kind of war irrelevant and the draft irrelevant with it.

11B-Mailclerk

Existential or major mobilization wars of conventional forces can’t happen again?

I very much doubt that. Very, very, much doubt.

“Haven’t” in no way means “can’t” .

Note how badly we wrecked our armed forces with protracted lesser wars such as Vietnam and whatever we eventually call Afghanistan/Iraq/whatever-else/next.

What if one side believes it can’t or won’t use nukes? (Or both so believe)

Nukes were supposed to prevent wars like Korea or Vietnam. Epic fail.

Anonymous

Just ol’ Murphy’s Law makes saying “never” a guarantee it’ll happen AND be really inconvenient… and things get worse from there.

timactual

“The kinds of wars that require a draft are not the kinds of wars we fight anymore.”

Let’s hope the rest of the world feels that way, too.
” It’s time for us to stop looking at WWII as the “typical” war scenario”

How about if we look at a Korea or Vietnam scenario? Or maybe China? Heck, anything that involves heavy casualties.

Anonymous

Yeah, China… their active forces are only larger than our entire military establishment and have 15 million reservists (then they starting drafting people).

KoB

Of course it’s unconstitutional? It doesn’t give wimmins the same equal right to put their life kinda on hold waiting for that Greetings from the Selective Service, aka, the SS. I dodged the Draft by enlisting in the US Army.

They wanted equal rights? Change the law and include EVERYBODY! Or save $23 million a year, mothball the program till you think you need it and then snag EVERYBODY. Just cause you’re not physically able to do Infantry, Artillery, or Armor Things don’t mean you can’t serve.

The whole point could be mute anyway. If the Big Balloon went up, by the time you drafted and trained up the cannon fodder, the war would be over.

I served with both Draftees and Enlistees. There were sh^tbirds in both categories.

David

Well, the primary reason for the 18 year old vote was that if you were old enough to draft you should be able to vote on it. Seems to me if they get rid of the draft, the voting age needs to be reset to 21, too. Better, 25. Might cut down on some of the dumbasses elected, too.

Only Army Mom

^This^. I vote for 25. If you want to enlist at 18, fine. Or, everyone registers at 18, men and women and you either serve in the military or in some other way for a minimum of 1-2 years.

timactual

I was against lowering the voting age when I was under 21. I still am. Eighteen year olds were too ignorant to vote when I was 18, and I doubt they have gotten any better given the clusterfumble our education system has become.

Sean

Cool , then dont draft them to fight and make decisions in combat if they are so ignorant. let the 21 and over crowd do all the fighting and dying. Dont let 18 year olds enlist either since they cant be trusted to vote they shouldn’t be trusted to serve, right?

Mason

That’s how it was at the start of WWII. Grandpa was 19 and needed parental permission to enlist in 1941. Age of majority was 21 at the time.

A Proud Infidel®™

“Eighteen year olds were too ignorant to vote when I was 18, and I doubt they have gotten any better given the clusterfumble our education system has become.”

Let’s not forget that a number of libtard moonbats have screeched for the Voting age to be lowered to 16!

Anonymous

Left/libtard policies appeal to 16-year-olds.

MI Ranger

With minimum wage set to be $15 by 2025, there will be no entry level jobs for people under 25 years of age. We need a Selective Service to employ all those young “Military Age” Males or what ever delinquent sex they claim to be. I am all for a National work party to fill pot holes and repair infrastructure that Mr. Biden is claiming his Office will Supercharge. It can then classify you as able to join the military, the Public Works Administration, or maybe even the Foreign Service Administration (where they go work in other countries for all that money we give them).
Yes, 18-24 year old voters only know what their Brainwashing teachers tell them. It is not until you start paying bills that you learn how much a load of crap it was!

Sean

In 1981 as an 18 year old I enlisted in the Army and stayed 27 years. Odd having been brainwashed in the NYC school system

USMC Steve

Well, good for you. And being a lifer in the army has nothing to do with going through the NYC school system. Apples and oranges there. From your other comments, you pretty much prove the point.

Sean

Also get rid of their rights to enter into contracts since you believe they are Minors the same as a 12 year old

No Marriages
Not able to buy a car or drive
Cannot enter into rental agreements or Apprenticeships, work after 8pm, etc.
Get too watch the 21 and over crowd march off to war

Hondo

Actually, being able to enter into financial contracts at age 18 is also a fairly recent occurrence. Years ago, it was generally 21 that was the age of majority for contracts. Younger people generally needed a cosigner of legal age.

https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1094/

Charles

Who writes the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court does.
You don’t “appeal” to the Supreme Court, you stand outside the door with your hat in your hand, and file a “Petition for a Writ of Certiorari” (fancy talk for “Request for Permission to Appeal”). Then they decide if they will accept your case.
And one of the first tests they will apply is whether or not there is an actual “case or controversy” with real people and real results in the balance.
Until there is an actual draft, with persons subject to being called up, the question is moot.

11B-Mailclerk

Hardly moot.

Anyone who fails to register now is subject to all sorts of legal sanction, assuming XY chromosomes. (college money, for example.) Just the “you must register under penalty of law” meets the threshold. It’s a crime not to do the paperwork.

Ret_25X

while true, none of the signatories to this pleading is affected.

Unless the org bringing the petition is representing an injured person, this may well just sit under a paper weight in the “inbox”.

They are not wrong, but they may be the wrong parties.

5JC

It is time for a review. The ruling in Rostker v. Goldberg was based solely upon the fact that woman weren’t permitted in combat.

This isn’t true anymore.

rgr769

The court can also find that the parties to the petition for cert lack “standing” to litigate the issue. None of the Swamp Rats who signed the brief are likely to be required to register or be drafted. Standing requires that your ox is being gored before you have standing to litigate in the federal appellate courts, including the SCOTUS.

Hondo

The actual pleading can be found here:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-928/165657/20210108100535699_NCFM%20Petition%20-%20Final.pdf

It appears to me likely that the actual petitioners have standing. The generals are giving the suit public support, but as I read it they don’t appear to be among the actual petitioners.

FuzeVT

Maybe the draft will be revised so that ALL will be registered but it will assign you an intersectional rating. The lower your rating the closer you are to straight white male conservative who was born male – obviously the lowest of the low. They can send all those guys off to die in the future land war with China it will take to disentangle ourselves from them. As you run out of those guys, you go to the next group up.

Hack Stone

But that will fill the ranks with “extremists”.

Remember during the Trump Administration whenever he would do something to piss off some leader of a shit hole country, and all of the “Orange Man Bad” crowd would say “Why aren’t you Trump supporters enlisting to serve in WWIII that Trump is about to start”? Well, Joe Biden is now the Commander In Chief, it is their opportunity to put their bodies where there mouths are and enlist to help spread the Biden Doctrine throughout the world. Of course, most of them are only willing to serve as guards at the Re-Education Camps.

rgr769

Or maybe after the power elite have seen all the white males killed off, they will call it good, go full commie and make peace with the ChiComs. Then we can have that Larsian utopia.

Poetrooper

FuzeVT says, “They can send all those guys off to die in the future land war with China it will take to disentangle ourselves from them.”

Ol’ Poe is thinking that the way things are looking right now, they may not have to send them any further than California for a “land war with China”.

KoB

Not even that far ol’ Poe. The Command and Control Hqs will be in DC.

USAFRetired

My favorite graduate of Sodom on the Severn (USNA) said this:

“Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

Ret_25X

Great argument, but pointless to the insiders in the District of Confusion.

11B-Mailclerk

Or, if we say that everyone owes their nation, then draft -everyone-. Every last one who wants the franchise. None can be refused, either. Blind? Find something they can do, even if it sewing and mine clearing.

Train them as infantry, or as close as their limitations allow. Send them home armed with a service rifle.

Personally, I am getting more enamoured of service=franchise.

rgr769

We had a fellow in our Civil War re-enactor club who recruited a blind guy, put him in the front rank of an infantry formation, and gave him a blank loaded musket. His pards on either side were supposed to instruct him when he could shoot. Unfortunately he shot our commander’s horse in the ass when he rode in front of the formation. Great example of what happens when you put the blind in the infantry. But blind mine clearing would be even more entertaining.

11B-Mailclerk

If we make the franchise dependant on service, we can’t morally refuse a blind man. Has to be something useful to do, and something hazardous.

And plenty of well-sighted folks wind up blasting their associates. General Jackson might comment on that.

rgr769

A cautionary tale indeed. It shows what can go wrong on a commander’s recon at dusk when he mistakenly rides out in front of his own pickets.

xyzzy

They couldn’t even hit an elephant at this dist—

Hondo

That was MG John Sedgwick, USA, at Spotsylvania Court House, 9 May 1864.

xyzzy

Ah; that was it. Thank you for correcting me.

Poetrooper

Young Poe knew an infantry platoon sergeant in Vietnam who was effectively blind.

When it came to reading a map and a compass…

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist

“Starship Troopers”, anyone?

I was thinking of The Timocratic Republic of Balboa.

Tom Kratman”s Carreraverse series. ( “A desert called Peace”, etc.) Subsequent novels of the series develop the concept, and weaponize it.

timactual

They say that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Well, even a smart guy like Heinlein is wrong occasionally. What does he have to say about the prospect of Germany and Japan winning WWII?

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist

“Starship Troopers”, anyone?

Especially the coed shower scene (add that to the book please).

Sarge

I say “fuck you, everyone register”.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Smitty

I served during the Vietnam era, as an MP. Most of the screw-ups in the stockade were RA, not US. Most draftees served honorably. If Congress thinks women can be rangers, infantry, and SEALs, then let the daughters of Congress serve a hitch and see how it works.

Hack Stone

They will probably be assigned to some hazardous duty, such as Public Affairs Officer in a Naval Reserve unit. The skills you pick up there can be leveraged into a high paying career with a a Ukrainian energy company.

Poetrooper

“Most of the screw-ups in the stockade were RA, not US.”

That’s likely due to the practice in those days of judges offering young miscreants the choice between jail time and volunteering for military service.

Hack Stone

If the draft is ruled unconstitutional, can Hack Stone seek reparations on behalf of Poppa Stone, who shortly after turning 17, received a personal greeting from Franklin Roosevelt extending an invitation for room, board and the opportunity to travel the world and spread democracy?

timactual

I laugh. I predicted years ago that someone, probably male, would sue to void the draft as unconstitutionally discriminatory. Not quite the circumstances or players I envisaged, though. Better now, though, than when we actually need the draft.

SFC D

Either everyone registers, or no one registers. There. Equality.

akpual

Yep

Slow Joe

I like farting.

xyzzy

Your mindless blither about ‘the steal’ is proof enough.

Stupid QANON specials. 🙄

USMC Steve

Who the fuck are you, idiot, and who asked you?

Obviously not very observant or you would, had you been paying attention, know the election WAS stolen, and fake president Biden is not the pres.

OWB

Got mixed ideas on this one.

My initial reaction is simple: If anyone is required to register everyone should register. On the other hand, why should anyone be required to register if no one can be compelled to serve?

In theory, you have guys registering so that a list is available should a draft be needed in the future. Does anyone actually think that list is accurate, or that any time would be saved by having it? The reality may well be that it would be just as efficient to start building a list when compulsory service is implemented, IF that ever happens again.

Martinjmpr

In theory, you have guys registering so that a list is available should a draft be needed in the future. Does anyone actually think that list is accurate, or that any time would be saved by having it? The reality may well be that it would be just as efficient to start building a list when compulsory service is implemented, IF that ever happens again.

Yep, this is yet another reason the boondoggle known as draft registration just needs to end. It serves absolutely no useful purpose. I registered for the draft when I turned 18 in 1980. I moved at least 20 times in the next 15 years and never, not once, did I ever “update” my registration to show my current address, meaning that my “registration” was about as useful in terms of actually drafting me as a postcard addressed “to whom it may concern” would have been.

Has there ever, in 40+ years, been any kind of test, drill or audit to see if the draft registration system would work? I’m not aware of one.

It wouldn’t be that tough to do. Just take a random sampling of, say, 10,000 registration records and have someone mail a postcard or otherwise contact the registree to determine whether the information was current and correct.

If they haven’t done that, then it’s likely because they know what a miserable failure such an exercise would be, and that, in turn, would cause the public to seriously question not only the necessity of the draft (which is zero) but also the likelihood of whether it would even work if it WAS determined to be necessary.

Docduracoat

You will be amazed what data mining can do.
I bought a new AK47 type rifle in California 25 years ago.
Move numerous times in the intervening years to multiple different states.
Sold it about 15 years later, and forgot about it
Apparently it was found at a drug dealers house last year.
The FBI sent me a certified letter asking if I still have ownership interest in it.
I was amazed they were able to find me all these years later.

Sam

Having been drafted myself, I’m glad there were no women weakening our units. It was hard enough when almost everyone was carrying his own weight.

For the Z generation, this is from the Boomer generation: Bad Night at LZ Bird

https://cherrieswriter.com/2021/02/07/bad-night-at-lz-bird

rgr769

Ditto. Having women in infantry units would have been nothing but trouble and made us mission ineffective. The idea of that is like having space aliens in the bush with us; just inconceivable. Except that Predator alien would have been quite useful. He coulda humped the 60 and a lotta ammo.

11B-Mailclerk

CLICKhssss..

Sssssss..

11B-Mailclerk

Whoa. Deleted the middle line. Weird

Was

“…. feed the pig ….”