Senates votes to register women for draft
The New York Times reports that the Senate voted this week to register women born after the year 2000 for the draft after January 1, 2018;
The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties.
The United States has not used the draft since 1973 during the Vietnam War. But the impact of such a shift, reflecting the evolving role of women in the armed services, would likely be profound.
Under the Senate bill passed on Tuesday, women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, would be forced to register for Selective Service, as men must do now. Failure to register could result in the loss of various forms of federal aid, including Pell grants, a penalty that men already face. Because the policy would not apply to women who turned 18 before 2018, it would not affect current aid arrangements.
I’m against the draft, even though it probably does have a purpose in a national emergency, but, you know, if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander.
Jimmy Carter reinstituted the draft registration in 1979 to respond to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, just seven years after Richard Nixon presided over the last draft lottery. The hippies filed a law suit that they thought would end the selective service by demanding that women should be drafted, too, souring Americans on the whole idea (remember this was in the days of the Equal Rights Amendment).
In 1981, the Supreme Court in Rostker v. Goldberg decided that since women were excluded from combat, there was no compelling reason for Congress to draft them. Well, that restriction has been lifted now that the social justice warriors have prevailed in the halls of the Pentagon.
If the social justice warriors want equality, the good stuff comes with the bad stuff. It’s all political theater anyway – no one has been drafted since December 1972.
Category: Politics
About freaking time. Should have been done back in 1948 when women were given legal authority to join the armed forces in peacetime.
Eligibility for the draft doesn’t equate to service in a combat arms specialty. Needs of the service are what must dictate the latter, misguided current policy to the contrary notwithstanding.
no brainer
If the genders are equal for MOS’s, then they are equal across the board. Now it’s time to get the PT test problem fixed.
Aye, right. Aren’t ye a wee bit auld t’be a believin’ in Leprechauns, laddie?
It will happen, but the result will be a PT test that is essentially meaningless for men.
The fact that they’ve integrated women into combat arms without dealing with the PT test issues first prove that the APFT and the height/weight are shams developed to provide some easily quantified but meaningless data to toss onto OERs/NCOERs to develop meaningless OMLs.
PT isn’t designed to make sure you are ready for combat. PT is designed for two things, easily quantifiable mark on a performance evaluation and to reduce the health care costs in the military. That’s why it relies so heavily on cardio issues.
Depends on what kind of PT you are doing.
This ought to be fun in a couple of years when the little college-bound snowflakes show up and are denied student loans, etc., because they didn’t register.
Bingo!
Not to mention failure to register is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $250k fine.
Now let’s see how eager they are.
Lol. Nice. Had not thought of that. Makes for a great deterrence. Plus, will filter out a ton of the “Uncle SAM will pay for my whole liberal arts degree and then, I can start bitching about loan forgiveness”, as a lot of those not wanting to register will be part of that crowd.
They’ll register with no complaints; just be ready to duck and cover if the draft is ever re-instated!
Equal is equal, dammit! You want equality, girlz? Well, it has a price tag attached to it and if you aren’t willing to pay the price, then don’t squawk.
Aside from the republicans mentioned already, was anyone squawking about this? It seems only fair to me that women should also have some skin in the game when it comes to defending our nation. Granted, I’m just a sexist, cis-gender, macho pig, so my opinion probably doesn’t count for much. But I have no problem with the fact that my little baby daughter will have to register as well when she becomes a woman. As a matter of fact, I’ll be pushing her to look into joining even if no draft is implemented. 🙂
This is a huge mistake. Women have issues. I am left to pack up the house while the Soviet is already at the new house.
How many candles does a woman have to have in one house? Is there some rule on this issue? Boxes of candles, WTF do they do with all these candles?
Pillows, this shit is out of control. Master bedroom 8, guest room 6, spare room 4 (no bed there just pillows in the closet), living room 6. Some of these pillows have no function at all, who uses a tube shaped pillow anyway?
Then there is the sprays, lotions, powders, soaps, (my god the soap, the soap) and unknown things full of goo. Makeup…you have got to be shitting me. Its everywhere. I mean there has to be a grand or two just in makeup. Brushes and combs, how many do they need?
There are female related products in this house no man should ever be exposed to. Its like some kind of horror movie. I screamed a dozen times.
OH YA, why does she keep a jar of Nutella in her night stand? Seriously? WTF is that about?
Draft women? This kind of horror will infect any barracks.
Nutella on the night stand? Hmmm – kinky. (smile)
Seriously, DH: this should not be a surprise. Men use a few things in the bathroom – toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving creme (unless they use an electric razor), comb, deodorant, and sometimes mouthwash. In contrast, women have a minimum of 77 distinct items. Men cannot identify most of these items on sight.
It’s not much different in the rest of the house – except for the garage. (smile)
Ya I know, what bothers me is kinky with who? I never enjoyed playing with the Nutella. Just sayin.
Its worse. I have what I thought was my own bathroom. Nah, come to find out the closet in my bathroom is packed full of her stuff too. “I ran out of space” she says.
From now on any backup emergency tools I keep are going in her bathroom. At least they have some real function.
Not sure, but I believe the Soviet plans on boiling me in wax at some point. If nobody hears from me in a while, check the statue in the yard, it might be me.
How about footwear?
Own a grand total of five pairs: two sets of Nick’s fireline boots, one pair of running shoes for PT, a good set of waterproof boots from Cabelas for hunting in colder climes, and the cowboy boots I wear otherwise.
My wife? I gave up counting at forty, nowhere near the end. And of course, my daughter’s favorite activity is spreading her Mommy’s shoes all over the floor in front of the front door.
Forget the bathroom as a whole. How much stuff do women need in the shower? Our’s has 6 built-in shelves. I have a bar of soap and bottle of shampoo. The rest of the shower looks like aisle 19 at CVS. …
Spew alert PLEASE !!
Bwahahahahaha.
Ya forgot plants, Dave. All. The. Freaking. Plants.
The Soviet kills nearly everything she touches. Still, a dozen managed to survive.
She discovered a hot glue gun a few years back. Who glues Sea Shells to the bathroom walls?
Every time I get near a beach I suddenly have to take a piss.
Three sacred spaces she SHALT NOT TOUCH: My bookcases, my reloading area, and the garage. If she wants to load she does it under my supervision. She is allowed to keep some gardening related items in the garage. NO ONE touches my books. Now if I could only get the Clutter Queen to not treat any horizontal area as a storage are for spare, undusted, God-only-knows-why piles of what looks to me like utter shit… peace might have a chance. Unfortunately I think the ragheads and Israelis have better odds.
Horizontal space anywhere must, I repeat MUST have something on it. Nick Nacks, ya thats what they are. Weird things, Dried blow fish, petrified sea horses, a dead flower from some trip to god only knows.
Thousands of little things that I have no clue as to their source or function.
I did find a Wilson Combat spring for one of my 1911’s. It was in a drawer full of sewing shit. Why would she put gun parts in a sewing drawer?
After this mission, I will never look at her the same. I sleep next to a person that is not mentally well. There is something very dark lurking inside of her.
On the slight chance there might actually be a God…pray for me.
be thankful she’s not an artist..my GF looks at pistol and rifle parts on the cleaning mat as…potential art supplies. Never leave your dive watch around an artist that uses the term “steam punk”
Steam punk? God help you.
I think you have you some hard decisions to make IDC…
she’s not the craziest I ever dated
One piece of advice, if or when she starts to get on you for having say, too many fishing poles, tackle, guns or ammo, just look her in the eye and affectionately say “BUT HONEY, they’re to me like your shoes are to you!”
I guess I need to turn in my woman card. I am so NOT like this! I like the way I look in makeup, but I HATE putting it on! It’s a despised chore to me. I used to sell makeup (why, I’ll never know–seemed like a good idea at the time). I keep finding stuff that I thought I threw away a long time ago. (Of course, we won’t talk about my scrapbooking stash, or my fabric stash . . .)
Oh, and that Nutella? Prescription for treating PMS. Don’t get rid of it.
AHHHHHHHHH, thank you for that critical data on the Nutella.
Hence forth, I will ensure there is Nutella in the night stand.
My wife insists on spending 45 minutes a day applying makeup. I tell her every time that she doesn’t need it, because she’s naturally a beautiful woman (she is), but she insists.
She even puts makeup on to go to the range. I do not get it.
You have a fabric stash? Now I feel better. I’m not the only clothaholic in the room. I think I’ll pay a visit to the fabric store this fall.
I too have a fabric stash…and the sewing supplies that go with it…but if it doesn’t have to do with creating things out of fabric or Star Wars, it doesn’t go in my house.
Gee, when I retired I had to replace the water heater. That meant putting all the things in my closet on the bed. I gave away 25 shopping bags full of clothing for work and whimpered when I did that, but it was for the common good, right?
Okay, all those thing I kept? They’re too big. I’ve lost some inches on purpose but didn’t pay attention and now my favorite blue paisley zip-up jacket hangs on me like a sack! I am NOT HAPPY! And what about all those ribknit turtlenecks I bought?!?! They could cover a steamship. And no one except Appleseeds is marketing the ribknit cotton turtleneck right now because the Devil Who Wears Prada says it is SO last decade!
Well, I don’t care. I want what I want, and there’s an end to it. Cute boots, warm clothing under a cute jacket in the winter, and comfy clothing in the summer. And I’m not replacing any of my jeans, which are rotting to pieces because the fabric is absolute crap, until I can pull a 2-sizes smaller over my knees without batting an eye.
I guess I’ll have to get out the sewing machine again. (Shakes head.)
PH2 … We don’t care about those clothes. Tell us about your bikinis and skivvies. In detail, please. And then make me a sammich.
Make your own damn sammich, Chief. I’m up to my eyelids in other stuff.
To the young men still serving:
Its too late for me, save yourselves while you can. I have never advised a warrior to run from anything.
I should have listened to Mama
Goose. Gander. Sauce. Apply equally to both.
You have a complaint? Take it up with the FemiNazis, the SJWs, the ancient and decrepit NOW, and all their DildoCrat and RINO GOPe enablers who made it so now women are sought for and accepted into the combat arms, in spite of every bit of common sense that tells a sane person this will only increase the number of body bags coming home from combat. It will do NOTHING to increase combat and killing effectiveness.
shit, my daughter moved out years ago and still maintains her room in my house as a satellite closet.
Ditto: I told mine to get all the stuff she wants over to her place. She removes one item every few months. I keep telling her it’s going to charity but noooo, that stuff is still there. I’m gonna bag it (it’s a LOT of stuff) and take it to her place.
Well, the Senate passed a bill, but what is the status of the issue as a whole? All I could find regarding the House was that it passed committee-did it pass the whole House?
Anyway, as near as I can tell Carter simply re-instated the draft by proclamation. So Obama will probably likewise do away with it on his way out in the same fashion (if registration for females gets enacted somehow).
That will help with his “legacy”, as his adoring sycophants will proclaim that he freed all the young people from the oppression of having to register for the draft.
If an actual draft is ever brought back we must institute, “Affirmative Action”, provisions for our young women. Lower the standards and requirements. They should receive priority assignments over males into Combat Arms positions. We must make up for all the years they have been denied the privilege of exciting and career enhancing opportunities in the formerly restricted fields of Combat Arms.
It’s too bad they didn’t just take the opportunity to scrap the silly selective service system altiogether. The chances of us ever needing a draft again are so close to zero they can’t be measured.
The last thing our military needs is cannon fodder. We don’t fight the kinds of wars where 100,000 men leap up from the trenches and charge across no-man’s-land, and we don’t fight the kinds of wars where 80,000 men charge off of landing craft to secure a beach.
A draftee is a liability on a modern battlefield. Imagine a brigade full of Bowe Bergdahls and Bradley Mannings, that’s what your draft army would look like (shudder.)
And if, God forbid, we ever have to fight against a 1st world country like Russia or China, it would probably go nuclear very quickly (the last time we fought the Chinese they didn’t have nukes, in fact the Russians barely had nukes in the 1950’s.) Given that such a war would probably last long enough for each side to salvo their ICBMs (so, call it 2 hours to be charitable) it’s not like the draftees would be much use, except maybe to clean up the rubble.
It’s also impossible to imagine any kind of atrocity short of an invasion from outer space that would unite the American people enough to support a draft. We barely “united” after 9/11 and that only lasted long enough for the first few bodies to come back from Afghanistan. What do you think Mr. and Mrs. Middle America are going to say at the prospect of little Johnny or little Suzy plucked out of college and dropped into the middle of the latest 3rd world cluster-fuck?
Seems to me that the “Selective service” system exists for the sole purpose of giving otherwise unemployable people a nice, well paid government job.
They will be every bit as big a liability as in the past. See: WWII, Korea, Vietnam. Not every hero is a volunteer, not every draftee is a zero. Tell ya what – I double dog dare you to call every MoH awardee who started out in life as a draftee a ‘liability.’ You might maybe get away with it…most MoHs are posthumous.
The world has changed a lot since WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. See those kids out there at college campuses demanding “safe space?”
THAT’S your draft pool.
The ones with the fortitude to serve are already doing so. 😉
I don’t agree. To say that a small “safe space” segment of college students reflects the whole is a mistake. College students also get deferments. Your example of Bergdahl and Manning is also faulty; both were volunteers.
In Viet Nam there was almost no distinction at a troop level between who was RA and who was US. It rarely came up in conversation. There were dozens of reasons why somebody might not want to volunteer, and being a draftee wasn’t seen as a big deal.
If push comes to shove, the younger generation will step up as we did because its survival will depend on it. The best our society can do is provide them with the training and resources they need to come home alive.
What’s this crap about applying only to females who turn 18 after 1 Jan 2018?
The NYT says that the women will be forced. Right. Men are merely required to register but the women will be forced Cripes.
Maybe it’s so when young males declare they are female when the next war starts they can’t get out of the draft? The Democrats and Liberal Republicans sure want to stitch up all loose ends. First it was don’t ask don’t tell and now it’s this.
I know damn well this is going to be a Republican ‘War on Women’ issue.
As someone who wanted to join up if only to free up someone more capable for meaningful roles but couldn’t (turns out they can’t use folks whose ears come pre-broken to the extent mine are, understandably) I have absolutely no problem with this. Let folks serve in times of need to the best of their ability.
Dave Hardin: Speaking of cosmetics and lady stuff, we were in Wally World last week and the significant other headed to the beauty aisle. I asked if I should get a larger buggy.
The orthopedist says my spine will realign in a few months.
Well, they want equal and now they have it. But I think this will work in the Democrat’s favor. Who controls the Senate? Right! So the Democrats will use this to prove the Republican war on women. Not true but sounds good to the masses. Just wait for it in 3 – 2 – 1 … Boom!
Interesting.
I would love to see a fair poll of women on that matter.
I love to see women on a poll, I tip fairly well on the matter.
I’m against the draft as well, but I think anyone who want’s to vote or hold a paying Federal Job should have “Mandatory Service.” Minimum of 2 years honorable. If you can’t hack that, no vote for you, no Fed Job, or Fed Retirement. I think it’s one of the few things that Heinlein nailed. But, what the hell. Like Paul Newman told Redford and Homer Simpson, ” I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Redford, it ain’t gonna happen.”
Get ready girls, here come the Peoples Liberation Army. Now you can stop bullets just like the guys!