An ethical dilemma on the draft: have you resolved it?

[Goldmund]

I strongly believe that no entity has any ethical right to make a person go to war.

If you think that this a statement of opposition to the concept of forced conscription, you're right.

But it could equally mean something else: no voter has the right to vote for a war in which only others will fight. Is that not just another way of making a person go to war? Or, to Iraqis in this case, make the war come to them?

Has it not become like a trigger, that voting ballot, with the voter safely behind the curtain making decisions which will bring misery to only others? How "solemn" is really that decision if death is only a blurb on CNN, like "Game Over" in a video game?

Think about it. The proto-Neocons in 1973 must have breathed a sigh of relief: "No more draft. Hold on now, Dick, it's not how it sounds! See, we will work to economically distance the classes. And then, we will offer the military as if not the only, then at least the easiest, way out for the lower class. And the beauty of it is that not only will war be as abstract to middle America as the urban ghettos, but the fact that these kids volunteered exhonerates us from any guilt! They won't be victims, they'll be... Call them heros, give them flashy funerals, but they signed up and only did their job, after all. "

"Leo, can I kiss you on the cheek?! Now we can finally do all those nifty adventures we've been dreaming up!"

[Goldmund]

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