The controversy over Vietnam felt much more like what I saw in the Gulf Wars rather than what I’ve read and been told about WWII. WWII had a more universal buy-in. This difference may have fueled been in part by televised coverage of Vietnam (bodies, combat, illegal behavior, etc) vs. the WWII newsreel-style feedback. At the end, I also remember Watergate having a pretty deleterious effect on trust of the federal government in general.

WWII was successfully framed as a Just War to most Americans. Vietnam and the Gulf Wars were not framed as successfully.

So the next question: what would happen to them if they refused to fight? What would happend to them if they threw the notices to report for a medical examination in the trash and blew them off?”

I think what you are talking about is large scale civil disobedience – which did actually take place, I believe. And I believe it probably contributed, at least to some extent, to the mounting political pressure to find some sort of exit, as the decade came to an end and the 70s’ began.

There were a number of protestors who burned their draft cards; there were others who fled to Canada or Europe….I have no idea what the statistics are as to how many of those were ever prosecuted. Probably very few – although that is pure speculation on my part.

There were lots who found other ways to get around serving; college deferments, use of “connections” which got them into e.g., a guard unit which was unlikely to be called up, etc.

You also have to remember that this was not like the WWII draft, where simply being 18 years old made it a virtual lock that you would get called up into the Army unless a) you were medically disqualified or b) were employed in a “critical defense industry” or c) were subject to a couple of other narrow exceptions, or d) volunteered for some other branch first.

In the Viet Nam era draft, there was a lottery system. Names pulled based on birth dates. Only the unlucky guys who had the misfortune of getting a low number were likely to get called up. If you had a high lotto number,you could take your chances and not even bother attempting to find an alternate avenue to evade getting drafted.

This is not relevant to this discussion, but it should be pointed out that even those who WERE drafted were statistically unlikely to ever be in harms way. Only a certain percentage of those who served between 1965 and 1972 were even sent to Viet Nam – Tens of thousands of “Nam Vets” spent their service Stateside, or in W. Germany, or S. Korea, etc. And as for those who actually went to Nam – only something like 1 in 17 were ever exposed to enemy fire or actual combat conditions. The overwhelming vast majority were never in “the bush” but instead served in rear eschelon areas. Like I said, however, — not that any of that matters for purposes of this discussion.

So the next question: what would happen to them if they refused to fight? What would happend to them if they threw the notices to report for a medical examination in the trash and blew them off?

In your various incoherent ramblings above, I noticed something that’s been sticking out at me:

Dude, the troopers in New Orleans were “only following orders.” So, how can you possibly claim to be a fanatic? Have you arrested any of those Oklahoma National Guard troops who confiscated weapons in New Orleans? Or even talked to them about what they did? Nope. No fanatic you.

Do you realize that most of the gun confiscations after Katrina were done by the local police and were done on the orders of the local government?

If there was a point amongst the rhetorical excrement above, I wasn’t willing to wade in and try to recover it.

Tarran,

I can add another anecdotal confirmation that the issue was more about the perception of life-threatening danger than the more philosophical concern over personal sovereignty.

When I was registered for the Vietnam draft, my primary concern was the real possibility of dying for a cause which I felt I had no stake in. I had not yet considered the philosophical implication of accepting the state’s claim on my life’s effort, and my life itself.

There were no Vietnamese coming over here slaughtering Americans. There were no buildings blown up by Vietnamese. LBJ lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident as the NSA proved in 2005 by releasing documents about it. So what was the point?

You gung-ho baby killers wanted to slaughter civilians all over Southeast Asia. You wanted to send soldiers into combat to bleed and die, because you like to see suffering, bleeding Americans soldiers, right? But what did you get out of it?

What was in Vietnam that was so important to you? Nothing. You got nothing.

The death merchants got to sell a lot of helicopters to the military. The death merchants sold a lot of bombs and a lot of planes and a lot of ammo. They made huge profits, tens of billions of dollars over the course of the war, and that was back when a billion dollars would buy you a lot of dead soldiers.

But what did you get out of it? What was the point in supporting the war, and damning the protestors, beating their heads in and shooting them? What was the sense of it?

You got nothing but blood and death. Are you happier? Is your country safer because you occupied Vietnam? Are you the big men because you got to slaughter a lot of children in a foreign country?

No. You got nothing worth having. You are fools. You support war because you don’t think. You are mindless drones, slaves to the state, servants to authority because authority is structure and you are afraid to lead your own lives.

You are timid cowards. You only support the slaughter of children in foreign countries because you can’t think of anything else to do.

The guys who killed Americans on 11 September 2001 are dead. They all died. You can’t stop them from killing those people by killing children in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia. But you do it anyway? Why?

You do it because you crave order, and you are stupid, and you are cowards. I have no respect for any of you. You are just filthy pusillanimous scum.

And that’s why this isn’t my country. My country has intelligent, freedom loving, and brave people in it. It says so in the national anthem.

This country is garbage, and you are all jingoistic poltroons.

I suppose it comes down to a matter of degree, in terms of what gets one riled up.

I have a jury duty summons for August. It is not getting my adrenaline going quite the way I would expect a summons to report to a local Army draft board would have. If it’s like the last jury summons I got, it will represents a morning of inconvenience and boredom, before I receive my “honorable discharge” and get to go back to the office.

No GI Bill or VA benefits in exchange for a shorter term of servitude. :)

With respect to the imposition of income taxes…I think there we see the phenomenon of incrementalism. Back when first introduced almost 100 years ago, the imposition on my great grand parents generation was simple, basic, and clear-cut and it was pennies on the dollar. It was not like we went from 0% of your salary being taxed to 28% overnight, and with all the affiliated bullshit complexities we now have. The monster which is our present day Internal Revenue Code evolved over time. Much like the governmental intrusions/regulations into other areas of private life.

And like Brad pointed out – it is financial servitude rather than actual physical servitude which may include getting shot at in a Southeast Asian jungle.

And I think the “slavery” aspect of the draft did not begin to bother people until a percentage of the population – which grew with each passing year from 1965 onward, began to question the validity, legitimacy, legality and the very point of, our being in SE Asia. Before the war itself came into question – which took a couple of years, I don’t think the general public, at large and in general, had a big philosophical problem with having a draft. Probably a spillover from the WWII era, when the draft was widely (if not virtually universally) supported as being necessary in order to defeat Hitler and Tojo.

Heck there is a huge percentage of the populace (as much as 53%? – and I use that number on purpose) today, who would probably support the imposition of a term of mandatory “public” service for all young people. Depending on how he mid-term elections and the 2012 elections go, will you be at all surprised to see legions of “Americorps” youngsters everywhere, serving as draftees rather than volunteers, by 2013?

Why would the draft rile anyone up? Why don’t we have similar levels of violence against jury duty, or income tax submissions?

Because jury foremen don’t shoot at you. Nor do IRS agents (although in both cases there is the proverbial gun in the room).

You’re asking this question as if the masses had a problem with the “slavery” portion of the draft. I don’t think that was it. I think they had a problem with being shot at, and being drafted and going to Vietnam was a pretty successful way to get yourself shot at.

It’s interesting that you excuse the killing of every able-bodied male in Lawrence aged 14 an older based on nothing stronger than that raids had happened in Missouri. Due process and presumption of innocence is for wusses, eh? I don’t imagine too many 90 year old grandpas were riding hell-for-leather into Missouri to burn farms.

I kinda figured the KKK is what you were referring to regarding Forrest, I noticed you refrained from naming them.

Unlike now, we had a draft then, and so young men aged 18+ had a “dog in the fight,” and much more of a personal interest in what was happening.

Why would the draft rile anyone up? Why don’t we have similar levels of violence against jury duty, or income tax submissions?

From this point on, I highly recommend you limit yourself to one, at most two consecutive posts on a topic.

You are strangling discussion, and making the thread unreadable. Moreover, you are destroying usefulness of the recent comments section of the sidebar.

If I see three more posts from you in a row from this point forward, I will just delete the “superfluous ones”.

Sheehan, who is not the anti-war movement’s only voice, has been fighting against Nancy Pelosi for a seat in Congress. She clearly has continuing anti-war issues. She led an anti-war protest at former president Bush’s home earlier this month. You can read about her exploits at wikipedia.

Those of you who support the troops in slaughtering foreigners are scum. The only thing I support the troops in is coming home – whether by deserting, refusing orders, shooting their officers, or doing any other thing to object to and contest the unconstitutional and undeclared wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

You war mongers won’t be satisfied until your troops are slaughtering women and children in this country, which is exactly what you deserve.