If Charlie Rangel and Chuck Hagel and this "ethicist" go, I'm there.

Two words: Starship Troopers (the original book, obviously, and not any of the deplorable derivatives).

Of course, that's precisely one of the things that came through my mind while I was reading the interview, SJ.

A draft would be even less fair, because the military can only take a fraction of the available military age youth. So instead of a small subset of people who want to be in the military, we take at random from the group at large...so what happens to the person who always wanted to be in the military?
Heck, is it fair that only a relatively small number of people have to bear the brunt of teaching?
I would think it would be rather more fair to draft people to work at McDonalds and Burger King...that's a thankless job that everyone should have to experience at least once, so they can appreciate better jobs.

If you want the military to fight and win wars for our country the best way they know how to...then you'll let them decide if and when they need a draft. Right now, they don't want one and think they'll never need one. --s

Nathan, the only area where I will disagree with you is that a draft wouldn't keep someone from joining the military if they'd always wanted to be a member. It would only compel people to join who might be a little iffy on the subject.

As for me, I worked at the $.29 Hamburger Stand. Talk about hell...

I don't think a draft is necessary, and I've always had an ethical problem with compelling people into military service. What I wonder, though, is what the value of citizenship is when the cost is so low: an accident of birth buys it for you, not a choice or any conscious willingness to join the group.

Walter says, in his post that links this one, "If the term 'a free country' has any meaning, in the sense of individuals being free, then citizenship doesn't carry legal obligations to the government."

While I don't think compulsory military service is one of the legal obligations that a citizen has to the government, I can't completely agree. Obligations from citizens to the government are often as simple as the legal obligation to obey the laws and deal with the responsibility to accept the consequences of not obeying those laws. I think there is also an obligation to work to change the system where it is unfair (marriage law, progressive taxation, corporate and farm welfare--just to name a few examples from my personal list).

So, I do accept a certain amount of obligation for the citizen to the government (although, admittedly, citizenship isn't revoked for failing to live up to most of those obligations), the question in my mind continues to be: if I accept a lower level (a willingness to follow the laws) where do I cap the higher levels? And that is precisely why I am not a Libertarian.

I don't accept a draft, although I do think that it's a pretty poor citizen who wouldn't be willing to defend the nation's borders in time of need (and that is not in any way directly related to the situation in Iraq). I do accept some level of taxation, but find the current level to be both unfair and unreasonable.

I guess it would be fair to say that I believe that the government has responsibilities toward me (doing its utmost to protect me from terrorist attacks, for example) and that I, in return, have certain obligations toward its safekeeping, as well.

I, however, am not an ethicist, just a former bartender with delusions of gradeur.

I think that An Ethicist (who at least has the good sense to remain anonymous) is either a commie, a moron, or some combination of the two. There is nothing "unfair" or "unethical" about a division of labor, whether we're talking about the military or anything else. Imagine if An Ethicist had made the same argument about any other profession. If Mr. Ethics had said "Gee, I think it's terribly unfair that all of our nation's banking activities are performed by the 1% of the population that probably would have made a little less money if they had worked somewhere else instead," would Business Week have seen fit to print it (except maybe to mock it)?

My guess is that if you pushed An Ethicist far enough, he'd eventually admit that he opposes the war in Iraq, and just "happens" to think that if we had a draft, many more people would, too. But there's no political agenda here, oh no. It's all about "ethics."

That's a good economic point, X.

Zomby wrote,"I don't think a draft is necessary, and I've always had an ethical problem with compelling people into military service."

It's easy to be ethical when there's no cost to ethics. Right now the draft isn't just wrong, it's unneeded. It takes no ethical stand to argue against it.

The ethics question comes into play when it's seen that we 'need' a draft. The ethical test occurs when you must choose between doing what's right and doing what you think is in your best interest.

(I doubt a draft often helps a country militarily. If troops don't want to fight they won't - we saw that in Iraq in GW I and II.)

Zomby again, "While I don't think compulsory military service is one of the legal obligations that a citizen has to the government, I can't completely agree. Obligations from citizens to the government are often as simple as the legal obligation to obey the laws and deal with the responsibility to accept the consequences of not obeying those laws. I think there is also an obligation to work to change the system where it is unfair (marriage law, progressive taxation, corporate and farm welfare--just to name a few examples from my personal list)."

You started talking about legal obligations - a term I chose carefully in my original post. But by the end of the paragraph you're talking about moral obligations. The difference is this: You may be morally obligated to help the poor, but a legal obligation might mean you're required to give $20 to every homeless person you see.

No one is legally obligated to reform the government, although some countries think so and have enacted compulsory voting. That's a pretty bad idea, too. Well written laws obligate people to each other, not the government. Laws against murder, theft and so on are laws protecting individuals, not the government.

Fair enough, but it begs the question that I was asking from the beginning--not just about the necessity of a draft. That is simply what got me thinking about the subject as a whole. The question remains: what are a citizens moral obligations toward the government and fellow citizens?

And, again, my belief is that if we choose to accept the protections and benefits of citizenship, then we have a moral obligation to be caretakers of the government that provides those protections and benefits. What is the level of obligation and what are the correct legal expectations?

In a strictly monetary sense, I'm not sure I get my money's worth from what I spend in taxes (although that is debatable). In a larger sense, though, I have advantages that people living throughout most of the developed world (not to even make the comparison to third world countries) do not have in their lives. What is the actual value of that, what is the expected payment in return, and what is both legally and morally acceptable for me to expect to pay?

Value of a thing is relative to both the person providing the thing in question and the person receiving that thing. If the person receiving it doesn't find it particularly worthwhile, then even a low cost is too high. That doesn't mean that the person providing the thing has to lower the cost to meet the desires of the other person--they simply stop providing the service. So, the seller sets a price and the buyer accepts or doesn't--and somewhere in there a fair value is hopefully discovered.

For citizenship, what is the fair value? Obviously, our government's expectations of me aren't so out of line that I am no longer willing to pay the costs of being a citizen. If that were the case, I would leave the country or advocate aggressive reform of our political systems. For the majority of citizens, the same equation would apply.

Would the added cost of potential compulsory military service change that balance significantly for most citizens or for you? And, if the answer is yes, is compulsory military service wrong in all situations or just this situation?

I already lean towards service as a virtue, so my answer would likely be different than yours. And I happen to think that the draft would be wrong in this situation (both on a practical and a moral level) but not wrong in all situations.

But I also think that I value government in a different way than you do and that colors my view of the situation.

As Mr. Jefferson put forth in the Declaration of Independence, the normal obligation is not by the people to the government but the other way around. A citizen's moral obligation is to his fellow citizens, with the understanding that upholding certain institutions (such as a reasonably representative and incorrupt government) may be part of that obligation.

In the event that the government is in serious danger of being brought down by force and that the means it has established appear insufficient to prevent this, the citizens have the choice of taking direct part in its defense, or standing by and watch it fall. The moral obligation to one's fellow citizens would nevertheless be what should inform them in choosing.