House Passes Bill To Automatically Register Young Men for the Draft

Automatic draft, but notvoter registration...
- Just because the politicians want to grab you out of your life and use you as cannon fodder doesn't mean they want to actually be as accountable to you as they're supposed to.
  
  Politicians voting for mandatory draft should be on the frontline. Pieces of shit.
- Automatic registration for Selective Services, not automatic draft. That’s very different. This is actually helpful in keeping people out of prison or getting fined for not registering.
  But yes, this absolutely proves that they could automatically register people to vote with no designated party affiliation.
  
  As a European I have always been confused when Americans talk about "voter registration". The way it works in my country is you are legally required to register your residence with the government and that registration is automatically used to determine a voter registry (just filtering by age, citizenship and exclusion due to criminal convictions all of which is information already known to the government). I always just get a letter a few weeks before elections informing me where my polling place is.

I might catch hate for this but I never understood why it wasn't automatic the entire time since it's illegal to not register.
- Easy way to funnel the lazy into prison labor?
  
  Not any more at least. Prior to this bill, failing to register for Selective Services was a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to five years and/or a fine of not more than $250,000.
  Now you’re automatically enrolled. I think it’s actually better this way.
  
  That never happened
- Because there has not been a draft since the 70s, where automatic registration was not feasible.
  
  Yes, but failure to register was a felony.
- Yeah — seems like they just want to test people
- It was not automatic so rich people can avoid it. I have never heard of someone facing criminal charges for failing to register. I have heard that failing to register can impact eligibility for college financial aid and scholarships.
  
  I have heard that failing to register can impact eligibility for college financial aid and scholarships.
  And this is why I hate the fucking neoliberals so much. As bad as the conservatives are they don't expect me to agree with them, they just want my money. Neoliberalism demands that you not only pay a shit ton of money for student loan debt that you also internalize that you deserve to because you were privileged. They have developed economic original sin
- It should be automatic, and it is now. Why did I have to worry about it 40-years ago? Now? Now worries, done deal. Nothing has changed.
  Of course lemmy thinks that serving means you're on the front lines as a grunt with an M4.
  
  Might as well be. Giving a gun to a murderer is as bad as pulling the trigger, and that's what supply officers do. Mechanics fix killing machines. Cooks feed killers while they're off killing. The military is a machine, and every cog in that machine is a murderer.

You're already legally required to manually register with the selective service if you are male and you turn 18.
Why not just introduce legislation to end that requirement altogether.
- Don't give them ideas.
- As an aside, my parents kept me out of the "the system" for most of my youth so I missed my deadline, I never knew it existed.
  This made me ineligible for some benefits like federal loans and other programs. I wrote to Selective Service with a notarized letter that my failure to register was truly an oversight and they sent me a waiver and cleared my status.
- Oh no.. war is happening..
  
  Just tell them that you have bone spurs
- AFAIK this is only required if you apply for financial aid for college.
  
  Nope. Nearly all US citizens assigned male at birth age 18-25 must register, with very few exceptions.
  
  It is required your all males. That said, you will generally only have an issue when applying for financial aid or if you want to work for the federal government.

This will definitely get the kids voting Republican.
GOP 2024: We want you to die.

Remember kids, you can be a draft dodger and be president 😎👉👉
- Which would be fine if said draft dodger wasn't a chickenhawk.
  
  You're going to have to be more specific, I can think of at least 2 that could fit that description.
  
  Things are only bad if Donald Trump does them.

So people can be automatically registered for the draft, but not automatically registered to vote? Seems like bullshit.
- You didn't think the government would actually do something for you, did you?

Disagree, just make the draft also affect women so it's not sexist
- I agree also require everyone to reregister at 65. Maybe grandpa and granma will think next time
  "Hmm I really want lower oil prices but having to be drafted and assigned combat roles in the middle east is something I don't want"
- But a village of 50 men and 50 women might be able to survive with 40 of those men dead. It most likely won’t survive with 40 of those women dead.
  This is why, when shit is so bad that we’re drafting men to fight, we need to let the women stay home if they choose to.
  
  You can always let immigrants in as long as you win the war
- Good news for you, I guess.... this includes making women sign up.
  
  Not what the article said

For one, I think this was already required. I remember having to enroll in selective service.
For two though, whoever calls another draft is dead in the water. It's commonly accepted that starting an actual draft is political suicide.
That said, it would be nice if we could codify that and ban the draft.
- You are required to sign up but they usually only can enforce it in ways such as applying for a driver's license or voter registration. Maybe more kids aren't applying for drivers licenses and therefore aren't signing up.
  
  I had to apply at the post office. I'm pretty sure there was a penalty if I didn't, like a fine or jail
  
  the federal student loans and grants would not be dispersed if you were not signed up by a certain date
- I wouldn't put it past the Republican party to bring conscription to the table. Probably with all kinds of exceptions and loopholes to either keep their own kids out of it entirely or guarantee cush domestic desk jobs to show how patriotic they are. Everybody else gets to line up with a rifle.
  Edit: Well, while I was baselessly speculating, this happened to come up on Lemmy: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/trump-world-mandatory-military-service-washington-post/
  
  And with extra psychological torture to the undesirables, and will be sold to their voting base as "antidote to the LGBTQ+ movement".
  
  It would be disastrous for Republicans. Independents and moderates would be furious
- Yeah, honestly as long as we aren't willing to change things in a meaningful way, this is somewhat nice. It's like voter registration. It should be automatic (assuming it's required anyway). Sadly we are more likely to make draft registration automatic before voter registration.
- I never registered. I got my draft card while I was in boot camp in the '80s. Never filled it out.
- Anything that actually required a draft would result in a nuclear exchange before the draft could be called.
  
  If there is a legitimate reason for a draft, a draft may not be necessary anyway. Unless the enemy is offering a peaceful arrangement to everyone they meet, or there's no way to get your family to safety, I think most people would willingly fight.

Fully automated luxury war slavery

Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer, "More! More! More!" Yo

Fuck the draft. Dodge the draft.
- If you can dodge a draft, you can dodge a ball
- Apparently if you have "bone spurs" it's enough to get you out, just don't forget what foot you said you had them in.

Seems like a pretty good Common Sense legislation really. You already have to register by law so making it automatic would be easier for all of us and avoid anyone getting in trouble for something stupid. I don't see a downside to this. I would like to see it apply to voting registration too however.
- Haha good one...voting registration is not exactly in vogue these days.
  
  Well, voting registration as it's implemented in America isn't exactly in vogue. As in "oh, you just need to get an ID to vote from now on." And people without ID need to do some extra paperwork and the office is open 5 minutes every other week, just go through the door located behind the acid moat and bear traps.
  Over here in Finland: Government has a comprehensive record of citizens, they know where everyone lives and who's eligible to vote. So they send you a letter. "Here's how to do the advance voting, here's the polling location you need to go to on election day, Also here's how to draw the numbers, so this will be less confusing. Just bring this notice card with you. And an ID. If you don't have an ID, visit the police station and they'll give you one for free."

- I'm not male but I did register for the draft when I turned 18. I remember doing it on my taxes as weird as that sounds.

Technically, the USA already required you to sign up for the draft right around the time you received your Social Security Card. The draft has not been used since 1973 and earlier. So this basically has no adverse effect. Even if a draft happened all the same people who would have been drafted before will be drafted now.
- You're required to sign up within 30 days of your 18th birthday. You should have (well your parents anyway) a social security card within the first year of your life, strange outliers aside.
  It's still technically a crime knowingly not registering, with a $250k fine, even if it hasn't been prosecuted in decades.
  It also bars you from federal government jobs, many federal programs, and grants. Until 2020, it also barred any federal financial aid for education, but that's changed now.
  
  You should have a Social Security Number when you are born as a citizen of the USA. You register for your card when you turn 18.
- American men are supposed to sign up for the draft when they turn 18, this new bill would make that an automatic process.
  
  I think it's called selective service
- The draft has not been used since 1973 and earlier
  One thing I found as I’ve gotten older is that history gets shorter and shorter the older you get.
  1973 was so recent bro you have no idea. It was within one human lifetime. That’s really close. That basically just happened.
  
  I don't really get what point you're trying to make.
- Trading bodily autonomy for voting isn't right, especially when half the country is not only exempt but fights any attempt to make it more equal.
  
  Defending only yourself isn't right, especially when you want all the benefits with none of the costs.

I'm for this. Don't vote for war mongers when you or your kids or grandkids could be drafted for war.
- Unfortunately there are no non-warmonger candidates in r or d and voting third party is a vote for trump so I guess we're all fucked amiright
- Registration is already required,and has been for decades. This only automates the thing so people aren't breaking the law. Super simple stuff.
  So I'm not sure what your point is?
  
  That I'm pro this. That is the point. I can be pro something that is already the law and be pro things that increase the automation of it.
- War monger kids and grandkids finagle indefinite deferments.

Kinda a nothing burger really. The military doesn't want conscripts unless there's an existential threat to the country.
So there's two scenarios:
Selective service continues to exist and is only used if there's an existential threat to the country
Selective service is eliminated and is re-instated only if there's an existential threat to the country
Option 2 is preferable since it eliminates the cost of a program that will likely never be used again. But it still doesn't eliminate the possibility of a draft since if the country were under an existential threat in the future, legislation can be passed to bring it back. So Option 2 isn't effectively different from Option 1, other than the cost savings.
As it is, selective service is basically just a political talking point, and a way to "own the libs" or whatever. The best way to argue against it is to make an argument around the cost of a program that doesn't really accomplish anything. But the libs take the bait and argue about not wanting to be drafted, which isn't wrong, but that makes the libs look weak in the eyes of many, and it allows Republicans get to make hay about their opposition being weak.

I wish they would institute another draft. Whatever party was behind it would be gone inside of the decade.

That would be nice. It is rather demeaning to sign a paper promising to die for your country when needed, in order to get voting privileges.

https://centeronconscience.org/
https://centeronconscience.org/guide-for-co-military/
https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/conscientious-objectors

Something tells me fragging (the original kind) might have a chance of becoming de rigueur again.

I was given a draft card with my financial aid package for undergrad.
Applying for FAFSA was a required part of the application process for public universities and most private ones, meaning that nearly all amabs applying for college were automatically enrolled by this process…
until they simplified FAFSA in 2020, which I just learned about when acquiring the link above as a citation.
This bill would reinstate and expand automatic enrollment to amabs who don’t need FAFSA or who don’t want to go to college.
So they are trying to change the conditions for automatic enrollment from “has a penis and wants to go to college” (precovid) to just “has a penis”.

This will help bring down Inflation!

Naw I'm good, thanks.

I know I'm not the smartest fork in the kitchen, but how are they able to just pass this when it should be something we get to vote on?
- I mean if you wanna argue that that is the way it should work, I guess we could have that conversation.
  (Way too many people I know won't keep themselves informed enough to vote on representatives, let alone understanding every individual bill well enough to vote on those.)
  But if you're under the impression that that is how it currently works, I guess all I can really do is recommend you take a civics class or something cause that's wild lmao
  
  Prove to me right now that the average congressional rep knows everything they vote on as much as they should.
- The US is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. You elect representatives to represent your interests. Or these days, you elect representatives to not represent the other people you don't like.
  
  Thanks for the reply that helped :)

United States of Israel

Now that everyone is fat and 4 👀👁️👀 eyes, those are not excuses. When I was 18 I was not even close to being fit to serve. I wear glasses and I wasn't athletic.
So figure out the way guys! Trump had to take bone spurs! I'm sure you guys can come up with something! After all, how can you serve the Chinese overlords with war wounds right?
I mean they could take the Israel approach and exterminate us. Sorry too busy with my Ps7 Nintendo switcharoo. I think that if worse comes to worse I rather go than send my kids. I've had an okay life and my arthritis is starting to hurt. I think the Republicans are hard at work on preventing access to arthritis medication probably. So maybe I could just do my thing in China. Right? Defend our way of living. I want my kids to enjoy the freedoms I had. So I would fight for that now that I'm old and fucked up. Then the kids can join in later like the ruzzians did. They basically sent all their old men out to the meat grinder. Sounds bad. But if you got arthritis and you know people who had it, you would ask for the biggest grenade you could carry. I'd take that thing like a football right into a Chinese operations building or something. I mean, if they were evil and such according to the fear mongering politicians and if I indeed had my arthritis going uncontrolled. So far it's just an elbow and a pinky.
What was the question again? Get off my lawn hooligans!

If I am ever drafted (Unlikely due to my shoulder, colorblindness, various mental health things) I will just start saying "I'm going to tell the enemy where my group is and sabotage equipment. I am a liability, you don't want me there. If you put me with radio, I will shoot that radio. If you put me in cooking, I will spill the beans. If you give me a gun, it's not going to be used at the enemy."
Will I? Probably not. But talk is cheap and I don't think a military group wants someone who publicly stated "I will commit treason and aid the enemy."
- Good way to end up in an internment camp under suspicion of sedition.
  
  Better than shooting someone in cold blood because "murder is valid because we said it was war time." I'd rather be in jail than a murderer, I don't need to add PTSD when my brain is already fucked up.
- It’s better to just tell them you’re suicidal. Not only will they take away any weapons from you, they will usher you out faster than you can blink.
  
  Unless you're already in, in which case they'll put you on a mental health hold for a year or two, in the worst possible conditions, before kicking you out on your ass.
- You could just dress up in women's clothes.
  
  Didn't really work for Corporal Klinger.
- There is always Leavenworth