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US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

bbc.com

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Re: US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

#15

Post by marvin »

RaSoJo wrote: post #11

>The new rule, proposed by a government agency, would see men being registered automatically rather than being asked to do so themselves within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Honest question: Why is there no such auto registration for women?

Because it's a polite fiction that men and women are equally capable and expendable at warfare. Successful and enduring human societies practice traditions around warfare that reflect this.

Re: US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

#16

Post by soco »

RaSoJo wrote: post #11

>The new rule, proposed by a government agency, would see men being registered automatically rather than being asked to do so themselves within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Honest question: Why is there no such auto registration for women?

Maybe because according to the same government philosophy a woman's place is in the kitchen or something?

Re: US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

#18

Post by toast0 »

kotaKat wrote: post #3

Weird we have this technology but not the technology for automatic voter registration, or automatic tax filing...

Draft registration is compulsory based on residency; registering someone in error has no consequences unless there is a draft, which seems unlikely (no draft since Vietnam, large differences in how the US carries out war since then). In the event of erroneous registration when there is an active draft, past procedure was to allow time to reply and object, including through court process, so an erroneous registration would hopefully not leas to erroneous compulsory military service and associated risks. Not registering has potentially life long consequences that you may not be able to fix after you age out of registration; moving responsibility off of young men and onto the government seems fair.

Voting has eligibility requirements (citizenship, felony status depending on jurisdiction of offense) and registering someone in error could induce them to vote while inelligible, which is a serious offense.

Automatic tax filing might be nice for easy situations, but there's lots of things the IRS doesn't know and can't realistically know. Like how much capital improvements did you do on your house, and maybe even how much did you pay for your house ... whenever the IRS doesn't know the cost basis, they helpfully assume it is zero and send you a big tax bill... Still for w-2 + 1099s with cost basis reported, it could be easier.

Re: US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

#19

Post by weinzierl »

voidUpdate wrote: post #8

Will trans men and women be automatically registered too? Since the US military has previously kicked out all trans people

Not sure about US but since another comment linked to an article about Germany, there you cannot avoid conscription by changing gender.

Re: US plans to automatically register young men for military draft

#20

Post by austin-cheney »

RaSoJo wrote: post #11

>The new rule, proposed by a government agency, would see men being registered automatically rather than being asked to do so themselves within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Honest question: Why is there no such auto registration for women?

It would require an extremely unpopular change of law. I also believe women should be available for conscription.
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