Bryan Caplan: Slavery is involuntary servitude; conscription is involuntary military servitude; therefore not only is conscription slavery; it’s a particularly heinous form of slavery that often ends in maiming and death. Yet most people disagree – and so did the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1918. … I think I finally figured out what most people are thinking. Namely: They implicitly regard slavery not as mere involuntary servitude, but as low-status involuntary servitude. … conscripts have high status – and therefore can’t be slaves.
Slaves in the south were frequently protected by laws limiting what their masters could do. So your comparisons are invalid.
That being said forcing labor from a person without consent is what slavery is. There is no way around the fact that forced military service is extraction labor from a person without consent.
Can a person disobey their commander without punishment, can a person choose to leave service at any time, can a person say whatever they want, can the person live wherever they want, and can the person eat whatever they want?The answer is no to all those questions when it comes to the draft. As such you have to do significant mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that the government does not own you during a draft.
Slavery is involuntary servitude; conscription is involuntary military servitude; therefore not only is conscription slavery...
How idelogy can blind someone to basic logic! This is a bad syllogism. "Is" is notoriously subject to interpretation, but it's reasonable to think the is here is the is of class inclusion, unless "is" changes meaning from the first clause to the second.
But to be valid, the first "is" must be interpreted as the is of synonymy. Slavery, however, is not equivalent to involuntary servitude - except to libertarians like Bryan, and some quasi-libertarians like Robin. To a libertarian, slavery and involuntary servitude both involve totalitarian restrictions on liberty and so are morally equivalent. The 13th Amendment, incidentally, doesn't view it that way: it explicitly prohibits both slavery and involuntary servitude, and thus implies a distinction between them under the legal rule against interpretations attributing surplusage to enactments.
The dictionaries, as well, don't equate the two. Typically, they say a slave has two defining features: a) involuntary servitude and b) ownership by another (hence, absence of legal rights). Conscripts are involuntary servants, but they are not owned by the government. A libertarian will see the distinction as quibbling in that the conscript lacks "self-ownership," as does any involuntary servant. So Robin thought it "obvious" that a conscript is a slave.
cost benefit analysis and existential risk minimization only works in a world controlled by joysticks. Go out into the world. Smell the roses and breathe fresh, clean air.
"I for one do not accept a moral axiom that slavery must always be bad."
You waste your inquiry into moral axioms. Slavery taken in and of itself is neither good nor bad; it is only deemed so dependent on who is doing the deeming. Slavery is always good to those doing the enslaving. It will always be bad to those enslaved, obviously. If you throw your own children from a balcony to their deaths is that bad? Not to some scruffy teenager who's videoing the whole thing for Youtube. For your kids, and perhaps other child-loving, live-valuing members of society, that would be a very bad act.
As always, so-called intelligent people waste an awful lot of time swimming in the bowels of definition. Do this: look at the physical consequences of the thing. Then graft those consequences onto a moral compass.
No matter what way you slice it, if the government can tell you: "you have two options, be thrown into jungles to be shot at and possibly murdered or be locked in a cage like an animal" You are, by definition, little more than a tool to be used by the government whenever they see fit.
Is the government not supposed to be a tool of the people? In the US, our founding documents claim that it is. With the way our checks and balances have eroded, this now means that one man, the President, could make a decision today that ends in us being murdered by the millions in a war tomorrow. That is not a world any of us should accept.
Even if people were allowed to revoke their citizenship instead of being conscripted, it does not take away the fact that conscription is based on age and gender and is therefore discriminatory. I propose a mandatory open referendum for conscription, and if the referendum wins, the pool of candidates to be conscripted would be taken from those who vote yes - irrespective of age or gender.
And if I may add to the sentence "It is only free-riding when they believe in conscription but do not partake in it." an annotation which says "...and you know who those people are."
About whether conscription is involuntary servitude (against the 13th amendment); Involuntary servitude, means ..... (wait for the drum roll) INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE. Literally. It is therefore a violation of the 13th amendment regardless of its practical necessity.
On draft dodgers being free-riders on the country being protected;People have the right to want their country being protected while not partaking in the war effort because they pay taxes. This means that they cannot expect the involuntary servitude and sacrifice or others to do the dirty job for them. It is only free-riding when they believe in conscription but do not partake in it.
On conscription being a necessity during (all out wars) WW2;Not only conscription is not necessary during "all out wars", it is also less effective. This is because conscription removes the check and balances of the validity of the declaration of war, by allowing politicians to get enough soldiers no matter what the policy is. Having the market determine the price of a soldier means that the more valid The People think the war is, the more the size of the army would be raised, and the more tax they might be willing to pay also. In other words, an AVF can also reach the size of a conscripted army under the right conditions and "signals" from We The People, yet at the same time, an AVF doesn't need to be as big as a drafted army because of the "motivation factor". This means having an AVF brings the power back to We The People from politicians, being moral and practical at the same time. Not to mention that creativity, which usually comes hand in hand with liberty of conscience is also not stiffed, as far as society at large is concerned. After all, we use money for bread and butter, so why offer life and limb for free?
And this means I have proven that conscription is BAD and INFERIOR, both on MORAL and PRACTICAL grounds. F'ck you socialist draft supporters!
The comfort women served a national defense purpose-- keeping up troop morale-- something conscripts were no doubt ordered to do in other ways in addition to privations and danger.
The argument is assinine in my opinion. Ask yourself this, if a private individual forced another individual to work in a "high status" form of slavery, lets say in a very dangerous job like illegal mine digging/logging where death was as equally likely as being in the army; would the court/police/prosecutor say well although you were forced to work against you held someone against their will and forced them into labour an dpaid them very crappy, it is legal? I highly doubt that a court would agree, in fact just threatening to lock a person in your private prison if they refused to illegally mine for you or log, would be enough to get you locked up. But if your the government it seems the laws do not apply to you, even though the constitution was specfically about what the government cannot do.
I agree with you on this point (except for slavery ever being not-bad), but there's another counter argument: conscription is generally for a specifically limited time, where as slavery is not.
So you have 2 choices, either fight for the military or be locked in a cage like an animal. If you don't think that's slavery then you are retarded.
Slaves in the south were frequently protected by laws limiting what their masters could do. So your comparisons are invalid.
That being said forcing labor from a person without consent is what slavery is. There is no way around the fact that forced military service is extraction labor from a person without consent.
Can the military beat a draftee with a whip? Why not, if they own him?
Can they sell a draftee? Why not if they own him?
We don't call those who are drafted slaves? Because I certainly do. Involuntary service is slavery and there are no hairs to split on that.
Can a person disobey their commander without punishment, can a person choose to leave service at any time, can a person say whatever they want, can the person live wherever they want, and can the person eat whatever they want?The answer is no to all those questions when it comes to the draft. As such you have to do significant mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that the government does not own you during a draft.
Slavery is involuntary servitude; conscription is involuntary military servitude; therefore not only is conscription slavery...
How idelogy can blind someone to basic logic! This is a bad syllogism. "Is" is notoriously subject to interpretation, but it's reasonable to think the is here is the is of class inclusion, unless "is" changes meaning from the first clause to the second.
But to be valid, the first "is" must be interpreted as the is of synonymy. Slavery, however, is not equivalent to involuntary servitude - except to libertarians like Bryan, and some quasi-libertarians like Robin. To a libertarian, slavery and involuntary servitude both involve totalitarian restrictions on liberty and so are morally equivalent. The 13th Amendment, incidentally, doesn't view it that way: it explicitly prohibits both slavery and involuntary servitude, and thus implies a distinction between them under the legal rule against interpretations attributing surplusage to enactments.
The dictionaries, as well, don't equate the two. Typically, they say a slave has two defining features: a) involuntary servitude and b) ownership by another (hence, absence of legal rights). Conscripts are involuntary servants, but they are not owned by the government. A libertarian will see the distinction as quibbling in that the conscript lacks "self-ownership," as does any involuntary servant. So Robin thought it "obvious" that a conscript is a slave.
cost benefit analysis and existential risk minimization only works in a world controlled by joysticks. Go out into the world. Smell the roses and breathe fresh, clean air.
"I for one do not accept a moral axiom that slavery must always be bad."
You waste your inquiry into moral axioms. Slavery taken in and of itself is neither good nor bad; it is only deemed so dependent on who is doing the deeming. Slavery is always good to those doing the enslaving. It will always be bad to those enslaved, obviously. If you throw your own children from a balcony to their deaths is that bad? Not to some scruffy teenager who's videoing the whole thing for Youtube. For your kids, and perhaps other child-loving, live-valuing members of society, that would be a very bad act.
As always, so-called intelligent people waste an awful lot of time swimming in the bowels of definition. Do this: look at the physical consequences of the thing. Then graft those consequences onto a moral compass.
No matter what way you slice it, if the government can tell you: "you have two options, be thrown into jungles to be shot at and possibly murdered or be locked in a cage like an animal" You are, by definition, little more than a tool to be used by the government whenever they see fit.
Is the government not supposed to be a tool of the people? In the US, our founding documents claim that it is. With the way our checks and balances have eroded, this now means that one man, the President, could make a decision today that ends in us being murdered by the millions in a war tomorrow. That is not a world any of us should accept.
Even if people were allowed to revoke their citizenship instead of being conscripted, it does not take away the fact that conscription is based on age and gender and is therefore discriminatory. I propose a mandatory open referendum for conscription, and if the referendum wins, the pool of candidates to be conscripted would be taken from those who vote yes - irrespective of age or gender.
And if I may add to the sentence "It is only free-riding when they believe in conscription but do not partake in it." an annotation which says "...and you know who those people are."
What an arbitrary argument.
About whether conscription is involuntary servitude (against the 13th amendment); Involuntary servitude, means ..... (wait for the drum roll) INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE. Literally. It is therefore a violation of the 13th amendment regardless of its practical necessity.
On draft dodgers being free-riders on the country being protected;People have the right to want their country being protected while not partaking in the war effort because they pay taxes. This means that they cannot expect the involuntary servitude and sacrifice or others to do the dirty job for them. It is only free-riding when they believe in conscription but do not partake in it.
On conscription being a necessity during (all out wars) WW2;Not only conscription is not necessary during "all out wars", it is also less effective. This is because conscription removes the check and balances of the validity of the declaration of war, by allowing politicians to get enough soldiers no matter what the policy is. Having the market determine the price of a soldier means that the more valid The People think the war is, the more the size of the army would be raised, and the more tax they might be willing to pay also. In other words, an AVF can also reach the size of a conscripted army under the right conditions and "signals" from We The People, yet at the same time, an AVF doesn't need to be as big as a drafted army because of the "motivation factor". This means having an AVF brings the power back to We The People from politicians, being moral and practical at the same time. Not to mention that creativity, which usually comes hand in hand with liberty of conscience is also not stiffed, as far as society at large is concerned. After all, we use money for bread and butter, so why offer life and limb for free?
And this means I have proven that conscription is BAD and INFERIOR, both on MORAL and PRACTICAL grounds. F'ck you socialist draft supporters!
Except without the "I do," or any cuddling.
The comfort women served a national defense purpose-- keeping up troop morale-- something conscripts were no doubt ordered to do in other ways in addition to privations and danger.
The argument is assinine in my opinion. Ask yourself this, if a private individual forced another individual to work in a "high status" form of slavery, lets say in a very dangerous job like illegal mine digging/logging where death was as equally likely as being in the army; would the court/police/prosecutor say well although you were forced to work against you held someone against their will and forced them into labour an dpaid them very crappy, it is legal? I highly doubt that a court would agree, in fact just threatening to lock a person in your private prison if they refused to illegally mine for you or log, would be enough to get you locked up. But if your the government it seems the laws do not apply to you, even though the constitution was specfically about what the government cannot do.
I agree with you on this point (except for slavery ever being not-bad), but there's another counter argument: conscription is generally for a specifically limited time, where as slavery is not.