File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_1999/anarchy-list.9907, message 791


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 07:41:55 -0400
From: Unka Bart <mendicant-AT-buddhist.com>
Subject: Re: Dodgin' the draft


>     I can vaguely remember the topic of draft  comming up a while back,
>but I'm not sure if it really happened, so here I  go.   I recently turned
>18 and was told that I need to sign up for  the draft.  I was just
>wondering how they know if you don't sign up for the  draft, and if they
>know when it is time for you to sign up for the draft, why  the hell do
>you ever have to sign up?  Do they take away SS benefits or  something
>lame like that?   I know the context that I brought this subject up in
>makes it  slightly off topic, but I don't really care.   Any help would be
>appreciated though.   Ryan

Hi Ryan,

This is an entirely US-related post, all others feel free to zap it now.

The law requiring regisrtration is still in force.  As to how they could
know, I give you two concepts:  Social Security Number, and Computers.

As to the consequences of failing to register, well, frankly that remains
to be seen.  My advice would be to register, as there is currently no draft
and the things you mention, while serious, barely scratch the surface of
the list of things an angry Uncle Sammy can come up with.

But:  I suspect that there will be a draft re-instituted in the next 5
years, and maybe sooner.  If you read the newspapers, the trends argue
strongly for this, and for it happening sooner than later.  The armed
forces are failing to recruit enough warm bodies to maintain minimum
strength levels for the current force and the recruiting trends are steeply
downward.  This is a matter of great and grave concern at all levels from
the individual services (army, navy, air-force, etc.) to the white house.
At the same time, we have a prez who feels inadequate (much, in the same
way as our poster-boy for inadequacy, the lovely Mark S. Weiss feels)
because he didn't go to war with the rest of his generation when he had a
chance, is using those same armed forces all over the globe to "project" us
POWER.

(we all wait, *briefly,* for Mark S. Weiss's woody to go down...)

Lots of folks will give you loads of reasons not to register.  As you make
up your own mind, remember that it's your ass, sling-wise, that's at risk
here.

And if you do decide to register, and the draft is re-instated as I believe
is inevitable, there are many ways to beat it, and many sources of that
kind of info here, should you need it.

Yer Kindly Ol' Unka Bart



   

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