If you're a man that didn't sign up between 18 and 25, you permanently lose student aid in most states along with federal employment eligibility. Some even ban getting a driver's license.
In practice, it's young men of lower socioeconomic statuses that are failing to register. This is due to lack of knowledge or presence in the system more than conscientious objection. e.g. Prison or being homeless.
Many choose to get their life together in their late 20s and 30s, only to find out they can't get job training or student aid. These are legislatively mandated penalties and cannot be unilaterally removed by the current administration.
There's no clause for late signups outside of that window.
The only way out is to prove that you didn't know, which is difficult. There's about 40,000 people a year requesting the paperwork to appeal their loss of benefits.
The burden of proof is on the government to prove that any violation of the Military Selective service Act was "knowing and willful". That's almost impossible without a public confession, signature on a registered letter, or testimony of an FBI agent who served an order or notice to register or report for induction.
According to the Federal Office of Personnel Management, only 1% of cases of nonregistrants adjudicated by OPM result in denial of Federal employment. Almost everyone who appealed a denial got their job restored:
I still don’t understand why, if they are having trouble with recruitment, they simply won’t raise the pay to entice more recruits? We have a seemingly unlimited budget for bombs but god forbid you pay for smart, qualified people willing to actually do the work. It is as simple as that and not anymore complicated
This selective service policy change is unrelated to any prospective or ongoing military operations.
Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted. Officers have accepted comparably low pay for the history of the U.S. armed services. Cited reasons include prestige, networking opportunities, and as a distant third, sense of duty to nation.
> Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted.
Citation heavily needed. When I was a junior non-com, my civilian colleagues made way more than I did, even including the (quite nice) military benefits, even when ignoring the fact that 80 hour workweeks are commonplace on deployment.
It's not a problem that money can solve. If you think it is, it's over.
It wasn't that long ago that men would sign up for almost-certain death in defence of their families, their people, their nation. Recognise that young men have nothing worth fighting for now. There is a much larger issue that can't be solved by throwing a few more shekels at disillusioned mercenaries.
Washington wouldn't have had an army if he didn't pay them, you can't have wars between nations that rely on the morale of the public to sacrifice themselves and their children to the front lines in order to protect the wealthy's interests, you'll run out of true believers very quickly.
You'll need to pay people not to defect, desert or try to get their family asylum somewhere that isn't a warzone. That, or you force them through conscription.
None of the wars the US has started or gotten involved in since WW2 involved defense of "their families, their people, their nation". The 'War on Terror' was advertised as that, except oops, actually it wasn't and nothing was gained from it! Of course young men don't want to sign up.
1 point by ehasbrouck 1 minute ago | root | parent | next | edit | delete [–]
The Selective service System is required by law to maintain readiness to activate either of two types of draft: a "cannon fodder" draft of males 18-25, or a "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" for men and women up to age 45 in 57 occupations:
https://medicaldraft.info
Congress could decide to expand the latter to other non-medical occupations as a broader "special skills" draft.
Not to mention, in the event of required increase in personnel, why "pay to entice" when you can "legally compel" without needing to pay more to the plebs?
In fact, one of the things we should have is a military union that fights for the pay of enlisted men (officers are management and therefore Pinkertons) instead of the controlled opposition we have now. Imagine if we could just strike for higher pay on the eve of Normandy. How effective that would be for labor rights!
And then we could follow the predominant feminist opinion and make the draft illegal entirely and disband the military except in times of extreme need. Our people need universal healthcare not air to ground missiles.
The military budget would be better served by being entirely redirected to those who have been disabled in our military through our foolish actions.
Maybe if we made a true overture of peace, others would love us instead of always arriving with missiles. With some neurodivergent people at the top, we could handle this well.
- The US has had record breaking recruitment in the last 1.5 years.
- This policy is a readiness, not an activation. It's not related to current recruitment.
Traditionally the US believes arming the people (2nd Amendment) means we're a stronger nation. Having bases globally makes us a stronger nation. Having everybody registered to the draft makes us a stronger nation.
The big problem is that having a demented and kompromised "president" whose handlers launch ill-advised unwinnable wars that give away needless victories to our adversaries makes us a weaker nation.
> But former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 reinstated the Selective Service in the event of a “national emergency,” where the registry could be used to “provide personnel to the Department of War and alternative service for conscientious objectors, if authorized by the President and Congress.”
I found that strange as well. Who were they quoting, given that the Department of War hasn’t existed since 1947 and as far as I know Jimmy Carter didn’t pretend that it still did.
I think perhaps this is overly associated with violence. Have we just consider calling it something neutral like Department of Loss Management? This is another crucial thing an armed forces union that actually cared about human rights and the need for more underrepresented people in the armed forces could do. We need more neurodivergent and disabled people in the Department of Loss Management.
Renaming a department requires Congress's approval. If you give the department an alias that points to the original name like a pointer, and thereafter everything references it only through that pointer, then there's no problem. Isn't that interesting? The White House hasn't officially seen the term "Department of Defense" in a long time.
Quit being obnoxious and have something of substance to say. It’s disrespectful to the author, senior defense reporter Ellen Mitchell, who is simply pulling from Selective Service’s materials.
There was a lawsuit about the constitutionality of only requiring men to register back during the first Trump administration that won at the District Court level but lost on appeal in the Fifth Circuit. SCOTUS declined to take the case at the time because Congress was considering changing the Selective Service System. Then Congress ultimately did nothing, and the same people are now suing the government again in a different circuit.
Automatic registration means young adults will not have the consciously confront the possibility. This will certainly decrease the number of people establishing the paper trail that they are contentious objectors.
This article takes for granted the success of this attempt to "automagically" identify and locate all potential draftees, and doesn't mention the practical difficulties, the opposition, or the legislative alternatives.
Here's why this won't work and is such a bad idea, and why dozens of organizations have already issued a joint call to "repeal* the Military Selective Service Act instead of trying to step up preparations for a draft:
In practice, it's young men of lower socioeconomic statuses that are failing to register. This is due to lack of knowledge or presence in the system more than conscientious objection. e.g. Prison or being homeless.
Many choose to get their life together in their late 20s and 30s, only to find out they can't get job training or student aid. These are legislatively mandated penalties and cannot be unilaterally removed by the current administration.
There's no clause for late signups outside of that window.
The only way out is to prove that you didn't know, which is difficult. There's about 40,000 people a year requesting the paperwork to appeal their loss of benefits.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/02/failin...
According to the Federal Office of Personnel Management, only 1% of cases of nonregistrants adjudicated by OPM result in denial of Federal employment. Almost everyone who appealed a denial got their job restored:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-02-07/pdf/2024-0...
Thank you!
Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted. Officers have accepted comparably low pay for the history of the U.S. armed services. Cited reasons include prestige, networking opportunities, and as a distant third, sense of duty to nation.
Citation heavily needed. When I was a junior non-com, my civilian colleagues made way more than I did, even including the (quite nice) military benefits, even when ignoring the fact that 80 hour workweeks are commonplace on deployment.
It wasn't that long ago that men would sign up for almost-certain death in defence of their families, their people, their nation. Recognise that young men have nothing worth fighting for now. There is a much larger issue that can't be solved by throwing a few more shekels at disillusioned mercenaries.
You'll need to pay people not to defect, desert or try to get their family asylum somewhere that isn't a warzone. That, or you force them through conscription.
There's a lot worth fighting for, it's just not the particular people we've been fighting.
The obvious difference is that you cannot quit.
The draft is for
(a) massively unpopular wars that the public won't consent to (b) existential wars that require huge manpower.
It's for cannon fodder; not at all for "smart", "qualified" people.
The Selective service System is required by law to maintain readiness to activate either of two types of draft: a "cannon fodder" draft of males 18-25, or a "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" for men and women up to age 45 in 57 occupations: https://medicaldraft.info
Congress could decide to expand the latter to other non-medical occupations as a broader "special skills" draft.
And then we could follow the predominant feminist opinion and make the draft illegal entirely and disband the military except in times of extreme need. Our people need universal healthcare not air to ground missiles.
The military budget would be better served by being entirely redirected to those who have been disabled in our military through our foolish actions.
Maybe if we made a true overture of peace, others would love us instead of always arriving with missiles. With some neurodivergent people at the top, we could handle this well.
Because the proles don't deserve it, that might give them ideas and they'll force you to fight before they give you a fair deal
Traditionally the US believes arming the people (2nd Amendment) means we're a stronger nation. Having bases globally makes us a stronger nation. Having everybody registered to the draft makes us a stronger nation.
Department of Defense*
Pick up any non fiction book about US foreign policy written before 1947 and you'll commonly see "War Department" or even "War Office".
https://youtu.be/WOo13RnfaMc?si=zq58NDqm-9rdXHlL&t=17
https://hasbrouck.org/draft/repeal.html
More on what femninists say about the dratt and draft registration: https://hasbrouck.org/draft/women/feminism.html
Here's why this won't work and is such a bad idea, and why dozens of organizations have already issued a joint call to "repeal* the Military Selective Service Act instead of trying to step up preparations for a draft:
https://hasbrouck.org/draft/automatic/
and