Who do you think did the majority of the dirty work in Vietnam? Was it some rich white kid? Nope.. It was a poor lower class (mostly black) young male born in the ghetto. Look it up.. While young minorities and poor whites were getting killed in Vietnam, you had young rich draft dodgers such as Bill Clinton protesting the war. It's just the way it is. In mot wars, it's the poor that take most of the brunt.
That was due to the 'college' exemption, which I agree was very unfair and disfavored poorer working folks. There is no college exemption, anymore. You go when your number is picked, period. I believe there are now certain family and financial hardship exemptions that FAVOR poorer working folks, but I may be wrong.
And you're right that typically it wasn't some rich white kid doing the dirty work in Vietnam, a lot of them were poor and middle class white kids. Also, you can find many examples of kids from prominent or well-heeled white families who served front-line positions in Vietnam, but only if you're willing look for them.
The often quoted data about blacks being sent disproportionately to Vietnam sound like it should be true, but, using data from the Department of Defense and the VFW, is not. It turns out that during Vietnam blacks made up about 12% of the draft eligible population but only about 11% of the draftees (due to higher rejection rate due to medical and criminal record problems). Blacks accounted for about 13% of the Vietnam casualties. It has been suggested that this slight excess resulted from a tendency for blacks to volunteer for elite troops and front line positions. The military provided opportunities for advancement and excellence for minorities not always available in civilian life.
THANK YOU! Slight under-representation in draftees, slight over-representation in casualites. Hardly a shocking disparity.
will this law pass constitutional test? Wont it violate freedom of choices??
No constitutional problem whatsoever.
Like it or not, admit it or not, scream or kick or yell, hold your breath till you turn blue, you are a member of the unorganized militia of the United States (provided that you're a citizen).
Part of the social contract leftists love to go on so inanely about, is that citizenship in a republican democracy carries with it certain obligations and duties. In exchange for all of the opportunity, freedom, rights, and privileges which living in the US affords you, there is an age-old expectation that, when necessary, you will help preserve and defend what you have been the beneficiary of and others died to preserve for you.
So this begs the question, if its a duty of citizenship, why didn't the we require compuslory military service in the first place? The answer is, we did. Many states required by law periodic mustering of their militias, both active and reserve. The 'reserve' militia was all able bodied males, not just those who volunteered for reserve "duty".
However, compulsory military service presented problems early on. Alexander Hamilton gives instructive commentary on this very issue in
Federalist #29. [emphasis mine]:
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured.
Hamilton is clearly saying that the legislature should not implement mandatory military service in times other than war because it would not be a wise thing to do, not because it would be unconstitutional. In fact, if you read Federalist #29 in its entirety, Hamilton ridicules the idea that the constitution prohibits conscription.
Also, as an aside, which I invoke here purely for my own entertainment, Hamilton goes on to write:
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year."
After talking about the inherent problems with compulsory military service for everyone, and suggesting a "select corps" of trained volunteers as a far better alternative, Hamilton discusses what, then, shall come of the rest of the country, what should their obligations or duties be?
Little more can reasonably be aimed at than to have them properly armed and equipped. That little paragraph effectively obliterates and makes impossible the 'collective rights' or 'states rights' interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Why?
Because among the reasons Hamilton cites as making complusory service unwise and impractical, is that the public treasuries couldn't afford it - it would break them. So where is the treasury going to get all of this money to "arm and equip" everyone? They wouldn't, the populace at large would arm and equip themselves at their own expense, that was the expectation.
Even federalists did not remotely imagine there could exist a climate which would be hostile to private gun ownership. It would be like imagining a time in the future where people through their representatives would take away their own freedom of speech or freedom of religion, you couldn't conceive of it. And even if you could conceive of it, you wouldn't think it plausible.
And neither could many of the founders conceive of gun control as being plausible. So much so, that the federalists initially rejected the necessity of a Bill of Rights which expressly asserted the RKBA partially on the grounds that it wasn't needed - why would any sane person support gun control?
Indeed, Alex! Why??