> Behalf Of William T Goodall
> on 30/5/01 2:21 AM, Gautam Mukunda at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >> Behalf Of William T Goodall
> >> William T Goodall
> >
> > Your opinion of, say, the Northern government during the Civil
War,
> > the American government during the First and Second World Wars,
the
> > British and French governments for virtually their entire
twentieth
> > century history, and many others besides, is noted, but seems very
> > strange indeed.
>
> Britain used to be a Colonial power, but isn't any more.
> Britain used to have conscription but doesn't any more.
> Britain used to execute people but doesn't any more.
> Britain used to elect Conservative governments but doesn't any more.
Britain still exists, too. There is probably a cause and effect
relationship between that fact and its use of conscription. Had it
failed to use conscription, it would be nothing more than the
conquered province of either Wilhelmine or Nazi Germany - take your
pick. You're okay with that? I doubt it. Propose an alternative to
conscription, then, that's not equivalent to national suicide.
> So Britain was crap in the past, but it has got better.
> >
> > Conscription, of course, is not slavery.
>
> Yes it is.
And saying so makes it true, of course. Here's the thing about
slavery - you don't get paid. You have no rights. You can be bought
and sold. Amazingly enough, _none_ of these are true about
conscripts. Conscripts are paid. They do have rights. And they
can't be sold. They aren't owned by anyone. They are citizens,
engaged in the ultimate duty of citizenship - protecting the existence
of their society by risking their own lives in its defence.
> > Oddly enough, people have
> > responsibilities in society as well as rights.
>
> Society is people banding together for mutual benefit. When society
starts
> trying to kill you, that isn't a benefit any more.
I see. So if you kill someone and society tries to either kill you or
greatly inconvenience you by putting you in jail for the rest of your
life, it doesn't have the right to do that? I doubt it. So obviously
society _does_ have the right to inconvenience some of its members in
order to protect the rest. Society is a compact for both individual
and collective benefit, and sometimes the individual is trumped by the
collective. The Bill of Rights in the United States is a set of
standards laying out exactly those times when that is not acceptable.
But if you _never_ sacrifice some individual person's welfare for the
good of the society as a whole, then society will cease to exist,
because you won't be able to punish criminals, or collect taxes, or
punish people who speed, for that matter, since they too obviously
gain individual welfare by doing so.
> > Among those
> > responsibilities is one to help defend that society against its
enemies.
>
> Tax. That pays for defence.
And when that's insufficient? Or just inefficient?
> > Conscription is nothing more than the government's
> > enforcement of that responsibility.
>
> An enforced responsibility is an oxymoron.
Really? You have a responsibility to obey contracts. The government
enforces it. You have a responsibility to pay your taxes. The
government enforces it. You have a responsibility to take care of
your children. The government enforces that too. Now, I'm not
British, but I have a feeling that all of those responsibilities are
enforced in Britain as well as the United States.
> William T Goodall
********************Gautam "Ulysses" Mukunda**********************
* Harvard College Class of '01 *He either fears his fate too much*
* www.fas.harvard.edu/~mukunda * Or his deserts are small, *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Who dares not put it to the touch*
* "Freedom is not Free" * To win or lose it all. *
******************************************************************
