Publisher’s Note: on the 14th of July of this year, TPOL published an article on the state of the American military. For some reason, the formatting was messed up on that, which made it appear to be a very lengthy article, but instead we ended up publishing two different versions of the the commentary. Our apologies. Attempts to fix it have not done any good. We mention this because this commentary is related to that one.

A reader contacted us off-line and had some suggestions of points to be made about the current state of the American military and specifically the history of conscription: The Draft, and how it relates to current problems.

In the two months plus since then, more reports have come out about the degraded state of recruitment, training, and lost of experienced military personnel. At the same time, politics has placed even more Woke general officers into positions with more authority to implement the Woke policies so damaging to the readiness and morale of American soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, guardsmen, and guardians.

And now more and more so-called conservatives are clamoring for – literally – brute force methods of “fixing the problem.” The draft features prominently for many.

In July, 1973 then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird announced the U.S. military would fill its ranks with volunteers, not draftees. In the last fifty years over 11 million volunteers have signed up, making the All-Volunteer Force a model recruitment process for the country. Or so the worshippers of the military, led by the Association of the US Army (AUSA), tell us.

And all things told, that was and is one of the few good things done by the Nixon administration, at least in the eyes of many libertarians. Now, for fifty years, a half-century, these States have been almost free of an ancient evil which has resulting in the enslavement and death of tens or even hundreds of millions of people. (The retention of Selective Service and its registration system mean we are “almost free.”)

Consider this quote from Robert A Heinlein: “I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

Conscription has significantly damaged the American union – not just in the Union States and the Confederate States during the War Between the States, but in the era of the Great War (World War One), the time preceding the States’ entry into World War Two, and nearly two-thirds of the Cold War. It is more than just “the unwilling led by the incompetent” and the corruption and loss of trust in communities which the Selective Service System engendered (and which still exists, if in hibernation, today). The revulsion against an evil and unnecessary system aided the takeover of both public (government-run, tax-funded) and private institutions of higher learning by what we today call Woke and “extreme left” elements, intent on tearing down the system that forced them or their peers into a form of slavery.

And of course, the pendulum swings both ways. The hate of The Draft (and sadly, all too often those drafted) led (especially after 9-11, Bloody Tuesday) to the present adulation of the military. And at the same time, in perhaps sincere but inept efforts to encourage enlistment into the Volunteer force, damaged the military in multiple ways. How? By continually watering down training, developing a “zero-fails” mentality, and constantly promoting more and more perks and less sacrifice.

Ironically, reinstating the draft today would probably greatly increase costs and these negative impacts, as politicians seek to neutralize or avoid complaints about treatment, as the current (and future) regimes in DC use military personnel even more as poster children and guinea pigs for social engineering, and seek to placate those very soldiers while indoctrinating them with modern Woke ideas.

The solution is still the same: stop using American troops to maintain a global domination that is totally contrary to our claimed American values of liberty. Return military responsibilities to sane defense policies – even if those defense policies are truly about defense and not supporting corrupt regimes and parasitic so-called “democratic” countries. That is, a military which is designed for and functions to protect the Constitution, and therefore Americans and our freedoms (including property) from enemies. Primarily external, but even internal enemies. This is not isolationism, it is not shirking global responsibilities: it is common sense. It is following Franklin’s motto: Mind Our Own Business.