Posted on 02/20/2005 2:21:29 PM PST by RockinRye
Selective Service
By Kalani Leifer Opinions Columnist Friday, February 18, 2005
Six months, 17 days. That’s how long I’ve been 18 years old. $250,000 and five years in prison. As of now, that’s what I owe the federal government for evading the draft. I am a hardnosed liberal, aren’t I?
OK, OK, so maybe I’m not actually a draft-dodger. After all, last time I checked, President Bush isn’t looking to commit political suicide, and a quarter of a million dollars makes me weak in the knees. To be quite honest, my apparent refusal to register for Selective Service is grounded for the most part in laziness, not dissent.
I recently logged onto www.sss.gov to do a little research, under mounting pressure from my big brother and a five-year incarceration. And as I navigated the excessively draft-happy Web site I became increasingly, well, draft-unhappy. However, during the nervous hour or so I spent surfing the Selective Service System, or SSS, I did gain a better understanding of what exactly it is that I’m avoiding.
The most notable facet of the System (the strategic third “S” in “SSS” conveniently differentiates it from the Nazi secret police), is its striking similarity to the College Board’s Web site. You’ve got your exceptionally ecstatic models representing everyone from the ambiguous blonde Asian to the Texan jock, from the token black guy to the gawky musician. And not to be outdone, you’ve got the pensive kid and the stock kid from Guam. The only ones missing are, of course, the women.
But the uncanny resemblance to the profoundly detested collegeboard.com accounts for only a small portion of my distaste for the SSS - after all, the Board didn’t hinder my getting to where I am today. I guess what really bugs me, go figure, is what the Selective Service stands for - all the baggage that the draft carries, and the idea that upon registration there’s a chance I’ll be lugging that baggage around.
The most ominous page I found on the Web site discussed “how the draft has changed since Vietnam.” Most notably, “If a draft were held today, there would be fewer reasons to excuse a man from service.” Great. Prior to 1971 a full-time student “could qualify for a student deferment if he could show he was . . . making satisfactory progress toward a degree . . . Under the current draft law, a college student can have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester.”
And thus it seems that the far-reaching tentacles of the draft could penetrate even the durable walls of our Stanford bubble. It is becoming increasingly apparent that a reinstatement of the draft - the first in over 30 years - is not all that unlikely. Take the American government’s recent claims of Iranian nuclear aspirations, coupled with North Korea’s declaration of nuclear missile possession, not to mention the perpetual degeneration of the war in Iraq.
I am not, however, an alarmist or a pessimist; I am an idealist - a pragmatist at best. If ultimately there is a draft in Bush’s second term, which I personally wouldn’t bet on, I know that I will not take part. I’ll be a happy Swiss in Switzerland. However, I know that not everyone is blessed with dual citizenship. Even more pressingly, I am aware that many, including myself, are privileged or wealthy enough to avoid the draft, as exemplified by Bush in Vietnam. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
The idealistic part of me would be content to continue avoiding registration - most likely, though, by the time this gets printed I’ll have given in to simple pragmatism and, you know, legality.
Kalani is currently apartment shopping in Switzerland. E-mail him at kalani08@stanford.edu.
a. How does a Swiss guy mix up the SS and the Gestapo?
b. Does this guy know that the President can't call up the draft? Is he intentionally lying to impugn GW, or is he just a moron who believes the lamestream media?
c. Does Switzerland have mandatory military service? (I thought I read that somewhere...)
d. What perpetual degeneration of Iraq? Did liberals not read the Iraqi election stories?
e. Is this the kind of inanity that's going to come out of our 'elite' colleges for the next generation?
I hope when we need the draft, we can exempt the traitorous cowardly left.
Liberals are not required to take into account any facts they don't like or that disprove their world view.
What a punk!
Yes. Just like the last generation.
They'll leave the fighting to the underprivileged patriots in the non-elite universities, community colleges and common high schools. People such as Liefer are just too good to risk...
It's the New Science...just throw out the bad data.
So what are you complaining about? Get down to the post office and register and do your duty, a duty Jimmy Carter re-instituted back in 1979 mind you. Man to be a liberal really means not having to be held accountable for anything.
Exempt them -- are you mad?!? Do you really want all these hippie-wannabees to stay back home breeding baby hippie-wannabees while our nation's real men are dying on the battlefield?
I say, put these pukes on the front lines, pronto! Preferably, as minefield sweepers.
The guy's at STANFORD???? Good grief, he can't even WRITE!
In other words..
"I'll be content to sit on my fat ass and enjoy the freedoms of America until I'm expected to do something to help preserve them. At that point, I'll run away."
"I guess what really bugs me, go figure, is what the Selective Service stands for"
What's that - the idea that citizenship entails a responsibility to help defend the nation?
the author is a dolt
b(2) seems to fit the bozo well.
Switzerland does not give out citizenship as freely as the US does.
BTW, welcome to FR.
I hope this punk's X-Box shorts out. That'll make him cry.
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