“No reason some should get to stay behind while the brave and the poor go do the fighting.”
1. There are about the same percentages of poor and minorities in our volunteer army as there were during the Vietnam war.
2. This is supposed to be a democracy. Compulsion is undemocratic. Voluntary legal actions (within the law) are democratic.
3. A draft would be even more unpopular now than it was 35 years ago and public reaction would be devastating to the morale of our soldiers.