This is just too good not to share the whole article <enjoy>:



http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17670019&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=222076&rfi=6



Whenever
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who will soon chair the
House Ways and Means Committee, calls for resumption of military
conscription, a host of powerful figures, Republican and Democrat,
civilian and military, chime in at once to repudiate his proposal.
They
respond that the U.S. military doesn't need or want a draft. It's good
to hear them say that, and let's hope they mean it. The draft has no
place in a free society because it is slavery, the kind that can get
you killed or put you in a position where you might kill someone else.

We
opponents of the draft, however, would feel more comfortable if the
people distancing themselves from Rangel would do something solid to
show that they mean what they say. There's a great way for them to show
their bona fides: end draft registration.

That
especially goes for President Bush and his Pentagon officials. If they
really don't want to start up military conscription, the president
should issue an executive order ending registration. It would be that
simple.

The
draft ended in 1973, toward the close of the war in Vietnam. But
President Jimmy Carter ordered every 18-year-old male to register with
Selective Service in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. This
was his way of showing his disapproval of the invasion. How it was
supposed to accomplish that is anybody's guess.

Ten
years later the Soviets left Afghanistan in embarrassing defeat. That
was also when the Soviets' Warsaw bloc started collapsing and the
member countries turned away from communism. But did President George
H.W. Bush end draft registration? No, he didn't. An oversight, I guess.

What
possible reason is there today for imposing on 18-year-old males the
requirement to register for a nonexistent draft and to compel them to
inform the government whenever they change their address? If we don't
need a draft, we certainly don't need registration for a draft. Even
government officials ought to be able to follow that logic.

Rangel
argues that with America at war in Iraq, it's unfair not to spread the
burden of military service across socioeconomic categories. But a draft
does not spread the burden. It concentrates the burden on those who
don't want to bear it, while those who would have volunteered must
accept a draftee's wages. The irony is that conscription would exclude
many people who want to join the army because their slots would be
filled with unwilling conscripts. How is that fair?

There
is no getting around the fact that conscription is involuntary
servitude. Rangel says the draft would ensure that unpopular wars would
provoke public opposition, as it eventually did in the Vietnam War. But
he conveniently forgets that that war, as well as the Korean War he
himself fought in, were started under conscription. In the case of
Vietnam, many draftees died before the protests started. A far better
way to enable people to effectively object to wars is the volunteer
army. At the very least, a society with pretensions of freedom should
recognize the right of people to abstain from fighting wars they
disapprove of.

Is
the draft ever justified? How could it be? Even in a defensive war, one
can't properly defend freedom by violating it. And there is no reason
to believe that free people would not defend their homes under a
genuine threat. What they might not do in sufficient numbers is fight
imperialist wars. To that I say: Let's hope not.

Advocates
of the draft harbor a premise that has no place in a free society -
that the individual belongs to the state. Every American should find
that idea revolting. It's time to end draft registration.

Sheldon
Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of
Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The
Freeman magazine. Visit his blog "Free Association" at
www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.