I assure you that the rest of the world won't be remotely intimidated by a bunch of Yank conscripts. It won't make any significant difference to your military capabilities. That's not to say that certain other countries won't use it as an excuse to increase their own military spending, however, so the net result could well be a decline in America's relative strength.

It's expensive, pisses off the military, pisses of civilians, and all you have to show for it are a bunch of civvies in uniform who are fit for nothing but garrison duty, if that. Utterly pointless.

... plus side for whichever administration successfully introduces it: unemployment plummets. For now.

It's not much of a plus side. It's not as if many of them will be grateful, and I dare say many will vote for the other side as a result.

Besides, if you want to reduce unemployment cramming more youngsters into new universities with low entry standards is a far cheaper solution.

I need a 'slight sarcasm' indicator... aye, Octavious. I was not saying this would be a reason to have a draft. Also, the electorate would have a cow. All of which is off the topic of the thread... which was asking what furreners would think of the draft.

Really? Reducing unemployment is the closest thing to a genuine reason to have a draft mentioned so far :p.

There's only one set or circumstances that a draft may become worth pursuing, and that's when you are doing so badly in a war your country's survival is at stake. And even then if your population doesn't think your country's worth saving enough to volunteer, it probably isn't.

Nations that have a draft (Israel comes to mind) have it, I would think, because they chose to have it. They saw the need and voted to approve it? I should look this up before I shoot from the hip (poor military reference.) But I agree, I don't see a situation that would make me say, "Aye... a draft! That's what we need! THAT will solve this problem!"

... but maybe I just don't wanna be drafted. If the government of my nation instituted a draft, I would be selected two or three times. That's why I don't play dice games.

As far as a reason..

Lincoln Douglas debate is a form of values, and democracy was actually used a lot for the affirmative of "In the US, national service ought to be compulsory"

It was argued that it would strengthen political involvement and in the long run help to achieve the "Democracy dream"
-Everyone being involved
Now whether that's bogus or not? I'm not too sure. People talk a lot about the redefining of "citizenship" or "liberty" and how we've forgotten what it means. Another point made was something along the lines of...
"We've become more and more divided through the events that we've seen recently... the election, bouts of racism, blah, blah, blah. Compulsory national service would bring us all together into one place and help unify our nation"

Anything could be argued really, but if you're going to argue for compulsory national service, I think it'd have to be at a personal level. (Liberty, democracy, etc)

Nothing brings a country together like shooting and bombing people that don't look like us :)

But that's the thing...
We have that without compulsory national service

Nothing says liberty like compulsory national service :)

Liberty loving nations are the best when it comes to bombing too.

You don't want to be a cog in the great machine? You could be an agent! ...
Of the state!

Yeah, it's bogus.

Sorry, but why would national service mean being part of the military? If you want to serve the country there are about ten million ways to be of far more value than driving expensive trucks around a desert somewhere. I'd say a national service could be useful, provided it were doing useful things like teaching, building infrastructure, fixing up parks, assisting homeless shelters and the like. Hell, we ought to put half the freeloaders in the military to those jobs as well.

I'd point to the Civildienst in Germany or FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps and the like as a decent model. If taxpayers have to foot the bill, at least we ought to get something of value out of it.

(I just noticed the Zivildienst was suspended in 2011 in Germany. Interesting they went the other way...)

Limiting the choices of your citizens in what lifestyle they would pursue in their formative years is a road to despotism.

Totalitarianism*

Authoritarianism*

Tyranny?

Compulsory National service as a way of increasing participation in the democratic process in a nation that has voluntary voting, and where, what 40% plus of eligible voters don't vote ? Might be simpler to introduce compulsory voting to increase participation in the democratic process.
Compulsory military service is just as likely to produce as many, or more persons disenchanted with and uninterested in the democratic process as it is likely to change nuetral, or uninterested people into enthusiasts, imho.
As to the statistics about % with a certain level of education in the US military during periods of conscription and without...when are the periods with conscription ? WW2 and Vietnam War, or just one of those ? Might that statistic actually be an indication that conscription in the US was biased towards conscripting more from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.. that is, the higher the socioeconomic group the greater the ability to "game the conscription system" and dodge military service ?
As military weaponry becomes more sophisticated, more technologically advanced, do educational standards for military personnel need to be higher ?
What's the military model for a nation ? Lots of cannon fodder with cheaper masses of simpler weapons, or smaller, highly trained, elite forces with the less, but the best equipment ?

Forced voting is a road to despotism.

How?

Lol. Yeah, that's why Australia, Costa Rica, and Brazil are dictatorships today or something. And yeah, I guess the US became a totalitarian state after World War II up through the Vietnam era (when the draft was clearly in force) and places like Israel and Germany are iron fisted dictatorships!

Gods, you simply cannot make up the stupidity of conservative ideology! Facts and reality need not apply. Hilarious! (oh, but don't disrespect them for their stupidity or they'll get their delicate fee fees hurt and vote for lying incompetent zillionaires! Yeah. That's a great way to earn people's respect for sure... ROTFLMAO)

Some people suggest that the economic model used in the USA, particularly the inadequacy of the free public education and public health care, social welfare system, create a defacto conscription system, in that for many from lower socioeconomic status, the military is the only effective choice of employment that offers healthcare, education, pension for applicants..and it's an economic model that produces large numbers of poor, young people from which the US military can choose personnel/recruits

In Australia we're having a voluntary postal survey ( compared to an election or referendum with compulsory voting ) on marriage law reform. It's an unusual "referendum" designed by the opponents of marriage law reform.. But it's got a "voting" rate above 65% returns with some time to go before the deadline.
My point being, compulsory voting gets people used to participation in the democratic process, so even when reactionary conservatives try to use a voluntary system to reduce participation, because the general public are used to (effectively) full participation, and the issue is of widespread interest, then we have a participation rate in Australia that's way above the participation rate for the Presidential election in the USA, the Nation that self promotes itself as the bastion and beacon of democracy in the world today. ( and has a current President who certainly does an exceptionally good impression of a despot in many people's opinions )

I've never liked the idea of compulsory voting. Why dilute the votes of people who care and take an interest with those who don't really give a damn either way? I am very much in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. A common argument against that is that 16 year olds generally don't invest enough time to understand the issues, to which I reply that it doesn't matter because those youngsters won't vote anyway, and the ones who do will be the ones who do understand and want to make a difference. Introduce compulsory voting and the argument for lowering the voting age is significantly weakened.

What if the compulsory service wasn't restricted to military service. What if you could choose to go into scientific research, medical, civil engineering, and other 'branches'? It would essentially be the free college so many are looking for, but contribute to national progress.

Voluntary voting enables the lazy, uninterested slackers to avoid taking any responsibilities. Compulsory voting encourages interest, reinforces a responsibility to participate, and gives the successful candidates greater legitimacy and mandate. The less people participating, the easier it is to fix, rig an election result...and easier for despots to gain power.