Draft, anyone?

plenty of room in Canada.

Hmmn.. its pending--but whats to stop kerry from supporting the draft?

[QUOTE=DillingerEscape]plenty of room in Canada.[/QUOTE]

that's right.

2nd largest landmass and only 33 million odd people.

yeah, we can squeeze a few of you in.

Too bad canada doesn't want american "fugitives" as we'll be called after we dodge the draft.

Just stamp me and call me 100% grade A american meat.

[QUOTE=RunAmok]Too bad canada doesn't want american "fugitives" as we'll be called after we dodge the draft.

Just stamp me and call me 100% grade A american meat.[/QUOTE]

if you come in all sly and don't ask for asylum, we'll look the other way.

We did it during vietnam.

If we grant asylum to one person, everyone will start asking for it to dodge the draft, and the US gov't will probably be none too impressed about it.

you know i was thinking if this does happen (which seems unlikely but who knows every day it seems to be a little less far out) or if it got bad enough where it seemed liek it was close i'd make a dash for europe or australia or canada or whatever but now i'm thinking maybe i'll just stay and if i get drafted fine. i'm not even sure why but it's like i guess i'm just a lame ass closet goth who wants tragedy in his life who'dathunkit

Along with Canada, I suggest Mexico for your Draft-Dodging needs.

Its warm all year long, cheap (in more ways than one), easy to get in to and (an added bonus) no extradition treaty with the states.

yeah i'm only six hours from the border who knows

if what goes into effect is what i've read about before than i think i'm exempt from it cos of the little bit that says it's only for people who graduated from high school after a certain date but my brother would be screwed i think so i'll smuggle him to mexico if it comes down to it no fucking way they'll take him if he dies imma bring this country to its knees promise

[QUOTE=disx]if what goes into effect is what i've read about before than i think i'm exempt from it cos of the little bit that says it's only for people who graduated from high school after a certain date but my brother would be screwed i think so i'll smuggle him to mexico if it comes down to it no fucking way they'll take him if he dies imma bring this country to its knees promise[/QUOTE]

smuggling could be a little hard.

Isn't there a long fence that's broken in a few parts, the only problem being the border patrol, unless you get over.

If you come to France you'll be received with open arms. You'll be fortunate enough to see actual communists, too.

[QUOTE=DillingerEscape]plenty of room in Canada.[/QUOTE]

or mexico. which one is easier to get to these days?

Its easy to get into both "these days".. canada isn't as cheap as mexico, but at least you can drink the water without boiling it first.

If and when the draft comes, I'll just lie low--and if my name is called, then I'll be doing some dodging.

i'll section 8

section 8?

I'd rather die than fight for bush

[QUOTE=RunAmok]section 8?[/QUOTE]

section 8 is to go insane while in military service, i think

[QUOTE=ConfusedGenius87]I'd rather die than fight for bush[/QUOTE]

You say that as if they're mutually exclusive. You can do both!

S 89 was first brought to my attention by the lovely alene in [URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=10567]this thread.[/URL] it doesn't provide for deferments if you've already graduated. that would be HR 3598 as addressed by myself in [URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showpost.php?p=323063&postcount=5]this post.[/URL] both S 89 and HR 163 (the bills the original article linked to) are for all intents and purposes, the same bill. they both would require both male and female citizens to go in for mandatory military service for 2 years between ages 18-26. you can only get a deferment on that service if you're still in high school, and your deferment stops once you've graduated or dropped out. it does make for the ability to not enlist in the military, under the heading that reads "CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION" in which states that you will be transfered "to a national service program for performance of such person's national service obligation under this Act" as determined by the president.

i'm not much in favor of this bill, i think america ships enuogh of it's people to places we shouldn't be in the first place. there is not a need for increased military service.

and, you can go section 8!

I'd much rather go to Canada than Mexico. Too freakin hot. Ick. But I was actually thinking about Australia. That would be fun.

[QUOTE=PsychoKeety]I'd much rather go to Canada than Mexico. Too freakin hot. Ick. But I was actually thinking about Australia. That would be fun.[/QUOTE]

I suggest that you cross the border into Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan borders Montana and North Dakota).

Many open spaces and barely any Patrols or busy crossing points.

Why are we all plotting to get away when we actually can make a difference, ok - sort of, right now. Fight it before it happens.

[QUOTE=alene]Why are we all plotting to get away when we actually can make a difference, ok - sort of, right now. Fight it before it happens.[/QUOTE]

ditching is Plan B (really Plan A1/2).

hhaahahhahahahaha ok i'm done

haha

When I was 18, I really worried that Reagan would draft me to shoot Nicaraguans or Iranians or some sort of 'ians' I didn't feel like shooting.

I'm no pacifist, I just don't want to play Army.

But the thing I didn't realize when I was 18, and this is probably still effective in the 'don't ask don't tell' era, is how effective an open mouthed kiss to a military officer might be.

Or, if you don't want to fake homosexuality (or if it somehow fails to convince), do what I did, attend Friends Meetngs. Quaker church services are devoid of the annoying sermons and hymns that normal churches have, and if you can show you're a Quaker, they won't throw you in jail for conscientious objector status. There's even a Quaker based organization, the Committee for Conscientouts Objectors. It's been 15 years and I still get their mailings.

I'm pretty hawkish in general, though I think we blew it with Iraq. Afghanistan made sense, but Iraq has failed to deliver the promised WMDs and I see not clean method of extraction. But even when I want to go to war (against the Taliban for instance), I think an all volunteer military is far superior to a conscripted one.

And we do spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined, which is a tad excessive. And plenty of money to hire willing soldiers.

The thing is, come Novermber, Bush or Kerry will win and everyone else will lose. Every American, every Earthling. They are both evil, power hungry bastards. Just getting close to beign nominated by a major political party is proof that a person is a sociopath, megalomaniac and boob.

The same goes for Governors, Senators and Representatives. It goes for mayors of towns with more than 400 people, and it goes double for people who run for School Board in districts with half-billion-dollar budgets.

Fuck it I hope they recall me. I got ripped off with no action when I was in. No offense to the Canadians but, I have absolutely no desire to live in another country. Visist other countries.... cool.... live there.... no thanks.... and certainly not France.... no offense....

No offence taken.

are you sure
he's from alabama
prestige abounds
(cheap shot oops)

I dunno.. I've been offered a place to stay and the possibility to do exactly what I want in canada.. aboot that.

Then go to Canada. I was just saying if it's just military service you want out of, the Army hasn't even started taking volunteers that haven't finished high school. They're a long way from dragging the unwilling into it, and even if they get to that, paint your toe nails, borrow your girlfriend's wonder-bra, and make a pass at some guy with stripes on his sleeve. Worst case scenario is you'll get laid.

Also, there's all kinds of Klinger stuff you could do to be too much trouble in Basic, to get kicked out.

You're free, and when someone tries to coerce you, the degree to which you resist is the measure of your liberty. People sell that freedom far too cheaply sometimes.

Also, Canada is so cliche. Go to Prague, where there's an honorable tradition of drinking beer instead of joining the army, look for Kafka. I doubt anyone in Bohemia is going to try and get sent back to the U.S. so you can be part of the scary U.S. Army.

[QUOTE=alene]Why are we all plotting to get away when we actually can make a difference, ok - sort of, right now. Fight it before it happens.[/QUOTE]
I've written my senators and my state reps. I've started a local petition, and to top it off, i've sent in a well researched article to the local paper (here to hopes they'll print it).

how about everyone else? if you don't like the laws of the country you need to try to fix them, or just give up your citizenship now, don't wait for the draft. by "give up your citizenship" i mean, if you don't like the laws, and you're not attempting to fix them, why are you here? sounds pretty dense to live in a country where you disagree with the laws, and yet, don't want to be bothered with attempting to fix them...

[QUOTE=trypdwyre]I've written my senators and my state reps. I've started a local petition, and to top it off, i've sent in a well researched article to the local paper (here to hopes they'll print it).

how about everyone else? if you don't like the laws of the country you need to try to fix them, or just give up your citizenship now, don't wait for the draft. by "give up your citizenship" i mean, if you don't like the laws, and you're not attempting to fix them, why are you here? sounds pretty dense to live in a country where you disagree with the laws, and yet, don't want to be bothered with attempting to fix them...[/QUOTE]

trypdy and alene have totally just owned me on this issue. i am so ashamed! Isn't the best way to block the draft to simply try to get as many people as possible to vote for Kerry instead of Bush?

Yeah, maybe, but what if that mule kerry allows it to pass?

[QUOTE=RunAmok]Yeah, maybe, but what if that mule kerry allows it to pass?[/QUOTE]

oh, Canada!

no, i'd write a letter to barney frank

the intelligent man would say, it should be stopped before it gets to the president. and the fact that it's an election year might actually be in favor of getting this bill taken out of comission. think about it, enough people voice (and by voice, i mean write your reps) concerns and a distaste for this form of military service, then it will be a key factor for both presidential candidates. we know that bush'll be in favor of it, he seems to have a hard-on for warfare and anything to do with it, so if enough people voice a dislike of this bill, kerry might just adopt a stance against it himself. of course like i said, it'd be better to stop it where it is, rather to let it get to the president then try to stop it.

Yeah.. ive already written to my reps.. then to my friends to tell them to write to THEIR reps.. It still seems big and scary and stuff tho

It does seem overwhelming to the little people like us, but it happens, people can make a difference.

[QUOTE=alene]It does seem overwhelming to the little people like us, but it happens, people can make a difference.[/QUOTE]

especially if you have a powerful rep.

[QUOTE=trypdwyre]the intelligent man would say, it should be stopped before it gets to the president. and the fact that it's an election year might actually be in favor of getting this bill taken out of comission. think about it, enough people voice (and by voice, i mean write your reps) concerns and a distaste for this form of military service, then it will be a key factor for both presidential candidates. we know that bush'll be in favor of it, he seems to have a hard-on for warfare and anything to do with it, so if enough people voice a dislike of this bill, kerry might just adopt a stance against it himself. of course like i said, it'd be better to stop it where it is, rather to let it get to the president then try to stop it.[/QUOTE]
when it was being decided whether or not to give the prez authority to invade iraq whenever he pleased people were calling in 100 to 1 against it and there were all kinds of hopes cos the '02 elections were coming up and all that and yeah what a lot of good that did the reps swept those elections gogo votemachines

oh yeah i live in TEXAS

[QUOTE=trypdwyre]I've written my senators and my state reps. I've started a local petition, and to top it off, i've sent in a well researched article to the local paper (here to hopes they'll print it).

how about everyone else? if you don't like the laws of the country you need to try to fix them, or just give up your citizenship now, don't wait for the draft. by "give up your citizenship" i mean, if you don't like the laws, and you're not attempting to fix them, why are you here? sounds pretty dense to live in a country where you disagree with the laws, and yet, don't want to be bothered with attempting to fix them...[/QUOTE]
Writing to Senators and Representatives is really just writing to interns. Even the signatures on their return letters (written by staff, they just pick the one that fits the topic of your complaint and print it out), have been signed by mechanical devices for decades.

If you want a Senator or Representative's attention, you need to write checks, not letters.

If you believe there is any real difference between Kerry and Bush you are suffering delusions. The problem is not who is in power, the problem is how much power is concentrated in the elite of the two major parties.

Remember before the Florida dimpled chad incident, the polls all showed a dead heat between the candidates. No one was excited about either one, and with good reason. I read Earth In the Balance, and if it was ghost written, the ghost writer(s) are hacks who shouldn't be published. If Gore actually wrote it, he's dumber than he looked when he was VP.

On the other side of the ball, you won't find me standing up for the intellectual prowess of George Bush and Dick Chaney. An even moderately bright person could figure out how to plant evidence for WMDs in Iraq. As it is, it's like in 1984, where the war and alliances shifted without Big Brother acknowledging it. "We didn't go to Iraq for WMDs, we went to give them Democracy." Rewind a few months and they are saying "Saddam has WMDs, we know he has them and we know where they are."

Doublespeak. And Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Interesting.. terms from Mr. Orwell's works are now being used to describe government activities.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Writing to Senators and Representatives is really just writing to interns. Even the signatures on their return letters (written by staff, they just pick the one that fits the topic of your complaint and print it out), have been signed by mechanical devices for decades.

If you want a Senator or Representative's attention, you need to write checks, not letters.[/QUOTE]
indeed money does tend to influence, but i doubt any of us here have that kind available. not to mention the fact that i am not in the business of fixing governmental corruption by using means of corruption. and you're right, many times these letters are stopped at the intern level, but if you get hundreds and hundreds on the same topic, it WILL be brought to the attention of your rep. and lastly, there are only a few other means of using your voice to motivate politics, one being petitions, which i sent copies of along with letters, and also submitted the petitions through the proper chanels, always keeping one with me, to send again if necessary. if you constantly keep writing, your voice will be heard eventually.

I agree. Doing nothing but bitching about the problem is the worst thing you can do.

I'm cynical, sue me. To me, it's all spelled out in the Declaration, and the George that was directed at was hands-off compared to any modern government. The frustration I feel is huge, because I believe the system to be so utterly corrupt that it is impossible to reform by peaceful means, and at the same time I believe that violent overthrow is more likely to create a successor that is much worse.

Also, it appears to me, that the Orwellian factor is on the increase. Gary Hart's career was ended because of a picture of a girl on his lap. Nixon resigned on less evidence than Clinton was impeached over, and Clinton survived the impeachment. Clinton's wife is cosponsoring legislation with a Senator that prosecuted her husband. W. says with a straight face that we are not a conquering empire, and cites Japan and Germany as examples even though we've been militarily occupying those countries for six decades. It's enough to make me nostalgic for Reagan or even Carter.

I'm not a total dropout, I do vote (Libertarian usually). And if you're about to tell me that's throwing my vote away, I'd say that voting for a Democrat or a Republican is throwing the vote away, because it is a vote for an unacceptable status-quo.

Of course, I'm also aware that the Libertarian Party could not organize a one-float parade, and would be the surest crowd to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if they got in a position to make changes.

There's no government like no government.

[QUOTE=trypdwyre]indeed money does tend to influence, but i doubt any of us here have that kind available. not to mention the fact that i am not in the business of fixing governmental corruption by using means of corruption. and you're right, many times these letters are stopped at the intern level, but if you get hundreds and hundreds on the same topic, it WILL be brought to the attention of your rep. and lastly, there are only a few other means of using your voice to motivate politics, one being petitions, which i sent copies of along with letters, and also submitted the petitions through the proper chanels, always keeping one with me, to send again if necessary. if you constantly keep writing, your voice will be heard eventually.[/QUOTE]
did you even read my post i just told you that was wrong people calling ONE HUNDRED TO ONE AGAINST and it passes like it's nothing AND the following election the republicans take over everything with half a dozen republicans winning by THE EXACT SAME NUMBER OF VOTES rigged much? fighting the system 'through the system' DONT WORK

[QUOTE=alene]I agree. Doing nothing but bitching about the problem is the worst thing you can do.[/QUOTE]
I think you fail to see what politics is about.

I used to think that the DNC/RNC were corporations who dealt in power. That was an idealistic vision of what they are really about.

A group of 'consultants' supply the parties with advice. The parties go on to be consultants while the consultants become the party elite. It's a circle jerk, one that banks on people believing ideas are actually significant.

From Andrew Jackson (a genocidal maniac who appars on the $20 bill of a country that coud not wait to get Saddam off the Dinar), to the present, the only idea any President, Senator or Representative has been serious about is the idea of their own power.

You are right, what was I thinking? Clearly the best option is to sit back and allow the powers that be go at things in their natural fashion. Hey! Maybe when they realize that everyone has just accepted things they will get really out of hand and start doing really cool things, like taking away all of our weapons and searching us without cause. I hope so! Golly, thanks for the fantastic advice, I don't know why I didn't see it sooner! We can't make a difference because things are all corrupt and people are only concerned about power! Great! I am going to go find an authors website where I can bitch about how bad things are while sitting on my ass and not doing a thing!

Okay, that's fair.

To clarify, though, I don't think people are solely concerned with their own power, that's politicians. People are solely concerned with high speed internet connections, big screen TVs, SUVs.

People don't realize the power they have. You mention taking our weapons away. If the gun nuts really wanted to uphold the 2nd Amendment (most gun nuts I've known cannot be bothered with most of the other Amendments), they'd just carry their guns without worrying about the legal consequences. I don't mean the lunatic fringe, I mean middle class guys with jobs and wives and kids. If 10% of the gun owners in the U.S. just ignored all the abridgements to the 2nd and carried their guns, there literally would not be enough jail cells to hold them. For that matter, there wouldn't be the political will to lock up a bunch of harmless country club types.

Ditto for the drug war. If all the average folks who use would just come out and be open about it, the system would be bogged down.

Direct action works, but we're a pretty pampered crowd. The powerful understand that the masses lack the will to be inconvenienced.

The biggest problem is that the sort of people who have the will to take power away from those who abuse it are people who would abuse it themselves. It's the One Ring.

It's sister Jenny's turn to throw the bomb. . .