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OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

G26ster wrote:OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

Sorry, but I turned you in before I saw your clarification.

Chas.

G26ster wrote:OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

Nope, you gotta man up and do your civic duty!

However, I have heard there are ways to appear that you are a mental misfit when in voir dire and then neither the prosecutors or defense want you. You can leave those to your imagination.

Keith B wrote:

G26ster wrote:OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

Nope, you gotta man up and do your civic duty!

However, I have heard there are ways to appear that you are a mental misfit when in voir dire and then neither the prosecutors or defense want you. You can leave those to your imagination.

That could be difficult, if one wanted to keep one's CHL intact. It's easier to say something on the order of "Of course I would believe the testimony of the police officer over the testimony of the defendant."

Not that I would necessarily say that, but espousing either a strict "cops are always right" or "cops are always wrong" stance would certainly make one of the attorneys want to challenge for cause.

Keith B wrote:

G26ster wrote:OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

Nope, you gotta man up and do your civic duty!

However, I have heard there are ways to appear that you are a mental misfit when in voir dire and then neither the prosecutors or defense want you. You can leave those to your imagination.

Can I say during voir dire that., "I'm an out of work hairdresser, and I hate the defense attorney?"

G26ster wrote:Can I say during voir dire that., "I'm an out of work hairdresser, and I hate the defense attorney?"

We're getting off topic, but in the last voir dire I sat in, one lady stated she couldn't be unbiased because 'she thought the defendant was guilty 'cause he looked like a hoodlum in his black leather jacket'. The defendant was wearing slacks, a white button-up dress shirt and his leather jacket was probably a $300 nice dress-type jacket. LOL

On topic, I have mixed feelings about the mandatory service. While I think there could be some benefits to this for a lot of kids, there are those that need to move on and go their path they are on instead of being disrupted and pulled away from their chosen goals in life. Those are the ones that are headed to be Doctors, engineers, etc. in the professional realm. However, those headed for law school may be another story.

My uncle worked for the CCC/WPA back during the depression so he could help the family with money after Grandpa died (Grandpa had lost the bank he and another man owned a couple of years earlier, and they both had depleted all of their savings paying back all of the farmers who had lost their money in the bank going under.) At that time it was the only work out there and being 15 he went to work to help out. I would be all for those type of work programs (if ran properly) to be available to kids getting out of school with no job and no clear direction, like college or a career, in their future. That would be a way to help train them toward a career and give them something for their resumes. However, too many people today would not want to work that hard and would not take the jobs.

TxKimberMan wrote:

HankB wrote: If I were drafted because Charlie Rangel and Obama wanted me to serve a cause I didn't believe in I'd be a very, very bad soldier/civil servant. Assuming I went at all.

All choices have consequences, and in this example they would be severe. If you're prepared to do the time for the crime, then there's no problem.

Personally, I would prefer a legacy of serving my country as a patriot, than serving time as a criminal. Try obtaining a CHL after that.

Serving Obama and Rangel would not be the mark of a patriot - quite the reverse, in fact. And now, several decades post-Vietnam, I see massive - massive - resistance if they were to try such a tactic.

The anti-war protests - and yes, the hippie/yippie violence - of the Vietnam days would be a spark compared to the forest fire Rangel's plan would set off if implemented.

And not only does Charlie know it, the other 434 members of the House do, too. Hence Charlie's lack of co-sponsors.

But all this is just in the abstract - I confidently predict Rangel's bill will never come anywhere near passage.

G26ster wrote:OK, who turned me in . I just got an "OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS" in the mail a few minutes ago. Can I use any of the arguments in this thread to avoid this service ? I'm not making this up.

I served as a juror just a few months ago in my local municipal court. (Second time, another case of someone fighting a "speeding in a school zone" ticket.) Just a couple of hours of time away from work, and now i'm exempt from jury service for two years.

Compulsory service is against any notion of Liberty and Property Rights, and any organization supporting it is tyrannical.


There is a tremendous amount of argument over political labels such as right, left, conservative, liberal, neo-con, socialist, communist, fascist, Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, and all the rest. These labels and the discussion of them are completely futile. There are two ideologies: coercion and cooperation. There are two types of people: those who support violence, or threats thereof, against those who have made no threat themselves and those who support the voluntary and free association among people. The varying degrees of the former, in the end, are of no consequence. The gulag prisoners and Jews of Europe were hardly concerned with whether they were trapped in "fascist" or "communist" death camps. Same for the Chinese killed off by Mao, and the Cambodians, and the Cubans, etc.

If the government can rip you from your life for years on end, ship you anywhere in the world, and force you to conduct violence and be heavily exposed to the same, what could it not do to you? Who or what would stop it?

G26ster wrote:

bdickens wrote:Morale and discipline in the millitary rose tremendously when they ended the draft and went to all volunteer.

And the concept of serving your country declined tremendously as well.

If I look at the kids today compared to the hippies in 1970, I don't agree.

Tamie wrote:

G26ster wrote:

bdickens wrote:Morale and discipline in the millitary rose tremendously when they ended the draft and went to all volunteer.

And the concept of serving your country declined tremendously as well.

If I look at the kids today compared to the hippies in 1970, I don't agree.

.

Very few of us were hippies in 1970; but they got the press. Most of us were very patriotic, supported the government, didn't oppose the Vietnam war, didn't go to Canada and were not part of the movement that brought "sex, drugs and rock-and-roll" to America. Other than those in the military, I don't see the level of patriotism in today's kids that I saw in my generation and we didn't hold a candle to the WWII generation. Too bad I couldn't have remained blissfully ignorant.

Chas.

G26ster wrote:
I agree with both of you on this "specific" area quite strongly. Where I am saddened though is the position equating a draft, or mandatory military service for those able, to "slavery." I'm not addressing mandatory public service at the whim of a President or Congress, but only mandatory military service of some kind for all able citizens. Apparently to some, feeedom IS free.

Having served in a draft time Army, and served with people who were forced into Military service for a war they didn't believe in an Army they didn't care for. No one benefited. The Draftee was half hearted about their service. and wasn't trusted much by the Regular army folks. When one serves in the military it is made very clear that our very being now belongs to Uncle Sam. That less than full co-operation can result in going to prison and serving hard labor. While I'm not up to laws on slavery but I think it was illegal to put slaves at risk of their lives. A soldier whether draftee or Regular Army is expected to give his life on demand. If a war is worthwhile Americans will serve. If we as a nation are at point of desperation for our very survival, then perhaps its time for Thermonuclear explosives, and a draft isn't likely to do any of us much good.

I know the value of freedom and understand giving a portion of my life for my country or even my state and and town. But people deserve to make certain choices on their own, and not have our government do it for us

Liberty
USASA 72-75

Liberty wrote:If a war is worthwhile Americans will serve. If we as a nation are at point of desperation for our very survival, then perhaps its time for Thermonuclear explosives, and a draft isn't likely to do any of us much good.

I know the value of freedom and understand giving a portion of my life for my country or even my state and and town. But people deserve to make certain choices on their own, and not have our government do it for us

That's a good point about worthwhile wars. What could be more pro-freedom and pro-democracy than letting people vote in the most meaningful way possible, by volunteering for a just cause or not voluntering for an unjust cause? If the president and congress want to pick up rifles and lead from the front, maybe they will get more support than if they try running it from the rear echelon.

Having served as both a draftee and a regular army soldier, in both enlisted and officer ranks, I don't totally disagree that an all volunteer force may be superior to a combined conscript/volunteer force. However, if we are addressing the constitution, then we must interpret Article 1, Section 8, that gives congress the power " to raise and support Armies." As far as I know, a draft, whether in peacetime or time of war has never been declared unconstitutional, so I assume congress has the constitutional power to conscript a citizen into military service. If I am wrong, someone correct me.

As far as generations, it's hard to fault today's volunteers who put up with countless combat tours, most of whom are "Citizen Soldiers" of the National Guard and Reserve. That said, I do see us becoming more and more an"entitlement" nation, and I am concerned that fewer and fewer will feel the need to serve in time of national emergency. I would much rather have a semi-prepared force available to bring up to speed, than a totally unprepared pool of citizens who need training and practice from scratch. MHO

One thing they should do is require women to register for selective service or face the same penalties as men. Women are allowed to voluntarily serve in the military so there's no reason for sexism and discrimination for selective service.