Military conscription is justified.

Introduction While the social contract helps clarify morality into conventions and laws, morality itself must transcend the contract because biological survivalism is a prerequisite to any moral action. Survivalism means that we must value life itself before political rights; we must value living over freedom because the latter has no meaning without the former. Any moral code that does not place human life above artificially constructed and abstract principles should be considered a self-contradiction. The value of rights cannot exceed the value of its creators’. More importantly, I also want to point out that when my opponent defined the word “justified” in the resolution, he gave “to show a satisfactory reason or excuse for something done,” which does not explicitly mention the social contract or morality as criteria, though these certainly should be considered. I say this to point out that I am not obligated to prove that conscription does not violate the social contract or our moral code. Justifying the Draft The resolution essentially asks – Can conscription be justified? There are many scenarios I could imagine – from domestic invasion to global war – that could necessitate the conscription of troops. Nations, like Israel, who have constantly faced foreign encroachment and terrorism come to mind as prime examples. There are forces that have sought and will continue to seek to remake the world violently without any regard to innocence because of sectarian, racial, religious, and nationalistic identities. In an age radiological, biological, and nuclear capabilities, we must always be wary of extinction’s possibility and be willing to put every material and human resource beyond our own defense should the situation every arise. Even the United States, the largest military in the world, could face a number of scenarios that might require a draft. Perry and Flournoy '6 (Fonner Secretary of Defense, and Michele A, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies, National Defense Magazine, "The U.S. Military: Under Strain And at Risk," May 2006) My Opponent’s Arguments Part of upholding the social contract is upholding individual freedom.. Military conscription is forcing people to fight when they may not want to. Freedom has no inherent value, especially not when it is above biological survival. Also, an invasion scenario would turn this contention. If an enemy invades a nation, that enemy will take away freedoms. A draft may be required to build a large enough military to stop this. When you take away one right, you put all rights in jeopardy, because when you desecrate one value, what is so different about desecrating all values? Unless you can clearly delineate the draft to totalitarianism, this argument should be largely irrelevant. Slippery slopes are incredibly hard to justify, in part, because of the plethora of counter-examples: the U.S. has had the draft many times and never have we seen a rights crisis because of it. Military conscription is not effective. My opponent assumes a couple of things I don’t have to defend. First, that a draft must be universal. Of course, the government shouldn’t waste time trying to trim down obese people fit for combat. They would be turned away and not conscripted. The second seems to be an economic argument that has no real impact and certainly couldn’t have as big of impact as losing a war on your own territory. Under the social contract, the government has an obligation to avoid hindering economic production, because when the government becomes a hindrance to economic production, it is actively becoming a detriment to the people, and it is not upholding its side of the social contract. A war does not necessarily have to hinder an economy. It depends on how you pay for it and the outcome of the war. For example, “the American economy expanded at an unprecedented rate between 1941 and 1945.” Losing wars that might require a draft pose a much larger danger to the economy. http://eh.net... http://rt.com... Contention 6: Conscription is useless with today"s technology. Israel does not always face nuclear-equipped enemies. The resolution makes no reference to American conscription. Also, a draft in American could be instrumental to fighting non-nuclear equipped enemies, like terrorists: “ Several critical actions will bring victory and security to America. None is more important than installing mandatory national service. That is, “a draft…”we would put to the lie al-Qaia’s assertion that Americans don’t have the guts for warfare. Al-Qaida members and recruits will see one of bin Laden’s most important bits of propaganda evaporate. Reining in the terrorists, eliminating their support or apprehending them would be more attractive to leaders in Muslim countries when facing an American ramped up and unified for military conflict…We would dramatically increase the number of rapid response military units within our country to deal with a terrorist attack." Stark '6 (Peter, "Prove bin Laden wrong, adopt mandatory national service," The Morning Call, 3/28/06, pg. Lexis)