Justice Does Not Equal Fairness

A group of morons men's rights activists has convinced a judge to make women register for the draft that we don't even have.
On Friday, a Texas judge ruled that the Selective Service System (SSS) violates the Constitution by requiring only men to register for the draft. The court ruled with the National Coalition for Men (NCFM) in a lawsuit claiming the male-only draft constitutes discrimination against men. NCFM's lawyer told PJ Media that even if the SSS appeals, they are likely to lose again. He also suggested the Pentagon will not end the draft, so women may have to register.
If we had a war large enough in scale to require a draft, it would be the kind of major war in which a lot of people die. The way a civilization replaces its dead is through young women. This is, in fact, the only way it can be done. You don't need many men to make the babies, but you do need lots of women. Each woman can only produce one new person a year, excepting twins and so forth, and there's no other way to do it.

For this reason, it is completely irrational to draft young women and send them to war. Is it "fair" that only men have to register? Who cares? In spite of John Rawls and his followers, justice does not simply equal fairness. It has an important rationality component. It cannot be just to require our civilization to do suicidal things. 'The Constitution is not a suicide pact,' but even if it were, that would be a great reason to return to the Declaration model and 'alter or abolish it.'

Somehow the draft existed for the whole history of this country without violating the Constitution, but now once again a judge has 'discovered' that an institution as old as the nation is somehow forbidden by our basic laws. This insanity has to stop.

38 comments:

J Melcher said...

I see no inequality in requiring women to register for (potentially, to bear some risk of) military service for some part of their lives. Not, necessarily, the same seven years of their lives that men must put at risk. Would it be un-equal to require women to register for possible service at age 40 to, say, age 50? Women who have already served by bearing and rearing children, and may be now ready for a new phase of life?

Grim said...

What crucial military role do you think that 50 year old women who lack previous military experience are going to be able to perform? If it's not crucial, there's no justice in drafting them; but since they have no experience, it'd have to be E1-E2 entry level stuff.

Are they going to be so good at this that they justify the costs associated with employing later middle aged personnel instead of twenty-somethings? The Navy needs lots of administrative clerks; some of them might be better clerks than a 19 year old. On the other hand, they're going to be a much bigger strain on Tricare, which is going to stress military budgets substantially.

Heck, right now we won't even enlist someone voluntarily who is 50 years old. (Nor 40, as far as I know, excepting possibly the National Guard in some places.) It's not in the military's interest to do so.

I hate when the Left tries to play "let's use the military to make a point about social justice!", and I don't like it when these idiots do it either. Life isn't fair. War, in particular, isn't fair. War is, however, the place where nations are destroyed if they fail. The rules governing the military should be exclusively designed to ensure its superior capacity to wage war. Anything else is foolishness.

Grim said...

Now, I could imagine -- in a Sci Fi kind of way -- a baby-making branch of the military service into which young women might be necessary. In a war of such intensity that near-extinction levels of casualties were being suffered, voluntary enlistees would be supported; as they produced children, they might also serve by assisting in caring for each other's.

That couldn't be a draft, though, without it being a huge moral crime. It could only be voluntary.

Wayne Johnson said...

I would argue that there are a large number of crucial military roles that women can perform. There are a tremendous amount of administrative, organizational, logistical and analytical postings that women can perform very capably. If this frees up the men who were doing those jobs for combat roles, so much the better. I agree that front-line combat roles are a poor place for women to serve, but you need to remember the sheer range of tasks in the military.

Grim said...

However, the judge's reasoning is precisely that the opening of combat roles to women is what makes them subject to the draft. This isn't about filling admin roles. It's about filling infantry billets.

Christopher B said...

Grim said...
However, the judge's reasoning is precisely that the opening of combat roles to women is what makes them subject to the draft. This isn't about filling admin roles. It's about filling infantry billets.


That's the point. You can't have it both ways. If you want slots in elite units (SEALs, Rangers, USMC, fighter squadrons) reserved for the unicorns interested but usually unable to legitimately qualify in order to enhance their military careers, then the average jane has no legitimate claim to an exemption from being forced to tote a rifle (or perform whatever other task assigned).

MikeD said...

Sorry Grim, but the left brought this on themselves by demanding women be eligible for combat roles. The last time Selective Service was up before the court for being discriminatory, it was ruled Constitutional to discriminate (and only require men to register) simply because women were ineligible for combat arms. With that block out of the way, the court's ruling means that selective service IS discriminatory. So it was the left that removed the reasonable obstacle to requiring women to register.

Tom said...

The Israelis do well with universal conscription.

Lars Walker said...

I like the draft proposal in the sense of making feminists lie in the bed they've made. But I hate it in the sense of cultural change and the costs in women's lives. Women getting killed is different. You can't persuade me otherwise.

raven said...

Lars stated my feelings perfectly.

Grim said...

"The Israelis do well with universal conscription."

The Israelis explicitly omit the women they most want to reproduce: Jewish women who declare themselves to be living a religious life.

"...the left brought this on themselves."

They're not the ones who'll be paying the costs. If the draft works like the one we had during Vietnam, there will be deferments for people in college, grad school, etc. It's going to be ordinary young women, not the hated leftist feminists in college, who end up being sent to die.

They haven't brought anything on themselves. They've brought this on innocent people.

"... You can't have it both ways. If you want slots in elite units (SEALs, Rangers, USMC, fighter squadrons) reserved for the unicorns interested but usually unable to legitimately qualify in order to enhance their military careers..."

I never wanted that, and have argued vigorously against opening the combat arms to women. I don't want to have it both ways. I want to do it the right way, which is that the military should be structured to be as combat effective as possible. It's the wall between our civilization and the hard winds of a hard world. I've always opposed all changes that seem to be driven by an attempt to make it 'fair' rather than to make it work.

Grim said...

"I hate it in the sense of cultural change and the costs in women's lives. Women getting killed is different. You can't persuade me otherwise."

Well said.

Tom said...

"The Israelis explicitly omit the women they most want to reproduce: Jewish women who declare themselves to be living a religious life."

I wonder what percentage of Israeli women that is? And, I'm willing to adopt that exemption, just like I'm OK with conscientious objectors not being forced to serve in the combat arms.

In fact, I've generally opposed the draft in the past. My reasoning was that it is a form of slavery. If a society cannot convince enough men to volunteer to fight a particular war, then it simply has no business fighting that war. If it is an existential war and they can't get enough men to fight it, maybe that nation doesn't have a right to exist anymore.

I've been rethinking that opinion over the last year, but haven't come to a conclusion, so I'm not sure where I stand on it at the moment.

Getting back to the topic of women getting drafted, it's what our society now calls for. Like Grim, I've opposed every previous change to the military in the name of "fairness" or "progress" or whatever we want to call social engineering today. I agree that the military should be structured for effectiveness above all else. However, our society no longer values that on the whole.

MikeD said...

Ultimately, Selective Service is not a draft. It is a registration process for a potential draft. But the era of large standing armies is (or seems to be) done. For the US military to require a draft pretty much guarantees a nuclear exchange at this point in history. Selective service has not served any purpose since the early 1970's. Hopefully this will merely be the impetus to finally retire it completely.

Anonymous said...

I wonder why this entire issue isn't moot (pointless).

Civil service registration is for a draft that does not currently exist. It is a relic. If the situation changed so drastically that a draft might again be needed, we'd have to rethink the entire situation, anyway.

A situation that drastic raises the possibility that the value of women as baby-makers would be greatly enhanced, and discrimination on that basis would be justifiable.

So, this decision would become important only if unforeseen and revolting developments occur, which would alter the basis for the court's analysis. If and when Congress were to take up the issue of reinstating the draft, they would have to reconsider the question of discrimination in light of the changed circumstances.

Perhaps the judge was just charmed to have the NCFM as for something besides reduced child support.

Valerie

Anonymous said...

"ask" , not "as" in the penultimate line.

Valerie

Tom said...

On another point: "The way a civilization replaces its dead is through young women. This is, in fact, the only way it can be done."

Well, there is always immigration. The Democrats on the whole and a whole lot of Republicans do seem intent on importing a new citizenry right now.

J Melcher said...

For background, I am a veteran of Army (Signal Corps) service. My term was short, and in peace time, but classified as "combat arms". I served with women who held commissioned, and non-commissioned, authority over me. I ended my term as an E5 Sergeant.

In my experience the older women with "mom-like" management styles were more effective in getting things done from junior enlisted persons of either sex than were young women who seemed to imitate the young male LTs and NCOs they competed with. I will also distinguish styles between young males in direct (tactical?) junior leadership roles (E5/E6 - O1/O2) from older males in command roles -- E7+, O3+, WO. It was like a difference in sport team captains from coaches. There did seem to be a filter that held females at rank longer, and I can't determine to my own satisfaction if "mom-ly" authority held women back, or was deployed as a reaction. But I've seen it, and in well-run companies seen the benefits of it.


YMMV.

Grim said...

"Well, there is always immigration."

That's not replacing the members of your civilization -- it's importing members of another civilization. Maybe they decide to try to adopt yours, maybe not.

For background, I am a veteran of Army (Signal Corps) service. My term was short, and in peace time, but classified as "combat arms".

Thank you for your service, as they say. Several of my friends were signal guys.

Your suggestion is interesting, and probably has merit. I still think it would strain budgets quite a bit to bring in 40- 50- somethings, with the health issues that come with middle age. But doubtless there are at least some things that older folks do better than the kids. (One of my favorite comedy Westerns, Hallelujah Trail, has a miner suggest that the cavalry might come to save a crucial wagon train loaded with whiskey. The older man they turn to for oracular advice rejects that in favor of the miners forming a citizens' militia and marching to save the wagon, saying, "Of course not! This ain't no time for children!")

Tom said...

"That's not replacing the members of your civilization -- it's importing members of another civilization."

Yes, well, apparently a large section of my civilization would rather be another civilization. Not sure my sarcasm on that point is helping the conversation, though.

Of course, all of these problems go back to that large section of my civilization that would rather be another civilization. Not much else matters strategically if we can't change that.

J Melcher said...

I think that when the premise is challenged, all the other traditions that depend on the same premise are also up for review.

A premise over-emphasized is the phrase "Women need men like fish need bicycles..." Some view it that nearly all men can completely be dispensed with. A few scientifically selected sperm donors "milked" on a regular basis for the genetic banks' freezers satisfies biology, at least. But under such a premise what value do post-menopausal females bring to the process? How is an infertile woman of any more evolutionary or biologically reproductive value than typical young male cannon-fodder? And if it takes six or eight dried up scallywags to pull the load of two oxen ... well, neither team is contributing to improvements in the breed of New Men on "the right side of history".

Now, there are certainly premises, and observations, showing why the ox is more valuable to the mission than the old cow. But values become more clear if we distinguish them from the biological/evolutionary viewpoint too common at the moment.

By the way, did the emblem / warning label regarding "Toxic Masculinity" turn out well?

douglas said...

"By the way, did the emblem / warning label regarding "Toxic Masculinity" turn out well? "

Oh, did I miss something? What's this about?

Ymarsakar said...

Since when did Leftists ever do things in the US that created negative consequences that Leftists had to suffer? It was nearly almost always the innocents, Grim. Which is why America should have long ago killed these traitors when you had the chance and opportunity.

Too late now. Civil War 2 is inevitable. Victory is not assured. Well even if you win the war, you will still lose against the greater powers.

Grim said...

The emblem came out well. It's been inked, and we're going through the process of getting trademarks etc.

Texan99 said...

Is the problem that women shouldn't be exposed to danger, or that they can't do anything useful in the military? Seems to me you could exclude women of childbearing age and then turn down any older women you think are particularly useless.

I'm not crazy about any draft, but if it has to exist, I don't mind making it universal. We've always had exemptions for people we thought were too valuable to expose to an excessive risk of death, but we applied the exemptions by considering individual functions and capability, like membership in a team that's developing fantastic new weapons.

Grim said...

"Is the problem that women shouldn't be exposed to danger, or that they can't do anything useful in the military?"

It's neither of those exactly. Childbearing women shouldn't be exposed to danger in a war of sufficient peril to merit a draft. There are certain positions in lesser wars that are very much necessarily for women -- I mentioned a few above. Those women may die, as one did in Syria recently in spite of having two small children at home. But we aren't in the kind of war for survival such that our capacity to reproduce ourselves is at stake, although her death was regrettable all the same.

I was dubious about drafting 50-somethings, though; we don't even voluntarily enlist them (male or female) for the most part. What's the function they could perform better than 20-somethings, given that they'd be enlisted at the junior-most level given their lack of military experience?

Of course maybe there will never be another draft, as Mike says; and maybe not enough people care for America anymore to fight for her, as Tom does. Maybe drafts are also immoral, as Tom says; maybe older women, in spite of their expense in terms of health care costs, would be better admins, as J. M. says.

I should quit thinking about this stuff. I've lost every argument with our civilization on this point for 25 years. They're determined that we should turn the military into an outfit of gays, transgenders, and unmarried mothers who can't be deployed, all of whom are of course entitled to generous benefits in virtue of their loyal service to our nation. I don't even have anything against gays, transgenders, or unmarried mothers. They're just not the ideal building blocks for a fighting force.

Meanwhile we've lost every war we've engaged in that time. That's surely a coincidence, yeah?

Texan99 said...

"What's the function they could perform better than 20-somethings, given that they'd be enlisted at the junior-most level given their lack of military experience?" I still don't see the problem. If individual 50-year-old women are valueless to the military cause, either absolutely or in competition with the available pool of younger or more experienced or talented men or women, reject them as candidates for entry-level military service. Being subject to the draft is not the same as being guaranteed a seat at the table. If young fertile women or any other citizens are too valuable to risk being shot at, exempt them while their special status lasts. Haven't we traditionally done that with, say, able-bodied young men pursuing a college degree? Or workers on the Manhattan Project?

Grim said...

Yes, we have done that. It requires a system of waivers and approvals, though; all that requires effort. If they aren't fit for service -- no offense, but relatively and all things considered -- why spend the effort? It'd only come up in a war for survival, after all. Effort is expensive in that context. As Von Clausewitz says: "In war, everything is simple, and the simplest things are hard."

Texan99 said...

That's usually the point we come to. First, that women are too precious to be risked, and then that it's too expensive to consider their abilities individually, and cheaper to exclude them completely. And you're correct, it is easier and cheaper that way. It's just hard to reconcile the two attitudes, of high value and contempt.

Grim said...

I understand your discomfort. I only endorse the approach where the military is concerned, because it's the last line -- or very nearly, with the other options being on balance worse -- between us and the hard winds of the world.

I believe it's better for the women, in other words; in all those civic areas in which they get better and fairer treatment, than they would if the hard winds were blowing. You're free to feel otherwise. But that's what I think.

Texan99 said...

No doubt there are compensations for the deprivations, and maybe even the balance amounts to a cushy deal. But there's no use offering an insult and calling it a compliment. Better to stick to the hard truth.

Grim said...

That's what I mean to do. I'm not trying to flatter. I believe the moral rule, which makes it immoral to 'annex the females.' I also think you women can't stop the males from doing it. It's ancient Greece to the Vikings to ISIS. I believe that the only thing stopping it is men who think it's wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I am, per hypothesis. Maybe you think I am. Good luck if you do. I'll be on your side, as long as I live, whether I'm right or wrong; and when I'm gone, the ones I've taught to follow me will be. After that, I can make no promise.

Ymarsakar said...

What's the function they could perform better than 20-somethings, given that they'd be enlisted at the junior-most level given their lack of military experience?

Cyberwarfare. Not your field, Grim, which is why you missed it.


Also Leni Riefenstahl. The military also has to hire caterers and all other kinds of jazz. That's not gonna work when existential war hits, so they will have to absorb most of the civilian services, and who is going to run them? Obviously the civilians that have now become military.

If the military was flexible enough to do it, which they are not. But in an extinction level event, all the Old Guard will have had their heads removed by now.

Ymarsakar said...

The next generation of quantum super computers, assisted by humans (you read that right), along with near room temp superconductors via sapphire wafer quantum lock tech, and drone VR control tech, will allow cyberwarfare to no longer be indirect hacking and cracking, but actual on target, intel actionable acquired, immediately routed to operative, and kill strike launched. Same OODA loop.

Quantum super comps will handle the reaction time. 40-50 yo humans will handle the assistance logic and support. The factory makers will make the weapons that make the weapons that produce the munitions like Predator launched hellfires.

No longer will military or SWAT units be limited to some HQ staffer trying to micro manage things. The wifi network can be setup onsite, making it harder to jam.

Texan99 said...

I'm currently reading a book that struggles with how either evolved biological changes or social constructs, or both, dealt over time with the "annex the females" issue. From an evolutionary point of view, the issue doesn't become a problem unless it makes individuals less reproducible, either individually or through the success of their tribes or cultures. The author is trying to figure out how that advantage or disadvantage could have exhibited itself or changed over time. The evidence clearly shows that it did, but the process is unclear.

I believe his theory is going to be what he calls the "execution hypothesis," in which a society learns to gang up on and frankly kill individual males whose aggressiveness outweighs their value to the village. The genes for uninhibited reactive aggression then gradually decrease in the population. You have to drag a lot of elephant carcasses into the clearing to make up for the disruptive effect of beating everyone up to get your way and dominate access to the fertile females; at some point, a group of some sort will decide you have to be done away with. None of that answers the question of who's in the group--your peers? The tribal elders? All the adult men? In today's Western society, the group includes most adults, men and women, at the point where it involves a jury, but at every stage it clearly depends for much of its efficacy on the strength, generosity, and sense of duty of the young strong men. I'm therefore deeply grateful to any men who joined such a coalition or who contribute to it today.

None of that really alters my point, which is that a refusal to allow any class of human beings an opportunity to try out for a difficult task, on the ground that it's too much trouble to test them individually and will waste time and money, or on the ground that we want to co-opt their usefulness for another task that's more important to us than to them, cannot help being an insult and a servitude. If it's necessary, if we're that pressed for time and resources, then it's a necessary cost to impose on individuals consigned to the class in question. But that won't convert the consignment into a compliment, an honor, a favor, or a privilege. This principle applies to women as a class as thoroughly as it applies to Jews who want to matriculate at Harvard, or blacks who want to run for office.

I think we should spend our spirits to the core in an attempt to judge people individually on what they can do, not on what we assume they're likely to be able to do on the basis of our preconceptions about the class they belong to. We may wish they would expend their energies instead in some other task we believe is better suited to them, and our system of economics guarantees that the price they can command will reflect these collective judgments. But everyone should be free to try. If people really aren't good at something, it will become clear quickly enough. We don't have to post "no entry" signs on the doors to judge their failure pre-emptively.

Grim said...

When I say that young women of childbearing are precious in the sense of being the only way to replenish numbers, I'm not trying to pay them a compliment or make them feel good. I'm just stating a fact. I don't know that they ought to feel good about it in any case; talking that way is another way of looking at them as an instrument. I'm against making them do anything against their will -- e.g., impressing them into the childbearing service -- but all the same, it is a fact. No society can afford to throw away its childbearing women.

As for that book you're reading, I think it's basically correct in its argument that civilization is about killing the wrong kind of men; and I do think women play an important role in the decision-making about which men to kill, at least in the West. The persistence of groups like ISIS, though, makes me doubt the hypothesis that the 'relevant genes' are 'less common.' I don't think that's true. I think it's a question of what conditions cause expression of the qualities.

AVI likes genetic explanations more than cultural ones, but here's a case in which I think the culture has a real role to play. The North of Western Europe has been known for treating women with more respect since the time of ancient Rome. Tacitus records this of Germania; we know the Vikings held their free women in high respect, even to equality as a point of law. All the same, until the Church came along to teach this particular lesson about the equality of souls, they still raided and took slaves.

The genes might be responsible for the propensity to treat women with more respect than has been true in Africa, or China; I don't know, but it's defensible as a hypothesis. The elimination of a very old tradition of slavery ~1200-1300 is too rapid to be a genetic change, though; and the fact that it was the same civilization that again eliminated slavery in the 19th century, while undergoing a major revival of Christianity, provides the second data point. They're the only two data points. No other society has internally decided to eliminate slavery. Western Europe did twice, but not before the cultural argument was developed -- not even in the north, where antiquity records especial respect for women.

Maybe there will be another revival; as Chesterton says, the Church knows the way out of the grave. If there isn't, though, I don't think genetics are going to reproduce the results.

Texan99 said...

Everyone has a view what other people's highest and best use is, and I have no problem with it, as long as they don't get to choose to exclude those people from other roles in life. It's easier for me to tolerate a proposed restriction on someone's freedom to try when it's not packaged as someone they should be grateful for--but either way, I'll always fight the restriction.

Grim said...

Well, yes, I know that about you; but I wasn't talking about 'someone's freedom to try,' I was talking about them not being impressed into compulsory military service.

I have at other times opposed their freedom to try out for certain roles, especially in the infantry. On this occasion, however, what I'm defending is the proposition that they shouldn't be forced to go to war against their will.