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I will repeat my take that the only ethical response to conscription is desertion, terrorism, the murder of draft boards, and volunteering for the enemy.
I wrote just as stridently on this matter back when The Motte was on reddit, and I'm not going to pull punches now.
Here's my old piece: Liberty and Violence: Kill your local Draftboards
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People enter into peace and agree to abide by laws so as to protect their liberty. The second their liberty is taken and they are being threatened with enslavement and being used as cannon fodder, there is no reason to abide by any of the rules of that society, indeed one should break every faith with it in revenge for the attempted enslavement.
There is no reason whatsoever for a young man to sacrifice his freedom, youth, and life for those who will not respect his liberty and who aim to make him pay everything for the wealth and security of others.
"But how will a nation defend itself? What about all the old ladies who can't defend themselves from the foreign hordes!?"
What are those old ladies sacrificing for this apparently vital defense they need? Have they sold off their homes and taken to living on the street that they might pay for said defense? Have they taken to prostitution that they might pay for their protection? Or have they merely voted that the cost be born entirely by young men who like as not are 18 and have not even had the opportunity to vote on the government that seeks to enslave them.
Taxation without representation? How about everything and your life before you can even drink.
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I grew up in a small village. I actually knew the old ladies and sense of community that governments appeal to make people sacrifice everything. I've actually felt the tribal sense of community that's exploited to make young men sacrifice their lives.
And if my village thought they could enslave me and take my life from me, instead of doing the natural thing and selling off all they could (their houses, their heirlooms their businesses, their bodies) to pay for someone who will willingly defend them...
Then I would feel no compunction at deserting them, I'd drink to their massacre, I'd join the invading force they feared.
Because anyone who'd betray me so totally and try to enslave me to suffer and die at my moment of greatest vulnerability, as a youth who's had no opportunity to gain anything or even leave the polity, but has just lost parental protection... anyone who'd do that is my mortal enemy be they my closest kin or my own mother. And it is vastly more urgent that I see such a traitor dead at my feet, than some German or Russian who has done me no harm.
The social contract is like any other contract. If it never benefits one of the parties, if it is unilateral, then it cannot bind the party that gains nothing.
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I am not joking. If my own mother tried to do to me what the governments of the world did to 18, 17, 16, and 14 year old on the western front... I'd kill her. Not a single question. I'd murder her. And not quickly.
And young men are supposed to acquiesce to politicians doing this to them?
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(Fortunately for me my mother would never do such a thing, we love each other and get along perfectly well.)
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