• Is it OK that the risks endured in military service are only optional for the well-off and those who have other options, yet an “opportunity” for social mobility (a way out of poverty) to the least privileged?
• Is it just that people overseas should fear American boots on their soil while you feel none and feel entitled to balk at the “shitty idea” of you or those you care about being selected to fill those boots?
• Can you wash your hands of responsibility for American actions abroad simply by claiming pacifism or conscientious objection?

It’s part of why I think random conscription should be kept as the primary if not only means of military enlistment for any country with troops deployed abroad.

But the other part is why I think this policy should be constitutional and considered utterly sacred…

If combat is required, that is far too important a job to be left to the combative.

This might seem like a cruel policy but that’s because war is the cruel policy, even if it becomes necessary. Citizens should not be as emotionally sheltered from that truth as they are.

This is the moral argument for conscription or mandatory service in many nations, that it’s a deterrent to war when civilian voters are not free to compartmentalize it.