Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show, Soldier.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt Hud, my name is Nola.
Speaker 4: They called me Ben and you can as well. We're
Speaker 4: joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee
Speaker 4: pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
Speaker 4: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4: Reporting for duty. We're talking. This is a special one
Speaker 4: to all of our recently turned eighteen year old conspiracy realist.
Speaker 4: Here in the United States, we have a ritual that
Speaker 4: might seem strange to outside. I bet, I bet all
Speaker 4: of us recording tonight can remember it. When you reach
Speaker 4: the age of eighteen. In the United States, if you
Speaker 4: are if you are termed a male, then you are
Speaker 4: required to sign up for something called the Selective Service
Speaker 4: System street name the draft.
Speaker 3: Guys, do you think I could suck a golf ball
Speaker 3: through a garden house if I tried real hard? And
Speaker 3: is that part of the ritual?
Speaker 4: It depends on how long the hose is Noel, but
Speaker 4: I believe in you.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: It fullat level Jacket. Yeah, one of the best films well,
Speaker 4: Vietnam War, up there with Apocalypse Now.
Speaker 3: I think it's tops, I really do. I think it's
Speaker 3: it goes full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now and a Platoon.
Speaker 3: I think people often malign Platoon, but I think it
Speaker 3: has some really good moments as well. But Full Metal Jacket.
Speaker 3: The thing that's so great about it is it has
Speaker 3: this like story structure that really shows you all the
Speaker 3: sides of what it would mean to be in the
Speaker 3: military during a conflict like that that is, you know,
Speaker 3: largely historically considered pretty unjustified.
Speaker 4: But in real life you had to register right when
Speaker 4: you turned a team.
Speaker 3: Remember it being a thing I was concerned about, yeah,
Speaker 3: when I was younger, because I mean, you know, I
Speaker 3: think I had to ask a teacher or something like
Speaker 3: that what this meant. Well, already having a little bit
Speaker 3: of knowledge through films like we're talking about of what
Speaker 3: it meant to be drafted, but I think at the
Speaker 3: point that we were all in high school, it certainly
Speaker 3: was it was voluntary.
Speaker 2: Well, Georgia, the actual something right.
Speaker 3: You have to you have to sign up for the
Speaker 3: for the Selective Service, but there was no active draft.
Speaker 4: Right, you have to register. The onus is on you.
Speaker 4: And if you don't register once you get the card
Speaker 4: that shows up in your mailbox, your doorstep, once you
Speaker 4: get that dreaded envelope, not registering will have serious consequences.
Speaker 4: You can basically never get a federal job again, say
Speaker 4: goodbye to training and assistance programs from the government. And
Speaker 4: if you are an immage grint, even if you are
Speaker 4: in the country legally dodging the draft, which we'll talk
Speaker 4: about at length, and lead to the loss of your citizenship.
Speaker 3: And that card, Ben, that was the thing that people
Speaker 3: would burn and protests burn the draft card. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: you were talking about some Georgia specific stuff that it
Speaker 3: probably applied to all of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Georgia, you got something in the mail that
Speaker 2: just reminds you of how old you're about to turn
Speaker 2: and what you have to do for the Selective Service
Speaker 2: in the United States, the SS, Well.
Speaker 3: I think that was my issue. It's one thing to
Speaker 3: know about it, it's another thing to actually get the
Speaker 3: notice that you have to register. And I think that's
Speaker 3: why I clarified. I'm like what does this mean exactly?
Speaker 3: And the issue I guess is that it could change
Speaker 3: TBD right very much.
Speaker 4: So that's a great point, Noel.
Speaker 2: Just to point out on that card, at least the
Speaker 2: one that I got, it mentions that it is illegal
Speaker 2: to not register when you are of age and you're
Speaker 2: a US citizen, and it can lead to imprisonment and
Speaker 2: a fine. I don't know how much it was at
Speaker 2: the time, but right now the fine could be up
Speaker 2: to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars US.
Speaker 4: Yeap serious consequences. We also know that most of us today,
Speaker 4: most of us tuning in, especially if you're based in
Speaker 4: the United States, you're probably going to associate the draft
Speaker 4: with the Vietnam War because a lot of people have
Speaker 4: real life experience with that still, and it's been depicted
Speaker 4: so many times in works of fiction like The Things
Speaker 4: They Carried or works of film like again the excellent Apocalypse. Now,
Speaker 4: but it goes so much deeper than that, and there's
Speaker 4: breaking news. There's a growing concern. Tonight's question, as we
Speaker 4: record on Monday, July thirteenth, twenty twenty six, will the
Speaker 4: US begin conscripting soldiers again, and if so, what happens.
Speaker 4: Let's dive into it. Here are the facts. We call
Speaker 4: it the draft here in the States, it's our local
Speaker 4: term for mandatory enlistment in the armed services. Most other
Speaker 4: countries call that conscription right or mandatory service. It's been
Speaker 4: around forever, like Mesopotamia level forever.
Speaker 3: Almost considered a civic duty, you know, as being part
Speaker 3: of a society. You got to fight for that society,
Speaker 3: which in a lot of ways makes sense, but it
Speaker 3: gets complicated once we get into some real murky political territories.
Speaker 3: But in the old days, I imagine it would have
Speaker 3: made sense to a certain degree that you know, if
Speaker 3: you want the comfort of living in a protected civilization,
Speaker 3: that you may be called up to participate in its protection. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It gets hairy though when we're talking about some of
Speaker 2: the early empires that were doing this kind of thing right,
Speaker 2: because the empire rolls through, makes up some new rules
Speaker 2: and then says, hey, if we need you, you've got
Speaker 2: to fight with your blood and your arms, and you
Speaker 2: have to defend this empire that now controls and owns
Speaker 2: your entire society.
Speaker 3: And you have to aid in us acquiring other empires
Speaker 3: or in broadening the reach of our empire, so that
Speaker 3: point it becomes a whole new thing, not just about
Speaker 3: protecting you and yours, but about aiding in some massive,
Speaker 3: essentially corporate takeover of the world.
Speaker 4: Right right, right, And you have to comply because similar
Speaker 4: to the way healthcare is tied to employment in the
Speaker 4: United States today, in the times of ancient empires like Babylon,
Speaker 4: before they had a warrior class, like the Ottoman janisaries
Speaker 4: of later Eras, before they had a military elite, your
Speaker 4: health insurance job thing. Right, The connection for your rights
Speaker 4: and rules and responsibilities in this society was something called
Speaker 4: income il m. It was a conscription system that said,
Speaker 4: if you want to own land, for the right to
Speaker 4: own any land of your own in our empire, you
Speaker 4: have to be a soldier when we need you to
Speaker 4: be to your earlier point nol. And we know this
Speaker 4: is true because it's literally carved in the Code of Hammurabi.
Speaker 2: And let's remember here that often when conscription is used
Speaker 2: throughout time, it's used in what would be called in
Speaker 2: emergency by the folks who are ringing the bell, right,
Speaker 2: the ones who are saying, hey, hey, hey, everybody out,
Speaker 2: it's time we need you.
Speaker 3: For this emergence, you to serve, right, yeah, and we
Speaker 3: know this is very popular for empires historically.
Speaker 4: It's actually more the rule than the exception. If you
Speaker 4: fast forward a bit through feudal Europe and the Middle Ages,
Speaker 4: we'll see all sorts of similar systems. If you are
Speaker 4: a peasant and you own land, you might be required
Speaker 4: to look around your family and choose one guy from
Speaker 4: your family for military duty, so everybody has to pay
Speaker 4: a blood price.
Speaker 3: And in the feudal system, and maybe a Game of
Speaker 3: thronesifying this a little too much, it would be this
Speaker 3: idea of these lords calling up their banner men, you
Speaker 3: know that are sort of the folks under them. In
Speaker 3: that structure, they answer to the lords of the region,
Speaker 3: who answer to the king.
Speaker 4: Right and when the lords of the region answering to
Speaker 4: a king or attempting to overthrow a king also possibility, right, right, man,
Speaker 4: when they fight or when they call up their troops,
Speaker 4: they're all given. This often happened they were given like
Speaker 4: a quota. Go back to you know, your little souzarain,
Speaker 4: go back to the part of our area you control,
Speaker 4: and don't come back unless you have two hundred people
Speaker 4: with you. We don't care how you get them. Just
Speaker 4: make sure they can fight. And if you didn't own land,
Speaker 4: you were not immune to this. If you were a serf,
Speaker 4: you didn't have much of a say in the in
Speaker 4: the first place. The ruler said, jump, they had no
Speaker 4: choice but to comply.
Speaker 3: Well, before we had things like nuclear weapons and cold
Speaker 3: wars and all that. I mean, the measure of power
Speaker 3: was how many able bodied humans you could call up
Speaker 3: at any given time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's also remember that the lords are probably
Speaker 2: still wearing their silken cloths.
Speaker 3: No doubt about it. They're not riding out to battle there, guys.
Speaker 2: They might ask some chain mill or some ceremonial armor on,
Speaker 2: you know, and hang out on a parapet somewhere and
Speaker 2: see you all off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do check out our We did an episode on
Speaker 4: Ridiculous History a while back on whether knights really wore
Speaker 4: suits of armor and how it worked. But for the lords,
Speaker 4: especially after a certain amount of time and aristocratic degeneracy,
Speaker 4: they became ceremonial pieces. These guys weren't on the front line.
Speaker 3: Golden filigreed, you know, bespoke pieces that were worthy of
Speaker 3: the station, not functional in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: Yes, why don't presidents.
Speaker 3: It's a good analog man.
Speaker 4: And those portraits were exactly like the covers you would
Speaker 4: see gangster rap CDs for their time, because they had
Speaker 4: you know, they always had Nolan I. You were talking,
Speaker 4: you and I were talking about this. It always had
Speaker 4: like a little dog on the side. Well, sidekick, look
Speaker 4: at my weapons, look at my jewelry. It is a
Speaker 4: rap album cover.
Speaker 3: Well, real quick, Matt, you're talking about the President's the
Speaker 3: analogy between you know, the lords and the kings and
Speaker 3: the presidents. I mean now it's in of suits of armor.
Speaker 3: We just have suits. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was just referencing system of a down, one of
Speaker 2: the songs they made.
Speaker 4: And we know this. We know that during the French
Speaker 4: Revolution a lot of these nobles and rulers and aristocrats
Speaker 4: did end up on the front lines because their heads
Speaker 4: were taken from them. This is also right. This is
Speaker 4: also where we see the first uh what we would
Speaker 4: call the first like modern draft from which most other
Speaker 4: draft systems.
Speaker 3: Set placed on pikes even know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and an interesting change in the French Revolution is
Speaker 4: that people were pressed into service regardless of their social
Speaker 4: class under the old regime, and the us to be
Speaker 4: fair caught onto this idea pretty quickly. We had something
Speaker 4: like a draft back in the Revolutionary War. So far
Speaker 4: up to now again July thirteenth, twenty twenty six, the
Speaker 4: US has passed some version of a draft in six
Speaker 4: separate conflicts, the aforementioned Revolutionary War, the Civil War Terrible name,
Speaker 4: World Wars one and two, the Korean War, and the
Speaker 4: Vietnam War, so only six times across like two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty something years.
Speaker 3: Well, ben to your point about France too, I mean,
Speaker 3: with the lower classes also being called up to fight,
Speaker 3: the cause matters, you know, at a certain point, I mean,
Speaker 3: those lower class folks would go on to fight, but
Speaker 3: not for those in power against them, you know, to
Speaker 3: protect their own rights. So you do get to a
Speaker 3: really tricky situation where the cause you're being called up
Speaker 3: to defend is not yours and does not in any
Speaker 3: way aid you and your family. Then things really start
Speaker 3: to get iffy.
Speaker 2: Let's stay on there for a second, because if we
Speaker 2: look at some stats, I only have stats for World
Speaker 2: War One through Vietnam War, but just with the number
Speaker 2: of human people that were conscripted to war during these
Speaker 2: wars within the US. And this is coming from CNN
Speaker 2: via the selective service, like their actual data. World War One,
Speaker 2: which is nineteen seventeen to eighteen, two point eight million
Speaker 2: people got conscripted. Two point eight million people got pulled
Speaker 2: up in this, which is just crazy to think about.
Speaker 2: But then World War Two in the US, ten point
Speaker 2: one million people got conscripted. Ten million human beings got
Speaker 2: pulled into this. And when we're talking about you know,
Speaker 2: why we fight, right, there's a pretty famous problem beaganda
Speaker 2: film that the US government made called why We Fight
Speaker 2: in a bunch of different parts, and we're actually going
Speaker 2: to be using that for a video coming up shortly
Speaker 2: for this show. But there's a very specific picture and
Speaker 2: compelling picture painted for why we needed that number of
Speaker 2: human beings to fight against Germany and then against Germany again,
Speaker 2: and you know why the world was at stake? Right Then,
Speaker 2: when you get to the Korean conflict, Ben and I'm
Speaker 2: this is where we start to see that part matter
Speaker 2: a little more. Is it are we really protecting the
Speaker 2: world or a country or is this more ideological when
Speaker 2: we're talking about you know, the country of Korea battling
Speaker 2: amongst itself for ideological purposes, right, it's more ideological at
Speaker 2: that point I think, I guess it is all the
Speaker 2: way down.
Speaker 3: But and then Vietnam really represents this, you know, public
Speaker 3: perception of that sea change, where this ain't really about
Speaker 3: us as it and I don't want to.
Speaker 4: Go Yeah, I mean, that's that's part of why drafts
Speaker 4: have always been controversial to one degree or another, especially when,
Speaker 4: as we are saying, the overall public does not fully
Speaker 4: support a conflict, and public support for conflicts history is proven.
Speaker 4: There's an interesting correlation the better communication technology is with
Speaker 4: the public, though more likely the public is to disagree
Speaker 4: with the reasons for going to war, especially foreign interventions.
Speaker 4: Right things are not happening on US soil.
Speaker 3: Well, that was a big part of Vietnam too, because
Speaker 3: there was more reporting on that. It was a lot
Speaker 3: more transparent, you know. I mean, I'm sure that the
Speaker 3: administration wasn't pleased about that to a certain degree, but
Speaker 3: it was more that people really seeing what was going on,
Speaker 3: and it made it a lot harder to hit them
Speaker 3: with that propaganda piece because they were getting a more
Speaker 3: realistic portrayal of what was actually going on on the ground,
Speaker 3: what was actually at stake, and who was responsible for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were getting in media arrests, video footage. That
Speaker 4: was the huge difference.
Speaker 2: And yet still the United States government was able to
Speaker 2: conscript one and a half million people for the Korean
Speaker 2: War and then one point nine million people for the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War. And it's still unfathomable to me that that
Speaker 2: number of human beings went through the system we're going
Speaker 2: to be describing today and then had to just go
Speaker 2: get on a bus, go get tested, and then head
Speaker 2: on out to a conflict, you know, half the world away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and again for Americans, Vietnam is probably the most
Speaker 4: well represented instance of this controversy. We know during that
Speaker 4: draft period, a lot of people sought ways to get out,
Speaker 4: either as conscientious objectors I think this rule is malarchy,
Speaker 4: or I think this war is malarchy, or they moved away.
Speaker 4: There's a great scene in the Phenomenal novel the things
Speaker 4: they carried about people who contemplate going to Canada. It
Speaker 4: was much easier to squeeze over the border back in
Speaker 4: the seventies, or they would try to escape Mild Harry
Speaker 4: Servis through embellishing certain medical conditions. There's the story of
Speaker 4: I think it was Ted Nugent was accused Ted pardon
Speaker 4: me if I'm off base here if I'm confusing you
Speaker 4: with someone else. But the musician Ted Nugent was accused
Speaker 4: of purposely crapping himself to get out of service. And
Speaker 4: then of course you have things like embellishing medical conditions
Speaker 4: like bone spurs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Ted Nugent of course also famously had cat
Speaker 3: scratch fever, so that was also.
Speaker 2: I don't I you don't think that. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 2: the only reason I'm sitting here talking to you today
Speaker 2: and you can see me right now, is because my
Speaker 2: father got drafted to the Vietnam War. When he went
Speaker 2: in and got tested, they said, oh no, you can't
Speaker 2: because of this health thing. You need to come back.
Speaker 2: He got tested again, they passed him. So he went
Speaker 2: out to a bus and as he went to get
Speaker 2: on that bus, his name for some reason, we don't
Speaker 2: know why, it was not on the clipboard as of
Speaker 2: people that are to be taken for basic training. So
Speaker 2: he got off and he didn't have to go to war,
Speaker 2: and he was able to have children. So there you
Speaker 2: go a lot of kind and.
Speaker 3: I mean, like in terms of who we're gonna get
Speaker 3: into all of that, like the people that aren't qualified
Speaker 3: quote unquote once they do get called up, but even
Speaker 3: just the whole getting on the bus and having to
Speaker 3: go to be tested, Like when you think about it now,
Speaker 3: it feels like something out of a dystopian sci fi situation,
Speaker 3: you know, like being rounded up and forced to go
Speaker 3: to some sort of like you know, facility, Like I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: It's just the reason why I'm emphasizing this emergency lever,
Speaker 2: Like why the draft and conscription is such an emergency
Speaker 2: lever is because there they wanted people like my dad
Speaker 2: who was very young, you know, just getting into college
Speaker 2: and still in his teens at the time, about to
Speaker 2: turn twenty I think, or a little No, he was
Speaker 2: still in his teens, and he was a college student,
Speaker 2: like a liberal arts college student. And what the hell
Speaker 2: is he going to do even if he goes through
Speaker 2: basic training. That guy doesn't have the whatever the warrior
Speaker 2: spirit thing that Hegzith always likes to talk about. He
Speaker 2: doesn't have that, and you're just gonna put him out
Speaker 2: there on the front line somewhere because it's an emergency.
Speaker 2: It just seems it seems backwards.
Speaker 3: In a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it almost. It always brings up the dangerous sinister
Speaker 4: implication of people being used as cannon father right in
Speaker 4: shake and bake programs, and Vietnam obviously is the most
Speaker 4: recent in American memory. The most recent example of the draft,
Speaker 4: which ended in nineteen seventy three, but before then it
Speaker 4: was an even bigger conscription scandal during the Civil War.
Speaker 4: This led to a bunch of very violent riots because
Speaker 4: their Draft Act was in eighteen sixty three and it said, look,
Speaker 4: if you are twenty years old or between twenty and
Speaker 4: forty five years old, you have to register for the draft.
Speaker 4: But you only have to actually do this if you're poor,
Speaker 4: because you can pay someone to show up in your place,
Speaker 4: or if you have three hundred dollars, you can give
Speaker 4: it to Uncle Sam and you don't have to do
Speaker 4: anything after that. The problem was three hundred bucks might
Speaker 4: not sound like a backbreaking amount of cash now, but
Speaker 4: it was a huge amount of cheddar back in the day,
Speaker 4: back in the eighteen hundreds, and so this three hundred
Speaker 4: dollars price point by design was to help save the
Speaker 4: children of the wealthy. They knew this option was far
Speaker 4: out of reach for the majority of families for sure,
Speaker 4: so it became a war of the poor go which
Speaker 4: most hairshot. Yeah, golden parachute. This, these are serious economic inequalities.
Speaker 4: The most infamous backlash was the New York draft riots.
Speaker 4: Over one hundred and nineteen people died in just three
Speaker 4: days in July of eighteen sixty three, and most of
Speaker 4: the people who were affected by this were impoverished Irish immigrants.
Speaker 4: There was also a culture war at play. The powers
Speaker 4: that be said, you know, Irish immigrants who are being targeted,
Speaker 4: don't question the system. You should find a different minority
Speaker 4: to hate, and we think that minority should be African Americans.
Speaker 4: So rioters even burned orphanages.
Speaker 3: To the ground. Yes, that's bad. Look bad, Look that's yeah,
Speaker 3: you know right right, part's in the right place. Bad execution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ben, I'm still thinking about that concept of you
Speaker 2: could pay three hundred dollars and get out of it.
Speaker 2: That to me is mind blowing, and I don't think
Speaker 2: there's anything officially on the books today that's equivalent to that. Right,
Speaker 2: you can't pay to get out of.
Speaker 3: Well, not directly.
Speaker 2: In the early register.
Speaker 3: You can pay somebody under the table to hook you
Speaker 3: up with the right diagnosis, I imagine.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's one way. You could also you could
Speaker 4: also exercise a little bit of nepotism to get a
Speaker 4: push domestic assignment.
Speaker 2: Right, so it's like important to the war somehow.
Speaker 4: Important to the war or necessitates you not being in
Speaker 4: the war. So maybe you get a posh position in
Speaker 4: a federal level domestic operation.
Speaker 2: Right dude, yep, okay, okay, So there is something like that,
Speaker 2: but just.
Speaker 3: It's all off the books. It's all yes, underhanded and
Speaker 3: this is this, I gotta at least respect.
Speaker 4: Or that they were right above board.
Speaker 3: Pay us three hundred and you can you can.
Speaker 2: Go I mean I was gonna say, or Noal, it
Speaker 2: has to be absolutely official, like it has to be
Speaker 2: some kind of big time official position. That is so
Speaker 2: in the open as you're talking about, Ben, everybody just
Speaker 2: goes okay, oh no, I definitely can't.
Speaker 3: Go too important big defense.
Speaker 2: Just seeing that three hundred dollars, the equivalent now is
Speaker 2: around eight thousand bucks, So.
Speaker 4: Have imagined hundred and seventy nine dollars in twelve seents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So imagine if you just had that like cash
Speaker 2: line around kind of thing, like you had eight thousand
Speaker 2: dollars you had access to right now, and you could
Speaker 2: get out of it and now imagine how many people
Speaker 2: in your world don't have that, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, it would have to be a more prohibitive
Speaker 3: number if they're going to do it today. It would
Speaker 3: have to be almost like paying for that gold immigration card.
Speaker 3: It'd have to be like a million bucks or something
Speaker 3: crazy that only the Mega Ridge could have.
Speaker 4: I think ten thousand would do it.
Speaker 2: I think I mean eight to ten thousand. I'm really seriously,
Speaker 2: I think that's prohibitive. That's like a down payment, like
Speaker 2: a huge down payment on a major purchase, right that
Speaker 2: somebody's been saving up for for a long time.
Speaker 3: So I'm just I know, but this would be this
Speaker 3: is like emergency stuff. This is the kind of thing
Speaker 3: you would use your emergency fund, you would use all
Speaker 3: of your savings to do. I'm just saying, like I
Speaker 3: think most people would to save their kid from the draft,
Speaker 3: would probably tap into every saving that they have, every
Speaker 3: bit of saving that they had. So I'm just saying
Speaker 3: the number for it not to be just everyone. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying everyone has ten thousand dollars in savings. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying there would be accessibility to that kind of money,
Speaker 3: whether it be borrowing it from relatives or whatever. That
Speaker 3: might cause a ding in the effectiveness of the draft.
Speaker 3: But if it were higher than that, then truly it
Speaker 3: would be that golden parachute.
Speaker 4: Here's another thing that would happen immediately in this economic climate.
Speaker 4: There would be new operations that I would call freedom layaway,
Speaker 4: where you have instead of a student loan, you have
Speaker 4: to get the out of the war loan rightly, and
Speaker 4: you just spend the rest of your life paying that
Speaker 4: off with radacious interest, yes, at an egregious interest rate,
Speaker 4: and it does not get discharged in bankruptcy. That very
Speaker 4: well could happen.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: All of your purchases for the next year are pre
Speaker 2: taxed somehow.
Speaker 4: And we see so we see the United States and
Speaker 4: indeed all other countries consistently tinkering with this system. The
Speaker 4: Selective Service Act of nineteen seventeen is signed by the
Speaker 4: Woodrow administration as the US is spinning up to enter
Speaker 4: World War One. We mentioned that earlier stat about two
Speaker 4: point eight million people. I think it's important to realize
Speaker 4: the ratio here. Two point eight million actually got drafted,
Speaker 4: but twenty four million had to register. This is a
Speaker 4: dark lottery, and it waxes wanes over time. The thing
Speaker 4: that has a lot of people worried right now is
Speaker 4: currently our SSS. The Selective Service system is on standby.
Speaker 4: Congress can very easily just the switch and start up again.
Speaker 3: They might think about rebranding that name to a given circumstance.
Speaker 3: I don't know THESSS ZSSS.
Speaker 4: Indeed, it means that if you even if you are
Speaker 4: not a citizen, if you are an immigrant resident here
Speaker 4: legally a non citizen, if you're a dude between the
Speaker 4: ages of eighteen and twenty five, you are registered with
Speaker 4: the system. You have to do it within a month
Speaker 4: of your eighteenth birthday. Currently, women are excluded from the draft,
Speaker 4: but are allowed to volunteer for service, and we'll see
Speaker 4: why that is leading to a very nasty bag of
Speaker 4: badgers in the near future. But I guess again, without
Speaker 4: we're going to focus on the States because we know
Speaker 4: that best for tonight's episode, but we do have to
Speaker 4: emphasize conscription models exist in so many countries across the planet,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them actually have a more hardline thing.
Speaker 4: Countries like Israel, for instance. Yeah, both female and male
Speaker 4: citizens don't just have to register for the possibility of
Speaker 4: military service. You have a mandatory term in the army
Speaker 4: unless you qualify for certain exemptions like religious exempts. Here
Speaker 4: is the most popular there.
Speaker 3: Like I believe the actress Gail Goodou was in the
Speaker 3: Israeli military for that very reason.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean, there are little policy differences from
Speaker 4: one place to the next, but what it proves time
Speaker 4: and time again is that a significant amount of countries
Speaker 4: all ran a calculus and they said, look, we have
Speaker 4: to do something to make sure we actually have an
Speaker 4: army when we need one. So ethics aside. Objectively, that
Speaker 4: makes sense, but it also, you know, it makes sense
Speaker 4: that the public would see this as an incredibly controversial thing,
Speaker 4: especially if you don't support a war. I was looking
Speaker 4: at a awesome guy in Nate Silver, an amazing analyst,
Speaker 4: and on his website, his research indicates that as of
Speaker 4: July twelfth, like yesterday as we're recording, only thirty six
Speaker 4: percent of the American public like supported the idea of
Speaker 4: the conflict with a rat fifty seven percent strongly oppose it.
Speaker 4: And people don't want to die for something they don't
Speaker 4: believe it.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean to the early versions of what we
Speaker 3: were talking about, where it sort of makes sense, where
Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, in order to be a part of
Speaker 3: the civilization, I should be willing to protect it, you know,
Speaker 3: to participate in its protection from outside invaders or you know,
Speaker 3: bad guys coming to threaten our way of life. But
Speaker 3: once you get into all these political machinations and these
Speaker 3: like really nuanced kind of deals and international affairs, it
Speaker 3: starts to become really ideologically driven and the justification for well, no,
Speaker 3: this is that thing, this war is us protecting ourselves.
Speaker 3: But it's just the circuitous path to that. And we're saying, like,
Speaker 3: we're protecting ourselves now from what could happen if this happens.
Speaker 3: It's that, you know what I'm saying, Like, it's just
Speaker 3: it becomes so far removed from the original notion of
Speaker 3: just we're here to protect ourselves from people trying to
Speaker 3: hurt us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Interventionist policy is always tricky, especially in purported democracies.
Speaker 4: So in Vietnam, to your point, no big rationalization for
Speaker 4: foreign intervention was it was sold to the public as ideological.
Speaker 4: It was called the Domino effect, which I think we've
Speaker 4: all heard of, which argued that in the Great War
Speaker 4: between communism and capitalism, every country that agreed with the
Speaker 4: communist model would lead to another country agreeing, creating an
Speaker 4: exponential growth of communism. So that was our rationale and.
Speaker 3: Of red scare thinking just you know, I mean, the
Speaker 3: big bad the boogeyman of communism, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that didn't work. So we did a false
Speaker 4: flag but the Gulf of Tonkin, and that that was
Speaker 4: our Bella's causey yeah, yeah. I mean the last day though,
Speaker 4: the last day there was ever a draft. A lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of you in the audience tonight. This
Speaker 4: is going to sound wild and far room from your lives.
Speaker 4: The last day of the Vietnam draft was June thirtieth,
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy three. Condolences to everyone who got roped in
Speaker 4: on June twenty ninth. That's got to feel like a
Speaker 4: kick in.
Speaker 3: The pants, dude, exactly the day before.
Speaker 2: What are your opinions on the concept of mandatory basic
Speaker 2: training for every human being that reaches the age of nineteen.
Speaker 4: I think it's a good idea.
Speaker 3: I think it's similar to the idea of like presidential
Speaker 3: physical fitness challenges in public schools. I mean there's a
Speaker 3: certain amount of like preparedness and positive things that come
Speaker 3: from I don't think it has to be combat driven
Speaker 3: per se, but I just think there's certain I think
Speaker 3: there should be some level of physical fitness requirements in
Speaker 3: this country, and we can see the you know, the
Speaker 3: downside of that not being the case. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: an interesting concept that I'm into it.
Speaker 4: It's an issue of national security and also a lot
Speaker 4: of countries that do have mandatory service when you join
Speaker 4: up for your two years or what have you, that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean you're going to be in a combat role automatically.
Speaker 4: There's so many logistical and support positions that enable a
Speaker 4: fighting force.
Speaker 2: I think about our previous discussions of a lot of
Speaker 2: European countries that have that six months twelve months basically
Speaker 2: where you're conscripted the moment you turn a certain age,
Speaker 2: or in Turkey, you go, you know, for several months,
Speaker 2: and then you're done until you're possibly needed, at which
Speaker 2: time you would be like fully conscripted back into the thing.
Speaker 2: But you're trained now. I part of me really wishes
Speaker 2: I had gone through some kind of basic training just
Speaker 2: to have that knowledge, you know, or that because fitness
Speaker 2: would be good, right, but you have to maintain that
Speaker 2: and if you're gonna Let's say get this basic training
Speaker 2: and then five years down the road you get conscripted
Speaker 2: for an emergency, you may not be in that same shape.
Speaker 3: That's a good but you're talking about more of the
Speaker 3: thinking behind the drills than like some of the strategic aspect.
Speaker 2: Understand this, Yeah, right, So if you do find yourself
Speaker 2: in that position in its emergency, you at least can
Speaker 2: hit the ground running.
Speaker 4: And we again have said it in the past, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of things involved with health and physical
Speaker 4: fitness that should be considered matters of national security. Right,
Speaker 4: public healthcare is a matter of national security. That's the
Speaker 4: only way it's going to pass in the United States.
Speaker 4: And now to this point about fitness, we see some
Speaker 4: long tail consequences on the horizon. Since nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 4: since June thirtieth, the US military has been an entirely
Speaker 4: voluntary force. And I'm going hard with the air quotes
Speaker 4: there because later in this episode we'll see why that
Speaker 4: is not exactly one hundred percent true. And we also
Speaker 4: see guys, like we were talking in our earlier Strange
Speaker 4: News segment this week, given the growing tensions in the
Speaker 4: Middle Eastern sphere, in the East Asian sphere, the growing
Speaker 4: habit of appetite for intervention in Latin America. We see
Speaker 4: an administration that has more and more people worried, and
Speaker 4: more and more people are asking, based on recent signals
Speaker 4: and the news and from policymakers, what if the draft
Speaker 4: comes back, what will it look like, how will it
Speaker 4: be instituted? What does that mean for the future of
Speaker 4: America and American families. Here's where it gets crazy. We
Speaker 4: have been keeping an eye on this since the end
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty five and thew and early this year
Speaker 4: twenty six because a lot of people began speculating about
Speaker 4: a return to conscription, a return from the draft to
Speaker 4: the draft. A big part of this is that we're
Speaker 4: seeing a lot of politicos an analyst in Washington and
Speaker 4: military circles quietly working to modernize the current draft system
Speaker 4: we have. So imagine if you're walking past your neighbor's house,
Speaker 4: right and you know this guy used to street race
Speaker 4: all the time, and you see them with their sick
Speaker 4: challenger to keep it military, or you see of tinkering
Speaker 4: with that stuff and putting all kinds of mods under
Speaker 4: the hood, and you say, hey, are you getting back
Speaker 4: into street racing and they say, oh no, I'm just uh,
Speaker 4: just modernizing.
Speaker 3: So you're saying, behind the scenes, there have been for
Speaker 3: who knows how long, efforts to streamline the system in
Speaker 3: a way that if it were needed to be implemented,
Speaker 3: it could be done more efficiently.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's that's absolutely the aim of the current administration.
Speaker 4: There was a you guys, remember for a while there
Speaker 4: was a press secretary, Dames Carolyn Levitt.
Speaker 3: Ain't she back? Is she back maternity? Well she's talking again,
Speaker 3: saying real smart stuff. Yeah, yep, love her.
Speaker 4: So ted no notes. In an earlier interview, Levitt said
Speaker 4: a draft is not part of the current administration's plans.
Speaker 4: Dramatic pause ellipses, but also, our great President Donald Trump
Speaker 4: will not rule out what we call any future options.
Speaker 4: Fearless leader, I'm not really, I'm just fixing the car.
Speaker 4: You're the one being weird just because I'm painting racing
Speaker 4: stripes on my car.
Speaker 3: I don't see it happening. I mean, I know we're
Speaker 3: not there yet, but it's just such an odd deflection
Speaker 3: and just a way of just increasing anxiety. I mean,
Speaker 3: I immediately googled, like, I'm forty two, isn't do I qualify,
Speaker 3: And then it turned out there have been examples of
Speaker 3: that a drange being broadened given certain emergency circumstances. So
Speaker 3: it's not beyond the realm of possibility that were they
Speaker 3: to flip it, and it were extreme enough situation to
Speaker 3: require them doing that in the first place, flip it
Speaker 3: back on that they might also broaden the age range.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I keep thinking about that eminem line while we're
Speaker 4: researching this. I'm twenty eight or twenty three. They're going
Speaker 4: to take you before they take me. We also see
Speaker 4: it in Russia, by the way, which broadened some of
Speaker 4: their conscription age requirements.
Speaker 2: I just had this image as you're describing this, and
Speaker 2: you know, us being so old now at this point,
Speaker 2: sorry that we are a little bit. It's fine. I'm
Speaker 2: imagining all of these eighteen nineteen year olds getting conscripted
Speaker 2: out of high schools and stuff. And I'm just imagining
Speaker 2: all the kids, you know, like, look, and this is
Speaker 2: not trying to be age just here. This is just
Speaker 2: my experience of what I've observed. But all these kids
Speaker 2: that are just this, I gotta do what.
Speaker 3: Fair, Matt. Now that's true, there's an attention span issue.
Speaker 3: I think too. But also warfare has changed fundamentally, maybe
Speaker 3: a little more in line with that on the phone mentality,
Speaker 3: and some of those kids that are absolutely shredding at
Speaker 3: call of duty would probably be great own operation and
Speaker 3: things like that. So, you know, it doesn't mean the
Speaker 3: same thing as it used to mean, because getting drafted
Speaker 3: today wouldn't necessarily mean that you're quote unquote on the
Speaker 3: ground running with a rifle and you know, towards the
Speaker 3: enemy or going over the top. It might be more
Speaker 3: likely mean that you're piloting some sort of drone or
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, No, if we're talking about millions of people, right
Speaker 2: or even hundreds of thousands of people they get conscripted,
Speaker 2: there aren't going to be that many drones right for.
Speaker 3: I'm just being speculative here, but I am curious. We
Speaker 3: don't know what it looks like. It's a good point,
Speaker 3: that's true.
Speaker 4: And to that earlier point, we know for sure that
Speaker 4: certain technical roles, certain different moss that didn't exist in
Speaker 4: earlier conflicts are going to be prioritized. And actually eighteen
Speaker 4: and nineteen year olds are not usually the top prioritization
Speaker 4: in the draft system. I mean, I want to go
Speaker 4: back to this before we lose it. One of the
Speaker 4: worrying things politically and domestically for this current administration is
Speaker 4: that strategic ambiguity that will they won't they? Is it
Speaker 4: two weeks, in another two weeks or is it right now?
Speaker 4: Because I had a bad day on Twitter. That's why
Speaker 4: a lot of the American public is definitely creeped out
Speaker 4: and not satisfied with this. Not right now, but maybe
Speaker 4: maybe maybe you don't know if it will.
Speaker 3: You don't know how on the table.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I will. Don't ask me if
Speaker 4: I will. I don't know. That's scary, that's terrifying. Because
Speaker 4: a lot of our Vietnam veterans in the crowd tonight,
Speaker 4: and thank you for tuning in, you already know that
Speaker 4: being drafted can absolutely up end your life. Even if
Speaker 4: you're not in a combat role, even if you're not
Speaker 4: continually risky serious injury and death, you are losing years
Speaker 4: of your life that you can't get back. So to
Speaker 4: hear of the White House, the leadership of the land
Speaker 4: say there are no immediate plans, we all realize that's
Speaker 4: a hell of a lot different from saying absolutely not.
Speaker 3: It's very flippant, very noncommille. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. Man.
Speaker 3: If I were even called up to go to be
Speaker 3: tested or to be in that system, I don't know
Speaker 3: what I would do. I think I would pull the
Speaker 3: rip chord and get the go back and be out
Speaker 3: of here, because just to even be in that system,
Speaker 3: just to even be pulled into that, that could be
Speaker 3: life changing. And just the feeling, the loss of autonomy,
Speaker 3: all the feeling that all of a sudden you're being
Speaker 3: pulled into something that you don't support or that you
Speaker 3: have no ideological connection to in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3: I just I think that would it would I would
Speaker 3: be terrified just to even get that call.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And it's understandable that terror, especially to the earlier
Speaker 4: note about being glib. We can say is a political
Speaker 4: point that at the very least the current administration has
Speaker 4: some room for improvement in their bedside manner and their communication.
Speaker 4: I'm recalling a recent or a time interview a while
Speaker 4: with President Donald Trump. He was asked about Iran. Right,
Speaker 4: This interview was all about Iran for the most part,
Speaker 4: and he had a line that really stood out to
Speaker 4: me and I think to everybody when he was. He
Speaker 4: was being pressed on some points about the conflict, and
Speaker 4: he said, quote like I said, some people will die
Speaker 4: when you go to war, some people will die.
Speaker 3: End quote. That doesn't what an analysis, sir?
Speaker 2: Isn't it weird to think you get a moral evaluation
Speaker 2: when you show up at one of these what do
Speaker 2: they call him maps state? What is it called military
Speaker 2: entrance or something like that processing stations?
Speaker 3: Feels like being amoral and certain parts of this discussion
Speaker 3: would be a feature, not a bug, you know, and
Speaker 3: the ability to put morals aside in favor of a
Speaker 3: potentially incredibly amorl cause or conflict or a set of orders.
Speaker 4: And they considered for a lot of those evaluations in
Speaker 4: the past. Please remember, folks, they considered sexual orientation as
Speaker 4: a matter of morality. Right, So there were a lot
Speaker 4: of loopholes, and there still are a lot of loopholes.
Speaker 4: That's a huge problem with the system.
Speaker 3: Can we also just point out, I don't remember the
Speaker 3: names of the group, but there was a group of
Speaker 3: legacy commanders, former I believe, male military high commanding officials
Speaker 3: who put out a video saying it's your duty to
Speaker 3: deny or to ignore war crime. You know, you know,
Speaker 3: orders that would constitute war crimes, and then the administration
Speaker 3: said that's treason. Right to say that to remind people
Speaker 3: of their fundamental duty to not do war crime is treason.
Speaker 4: That's and they're also in addition to concerns about how
Speaker 4: many loopholes exist, there are also concerns, like you said,
Speaker 4: about the morality of complying to war crimes. They're huge
Speaker 4: concerns about how some demographics are inevitably targeted more than
Speaker 4: others for conscription. And then we also have to ask
Speaker 4: is this system really a lottery? The current one, However
Speaker 4: it gets modernized, we think the current one is still
Speaker 4: going to be like the Vietnam sss of old. They're
Speaker 4: going to use a national lottery based on collected birth dates,
Speaker 4: meaning that birthdays will be drawn randomly to determine the
Speaker 4: order in which you are called for evaluation and potential
Speaker 4: membership non consensual in our fighting forces. So they aim
Speaker 4: for twenty year olds first. That gets prioritized first, at
Speaker 4: least that's the way the old system was. After that,
Speaker 4: it aims for twenty one year olds and then arrange
Speaker 4: for people from twenty two to twenty five, and then
Speaker 4: as the fourth iteration, the fourth step they call up
Speaker 4: the nineteen and eighteen year olds. They actually don't want
Speaker 4: them first for a couple of reasons. You know, pretty
Speaker 4: understandable schooling, probably some cognitive development. Right when you get
Speaker 4: to your when you report, like Matt was saying to
Speaker 4: your MEPs, you get a medical screening, a physical and
Speaker 4: admin screening, and that is the time when unscrupulous people
Speaker 4: embellish or make up conditions to get out. That is
Speaker 4: also the time when people who may really want to
Speaker 4: serve might find out they have a condition that precludes
Speaker 4: them from service.
Speaker 2: It's weird just the word unscrupulous there. I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: people some who are aware of the system and the
Speaker 2: machine and don't want to fight for it. Is kind
Speaker 2: of the same as somebody who you know would be
Speaker 2: considered unscrupulous there.
Speaker 4: I'd say unscrupulous is in terms of people who make
Speaker 4: up conditions, medical conditions. That is why we're using the
Speaker 4: word unscrupulous. Conscientious objectors, which is what you're describing. I
Speaker 4: think there are different bag of badgers, and not in
Speaker 4: any way, if anything, they are scrupled.
Speaker 3: All roads lead to rome. I guess it's all about
Speaker 3: the outcome, you know what I mean, and like how
Speaker 3: well you are able to pull it off. Your actual
Speaker 3: reasoning for wanting to get out of it, I think
Speaker 3: is not necessarily going to be the same. You know,
Speaker 3: some people might just want to get out of it
Speaker 3: because they know they don't necessarily have an opinion about
Speaker 3: it one way or the other. So I'd see your point, Ben,
Speaker 3: and differentiating between the kind of reasoning behind wanting to
Speaker 3: get out of it.
Speaker 4: And there's not, by the way, the good news, which
Speaker 4: will harp out a couple times here, there is not
Speaker 4: currently a draft. The question is why is it so
Speaker 4: easy for the US to enact conscription whenever it wants,
Speaker 4: regardless of whether or not there is an actual war,
Speaker 4: regardless of whether or not the American public supports the
Speaker 4: idea of intervening in a conflict. The fact that lawmakers
Speaker 4: are looking so intently at tinkering with the system and
Speaker 4: modernizing it, it's a fat red flag for the critics.
Speaker 4: We can't ignore that some modernization is probably necessary whether
Speaker 4: or not a draft happens. It's been a while since
Speaker 4: one was in play, so the current process has a
Speaker 4: lot of problems, not just conscription, but the way people
Speaker 4: can end up in the armed forces overall. I mean,
Speaker 4: the biggest one, obviously we talked about, is that the
Speaker 4: onus is on you. You're a newly minted eighteen year old.
Speaker 4: You've got so much going on in your life nowadays
Speaker 4: you probably don't write letters statistically, but now you've got
Speaker 4: to reply with this one. And if you don't take action,
Speaker 4: then even though the government could register you themselves, you
Speaker 4: are going to find heavy consequences for not complying. It's
Speaker 4: so nuts. It's like how our IRS tax system makes
Speaker 4: no sense, right, Like, oh, we know how much money
Speaker 4: you actually made and you actually owe and you say, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: well can you just tell me and they go no,
Speaker 4: you have to get yes. Then if you don't guess right,
Speaker 4: you're going to jail. God.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's not because of the voice, but
Speaker 2: I just got this image of somebody like Ryan Seacrest,
Speaker 2: you know, on a live stream on YouTube video or
Speaker 2: something and or on Netflix, and he just got all
Speaker 2: the birthdays up on the board and they are choosing
Speaker 2: birthdays for the draft and it's just Ryan Seacrest making
Speaker 2: a big like patriotic deal.
Speaker 3: Somehow, he's the presenter the Great Lottery.
Speaker 2: Yes, congratulations September right, we congratulations September eleventh.
Speaker 4: Double whammy for you guys. Uh oh yeah this I
Speaker 4: mean this is also interesting because other countries way before
Speaker 4: now created automatic registration. It is not an impossible rubicon
Speaker 4: to cross. This means the government would take your social
Speaker 4: security info from a grand database or state driver's license
Speaker 4: systems and they would just flip the switch. So you're eighteen,
Speaker 4: you probably get a notice in the mail or heck,
Speaker 4: maybe a text on your phone that just tells you
Speaker 4: watch out, you're signed up.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Supporters do dig this. They say it's it's a huge
Speaker 4: assist to compliance, and it also inevitably will give us
Speaker 4: more comprehensive, talenteer level data about individual people.
Speaker 2: I would love to see like all of us draft
Speaker 2: what that what that usage? Yeah would be or you know,
Speaker 2: like your text alert or like congratulations you're signed up
Speaker 2: for the strongest military in the world.
Speaker 4: Or then e wor yeah, I feel you even worse.
Speaker 4: We would try to be cool with it, because we've
Speaker 4: got a lot of like tone death hello fellow kids
Speaker 4: language already with this ad. Yeah, I'd be like lmao, Broski.
Speaker 3: How come we don't have like Monster Energy drink sponsoring
Speaker 3: the US Army at this point, I just seems like
Speaker 3: we should be we should be getting close to that.
Speaker 4: We kind of do. I feel like, maybe not as
Speaker 4: official yet, but I could totally see it. No, I
Speaker 4: could totally some more private, private sponsorship of the military.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of military adjacent stuff, guys, thinking back to
Speaker 2: the UFC now in the White House, there was a
Speaker 2: recent fight with Connor McGregor over the weekend as we
Speaker 2: record on July fifteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it did not go well for Connor.
Speaker 2: It was one of the most spectacular letdowns there's been
Speaker 2: a couple in his career and in the UFC's like
Speaker 2: run of having these like major this is the fight
Speaker 2: that you gotta see. And then it just kind of
Speaker 2: ends with and he like tried to do a jump kick,
Speaker 2: like a weird jump round kick kind of thing, and
Speaker 2: totally busted his knee, like on the first moment of the.
Speaker 3: Mash oh no, out of competition.
Speaker 4: He was trying to get to blood sport immediately, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. It didn't build up to it.
Speaker 4: We also we also.
Speaker 3: Know the areas save that for later in the magic that.
Speaker 2: I just imagine Ben I imagine that's the way a
Speaker 2: lot of this will end up going down when eventually
Speaker 2: the US military tries to do this whole thing that
Speaker 2: we're kind of describing, it just it's like, all right,
Speaker 2: here we go, and then it just kind of doesn't work.
Speaker 4: Very well exactly. Yeah, I agree with that the military
Speaker 4: with that comparison. Yeah, there is one thing we have
Speaker 4: to talk about. This is personally important to me, and
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be important to all of
Speaker 4: us tuning in. I know it's important to us as
Speaker 4: a group or on the same page. There's a related
Speaker 4: problem to the system that's not part of the draft,
Speaker 4: but it is tangential. Remember how we use those hard
Speaker 4: air quotes when we said our current armed forces are
Speaker 4: entirely voluntary. I think that's technically true, but it's misleading.
Speaker 4: Just leaving that statement as is is cognitively fraudulents. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's fraudulent. Yeah, because the ranks of the US military
Speaker 4: are filled with young people who often had no other
Speaker 4: options in life. It is historically common across cultures for
Speaker 4: people who have disadvantaged backgrounds to sign up as a
Speaker 4: way of escaping living circumstances. You're from a very poor area.
Speaker 4: You look around, there are no jobs, there's no educational opportunity,
Speaker 4: no economic opportunity. Yeah, you could say those folks in
Speaker 4: those situations are volunteering, but they're doing it because they
Speaker 4: feel they have no other choice. So the question then
Speaker 4: becomes a lot of us still quarrel with this. Is
Speaker 4: that actually volunteering when there are no other options? Uh?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: And it's called service? So could you use the word servitude?
Speaker 4: Right? Yeah, that's I mean there's some metamology in there too,
Speaker 4: for sure. Man. I mean, even we fast forward the
Speaker 4: modern day, right, Like I remember talking to a lot
Speaker 4: of Vietnam vets who said, I, yeah, if I hadn't
Speaker 4: have gotten drafted, I would have volunteered because there was
Speaker 4: nothing going on in my part of Alabama, right and
Speaker 4: college was out of the question. We're seeing the same
Speaker 4: factors again. We're in a K shaped economy. That's what
Speaker 4: the boffins call it. Socioeconomic inequality is skyrocketing. The cost
Speaker 4: of living across the board is ballooning, property rates, cars,
Speaker 4: household items, childcare beat me here again, Dylan and Jordan.
Speaker 4: People are getting squeezed. We don't even have to get
Speaker 4: into healthcare. There are people who join the army because
Speaker 4: they could get room and board, medical treatment depending on
Speaker 4: your specific role. You can also get high level training
Speaker 4: that sets you up for a private industry career after
Speaker 4: you do your bid. And it's the kind of thing
Speaker 4: where the money is great and you probably could not
Speaker 4: have had that training if you hadn't been in the military.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like how so many commercial pilots have
Speaker 4: military service, not all of them, but a lot of
Speaker 4: them because it's the easiest way to get training for sure.
Speaker 3: And also, like I mean, there's the GI bill. There
Speaker 3: are some positive aspects of joining the military. Like a
Speaker 3: friend of mine, a very smart dude, struggled in school
Speaker 3: though I belive kind of due to some undiagnosed mental
Speaker 3: health issues. But then he went on to join the
Speaker 3: Navy and it really did kind of give him some
Speaker 3: structure and taught him a lot about himself. And then
Speaker 3: he used that GI bill money to become a lawyer,
Speaker 3: and now he is a lawyer who protects people who
Speaker 3: are getting unfairly evicted and treated horribly by you know, slumlords.
Speaker 3: So there is a path. There is a career path
Speaker 3: that involves the military that doesn't always necessarily feel like
Speaker 3: a forced move.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but again, is it volunteering if that's your only option?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And the GI bill is magnificent. It has changed people's lives. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I understand there's a myriad of situations out there, you know,
Speaker 3: but you're absolutely right, man. I mean there are folks who,
Speaker 3: because of lack of resources in our society and because
Speaker 3: of historical things like racism and redlining and all of
Speaker 3: the stuff that legacy inequality, then you could argue that
Speaker 3: they don't have any other options.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, I'd go a step further. I would say certain
Speaker 4: powerful forces are very happy with the inequality of the
Speaker 4: system because if it's the war machine that baked in inequality,
Speaker 4: arguably already functions as a quiet draft all its own,
Speaker 4: and it happens every day in the United States.
Speaker 3: Grists for the mill as they say, Just so, cannon fighter.
Speaker 2: I don't want to deralism. I just had a thought
Speaker 2: about the cost of becoming trained in combat in any
Speaker 2: sort And I only know this because of direct experience
Speaker 2: with my kids in just studying taekwondo, and how expensive
Speaker 2: that is on a yearly basis. Right, And what I
Speaker 2: have to budget for for that, And then imagining in
Speaker 2: the same state, if my kids were just into baseball,
Speaker 2: it would cost a fraction of that price for them
Speaker 2: to get all of their meant to go and play,
Speaker 2: you know, a season of baseball and do all the
Speaker 2: tournaments and.
Speaker 3: All that stuff.
Speaker 2: It would cost a fraction. But then if I'm actually
Speaker 2: trying to get my kids, like a in some small
Speaker 2: way combat trained or aware in the things that taekwondo teaches,
Speaker 2: it costs that much money. Sorry, if you're on Netflix,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to illustrate with my hands here. But then
Speaker 2: just imagining how much combat training you're getting by becoming
Speaker 2: constricted and going into the military voluntarily or not, just
Speaker 2: what you are gaining from that, and I wonder I've
Speaker 2: been I've never seen it written out as like a
Speaker 2: how much it would cost, right, or what is the
Speaker 2: worth of the training you're getting when you're going through
Speaker 2: some of the basic and then specialist training. I just
Speaker 2: I've never actually seen that in a dollar amount.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are some breakdowns. I don't know how accurate
Speaker 4: they are, but they, as we can imagine, very widely
Speaker 4: depending upon the specific skill set. So, for instance, we
Speaker 4: have a good friend of the show who joined the
Speaker 4: Navy a while back and is now I don't want
Speaker 4: to be too specific because it's rarefied air, but now
Speaker 4: this guy has been out of the Navy for quite
Speaker 4: some time, works in Germany and the United States back
Speaker 4: and forth with very very high level sensitivity submarine instruments,
Speaker 4: and he technically works for a private company, but he
Speaker 4: is one of the only guys who could do the
Speaker 4: job because he's one of the only people in all
Speaker 4: of the world's military who had this training. Right.
Speaker 3: So I think we're all just agreeing that there are
Speaker 3: bankable skills that can come from military service, conscripted or not.
Speaker 4: And the question then is, yeah, if are you really
Speaker 4: volunteering you feel like that's your only.
Speaker 2: Option, and also how bad is that actually right for
Speaker 2: your life if you're if you're involuntarily going in.
Speaker 4: I have a hilarious relative who was drafted in the
Speaker 4: Vietnam War and spent two tours working at an ice
Speaker 4: cream factory. He says he had a blast. He doesn't
Speaker 4: work in the ice cream uh in the ice cream
Speaker 4: industry today.
Speaker 2: As long as he didn't have a blizzard. That's trademarked.
Speaker 4: There we go about breeze. Speaking of sponsors, we're gonna
Speaker 4: pause for one more ad break. We'll be back with
Speaker 4: a problem that the system itself is very worried about.
Speaker 4: And we've returned. Okay, we've talked about a lot of
Speaker 4: the problems for the people getting sucked into the system
Speaker 4: by hook Er, by Krupp, but we also have to
Speaker 4: acknowledge the big guys, the big dogs, who are often
Speaker 4: vilified and these conspiracies. They have problems too. If Uncle
Speaker 4: Sam reactivated the draft today, and we'll check after we record,
Speaker 4: there are still very difficult questions about how many Americans
Speaker 4: will actually be able to qualify. The DoD came out
Speaker 4: with an estimate and they said, if we took everyone
Speaker 4: who was seventeen to twenty four years old male could
Speaker 4: be drafted, only about twenty three percent would meet our
Speaker 4: basic eligibility standards. We'd have to give the rest special waivers,
Speaker 4: which do happen. But what they're what they're saying here
Speaker 4: is three out of four of all the possible draftees
Speaker 4: are not going to make the ordinary cut because of obesity,
Speaker 4: health conditions, criminal records, lack of educational credentials, you know,
Speaker 4: like no high school diploma or a good enough degree,
Speaker 4: or they might have drug use or behavioral issues. This
Speaker 4: is a growing, growing problem in a regular recruitment, even
Speaker 4: without a draft. It's increasingly common or less uncommon for
Speaker 4: someone to volunteer because they think it's the right thing
Speaker 4: to do, and then they find out that they don't
Speaker 4: qualify well.
Speaker 3: And I just wanted I was looking into this because
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure does criminal record automatically disqualify you from
Speaker 3: military service? And the answers no, And there are of
Speaker 3: course also situations where waivers can be granted and there
Speaker 3: can be specific exceptions made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ben, isn't it interesting that they include seventeen year
Speaker 2: olds in their Department of Defense? Because they know that's
Speaker 2: not officially what the SSS looks at. They know it's it.
Speaker 2: Eighteen point six is the youngest person that can be conscripted,
Speaker 2: like eighteen over six months into your eighteenth year. But
Speaker 2: also they're taking out twenty five year olds, And I
Speaker 2: wonder if it's just the idea of they're looking at
Speaker 2: the window. If we were going to conscript these people
Speaker 2: here in this window of time, they would be this
Speaker 2: old at this moment, But seventeen year old. Most of
Speaker 2: them don't have a high school diploma yet, just because
Speaker 2: they haven't reached the end of high school yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like they might join JROTC or a similar program
Speaker 4: to give them a leg up at a security an
Speaker 4: officer status. That happens all the time. We've got relatives
Speaker 4: who did that. But also, you know, it's the sneaky thing.
Speaker 4: I want to be careful always say to this, It's
Speaker 4: the sneaky thing that assholes do when they know they're
Speaker 4: doing something wrong. They don't directly say what they're doing
Speaker 4: is wrong even when they know. They try to slowly
Speaker 4: erode the boundaries and exploit decent people while they're doing that. So,
Speaker 4: like we see it happen in Russia, right where the
Speaker 4: boundary of what was considered conscription aid kept getting eroded, right,
Speaker 4: And the erosion of boundaries is one of the dangerous
Speaker 4: things that happens in so many toxic relationships, and maybe
Speaker 4: the US is in a toxic relationship with the military.
Speaker 4: It's a good question. Yeah, to your point, without being conspiratortal,
Speaker 4: I would say it's probably modeling based on like, we
Speaker 4: have a seventeen year old who is in an ROTC program.
Speaker 4: So when they hit eighteen and they sign up for
Speaker 4: a draft, what's their likelihood of qualifying? You know what
Speaker 4: I mean? So probably just trying to track fitness and
Speaker 4: qualification over time.
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know. Haigsith hasn't texted us back.
Speaker 4: Let's check, he said, lmao's.
Speaker 3: Also so peace, that's so peat. Yeah, such a joker,
Speaker 3: such a silly, goofy guy.
Speaker 4: Another issue we're having, this is going, this is future facing.
Speaker 4: Remember we said there hasn't been a draft since nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy three. A lot of stuff has happened between nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy three and twenty twenty six. People were born, people died,
Speaker 4: people got new jobs, joined and left the military. In
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, pushed by a long standing arguments of discrimination
Speaker 4: and sexism, the Pentagon opened all combat roles to women,
Speaker 4: and a few years later, twenty nineteen, federal court said, hey,
Speaker 4: the male only draft system is unconstitutional. This got turned
Speaker 4: over on appeal. Scotis declined to make a call on it.
Speaker 4: So back in twenty twenty one, so it's still a
Speaker 4: male only draft for now, but a new wave of
Speaker 4: conscription is going to bring this right back, smack dab
Speaker 4: into the center stage under the spotlight. Because the Pentagon
Speaker 4: ruling and that draft gender question pose really serious issues
Speaker 4: about discrimination and prioritization and legality, dare say, tradition. So
Speaker 4: we have we have a whole other thing that we
Speaker 4: have to we have to wrestle with in the legal system.
Speaker 4: They're not they're not ready for it, but they're still
Speaker 4: even though they say nobody wants a draft, even though
Speaker 4: they say there's not a draft happening, the mill Militaria
Speaker 4: and the White House are still just in the driveway,
Speaker 4: tinkering with that car, making it faster and faster every
Speaker 4: single afternoon. Makes you think, just to bring.
Speaker 2: This in because we talked about it on I want
Speaker 2: to say strange news a little while ago, because I
Speaker 2: was getting deja vu when to talk about my dad
Speaker 2: in Vietnam War. But the National Defense Authorization Act, which
Speaker 2: is oh, such a such a fun thing to discuss
Speaker 2: and try and parse through every year when it comes up.
Speaker 2: When you know, national defense spending gets authorized by the
Speaker 2: President and Congress and everything, and there's.
Speaker 4: Always fun thing.
Speaker 2: Guys. I can't think of any major specifics, but I
Speaker 2: know some of the major things that have been highly
Speaker 2: conspiratorial in our world come up in the NDAA every
Speaker 2: time it comes around, like stuff about warrantless spying and
Speaker 2: the FIZ Accords and all kinds of stuff with FEMA,
Speaker 2: and you know, some of these major topics, it's usually
Speaker 2: that National Defense Authorization Act, Well, the one in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, that's the one that changed the automatic registration thing,
Speaker 2: where you know, in a lot of states you're automatically
Speaker 2: registered at a certain age for the SSS uh. But
Speaker 2: now it's because of this act, everybody's just gonna go
Speaker 2: click click click, You're you are now a part of
Speaker 2: the team. You didn't have to send anything in, you
Speaker 2: have to sign any letters. You just get the notification.
Speaker 2: And I suppose this is just a reminder that every
Speaker 2: time the military budget comes up, to the defense budget,
Speaker 2: the Pentagon budget, every time it comes up, there are
Speaker 2: sneaky little things that get slipped into that bill, right,
Speaker 2: and sometimes stuff that's not even related to defense.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, sort of like pork or whatever they call
Speaker 3: when they sneak things into bills like.
Speaker 4: Budget consolidation yeap or uh, yeah, there's a word something
Speaker 4: like that. I think it may start with a reconciliation,
Speaker 4: budget wreckons. That's where a lot of stuff gets pushed through,
Speaker 4: and we look, we know the thing is that a
Speaker 4: draft's not happening now, but it's absolutely on the table,
Speaker 4: and if it does happen, friends and neighbors, it is
Speaker 4: going to happen quickly. So this is a message to you,
Speaker 4: young conspiracy realist. Expect the best, prepare for the possible worst.
Speaker 4: We want to thank all our current, past, present, and
Speaker 4: future service members for their work. We know it's an
Speaker 4: incredibly personal decision for people to decide whether they want
Speaker 4: to volunteer for service. We ourselves have never been drafted,
Speaker 4: but we have plenty of family members, plenty of friends
Speaker 4: who have, and we would love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 4: on the possibility of a new wave of conscription. Is
Speaker 4: it good, bad? Forward against it? How will America handle
Speaker 4: it in an age of technology that's groundbreaking, changing warfare,
Speaker 4: increased internal division? Let us know. The one thing for sure, though,
Speaker 4: is that if policymakers are planning to move like this,
Speaker 4: they're going to keep it on the hush until until
Speaker 4: it's too late. You're getting conscripted. Is the stuff they
Speaker 4: don't want you to know until that letter arrives on
Speaker 4: your doorstep.
Speaker 3: Mmmm. Make sure you have your lighter, fluid and.
Speaker 4: Lighter ready, and we would love to hear your thoughts,
Speaker 4: especially your personal experiences. Older conspiracy realist who did undergo
Speaker 4: the draft period in Vietnam or in another country. Find
Speaker 4: us on the phone. You can leave us a message
Speaker 4: on the lines, and you can always send us an email.
Speaker 3: Sure can find us on the Internet with the handle
Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff or conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on what social
Speaker 3: media platform you prefer.
Speaker 2: Do you want to call us? Our number is one
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Speaker 4: We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
Speaker 4: we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid sometimes the
Speaker 4: void writes back, We've been playing quite a game, all
Speaker 4: of us and all of you. We will send you
Speaker 4: a random fact if you want one, and we'd love
Speaker 4: for you to send us one in turn. Right now,
Speaker 4: speaking of things being in turn, our random fact for
Speaker 4: this evening is the rotation of Earth is changing speed.
Speaker 4: The length of a day increases by about one point
Speaker 4: eight seconds per century, which means that six hundred million
Speaker 4: years ago a day was only twenty one hours long. Andy,
Speaker 4: kudos to everybody who lived through that. I don't think
Speaker 4: there was a draft then, but it was a very
Speaker 4: different place. We'll see you out here in the dark
Speaker 4: conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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