And vive la différence.
So now that women have achieved equality, and are being allowed to join front-line combat units, they want the draft abolished so they don’t have to sign up for Selective Service.
Tough titty, ladies. And I say that as someone who, by simple accident of birth, beat the cutoff for mandatory registration by 34 days. And no, I didn’t volunteer to do so anyway. I had cousins who served in Vietnam. No thank you. (And thank all of you who served there, and in the sandbox and other places in more recent years. You are my heroes.) For any male citizen born on or after 1 Jan 1960, though, it’s a requirement, and I know plenty of guys who grumbled but stepped up and did it anyway. And yeah, there hasn’t been a draft since 1973 — but that was 4 years too close for comfort for me. It really was a thing I worried about as a kid. I would have gone, because my father and his brothers and my older cousins did. But it wasn’t high on the list of things I wanted to do with my life.
I don’t support abolishing the Selective Service requirement because, upon mature reflection (and some historical background picked up along the way), I think it was a wise decision to maintain the database even in peacetime, because with modern warfare, a war could start and be nearly decided before we could gather the data from various other databases to start the draft. I am no great supporter of conscription, but when you need an army in a hurry — as we did in WWII — even Robert Heinlein, I think, would have to agree to its utility.1
But to go back to the original point of this post: You can call me a reactionary misogynist all you want, but we lost something when men stopped being men and women took their place. We should NOT be placing women in harm’s way. That is immoral and unethical and a damn fucking shame.2 Put bluntly, you don’t put your breeders on the front lines — and I’m sorry if there are women out there who don’t see it that way, because if you don’t, you also don’t understand how civilizations propagate themselves.
From a numerical standpoint, this country does not need its women to serve in combat.3 But if they want that right, they need to face up to the responsibilities, too, including registering when they turn 18. Otherwise quit yelling about going into combat alongside the men (and there are LOTS of reasons — other than not putting your breeders into the front lines — as to why that’s a bad idea, anyway).
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1 Although Heinlein would probably take the attitude that, in a truly righteous war supported by a patriotic nation, the country would not need conscription. A hundred years ago and 75 years ago I would have agreed. Today I am not so sure.
2 Hell, I’m not even happy that Israel lets them into the IDF, but I’ll give them a pass because they need the numbers.
3 No, it needs its nancy-boy child-men4 to man up and do it. But good luck with that. Proggy feminist women have beaten the spine out of most of the current eligible generation. This is one reason I would strongly support a mandatory 2 year term of service, post-high school, for every boy and girl in the US. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have read Starship Troopers. We can find a place for everyone, which by the way IS something the IDF does that I like.