Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Josh]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/worl ... =url-share

We should be prepared for similar to happen in the U.S. - especially as our alternative service programmes like MVS are in a state of disarray.

Currently Selective Service wants my denomination to open more units so that if there were a draft, we could take every other denomination’s C.O.s. These units are expensive to run and need a lot of volunteer help. I really wish other Anabaptists and other peace churches would show a stronger commitment to running voluntary service units.

Is your VS program similar to the one CAM manages? And do you obtain credits for voluntary service? What is the impetus behind the program? Is the government requiring it?

I don’t know much about CAM’s program.

Selective Service System is currently headed by someone who is a CO himself and we try to operate our service units in a manner acceptable to SSS.

The government doesn’t require us to, but in the event of a draft, COs are required to find alternative service to do. We feel it’s best to have a few of our units ready to go so we have practice, and also that service units are an excellent opportunity for young people to serve during peacetime.

[Ken]

Selective Service System is currently headed by someone who is a CO himself and we try to operate our service units in a manner acceptable to SSS.

This is the current acting director of the Selective Service Administration. Joel C. Spangenberg. He is a Conscientious Objector? Really?

https://www.sss.gov/news/white-house-ap ... -director/

Mr. Spangenberg, who is a U.S. Navy veteran and most recently served as the first-ever Executive Director of Operations for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, has built a distinguished career in the federal government leading programs as an executive and communications strategist.

In addition to previously serving as Chief of Staff for the Selective Service System, Mr. Spangenberg served as Subcommittee Deputy Staff Director to former U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He also served as the lead national and homeland security advisor for the subcommittee.

A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Mr. Spangenberg served as a Navy Surface Warfare Officer (Nuclear) and was assigned to the destroyer USS Ross as the Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer and as a Reactor Electrical Division Officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. He earned master’s degrees from the U.S. Naval War College in National Security and Strategic Studies, University of Oklahoma in Administrative Leadership, and Old Dominion University in Engineering Management.

At what point during his long Navy career did he become a conscientious objector?

[ken_sylvania]

We should be prepared for similar to happen in the U.S. - especially as our alternative service programmes like MVS are in a state of disarray.

Currently Selective Service wants my denomination to open more units so that if there were a draft, we could take every other denomination’s C.O.s. These units are expensive to run and need a lot of volunteer help. I really wish other Anabaptists and other peace churches would show a stronger commitment to running voluntary service units.

Is your VS program similar to the one CAM manages? And do you obtain credits for voluntary service? What is the impetus behind the program? Is the government requiring it?

The current Selective Service office is a make-work patronage office where administrations tend to dump people so they don't do damage in any other more important government office.

In the event that the US ever again faced any kind of military emergency that required conscription, Congress would need to authorize it and re-write all the rules anyway. So anything the current Office of Selective Service tells you is completely useless. Millions of young men don't bother to even register today and the last time anyone was pursued and prosecuted for failing to register was 1986 or almost 40 years ago. Which tells you how toothless they are. Also in 2019 Federal courts found the all-male draft to be unconstitutional and Congress has neglected to replace the current program with anything else. So it is basically a vestigial agency with no actual purpose or authority.

I mean sure, churches should build up volunteer service programs for young people as that sort of thing has its own separate merits. But don't assume anything some official in the Selective Service office tells you carries the slightest weight in the unlikely event of some future conscription program. It would be impossible for them to have any idea what any hypothetical future military conscription program would even look like

Yep, much better to believe what some random guy on the internet says rather than what the Selective Service officials say.

[temporal1]

Yep, much better to believe what some random guy on the internet says rather than what the Selective Service officials say.

World history reflects a consistent pattern of how militaries and individuals, including many churches, respond to COs. It’s not well or fairly understood, thus, when tensions are high, bad things happen.

Be thoughtfully and wisely prepared. Human nature is predictable.

[Josh]

The last meetings my church had were prior to August 2022. I don’t know anything about this new person or the hierarchy of SSS.

[Josh]

Yep, much better to believe what some random guy on the internet says rather than what the Selective Service officials say.

I generally trust the reports I get from my church’s peace/public service board ahead of Ken’s posts of a Google search.

[Josh]

In the event that the US ever again faced any kind of military emergency that required conscription, Congress would need to authorize it and re-write all the rules anyway. So anything the current Office of Selective Service tells you is completely useless. Millions of young men don't bother to even register today and the last time anyone was pursued and prosecuted for failing to register was 1986 or almost 40 years ago. Which tells you how toothless they are. Also in 2019 Federal courts found the all-male draft to be unconstitutional and Congress has neglected to replace the current program with anything else. So it is basically a vestigial agency with no actual purpose or authority.

I mean sure, churches should build up volunteer service programs for young people as that sort of thing has its own separate merits. But don't assume anything some official in the Selective Service office tells you carries the slightest weight in the unlikely event of some future conscription program. It would be impossible for them to have any idea what any hypothetical future military conscription program would even look like

Agreements and written policy from government officials actually hold a lot of weight and would have an impact on a future draft. You seem to be saying officials in SSS have zero authority at all, which doesn’t make any sense.

[temporal1]

Yep, much better to believe what some random guy on the internet says rather than what the Selective Service officials say.

I generally trust the reports I get from my church’s peace/public service board ahead of Ken’s posts of a Google search.

One big potential change for U.S. drafts would be drafting females. This is something everyone should be thoughtful about.
i’m against it; i’m not for drafting males, drafting females worsens the problem. Going in the wrong direction.

[Josh]

Yep, much better to believe what some random guy on the internet says rather than what the Selective Service officials say.

I generally trust the reports I get from my church’s peace/public service board ahead of Ken’s posts of a Google search.

One big potential change for U.S. drafts would be drafting females. This is something everyone should be thoughtful about.
i’m against it; i’m not for drafting males, drafting females worsens the problem. Going in the wrong direction.

We have prepared by having both girls and boys service units.

[Ken]

In the event that the US ever again faced any kind of military emergency that required conscription, Congress would need to authorize it and re-write all the rules anyway. So anything the current Office of Selective Service tells you is completely useless. Millions of young men don't bother to even register today and the last time anyone was pursued and prosecuted for failing to register was 1986 or almost 40 years ago. Which tells you how toothless they are. Also in 2019 Federal courts found the all-male draft to be unconstitutional and Congress has neglected to replace the current program with anything else. So it is basically a vestigial agency with no actual purpose or authority.

I mean sure, churches should build up volunteer service programs for young people as that sort of thing has its own separate merits. But don't assume anything some official in the Selective Service office tells you carries the slightest weight in the unlikely event of some future conscription program. It would be impossible for them to have any idea what any hypothetical future military conscription program would even look like

Agreements and written policy from government officials actually hold a lot of weight and would have an impact on a future draft. You seem to be saying officials in SSS have zero authority at all, which doesn’t make any sense.

The current selective service statutes were written during WW2 for an entirely different war and an entirely different American society. They were essentially rolled forward into Korea and Vietnam where they became an epic disaster that the military has no interest in repeating, And then after Vietnam they were essentially just put on hold. Carter reinstated the registration requirement but otherwise left the system unchanged. The Federal code is full of old obsolete laws and regulations that are no longer used and no longer serve a purpose. For example, there are still regulations related to commercial whaling on the books that haven't been used in 50 years either since the US passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. The selective service laws are pretty much the same.

Even if they got past the extreme opposition by the military itself, any new system of conscription would require Congress to re-write the laws to create a new system. It would look nothing like the old system with local community draft boards working on paper and in person. Written in the days before computers existed. We don't live in that world anymore. They would have to start from scratch. And no, I don't believe that current political appointees who have been dumped into the Office of Selective Service as make-work patronage positions would have any say at all within Congress when it comes to designing a new system of conscription for some new national emergency or war that we can't yet conceive of. Congress tends to never listen to agency bureaucrats when it comes to any other area of policy. For example, the President's budget is usually DOA when sent up to Congress, even when they are the same party. Why would they start here on a subject as politically explosive as national conscription?

So yes, your church and others should, in fact, establish and provide volunteer service opportunities for young people. That is a good thing on its own merits. But you should design programs that make sense for your young people in 2023 and not worry about trying to align with some utterly unlikely future conscription program based on old policies written in the 1940s.

For example, a voluntary service program fine-tuned to 1940s era selective service policies might be very secular in nature. Because it is designed to provide an alternative to secular military service. However a church in 2023 that is building volunteer service opportunities for its young people might decide instead to design programs that are more mission-oriented such as the Mormons do. That leaves you with a choice. Do you build a secular-oriented program on the 0.001% chance that conscription might return in some form that we do not yet know? Or do you build a more Christian-oriented mission program for the world in 2023 based around Christian principles not 1940s era selective service policies?

That is the point I am trying to make.