Pros And Cons Of A Mandatory Military

A soldier, conscripted or not, will face many stresses during their career. Serving for any amount of time is a trial, but some are more suited to the military than others. A drafted soldier may go through their entire mandatory term feeling miserable and insufficient, completely overwhelmed by the tasks that military professionals easily complete. These pressures and the denial of a choice of career should not be placed on any person. The idea of a two-year term of mandatory military service being implanted has been brought up. Military service should not be mandatory not only because it violates fundamental individual rights of humans, but also due to the fact that a military based on volunteers would operate much more impressively than one comprised of conscripted soldiers who would not have chosen to serve otherwise.
One of the most fundamental problems with conscription is that it contradicts one of the main concepts that the United States was built on. The entire concept of conscription “violated fundamental principles of individual liberty” (“Should a Year…” n.pag.). To obligate one to serve in a field which they normally would not choose is to take away their rights as an individual to decide how best they should spend their working life. Aside from being ethically wrong on a basic level, conscription violates a literal law composed by the leaders of the United States. The 13th amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America says, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (“Should a Year…” n.pag.). This unquestionably insists that any mandatory ...

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...tary full of soldiers with this problem could very easily become insufficient.
In conclusion, not only does conscription contradict fundamental human rights, it is also ineffectual due to the generally lesser-quality soldiers that it tends to produce. One of the ideas that the United States was built on, that individuals should have the liberty to decide how and where to work, is violated by the idea of conscription. Most times, drafted soldiers will perform less admirably than their professional counterparts; the general unwillingness to serve on top of the usual pressures of the military can physically and mentally impact them to a greater degree. Do not tolerate the idea of compulsory military service, especially in times such as this in which it is not at all necessary. Help those who support it understand why conscription is a blatant violation of human rights.