Why Is Selective Service Wrong

The Selective Service: A Backwards Vestige of An Era Past

The United States purports to hold the ideal that all people are entitled to certain inalienable rights, the most fundamental of which is that to life. However, never are principles tested so strenuously as during times of conflict and crisis, and it is here that the resolve of the United States to truly protect its citizens deteriorates entirely. Despite claiming to honor its citizens' lives, the US government maintains a wartime institution that is totally contrary thereto: the Selective Service System, the government's euphemism for male conscription.

Since the re-establishment of the SSS by President Carter in 1980, all biologically male citizens of the United States have been forced to register with the Service or face dire and often life-ruining penalties. These penalties, which hit poor Americans the hardest, include a lifetime ban from receiving federal loans or

It institutes a system of forced servitude, a practice outlawed in the 13th Amendment, and requires men to give up their most fundamental right to life. Furthermore, those who object to violence on moral grounds must sacrifice their deeply-held values at risk of arrest for treason.

In order to address those who morally object to war, the Selective Service maintains a system of "alternative service" for so-called "conscientious objectors." However, despite the Supreme Court decision in Welsh v. United States, this system overwhelmingly favors those who object on religious—not moral—grounds, infringing on atheists' right to freedom of religion—or lack thereof. Furthermore, conscientious objectors must still register with the system, forcing them to submit to a system that goes against their