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{"id":17465,"date":"2011-05-30T13:59:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T18:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/?p=17465"},"modified":"2011-05-30T13:59:18","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T18:59:18","slug":"universal-conscription-a-way-towards-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/2011\/05\/30\/universal-conscription-a-way-towards-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Conscription: A Way Towards Lasting Peace?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ A dear friend and mentor of mine, Timothy Leonard, is a strange sort of Quaker: a Quaker who supports universal conscription. His reasoning is compelling in many ways and is clearly motivated by a genuine concern for peace, not war. He argues that, if politicians were voting to send their<\/em> children into battle, they would avoid war at all costs. So, he supports a universal draft into the military.<\/p>\n

In a strikingly similar vein, a colleague of mine at Wabash (Paul Vasquez<\/a>, a political scientist), examines the difference between democracies with either conscript or volunteer armies. His research suggests a propensity for conscript militaries to correspond to higher interest and engagement across a constituency, a quicker trigger for popular protest and discontent of a war, and, as one might expect, more caution in terms of military engagement.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s research bolsters the credibility of Tim\u2019s intuitions and for good reason: when very few to none of the \u201cvolunteers\u201d in the military are of the ruling class, they become politically expendable; when their lives are tied together\u2014when the peasant and the aristocrat share a common fate\u2014they transcend political valuation.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, I still must admit that, while I can see and appreciate the rationale for these kinds of arguments, they make me a bit uncomfortable. As someone who believes that \u201cworld peace\u201d can only begin with a serious political\u2014and spiritual\u2014aspiration for demilitarization, it seems counterproductive to pursue demilitarization through compulsory military service.<\/p>\n

As vexing as it may be to my own pious self-interest, the occasion of Memorial Day has given me the time to ponder and re-consider these questions. Embedded in what I had previously dismissed as an irreconcilable contradiction lays this pregnant grain of truth: the only way towards peace will be one in which we go together.<\/p>\n

In a way, universal<\/em> conscription is, literally, deeply Catholic: it calls us into a common union that has no room for fragmentation or alienation; it demands that if we die, we die together\u2014the rich with the poor; moreover: it demands that, if we are to live, if we are to build a civilization of love and a culture of life, then, we must begin to imagine anew the possibilities of conscription, beyond the martial and bellicose purposes of the day.<\/p>\n

In short, universal conscription creates a commons: the first step towards a politics of life and love.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"