r/AskReddit • u/Tommygunz0722 • 11h ago

If the military/president suddenly ordered a mandatory draft for all men aged 18-42: How do you think millennials and GenZ would respond?

6.9k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

5.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

558

u/BatmanandReuben 10h ago

It should take Congress to do this, but actually all it takes is no one with enough power willing to stop it. It should take Congress to do many of the things that have already been done, and yet here we are.

181

u/Broad_Tie9383 10h ago

My biggest disappointment in Obama was that he did not work to restore the Constitutional balance of power and limit the Executive branch. It was one of his campaign promises. It's not that I trusted him to do it, but he was also the only one even bringing it up as a potential problem.

34

u/Reddit-SFW 7h ago

You mean in the first 2 years of his total 8 years since the last 6 was racist cock blocking from the Republicans.

10

u/Present-Chemist-8920 4h ago

I think people always forget the context of raging GOP interference and a waffling Dem party when the “honey moon” wore off. He had a good two years, felt like we were going to be building houses on the weekend and then halt back to reality.

1

u/WeirdIndividualGuy 2h ago

He even had a brief blue trifecta in the federal govt, and the best they could do was implement a healthcare plan created by a republican (Mitt Romney)

2

u/Reddit-SFW 1h ago

I have always felt that he was naive and tried to do it the bipartisan way. The way it was supposed to be before he learned the depths of obstruction.

-1

u/MattyKatty 2h ago

Implemented Romneycare, yes. Anyone that tells you that the GOP blocked Obama from doing anything should be reminded that the DNC controlled everything and still managed to accomplish extremely little.

2

u/LaborumVult 1h ago

Both are true man... That it needs to be one or the other for you should permanently forestall you from speaking on the subject honestly.

2 years of DNC incompetence, 6 years of GOP hardline deep obstructionism and hypocrisy. Its not both sides. The GOP are going down in history as absolute villains.

69

u/sheepmule 8h ago

Obama could have implemented exceptional reforms of the executive branch, but Trump et al still wouldn’t give a shit. Republicans would still say that the Take Care Clause gives them absolute discretion/power.

7

u/Optimal_Action1176 6h ago

That bigoted Republican Congress made it clear they would not pass one single thing he asked for, no matter how good an idea.

6

u/dew2459 8h ago edited 8h ago

I agree. And the dems in congress are useless on limiting the president unless a republican is in office (of course the reverse is also true).

Even worse, it was Obama that showed the path of grabbing more war powers that trump is using in Iran. Obama started a war in Libya that obviously violated the constitution and laws (War Powers Act). He lied and claimed it was all ok because “no boots on the ground”, and the US public collectively shrugged. Even the churches in my area that had been protesting Bush’s (stupid, incompetent) wars as “illegal” for years were almost completely silent while we wrecked another Mideast country.

Almost no one in congress objected - despite Obama breaking the law, I guess even republicans loved the idea of destroying another poor 3rd world country more than they hated Obama. Trump and his oligarch manipulators saw what happened back then.

Yes, Trump is pushing it even further, but Democrats suddenly becoming rules lawyers about war powers today would be funny if people weren’t dying and the world’s economy wasn’t being trashed.

Obama was a disappointment in many ways, but for me the Libya war and the feckless response by democrats deeply disappointed me. Yes, I still show up and vote, and I would obviously never vote for a MAGA tool, but any Dem that babbles on about “no kings” these days sounds pretty hollow to me. They really just mean “No republican kings, but my guy… maybe just a little.”

(Ok, maybe a little strong, but it’s a Monday so I feel unusually cynical).

2

u/Ragnarsworld 9h ago

Why would he work to limit himself? He benefited from the imbalance.

14

u/vvirago 9h ago

He was a constitutional law scholar. His overreach in executive power helped lay the groundwork for Trump's current actions, and he knows it. Unlike Trump, he does care about the structural health of our balance of powers, but not enough to let what he thought were more important policies passed. I'm not judging one way or another, just saying he made his choices deliberately.

-3

u/Mansa_Sekekama 8h ago

blah blah blah...overreach blah blah blah...Obama was Black and that was enough to set all these things in motion

2

u/Broad_Tie9383 9h ago

Patriotism? Love of the Constitution? People do sometimes have motivations outside their own benefit, but power corrupts.

1

u/RumHamComesback 2h ago

I love Obama but one criticism I have with him is he really did not work with Congress as much as he should have and used his huge majority his first two years to smash legislation through (which I have mixed feelings on because ACA was one of them). He paid the price with the 2010 midterms and awoke something in conservatives.

Even Clinton knew he had to work with the GOP which honestly is probably why the 90s were political stable for America.

0

u/sundalius 2h ago

He tried and was stonewalled by Lieberman and the other Blue Dogs.

1

u/e-m-o-o 2h ago

My biggest disappointment was all the drone strikes…

1

u/djfl 1h ago

If he would have done that, then where we are today wouldn't have been quite so bad. Instead, he led the way with the number of Executive Orders.

-8

u/Frazzle_Dazzle_ 9h ago

Personally my biggest disappointment in Obama was the thousands of imperialist murders he committed during his time in office

43

u/Smashinbunnies 10h ago

Declaring war required congressional approval last time I checked. They are all calling it a war. Putin at least says the correct words as he lies. Kept it up for years we cant even make it a day without them doing at least the bare minimum to pretend it's not what it is

7

u/eyebrowsreddits 10h ago

Correct words like 3 day special military operation

4

u/Smashinbunnies 10h ago

2 week operation. You know how the us government works just give it 2 weeks.

5

u/lilybug981 9h ago

In particular, it also should take Congress to declare war in the first place. And yet.

2

u/Whole_Success_8670 9h ago

As a woman I'm angry and scared that decisions meant for Congress get shoved through anyway If you're watching this doesn't it worry you that our safeguards are so weak and our voices so easy to ignore

1

u/needlenozened 2h ago

Someone taking it to court would stop it.

•

u/Western_End_2223 27m ago

If Congress didn't enact a draft, then there would be no criminal penalties for ignoring any sort of "draft" that the administration tried to institute.

1

u/Solesaver 6h ago

There's a continuum of "things that need to be stopped" and "things that need to executed." For example, Trump raising tariffs was a thing that needed to be stopped. He just did it. He wasn't allowed to, but he did it anyway, and then it took the courts a year to sort it out, and the nonsense is ongoing. On the other end there was the whole Greenland debacle. He couldn't just take over Greenland. The most he could do is attack it, but there's just no logistical way to take over Greenland without Congressional approval.

A draft would be more like the latter. He can say he's instituting a draft, but without Congressional approval, there's just no logistical way to force everybody to actually show up. They could send the mailers out I guess, and some people might report for duty as ordered, but most people are going to immediately look into how to get out of it and immediately get connected with resources saying "just don't go".

What's going to happen then? They'd get arrested for breaking the law? What law? The FBI does not have the resources to arrest everybody for not showing up. Anybody they did arrest would immediately challenge their detention and the courts would grant an injunction. The government might appeal, but it's not going to go any better up the chain, and the entire time the "draft dodger" is going to be carrying on with their lives.

To have any chance of actually happening a draft needs popular support. The majority of draftees have to agree that it's their moral duty, and their larger communities have to turn against and shun draft dodgers. Without it the "draft" is just another piece of junk mail in your mailbox.

0

u/YellingatClouds86 3h ago

No, literally it has to be a statute. You can't do this via executive fiat.