Word: draft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that the matter should not even be discussed until the war is over, other Democratic contenders, Senator George McGovern and New York's Mayor John Lindsay, have taken positions in direct opposition to Nixon. McGovern has announced that if he is elected, he will grant amnesty to all draft resisters (but, like Taft, he would not give it to deserters). Lindsay has taken a position similar to Taft's, though he would require two, rather than three years of work in the national interest...
...Diego church. All received a general discharge from the Navy under honorable conditions, which carries no penalty and only slight stigma. Is it fair to let some go and not others, or to create a situation in which it is wiser to desert than to resist the draft? The FBI, after all, boasts of its record in catching resisters. Uneven justice is no justice. Another highly persuasive argument for amnesty: no other action could be as effective in persuading the young that once again they can trust the humanity of their Government. In this sense, amnesty would serve its traditional...
More practically, how could the U.S. ever field an army of draftees again if it established the precedent that draft evasion will be forgiven? An act of compassion and mercy now, however well-intentioned, might cost the country its freedom at some time in the future. And while amnesty might reconcile one group, say the opponents, it would embitter many Americans. Healing some wounds, it would exacerbate others, they contend. Senator Taft can attest to the bitterness of those who oppose amnesty. He asked one protester what should be done about draft evaders if his plan is rejected. The answer...
...further technical point against amnesty is the difficulty in separating the draft evader from the deserter, as Senators McGovern and Taft both do. They would give amnesty only to resisters, presumably on the premise that it is not as bad to avoid service as it is to desert once in. Desertion still sounds like unpardonable cowardice to most Americans. In a sense, this distinction may be discriminatory. An uneducated farm boy from Mississippi probably would not have had the knowledge to evade the draft; any college boy could pick it up in an hour. Or, on the other hand, perhaps...
After all the other arguments are made, two bedrock questions remain, one profoundly moral, one eminently practical. Does the individual have the right to decide which laws or which wars he will support? If he does, can the U.S. Government-or any government-survive? The draft evaders and deserters claim that they are serving a higher law than the Selective Service Law-the law of morality. They might quote St. Thomas Aquinas. "Human law," he wrote, "does not bind a man in conscience, and if it conflicts with the higher law, human law should not be obeyed." That...