Writes a friend: "While I haven't gone through all of the responses here, from what I've seen so far the overall reaction is disgustingly predictable. It may well be that buried somewhere beneath the usual horse___ about 'sacrifice', 'patriotism', ad nauseum, is an honest acknowledgement of the true nature of conscription -- slavery -- but I'm not betting on it, and in any case I don't have the stomach to plough all the way through. Oh, there are some here and there who do oppose the draft, but usually on the grounds that it would constitute a lowering of standards, or would be too costly, or some such -- none of which I would regard as a genuinely principled stance. Again I wonder: why is it that so many people are either unwilling or unable to state outright that a morally repugnant action is -- morally repugnant?

"That so many evidently believe that freedom and coercion can coexist, or that coercion is necessary to preserve freedom, is sickening enough. But what is perhaps most galling of all, and what really sets my teeth on edge, are scattered assertions that today's youth are unworthy of being drafted -- essentially the argument that Thomas Sowell once offered up, as you'll recall. Example: 'A sucessful draft requires a quality in society we no longer have....self-LESS-ness.' I'm not sure what the capitalization of less is supposed to indicate, but the overall idea is unmistakable: the 'selfless' person is one that happily submits to being the state's property and plaything, to be alternately hurled and pummeled and stomped on with the casual carelessness and callousness of the child or the sociopath, according to whim or caprice. And if it gets you killed in the process? Well, your hapless (and hopelessly deluded) loved ones can derive comfort and consolation from the knowledge that you died a 'hero' -- a hero being one who kills the 'enemy', as defined by the state, with impunity and without question.

"How heartwarming to know that -- in the name of freedom -- your fellow citizens would readily foist upon all and sundry the essential collectivist creed: share the misery.

"Not that it comes as a shock at this point, but the moral depravity of so many of one's countrymen can still take one aback at times."