First, in the early 1990s after school when I enlisted and trained as a U.S. Marine. Then, following the 9/11 attacks, I signed up for the Idaho National Guard and was later deployed to Afghanistan.

Those were my decisions, ones I made because I believed in service, and knew the military would be good for me.

But what if it wasn't your choice to join the military? What if it wasn't your son's choice? What if, suddenly, your daughter was forced to join the military?

There are amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (which finances our global empire at the cost of over a trillion dollars) that'll not only make men's insertion into selective service automatic, but compel women into the system as well.

Even though the United States has not had an active draft for over fifty years, the government still maintains a Selective Service System. Currently, boys from the ages of 18-25 are required to sign up in preparation to be pressed into uniform. The law is rarely enforced—a system of disincentives like baring financial aid to college convinces most young men to register—and the agency is so derelict that it doesn't possess the resources to police mass compliance.

But the Pentagon and the Joe Biden White House want to revamp the system. They want the age raised to twenty-six, they want to remove initiative from citizens and make selective service automatic on your eighteenth birthday, and they want the system universalized to include girls as well as boys.

Why are they doing this? Isn't it obvious? Joe Biden's foreign policy is a disaster on every front, from permanent occupations in a chaotic Middle East to fighting proxy wars in Eastern Europe on the border of the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal. The president's aggressive militarism is signing checks he expects American soldiers to cash.

But there's not enough to fight these endless wars. So the War Party's solution is to put your sons and daughters on the front lines of World War III.

You'll have seen big arguments in the corporate press this week discussing pros and cons, and wondering whether this is the best course of action. They make the issue sound more complicated than it is.

So I'll lean on the Gipper for a simple and direct nugget of wisdom.

During his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan promised to abolish selective service registration. He says that it "rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state."