Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
Which "opinions, numbers, anecdotes, citations, quotes, and so forth"? I have addressed every relevant claim in turn. The two most compelling arguments are from Entropy, who argued that conscription may not be a practical solution to today's problems, and wm, who argued that conscription today may not provide the same benefits as it did during 1940 - 1973....
May I suggest that those points were also made by others.

For possible use in other discussions, you might consider that their comments while similar to others were different in that they made an effort to respond to you in kind and inparallel, i.e. with metrics and citations and this resonated with you (and kudos to both of them for that). As did Fuchs and Steve Blair (though their good efforts were not parallel to yours) but some of us did not bother to do that -- I for one am far too lazy to marshal all that for a discussion board in addressing an esoteric topic unless pressed. I'm also too old to change. Mea Culpa..

Obviously, your inclination is toward the academic approach and that is laudable. However, as I'm sure you know, not everyone is so inclined and while I do not suggest you change your approach, I suggest that semi automatic rejection of ideas or concepts not documented in academic style may deprive you of some useful thoughts. As I convinced a RAND researcher some years ago, anecdotal evidence is still evidence and it can often be more correct or appropriate than poorly chosen metrics. Correlation does not imply causation...

Just a thought. Enjoyed the discussion.