Why aren't Presidents Required to Serve in the Military to be President?

[Couchpotato]

Why didn’t he serve since it’s so fking important to you

?

 

[Rigby5]

The movie and the book were substantially different. They only thing the two really had in common were the title.

Its been 50 years since I read the book, but I still remember the ending as somehow we had caused the war for some reason?

 

[fncceo]

Its been 50 years since I read the book, but I still remember the ending as somehow we had caused the war for some reason?

You remember wrong. The 'Bugs' started the war by sneak attack in the book.

 

[Couchpotato]

In the book, "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein, he describes a future society where only persons who have served in the military have voting rights.

The idea is, that unless someone has demonstrated his willingness to potentially put his life on the line for society can that person participate in the governing of that society.

The book was written in 1951, only six years after the end of World War II. Most people in the US had recently served in the military or were the family of someone who did.

You didn’t have to serve in the military. You had to serve the country in some capacity to win your franchise which You had to have some “skin in the game” was the premise of the book. I don’t remember if it had voting rights tied to service (it might have) but you had to have served to run for office.

 

[rightwinger]

There are very few good Presidents regardless.

We have had GREAT Presidents

Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt

 

[Rigby5]

Yeah....we were really being violently aggressive against Japan on December 7, 1941.

Yes we were.
First of all we had illegally limited Japan's military size, forced all of the trade partners of Japan into bad deals, and then we cut off Japan from the iron, oil, coal, and food it needed.
As for December 7, 1941, it was the US that fired the first shots.
The USN Ward Destroyer sank a Japanese minisub early in the morning, many hours before the Japanese attack.
That means the claim it was a "sneak attack" was a lie.
We had decoded all the messages and knew exactly when and where, and deliberately allowed the attack to take place.

 

[Couchpotato]

We have had GREAT Presidents

Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt

Three of the four served in the military. Likely the only reason FDR didn’t was polio……

 

[Couchpotato]

Yes we were.
First of all we had illegally limited Japan's military size, forced all of the trade partners of Japan into bad deals, and then we cut off Japan from the iron, oil, coal, and food it needed.
As for December 7, 1941, it was the US that fired the first shots.
The USN Ward Destroyer sank a Japanese minisub early in the morning, many hours before the Japanese attack.
That means the claim it was a "sneak attack" was a lie.
We had decoded all the messages and knew exactly when and where, and deliberately allowed the attack to take place.

What kind of revisionist history have you been reading? The JN25 codebook we cracked didnt happen until just before Midway.

There have been claims that the Brit’s had cracked the codes used before Pearl Harbor and that Churchill intentionally kept it from FDR to draw the US into the war, but the US didn’t know the attack was coming.

but all that is irrelevant as there is no law or statute that would preclude the US from engaging in a purely aggressive war so long as the Congress votes and authorizes it. I’m not really sure where you got the idea that we couldn’t.

 

[Rigby5]

You remember wrong. The 'Bugs' started the war by sneak attack in the book.

I believe the Arachnids were much older and therefore had been there first on those planets, and it was the people from Earth who were doing the sneak attacks.
The asteroid that hit Buenos Aries is not to invade, but to defend, as a warning and threat.
But it is hard to remember, because the movie was much more anti-military, and my memory could be corrupted by it.

 

[Rigby5]

Three of the four served in the military. Likely the only reason FDR didn’t was polio……

And as great as they may have been, they were all associated with bad wars that likely could have been avoided.

 

[frigidweirdo]

In my opinion it should be illegal. Don't get why it isn't. Granted, all these life time loser politicians would probably find a way around it anyway.

Well, that would then assume that the US is a militaristic state, like Sparta.

Perhaps people don't want their leaders to be constantly warring.

 

[Leviticus]

Because the constitution specifically establishes the office of President as a civilian one, and establishes the top military leadership, such as the Secretary of Defense, as civilians. This is to ensure that the people, through elected officials, controls the military. Countries which are controlled by the military tend to by authoritarian dictatorships

 

[Rigby5]

What kind of revisionist history have you been reading? The JN25 codebook we cracked didnt happen until just before Midway.

There have been claims that the Brit’s had cracked the codes used before Pearl Harbor and that Churchill intentionally kept it from FDR to draw the US into the war, but the US didn’t know the attack was coming.

but all that is irrelevant as there is no law or statute that would preclude the US from engaging in a purely aggressive war so long as the Congress votes and authorizes it. I’m not really sure where you got the idea that we couldn’t.

Wrong.
There were several Japanese codes.
Dockyard, red, coral, jade, JN-11, JN-20, JN-25, etc.
JN-25 also keep changing often.
But we broke enough different codes so that we knew exactly when and where the Japanese were going to attack.
The proof of that is that we would not allow the US aircraft carriers to return to Pearl and only kept obsolete ships there, and that the USN Ward sunk the Japanese minisub before the air attack, without any illegal actions by the sub or any Japanese.

{...
JN-25 is the name given by codebreakers to the main, and most secure, command and control communications scheme used by the IJN during World War II.[10] Named as the 25th Japanese Navy system identified, it was initially given the designation AN-1 as a "research project" rather than a "current decryption" job. The project required reconstructing the meaning of thirty thousand code groups and piecing together thirty thousand random additives.[11]

Introduced from 1 June 1939 to replace Blue (and the most recent descendant of the Red code),[12] it was an enciphered code, producing five-numeral groups for transmission. New code books and super-enciphering books were introduced from time to time, each new version requiring a more or less fresh cryptanalytic attack. John Tiltman with some help from Alan Turing (at GCSB) had "solved" JN25 by 1941, i.e. they knew that it was a five-digit code with a codebook to translate words into five digits and there was a second "additive" book that the sender used to add to the original numbers "But knowing all this didn’t help them read a single message".

By April 1942 JN25 was about 20 percent readable, so codebreakers could read "about one in five words" and traffic analysis was far more useful. [13] Tiltman had devised a (slow; neither easy nor quick) method of breaking it and had noted that all the numbers in the codebook were divisable by three.[14] "Breaking" rather than "solving" a code involves learning enough code words and indicators so that any given message can be read. [15]

In particular, JN-25 was significantly changed on 1 December 1940 (JN25a);[12] and again on 4 December 1941 (JN25b),[16] just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

British, Australian, Dutch and American cryptanalysts co-operated on breaking JN-25 well before the Pearl Harbor attack, but because the Japanese Navy was not engaged in significant battle operations before then, there was little traffic available to use as raw material. Before then, IJN discussions and orders could generally travel by routes more secure than broadcast, such as courier or direct delivery by an IJN vessel. Publicly available accounts differ, but the most credible agree that the JN-25 version in use before December 1941 was not more than perhaps 10% broken at the time of the attack,[17] and that primarily in stripping away its super-encipherment. JN-25 traffic increased immensely with the outbreak of naval warfare at the end of 1941 and provided the cryptographic "depth" needed to succeed in substantially breaking the existing and subsequent versions of JN-25.

The American effort was directed from Washington, D.C. by the U.S. Navy's signals intelligence command, OP-20-G; at Pearl Harbor it was centered at the Navy's Combat Intelligence Unit (Station HYPO, also known as COM 14),[18] led by Commander Joseph Rochefort.[10] However in 1942 not every cryptogram was decoded, as Japanese traffic was too heavy for the undermanned Combat Intelligence Unit.[19] With the assistance of Station CAST (also known as COM 16, jointly commanded by Lts Rudolph Fabian and John Lietwiler)[20] in the Philippines, and the British Far East Combined Bureau in Singapore, and using a punched card tabulating machine manufactured by International Business Machines, a successful attack was mounted against the 4 December 1941 edition (JN25b). Together they made considerable progress by early 1942. "Cribs" exploited common formalities in Japanese messages, such as "I have the honor to inform your excellency" (see known plaintext attack).

Later versions of JN-25 were introduced: JN-25c from 28 May 1942, deferred from 1 April then 1 May; providing details of the attacks on Midway and Port Moresby. JN-25d was introduced from 1 April 1943, and while the additive had been changed, large portions had been recovered two weeks later, which provided details of Yamamoto's plans that were used in Operation Vengeance, the shooting-down of his plane.[21]
...}

Japanese naval codes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But war is always inherently illegal, since it is based on murder and theft.
To conduct war, you have to draft, which is the violation of individual rights when it is not absolutely necessary in defense.
And NONE of the US wars were in defense, since 1812.
What is legal or not in a democratic republic is based solely on inherent individual rights, not legislation.

 

[Couchpotato]

And as great as they may have been, they were all associated with bad wars that likely could have been avoided.

Washington didn’t fight a war as President.

I don’t think Lincoln’s military service lead to the civil war. Was there some diplomatic way we didn’t utilize to get the south to free their slaves? Did Lincoln just not ask nicely enough?

Which war did the US fight during Teddy Roosevelt’s term in office?

And we’ve covered WW2 so…

 

[Couchpotato]

Wrong.
There were several Japanese codes.
Dockyard, red, coral, jade, JN-11, JN-20, JN-25, etc.
JN-25 also keep changing often.
But we broke enough different codes so that we knew exactly when and where the Japanese were going to attack.
The proof of that is that we would not allow the US aircraft carriers to return to Pearl and only kept obsolete ships there, and that the USN Ward sunk the Japanese minisub before the air attack, without any illegal actions by the sub or any Japanese.

{...
JN-25 is the name given by codebreakers to the main, and most secure, command and control communications scheme used by the IJN during World War II.[10] Named as the 25th Japanese Navy system identified, it was initially given the designation AN-1 as a "research project" rather than a "current decryption" job. The project required reconstructing the meaning of thirty thousand code groups and piecing together thirty thousand random additives.[11]

Introduced from 1 June 1939 to replace Blue (and the most recent descendant of the Red code),[12] it was an enciphered code, producing five-numeral groups for transmission. New code books and super-enciphering books were introduced from time to time, each new version requiring a more or less fresh cryptanalytic attack. John Tiltman with some help from Alan Turing (at GCSB) had "solved" JN25 by 1941, i.e. they knew that it was a five-digit code with a codebook to translate words into five digits and there was a second "additive" book that the sender used to add to the original numbers "But knowing all this didn’t help them read a single message".

By April 1942 JN25 was about 20 percent readable, so codebreakers could read "about one in five words" and traffic analysis was far more useful. [13] Tiltman had devised a (slow; neither easy nor quick) method of breaking it and had noted that all the numbers in the codebook were divisable by three.[14] "Breaking" rather than "solving" a code involves learning enough code words and indicators so that any given message can be read. [15]

In particular, JN-25 was significantly changed on 1 December 1940 (JN25a);[12] and again on 4 December 1941 (JN25b),[16] just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

British, Australian, Dutch and American cryptanalysts co-operated on breaking JN-25 well before the Pearl Harbor attack, but because the Japanese Navy was not engaged in significant battle operations before then, there was little traffic available to use as raw material. Before then, IJN discussions and orders could generally travel by routes more secure than broadcast, such as courier or direct delivery by an IJN vessel. Publicly available accounts differ, but the most credible agree that the JN-25 version in use before December 1941 was not more than perhaps 10% broken at the time of the attack,[17] and that primarily in stripping away its super-encipherment. JN-25 traffic increased immensely with the outbreak of naval warfare at the end of 1941 and provided the cryptographic "depth" needed to succeed in substantially breaking the existing and subsequent versions of JN-25.

The American effort was directed from Washington, D.C. by the U.S. Navy's signals intelligence command, OP-20-G; at Pearl Harbor it was centered at the Navy's Combat Intelligence Unit (Station HYPO, also known as COM 14),[18] led by Commander Joseph Rochefort.[10] However in 1942 not every cryptogram was decoded, as Japanese traffic was too heavy for the undermanned Combat Intelligence Unit.[19] With the assistance of Station CAST (also known as COM 16, jointly commanded by Lts Rudolph Fabian and John Lietwiler)[20] in the Philippines, and the British Far East Combined Bureau in Singapore, and using a punched card tabulating machine manufactured by International Business Machines, a successful attack was mounted against the 4 December 1941 edition (JN25b). Together they made considerable progress by early 1942. "Cribs" exploited common formalities in Japanese messages, such as "I have the honor to inform your excellency" (see known plaintext attack).

Later versions of JN-25 were introduced: JN-25c from 28 May 1942, deferred from 1 April then 1 May; providing details of the attacks on Midway and Port Moresby. JN-25d was introduced from 1 April 1943, and while the additive had been changed, large portions had been recovered two weeks later, which provided details of Yamamoto's plans that were used in Operation Vengeance, the shooting-down of his plane.[21]
...}

Japanese naval codes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But war is always inherently illegal, since it is based on murder and theft.
To conduct war, you have to draft, which is the violation of individual rights when it is not absolutely necessary in defense.
And NONE of the US wars were in defense, since 1812.
What is legal or not in a democratic republic is based solely on inherent individual rights, not legislation.

How many people did we draft to fight the Global War on Terrorism?

Amd you don’t get to just decide what is and isn’t illegal.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

Not every Military person is a great leader…

 

[Rigby5]

Washington didn’t fight a war as President.

I don’t think Lincoln’s military service lead to the civil war. Was there some diplomatic way we didn’t utilize to get the south to free their slaves? Did Lincoln just not ask nicely enough?

Which war did the US fight during Teddy Roosevelt’s term in office?

And we’ve covered WW2 so…

Lincoln fought in the awful Blackhawk war, were we violated treaties and murdered thousands.

Lincoln likely did not fight the Civil War over slavery.
Likely it was in order to stop southern trade with England.
Lincoln wanted to ship all the Blacks back to Africa, so he did not care about them at all.

Teddy Roosevelt was famous for the Spanish American War, which was totally based on lies and murder.

 

[fncceo]

Which war did the US fight during Teddy Roosevelt’s term in office?

Phillipine Insurrection

 

[Rigby5]

How many people did we draft to fight the Global War on Terrorism?

Amd you don’t get to just decide what is and isn’t illegal.

We lied in order to fight the fake "War on Terrorism".
We murder half a million over fake claims of Iraqi WMD.
The US soldiers who died were the result of murder by those who lied.

Since we ratified the UN charter in 1945, it became US law and made war illegal unless in defense from an immediate attack, or in response to a call to arms by a UN vote.
That is incontrovertible.

 

[Couchpotato]

Lincoln fought in the awful Blackhawk war, were we violated treaties and murdered thousands.

Lincoln likely did not fight the Civil War over slavery.
Likely it was in order to stop southern trade with England.
Lincoln wanted to ship all the Blacks back to Africa, so he did not care about them at all.

Teddy Roosevelt was famous for the Spanish American War, which was totally based on lies and murder.

The Spanish American war was fought under McKinley dumbass