Libertarians Protest Draft

Students for a Libertarian Society (SLS), the student wing of the Libertarian Party, will begin a nation-wide student anti-draft campaign in response to proposed congressional legislation to re-implement the draft.

The group is planning demonstrations at several college campuses, including a demonstration at Harvard on May 1, Leda Cosmides '79, former president of the Harvard Libertarian Association, said Monday in one of a series of nation-wide press conferences

SLS believes "cooperation in society should be based on the voluntary actions of its citizens," Cosmides said. She added that the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the country with 20,000 officially registered members.

The group plans to circulate petitions to over 2000 "college activists," Cosmides said, adding the petitions carry a pledge not to register for a renewed draft.

Charges by Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the all-volunteer army is a "proven failure" have prompted attempts to reinstitute the Selective Service System

SLS claims the United States' global military presence demands a larger military complex than is necessary, Cosmides said. "The real justification, for renewing the draft" is "the maintenance of a global empire," she added.

"The volunteer army is perfectly capable of defending the United States," Alan Fruzzetti, a member of the Brown University chapter of SLS, said yesterday. "It is a defensive, peace-time army, a conscripted army is an invitation for military adventurism and a threat to world peace," he added.

Robert Nozick, professor of Philosophy and Faculty adviser to SLS, said he opposes the draft because "it's a serious intervention on someone's rights to force him to spend two years doing something he would not choose to do," he said.

Nozick said the way to solve the problems of the volunteer army is to offer greater motivation to enter the army. "One could, by increasing salaries to lure people into the army, have whatever type of armed forces one likes," Nozick said.