It's the draft registration that should be optional, and voting which should be a mandatory civic duty. Not the other way around.
This quote may be taken out of context, but it's message is very point-blank. One of which I agree with.
Personally, I don't like fighting in wars. Fighting games and shooters are on another plain entirely, but actually physically holding a gun and having to point it at anything doesn't sit well with me. Even holding a sword makes me nervous.
Voting, on the other hand, I've been doing since Kindergarten. You vote on the color you like the best, what story the teacher should read, or even who is the most popular kid in school.
We have been conditioned to vote with these fun and non-important polls. However, when the big polls and elections happen, most of us shy away for one reason or another and don't bother to register. My reason is pretty clear cut: No one won me over to their camp this past election. Sure, I make the usual "Oh, I'm waiting on Obama to run" comment, but the fact of the matter was, from the beginning, no one made me feel like they could run the country better than the other and no one cared about the issues that were important to me. Personal politics aside, the point I was trying to make is that from the moment we are taught the ABC's, we were being taught to vote.
Some people can debate with me on this, but I believe we are not conditioned to fight from that early of an age. We may get into the usual school yard rumble, but the fact of the matter is we are not conditioned from an early age to use guns in wars. In fact, as kids, war is a scary thing because people die. Death is a scary thing to kids, because at that age they cannot understand it. Humans fear what they cannot understand. When we are that young, we are taught fighting is wrong and we shouldn't punch someone because they don't like how our hair looks or the fact that we suck our thumbs still. We are told there are better ways to go about solving a problem than beating up people.
I can see the other side of this coin as plain as day. Kids are getting exposed more and more to games centered around blowing shit up and shooting the brains out of someone for a 100 point bonus to their score. Is that conditioning our children for war so that when the males of the house turn 18 they are ready to be drafted should our government be stupid enough to reinstate it?
Personally, I don't think so. In those games, if you die you get to continue where you left off. You do not feel the hot bullet in your side as you bleed. In fact, you don't feel much of anything except for the rush of combat that fuels the game itself.
Bottom line is this. I agree with what Shem said. Voting registration should be what everyone, male or female, signs up for when they turn 18. It should be mandatory. Serving in the military should be a choice. It should not be the other way around. We as people are conditioned to vote from the moment we enter school. We are not conditioned to carry guns with us all the time and march in time with some guy calling out what foot should be hitting the ground. (At least most of us are.)
The only thing I can hope for is that sometime in the future this becomes a reality. If I ever have children or even adopt one, I do not want my son to sign away his life to the armed forces just so he can get into a college. I want him and my daughter to register to vote in order to get into a college.
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