February 9, 2016 11:54AM # A Modest Proposal: To Stop War, Draft Congressional Staffers By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE Given all the recent controversy about whether Congress should require women to register for the draft (answer: no, Congress stop requiring *anyone* to register), over at [Darwin’s Fool](http://www.darwinsfool.com) I [offered](http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2016/02/08/to-stop-war-draft-congressional-staffers/) an alternative proposal for all those who still think conscription would reduce unnecessary wars: > The only argument for the draft for which I have any sympathy is one the anti-war Left offers. (Remember them? They existed briefly during the Bush years.) It is the idea that conscription might make Congress and the president less eager go to war, because it would impose more of the cost of war on influential middle- and upper-class voters… > > > If the goal is to make Congress feel the burdens of war, drafting congressional staff would be a more effective deterrent to war than general conscription. [Read the whole thing.](http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2016/02/08/to-stop-war-draft-congressional-staffers/) ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).