The United States Equalitarian Party (USEP) believes peace lies in the strength of a well-financed, professionally led, highly-trained, and properly equipped civil and national defense.
Equalitarians believe a formidable defense deterrent is essential to protection of the state and perception of its global status. The party aims to maintain this deterrence through a well-financed, unified national defense strategy, supported by young adult national / civil service programs.
Civic Education Make for Better Civilians and Service Members
The USEP believes civically educated citizens are better able to understand the mechanics and administration of their government, better informed to vote, and better prepared to take up arms if needed to defend their nation. Citizens must also know a strong defense does not come without sacrifice. Funding our Armed Forces is critical to achieving national defense goals.
At no time will the condition of the military be such that it consumes less than 5% of the gross domestic product (GDP). One twentieth of what we make and sell as a nation in any given year is a small price to pay for protecting the rights and freedoms we as citizens all enjoy. An acknowledged, regulated, and uninterrupted flow of national assets allocated to the nation’s defense budget will help provide for and protect our nation’s armed forces.
Military-Civilian Service:
To administer, lead, train, and equip personnel to operate and maintain our nation’s defensive assets, a well-paid and professional volunteer service, augmented by compulsory service personnel would be required under the USEP. Accordingly, at age eighteen, all citizens would be required to serve two years of military or civil service in the aid of their society and civil defense forces. Military service is the choice more encouraged. Student deferments (not exemptions) for a maximum of four years would be permitted.
Those objecting to military service on individual moral or ethical grounds will be allowed to perform civil duties dictated by the needs of their community equal in length and degree of difficulty as those in military service. Immigrants volunteering and successfully serving in either of these two services would be granted legal resident status (i.e., a Green Card) and expedited citizenship services.
Civilian Control of the Military
The military will remain under the control of congress and will not impose its will for purpose of shelter or sustenance on the citizens of the U.S in either peacetime or war. Military force will, to the extent possible, be used primarily for defensive actions at home and abroad. Using a doctrine the USEP calls “Don’t go to parties you aren’t invited to”, American military forces would deploy only to countries to which they have been appealed to by the host nation to assist. The USEP would end what has been known as U.S. Adventurism abroad. Deployment of U.S. military forces to nations outside the U.S. and its territories to include the use of overseas contingency funds (those outside the normal defense budget).would require Congressional approval.
Given, the level of funding required to fund military operations, it will be the responsibility of the military to provide pay, housing, and sustenance for its forces. The military forces will be united as one organization with separate but jointly coordinated specialized functions (e.g. air, space, land, sea, etc.). Budgets, legal, medical, national level command structures, etc., would all be joint using common standards to reduce wasteful spending. The current practice of having officer and enlisted corps will be abolished. In its place, a transitional single rank structure (e.g., Armed Forces (AF) AF-1 to AF-15) would be established to ensure equally accessible rank and pay to all members of the armed forces.
An Equal Opportunity for All Who Serve
The USEP believes keeping the officer and enlisted personnel structure in place would perpetuate what often appears as a purposeful separation of an educated class and a labor force – a perception which can create a class separation mentality of “us versus them”. Access to academic achievement and the acquisition of advanced technical skills in the 21st century is available to an ever increasing number of citizens – a modern phenomenon which has gradually closed the once justified gap between a separate officer and enlisted corps.
From a leadership and managerial perspective, a unified corps will also remove the use of fear of legal consequence from a separate class of assumed superiors against a lower class of workers to gain compliance instead of securing follower-ship through displayed leadership and earned respect to obtain and maintain authority.
Want to lean more? Want to become an Equalitarian? Want to know how to help our efforts? Visit the USEP website at: www.usep.net