It's a threat.
At any moment, the threat implies, our lords and masters can change our status from "tax serf" -- generously allowed to make a living (so long as we hand over a substantial cut of every dollar earned), travel (so long as we "show our papers" and submit to groping on demand), etc. -- to "military slave," obligated to shed others' blood and perhaps our own on command, at risk of death should we obey and on pain of death should we refuse.
While I'm opposed to conscription ON principle, neither it nor the bureaucratic games that come with it are different IN principle from the larger system they're embedded in. We can have political government or we can have freedom. We can't have both.
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