[Versus]

Of course not. But I am expecting you to acknowledge that a draftee that has never voted cannot be said to have had a say in the matter on that account.

You're right. Someone that is old enough to vote is generally old enough to be drafted. Until they are old enough to vote, they can't really do much other then raise awareness of their opinion.

You're looking at this from a 'if you can't fix it, don't bash it' perspective. That is often constructive, to a degree. But you do have to acknowledge the limitations of your system, even if you don't know how to improve it. 'Democracy' isn't true or false in a binary sense; it is achieved or not achieved to varying degrees. Your system (and ours, too) achieves very little of it, so its existence carries equally little relevancy to the ethics of a draft.

I brought it up because you said this:

A draft? You need to ask?

It's a bunch of people - a government, in this case - telling innocent people to either serve and fight to the death at their command, or face harsh punishment of some kind.

I honestly can't see anything that isn't wrong about it. It's "I'm stronger than you and you will do what I tell you or I'll kick your ass" at it's purest, and cleverly applied to create a cycle that sustains the balance of power as it is.

I figured your objection was the conscript's interaction with their government, so I was trying to point out one example of how the government's decision is influenced by the would-be conscript in the first place. There are other models for conscription in less democratic countries, but you said you think it's irrelevant to the ethics of it, so I won't go into that.

Let's start over.

On what grounds would you imagine another American draft would be appropriate?

Under what conditions would it be acceptable, to you? For example, Germany allows conscientious objectors or those with religious conflicts to serve either in non-combat roles or civil service occupations. Israel drafts women, but it doesn't draft Muslims or Christian Arabs. Some countries allow you to be exempt if you are in school, or already in a civil service role.