Palantir wants to bring back the draft just as the Selective Service preps for automatic registration

In a 1777 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson warned that although the Revolutionary War was looking dire for the colonists, having a national draft would be “the most unpopular and impracticable thing that could be attempted.” “Our people, even under the monarchical government, had learnt to consider [military conscription] as the last of all oppressions,” he wrote. (As a refresher, the Royal Navy used “press gangs” to seize American colonial ships and sailors. Automatic conscription of men aged 16 to 60 was so opposed by the colonists, it made it into the Declaration of Independence as one of the 27 grievances against King George III). It may come as a surprise then that nearly 250 years later, a major company valued at roughly $350 billion —while paying $0 in federal taxes and holding a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army—is now backing the draft. Palantir Technologies , a defense and data analytics company, published a 22-point manifesto on its X account on Sunday that summed up what co-founder and CEO Alex Karp wrote in 2025 book The Technological Republic, co-authored with Nicholas W. Zamiska. Among the 22 points was a call for universal national service. “National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost,” the post summing up the manifesto read. Among other points in the manifesto include a “moral debt to the country” owed by Silicon Valley and for the remilitarization of Germany and Japan, former Axis Powers in World War II. On an earnings call last year, Karp said Palantir’s mission was to “scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” The contract the company holds with the U.S. Army is to better its software and data analytics. Additionally, Palantir’s platforms power Project Maven, the Pentagon’s AI-driven targeting and surveillance program, which was reportedly used to help generate targeting lists …