This question was inspired by a post on lemmy.zip about lowering the minimum age to purchase firearms in the US, and a lot of commeters brought up military service and training as a benchmark to normal civilians, and how if guns would be prevalent, then firearm training should be more common.
For reference, I live in the USA, where the minimum age to join the military is 18, but joining is, for the most part, optional. I also know some friends that have gone through the military, mostly for college benefits, and it has really messed them up. However, I have also met some friends from south korea, where I understand military service is mandatory before starting a more normal career. From what I’ve heard, military service was treated more as a trade school, because they were never deployed, in comparison to American troops.
I just wanted to know what the broader Lemmy community thought about mandatory military service is, especially from viewpoints outside the US.
how if guns would be prevalent
hahahaha ‘would’ hahahhahhah. hilarious.
a huge contigent of domestic terrorism in the united states is ex-military white guys. also, a huge percentage of the homeless population are veterans… it clearly leaves a psychological stain we then refuse to mop up. but yeah, lets push everyone through agencies with the worst sexual assault tallies in the country. awesome.
You don’t use a mop to clean up a stain, you mop up a spill which can then leave a stain. You have to scrub a stain and maybe use something like vinegar or baking soda.
It ignores that people have consciences and forces such ones into violent behavior. That violates human freedom and dignity.
Some countries have implemented some sort of civilian service. Others just ignore the wishes of their citizens. You decide the moral path here.
I am for it only because it helps avoid politicization of the armed forces. When the military self-selects recruits, you risk the organization biasing towards people with a particular worldview. It intrinsicially also leads to a military comprised of people who love the idea of being a “military person”.
It’s much more reassuring knowing your armed forces, the people with the big guns, are your neighbors, rather than strangers with a particular ideology or biased loyalties.
It’s much more reassuring knowing your armed forces, the people with the big guns, are your neighbors, rather than strangers with a particular ideology or biased loyalties.
How about compulsory national guard service?
Amazingly, I’m not a big fan of slavery.
Compare Switzerland. Everyone after secondary school gets a year learning how to work as a team and practice interdependence.
Seems like it’s working really well for them, as they have more guns per capita and almost zero mass shootings. Maybe that’s the thing they’re doing right?
Personally I don’t have an issue with it as it’s the only chance I and other poor kids had for entering college.
Switzerland was an inspiration for much of the american laws I believe. The second amendment used to say “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”. The American got rid of the militia (the training) and kept the guns, now we have chaos.
I had the idea that mass shootings were more of a cultural phenomenon exacerbated by the media. I mean, we don’t have them in my country either. And although some older people have gone through compulsory military training, it’s been slowly rescinded for the younger generations so it makes me wonder if that has any effect on people’s willingness to go on shooting sprees.
Join the military, die for your (oil) billionairs! Its an honor!
Fuck that noise.
Completely fucked up.
Do you consider the right to give up a basic human right? I do. Military service should never be mandatory. Also, the whole concept of nation-states is obsolete and harmful and humanity should try to move to stateless/borderless forms of society.
Mandatory paid service with military as an OPTION, maybe. I’d like kids to get work right out of high school, have a year before college or whatever to make some money and do something different.
Literally always the military? No way. And certainly nothing that doesn’t come with a paycheck. It just sucks now that the only way to get scholarships for college is right out of high school, something needs to interrupt that.
Mandatory social work sounds great. I’d love to spend a year working in the forest service, or even on city cleanup. Paid of course. But it builds love for your neighbors and country to help your community.
A mandatory year in food service or retail could fix one of the main core issues we have here in the US, which is lack of empathy and respect for others. It is the genesis of so many of our problems.
I feel like most kids get this in high school, 3/4 of mine did anyway. Most people I know spent at least some time working in retail and/or restaurant.
And yes I agree that a lack of empathy and excess of greed is THE problem facing us.
What bothers me more is hospitality work is satisfying as fuck - I love making people comfortable and happy, that commitment to excellence - it’s just so hard to make a good living at it.
Just imagine if instead of millitary service, it was compulsary public service that actually benefitted society. Nursing, construction/infrastructure, farming, teaching/childcare, etc.
Its astrounding how much money is pumped into the military industrial complex when it could be used to fund to many other programs for public good.
But that would be sOciALiSm.
This is exactly what I would want a compulsory service to look like.
Fuck the military, let’s build bridges and houses and schools, and cafeterias, and farms, and staff them. Roads and hospitals.
Nobody ever needed to make a fucking bomb
This exists in Austria. Males have to choose between 6 months of military or 9 months of public service. Interestingly enough the existence of the public service option has been a strong reason why people voted against removing the mandatory service some years ago.
Out of curiosity, what do they do for public service?
Driving ambulance cars and doing first aid, helping in kindergarten, retirement homes, homeless shelters, institutions for people with disabilities,…
The ambulance is probably the most popular position, you can also choose what you want to do to a certain extent.
AmeriCorps is exactly this, but it’s obviously not compulsory.
Does that still exist?
That’s too good of an idea to be usable, the powers that don’t want it would tell the nurses, construction workers and farmers their livelihoods were being undermined by slave labour.
Some places you can opt to do compulsory public service instead of military service.
I fully support this. It would help on so many levels. Provide a cheap workforce to help with currently in demand stuff and fix shit, help young people get away from home, get a new view on life and get some starter cash, and mix people from all walks of life. I genuinely see no downside.
I think compulsory retail service would fix society.
More hilarious when considering the US Military is an inherently socialist institution.
My sister and brother-in-law will go to the commissary, stay on base housing, get their paycheck from the US Govt., receive public Healthcare, and the GI Bill, then promptly go home and post on Facebook about how socialism bad.
Realizing the US Army is the most socialist institution I’ve ever encountered didn’t happen till years after I was out, lol
You want school? Get it! You want food? Get it! You want clothes? You already fucking got em
I don’t think that would be any better. It is still compulsory service and a violation of people’s individual freedoms to choose how to live their lives.
(and many countries do allow that as an alternative e.g. for conscientious objectors)
Mandatory training - Yes
Mandatory service - NoIn the event of a real defensive war, where your nation is invaded with the intent of conquest or subjugation, you will not have a lack of volunteers. You will have a lack of trained people.
It takes a couple of months to train a new recruit. Having everyone ready to go will help tremendously during the initial stages of war.
On the other hand, a permanent mandatory service is 1. A waste of money, 2. Open for exploitation by corrupt governments
It takes a couple of months to train a new recruit.
Longer. Basic Training is 8 to 13 weeks, and only prepares a recruit for immediate entry into a tech school. They need several additional months in a tech school before they are qualified to deploy.
If you want the general populace to have training in some particular skill by the time they are adults, you need to talk to the Department of Education, not the military.
With that in mind: The overwhelming majority of manpower requirements in any military operation are associated with support, not combat. More vocational focus in high school, especially on the machining and construction trades, will ensure a large pool of people with the knowledge and skills that will be needed most.
The overwhelming majority of manpower requirements in any military operation are associated with support, not combat.
I remember reading that in Iraq, something like 10% of military personnel actually saw combat.
There’s a lot that has to happen along the haft of the spear to make the tip of the spear work.
In the event of a real defensive war, where your nation is invaded with the intent of conquest or subjugation, you will not have a lack of volunteers. You will have a lack of trained people.
Hey, I have a (purely theoretical!) question if you don’t mind.
So, if there was (theoretically of course) a war out there, where the government openly admits that they lack volunteers, people are trying to escape the country en masse by illegally crossing the border, and also there were thousands of videos online about that government kidnapping people off the streets (so that they have at least someone to send into the war), would it mean by your definition that such a war is not “with the intent of conquest or subjugation”?
Arguing semantics is not arguing in good faith.
In this “purely theoretical” case, exhaustion plays a huge role. There would not be a lack of volunteers in the beginning, say in the first year of war. After a couple of years and no hope of victory, it’s not surprising some people could decide to give up.
Now, should they be forced into war anyway? Tragedy of the commons or some such philosophical dilemma…
I don’t think I am “arguing semantics” (whatever that means), and you evaded the question :(
We could use this, but after basic the year is spent in the country in communities doing public works. There also need to be zero loopholes, zero outs. People from all over the country from all walks of life and all classes live and work together. There was a brief benefit after WWII when men and women came home from service having worked and lived with people from all over the country. Farm boys with no education fought side by side with men who had been to ivy league schools. There was a net benefit to it.
I think military service in general is kind of important since you can actually get attacked (thanks to russia for making my point).
We had mandatory military service for men in germany and it was canceled. I sure hope it stays that way bc it isnt efficient to make kids who have better options waste their time on something they dont actually want to do. We have a professional military for that. AND if we had it, women of course must go too.
But besides that especially in countries known for their warcrimes and batshit crazy politics, like the US, I think its clear that mandatory military training would be a bad idea.
I’m against forcing 18 year olds to use guns. Give them some alternative like civil/public service and do something good for society.
