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.
It depends on how it’s done.
First, there has to be a compensation. Generally speaking free college gets tied to it a lot. In the US a mandatory service isn’t getting off the ground without it.
Second, there needs to be multiple avenues of service. It cannot just be military. To be honest, the military can’t handle the number of conscripts. There’s about half a million every year. So spreading that out into other service avenues such as a construction corps, EMTs, hospital helpers, legislative staff, libraries, etc, is required. (The specifics are obviously up for debate)
I do believe a mandatory service brings people together and strengthens a country. But it’s just not possible for a large country like the US to do military only mandatory service.
I declare everything I want to happen mandatory.
As an Australian I have no interest in “defending” a country that’s rampant with shit stain politcans, their oligarchs, along with their supporters and retinue.
Cumpolsory military service my sweet asshole.
It’s against human rights, and severely fucked-up
Conscription is slavery if the people are not under imminent threat.
Conscription will always be used as weapon of the rich against the poor.
Conscription will never affect the children of the rich as much as it affects the poor.
Conscription does demystify military service and can teach useful skills.
Balancing these and other factors is always the trick.
I’d prefer a voluntary military service in a society that strongly encourages people to sign up for short service periods and doesn’t lock them in for years as an anti-abuse measure, as a training program for a more popular citizen militia defense scheme.
I read a novel written by a Vietnam era draftee.
There was a scene where two draftees were talking about ending the draft. One was against it because it would mean that all the people in the Army would be ‘lifers’ and lifers were the ones who were quickest to massacre civilians.
Hunter Thompson wrote about it once. His opinion was that when he served, a lot of upper class families sent their sons to the Army. That meant that they were meeting and working with all types of people.
My personal take is that it’s a good thing, if there’s a non-military equivalent, something like FDR’s CCC
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Morally? Fuck that shit. But, being a Finn and sharing a huge border with Russia, I see why it is a thing here and in a lot of countries.
As for America, your military seems to have enough people in it, and the US hasn’t needed to actually defend itself for a looooong time.
The US military has actually been short on recruits for a long time now due to the obesity epidemic.
I mean we could stop maintaining an invasion force in basically every corner of the globe simultaneously, but we aren’t filthy communists or whatever.
Huh, that’s new to me. But, on the other hand, it isn’t like America uses its military to defend itself, but rather just invade others.
I’d sooner go to prison
In Switzerland we do mandatory military service or public service if you don’t do the military.
Both are ok, I only know the military but it’s a good experience. At first you don’t really want to do it but then you have a lot of fun, drink tons of cheap beers and learn to shoot (skill that you have to maintain for several years with mandatory shooting sessions).
Overall it’s more of a school of life rather than military school. I knew people in the medics and they did jack shit. I was in DCA and did jack shit. Most people I talk to did dumb stuff and most of us have good and funny memories from that time.
Is this a useful military force? Probably not, but we are Switzerland so who cares?
Depends on the unit. I did it in the infantry and it sucked. Would never do it again.
That’s what I heard as well, the few grenadiers I know told me the same.
It seems that they are the only ones having to do the usual crap and suffering.
Yeah it is awesome, it just cost me a year of my professional career without any real benefits…
And our military is mostly regarded as a joke, I am seriously not sure why we even have it. It would probably collapse in days if it needs to defend our country.
I like it for the unifying experience it is. We all do it, it becomes part of our education and gives us the feel of all being Swiss besides our different cultures and languages.
But seeing every votes results (Röstigraben, cities vs countryside) proves that it is not a huge success 😅
One thing I don’t like at all is that in order to climb high hierarchy in some companies, you have to be a former military officer, preferably Swiss-German (bonus point if you’ve done a shit economy school).
When I started learning my job we could do our military service AT work as it was considered to be an essential nation wide security job. I did not profit from this but the deal was to go to work in military uniform, getting your salary paid by the military while continuing to work for your boss. Definitely a win for the company and a huge financial loss for the confederation. They stopped that when they realized it was dumb to pay salaries to people not actually working for you.
I believe that mandatory military service is absurd. Nobody chose to be born in any nation or under the jurisdiction of any government. No one else should be be obligated to support or fight for the ideology or actions or even the right to exist of a government they have effectively been assigned to by complete chance. It completely ignores the right of individuals to have their own systems of belief about what is morally correct.
For example, I am largely in agreement with Buddhist philosophy and only support violence under strict circumstances. I was born and currently live in the United States, and I would gladly go to prison or be executed over directly or indirectly being responsible for the suffering of others at the request of my government. Everything my country stands for is antithetical to my very strongly held beliefs about what is right, and I would proudly label myself a traitor. I believe that if you can’t find enough volunteers to fight for a cause, then maybe that cause isn’t actually worth shedding blood over.
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My opinion is fuck no.
Hunter safety is a gun safety class that under age kids can take to help build good habits when handling firearms. Maybe people could use those instead.
Fuck your military slave bullshit. Fuck it forever.
My response to the title: No
If I am being forced to, I will try to steer it towards any non-combant service like IT or (if necessary) social service.
I think mandatory public service would be good, with an option to choose non-combatant military roles
I’ve thought a required 2 years military or 1 year in a customer service job like retail right after high school would make fast change to people’s attitudes and empathy.
I worked retail on a military base, you’d think they’d be better behaved that civilians, but they aren’t. Especially the Chief’s wives.
No, I won’t be addressing you by the rank of your equivalent to middle management husband.
maybe not, but from what i’ve seen the consequences are more fair, you don’t get 10 years in prison for doing dumbshit, you get 1000 pushups, or bathroom duty for a year, weird stuff like that. the only thing i really hated about the military was the E1s trolling high school hallways picking up underage girls. that shit was fucked.
Mandatory military service is the one case where accelerationism might possibly make sense. The fact that the military is made up of volunteers makes it harder to radicalize, and people are more willing to support war because, “The soldiers chose to be there.” Go ahead, rip people away from the comfort of our homes, give us guns and training, and tell us we have to go risk our lives murdering brown people on the other side of the world in pointless conflicts in service of corporate interests - it’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for them.
I oppose the draft because I wouldn’t want to subject myself or others to that. But at the same time, I dare them to try it.
It’s ridiculous and should never be implemented.
