Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Conscripted vs Standing Army
Posts
If I recall correctly, the US government had to convince both the UN and American people that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq and that the only way to protect all that we hold dear is to get rid of Saddam Hussein. After nothing was found, it was considered our job to save Iraq from civil war, so that's what happened. Only after it dawned to the general public that this whole situation was far more deadly to our boys than Afghanistan, protests started.
Also: look up the history of the Vietnam war, how long did it take for people to voice their opinion en masse? =)
Free MMO Überlist
Another thing I don't think is fair, in the Greek and Norweigan system, it is only the men who have to take part in national service - would a US draft be everyone 18-35 or just the men? Seeing as if its the latter, that pretty much implies that you're there in case we need more people on the front lines.
In all honesty, Iraq War was actually a war only during the first several stages. After that it was war in the technical sense only.
I mean, I'm pretty sure war (or at least my understanding of war) doesn't involve soldiers sitting in their base having Halo tournaments.
Although getting blown up on roadside-patrols does sound more like war. Frankly we're not going to beat suicidal-guerilla tactics their without inside help, which we can't get because everyone hates us.
Drunks Against Mad Mothers
Overall, I would say a Standing Army would be better in the long run. Conscripted armies tend to buckle under pressure a -lot- faster most of the time. Nowadays that sort of thing is saved as a last resort and I'm really hoping it'll never get past the drawing board here.
No amount of training and equipment can ever beat out suicidal guerilla tactics in the long run. Those employing said tactics almost always have plenty of brainwashed fanatics with nothing to lose to throw at us. They don't hold back. We do. With brute force in mind, the only way to really beat out that sort of enemy would be to raze the entire region to the ground and destroy everything. Absolutely everthing. And everyone.
However, there's obvious reasons as to why that should never, ever be done.
Joline Lovejoy: Gifted Priest/Pistoleer - Chains of Corvis IKRPG
You missed what my mockery was aimed at. Otherwise - yes, that's exactly the stance I said you should have just brought in in the first place two posts ago. And in response you went off like an explosive simile.
Yes, but is this what has been going on in Iraq?
No.
Having to do shit I don't want that isn't very free. Having to do shit that I find abhorrent is -super- not very free.
As aware as I am that the American Ideal is a sham, I still strive for it. Those who get in the way of that are NOT my allies. Freedom of thought without a hint of freedom of action is little better than hell on Earth.
If someone says to me, "Your ideals are being violated here, will you help us stop it?" I may well get involved.
If someone says to me, "My ideals, which you oppose, are being violated here. Help us or you will be punished." I may well get somewhat upset.
This cannot be a difficult concept.
I will NOT be made to do that which is antithetical to my nature. I will not violate my ethics. I will not allow myself to be destroyed for the gain of someone I have no love for.
My body belongs to me. My mind belongs to me.
I will defend that until both are dust.
It's completely disingenuous to suggest that anyone here would not actually fight to defend their country if it was actually invaded. It's also disingenuous to go with the immediate assumption that since some people sign up and go off to other countries to do things which (ideally) are in the interests of the security and protection of a country and it's freedoms, that firstly we should drop those freedoms and make everyone fight for them and secondly (and this is the one I really hate) that there is no other possible way that people might do something like that, by you know, furthering their education, running businesses that produce goods, even being factory workers etc.
So unless you're like a national guardsman or something, or some private company is paying soldiers and nobody told me...
Right. And once it's mine, it's mine and that's it.
This was unnecessary and far off and away from the drive of the thread. By your logic, my vehicle belongs to the taxpayers. So I guess if you ever need a ride, I'll leave the keys in it.
Would you then be willing, since the taxed levied on servicemembers is clearly just a double tax of the true, real American taxpayers, to do away with taxing servicemembers?
:edited because I didn't want to call Incenjucar an idiot:
This is the dumbest shit ever written.
So by this logic a fuckload of people "don't pay taxes." Firefighters, police, teachers, etc. Hell, even privately employed civilians working for companies with government contracts...I mean, just because the money gets filtered through a corporation before hitting their salary doesn't mean it wasn't taxpayer's money, right?
I should go let the guys out front fixing the street know that they shouldn't bitch, because it's not like they pay taxes or anything.
Fucking dipshit.
EDIT: Also, I am a National Guardsman...but that doesn't matter because your statement was dumber than dogshit to begin with.
The point is that the military does not PRODUCE.
Without the civilian base, the military (or any other governing body) starves to death.
Your taxes are meaningless; you're basically just getting your pay reduced. Civilian taxes actually come from labor and goods produced. The military is a service that protects the ability to produce that labor and goods. Basically, super-elite security guards.
But you don't get paid unless you're guarding something damned valuable.
I restate my question: should the military not pay taxes then? If it's just a pay reduction.
And, scooter, you're gonna have to back off the name calling. It's uncalled for, and you're derailing the thread. You've got some crazy anti-military hard on, and this really aint the place for it. You dont want to be told what to do. Okay, you unique lil snowflake, we get that. But apparently what you don't want to do is listen to people who know what the hell it is they're talking about.
Ultimately, the fact that the military is taxed is null. They get a voice like every other American of proper age. But they're in the service industry, they are serving a customer. They are not contributing to themselves because they produce nothing TO contribute. They do not grow the food they eat or sew the textiles they wear or build the houses they live in (exceptions, of course). You cannot dismiss the people whose work creates your pay just because you give some of it back to yourselves.
As for the rudeness, when people are acting like juveniles and bitching because their romanticism about their profession isn't shared by others, it's deserved.
Being part of the military does not automatically grant you the right to respect.
Being part of the system does not make that system automatically -right-.
And, again, -idiot-.
I am not against the military in and of itself. I am not against KILLING in and of itself.
I am against SPECIFIC choices that are being made. I am against having my life horribly disrupted and possibly ended for SPECIFIC choices that I do not agree with.
It's why I can never even consider joining the military. My conscience does not allow me to divorce my actions from my ethics.
Others can. That's good, and useful, and all that jazz.
But who I am does not allow me to ignore who I am.
--
As such, I could not function under conscription unless I -happened- to agree with things, in which case I would have volunteered to begin with.
It is just a pay reduction. Furthermore, it's interesting to note that we also just give a rather diverse range of benefits to those in the military to compensate many of the extensive activities they undertake outside of what we might expect of civilians.
Now, why exactly we do tax military personnel is an interesting question, but I'm more then averagely sure there's a half-decent answer that is probably tied up in the way the taxation beurocracy works. At a guess it's that the government alots a budget, the budget gets spent, a good deal of government money ends up back in the pocket of private citizens, but effectively tracking that would be impossible so it's easier to tax everyone equally and then give tax exemptions for hazard pay.
What I really want to ask you though is, what exactly does the military produce other then security for production?
:lol:
No, you don't get it. Because if you did, you would have admitted defeat and dropped from the discussion a long time ago.
Look, you cannot force people to drop what they are doing and go fight a war in Lala Land. This is very simple to understand. No, really, it is. This is the center of the debate, the point that is the heart of the discussion. The other arguments don't really matter; even if we found a way to make conscript armies more effective than volunteer armies, even if we found a magical way to make it so that people who are drafted do not stop contributing to the economy and still go on with their normal lives, at the and of the day it would still be that you cannot force people to do something against their will.
How can you get it, and still argue for a draft? I can't help but think Incenjucar's name-calling is actually very valid here.
Now, it's obviously true that to do this they've vertically integrated where they have specialist building requirements but I would contend in the case of the engineering corp this can be generally said to be a sensibility for the military to operate.
It's also definitely true that R&D by places like DARPA represents very real productivity and contribute major technological and scientific progress to the world, as well as doing some of the more exciting completely risky (in terms of expected outcomes) research.
But! None of this has anything to do with arguing that conscription will in some way actually result in an increase in this type of productivity. DARPA is a research organization, staffed by scientists as much as it might be by military engineers. You can't conscript people to do the work they do.
Man what? Most of the people in the military right now joined after the war. They knew there was an armed conflict going on, they knew there was a high likelihood they'd be sent to some God forsaken desert, and they knew there'd be a chance that they'd be put in danger. It's not selfish of anyone in the slightest. Nobody was forced to join. If they joined so they could get the same benefits as other people, that's fine, but they knew what the risks were.
Not to mention with your plan you'd basically be giving that ten percent a bunch of people who don't want to be there, hate their jobs, and would probably have no issue doing the bare minimum. I can't help but feel that most people in the military at the moment would not be happy with that particular situation.
The rest of that was just to jump on anyone who was about to argue that DARPA and similar do contribute production, but as is apparently obvious, they do not benefit from conscription - in fact probably quite the converse.
And all of this comes up because some idiot is making a thinly veiled argument at some point that you're not contributing to the nation if you don't serve in the military.
That's not why it camed up. Not that I saw. You're gonna have to find that post for me, please.
And, Incenjucar, aside from the part where you feel it's justified to insult me, I'm glad you made your opinion out to be something other than 'neener, no one tells me what to do.'
It started about here:
With the basic implication that you're not serving the country unless you're in the military. Coz you know, I happen to think my early death might have some unfortunate effects on my ability to make future contributions to science.
EDIT: Also this - Same problem - "unless you fight you clearly don't care about our freedoms!" - well fuck me, I guess Bush is right and we do need to sacrifice our freedoms to have freedoms. You know, freedom to choose your own destiny, right to life, liberty etc.
Incenj. copped a range of bullshit which essentially amounted to everyone saying because he does not want to be forced to fight, clearly he's unwilling to fight at all and is a freedom hating communist.
Maybe you should change the question to "USA invaded by Red army" and then see what post people would say.
Totally not what I was going for there. I was curious to see under what circumstances I.J. would be willing to do something, considering the amounts of bile he was putting out towards those who, one reason or another, feel the need to do something now, or five years ago. Or ten. Or a hundred. In no way was I trying to put out that the only way to contribute to the country was military service, and it's a pretty big stretch to say I'm putting that statement out thinly veiled.
Drunks Against Mad Mothers
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
The drawback is though that without a professional career military you have less professional people in a war zone.
It seems to me that increases the likelihood of soldiers acting unprofessionally. I could be wrong about that though, I don't have studies to back it up or anything like that.
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
Depends what type of conscription we're talking....if we're really just talking about filling the lower ranks (which is what would be likely) then I'd think this isn't really an issue. Having seen first-hand the "professionalism" of the average junior enlisted man who just signed up for a few years to pay for college/get out of whatever shithole he came from, I'm not impressed.
EDIT: I just realized I was wrongly singling out a class of people. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of unprofessionalism to be seen from people who signed up to put a boot in some ass Toby-Keith-style, too. And people on their second or third deployments who think they're wasting their time there. Or from pretty much any other class of soldier.
Maybe I can tell you guys a couple of stories (to add to the obvious and heinous ones you've already seen covered in the news) when I get back. Maybe not.