The more practical point - what I think Church meant - is that if you put large numbers of drafted soldiers in or near combat, then they make mistakes. Whether it is shooting up a civvy car at a checkpoint or leaving their rifle on auto & spraying their mates by accident, mistakes get people killed.
Obviously your confusion is Sarastro's fault, for not making it impossibly clear to you that he understood me.
Church on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Turkey has mandatory military service for all males, beginning at the age of 21. It lasts 18 months.
I am fucking dreading it.
I'm going to be doing everything I can to dodge it. Not because I'm scared of basic training, but because I don't believe in the principle of dragging someone against their will and holding them essentially captive for such a long period of time.
In more general terms, draft is not military "service". It's state-sanctioned slavery, justified under the "it's necessary" excuse.
Move to Australia. We don't have it.
EDIT: unless you have some bullshit law that says you can't leave the country until you've done your draft.
or if they can call you back for as long as you're a citizen.
The thing about experiences which make you a better person is that generally every experience that you survive and doesn't leave you with permanent mental scars of PTSD makes you a better person. That doesn't make military service remotely the more sensible option for "enriching" experiences.
If you want to conscript people to do things I'd rather conscript them to do civil service, since in most western countries this might at least inform people before they start ranting about welfare deadbeats or the like.
However by my own moral code we shouldn't be conscripting anyone. We should however be educating enough people that they are motivated to help their country in some way - whatever that may be. As someone said before, in terms of vital services police, ambulance and fire are equally important to any nation.
Yeah I'm sure you can gain a lot of personal strength from military service. That's if you survive the process Just like I'm sure getting hit by a car and having to go through intensive therapy can make me a better person, if you survive. Or either just might make you a troubled prick.
In other words, I don't think that's is a good reason to justify service. But I'm talking about combat service. I do think there should be conscription for non-combat service but combat service should always be voluntary unless there's an overriding necessity of security. Just to put people's feet close enough to the fire to prevent apathy during war time (or to make sure everything is done to prevent war time in the first place).
But really a pet peeve of mine is those military commercials that try to hypnotize children into believing combat service is some kind of dick grower (which some of them already do), and that's why this might seem like a tone deaf response to the discussion here.
electricity, you motherfucker
longest beat'd ever
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
What was my fallacy? Saying you endorse compulsory military service because you said your experience made you a better person?
I admit that you did not say that, and that you may have not meant it, but that is what the discussion was about before your post. I understood your (implicit) support of the idea that military service made you a better person meant you also support a policy of drafting young people.
If that is in fact what you meant by fallacy, I would argue that it is not a fallacy but rather an assumption that seemed reasonable to me at the time, and of which I was aware.
Also, note that I didn't say you support child recruitment, I said that you obviously don't, and that seemed to conflict with your assumed support of the previously mentioned policy.
And a question, to you and other people who said service made them better people. I have spent the last three years in college. I am a better person now (almost 22) than I was when I were 18 years old, but I do not conclude that it was college that was responsible for the change. The question: how can you know that it is the army that makes you a better person and not just maturity? It seems to me that the things that people usually say they gain from service (discipline, responsibility, perspective) are also things that seem (to me) to come naturally through maturity.
The fallacy was comparing encouraging military service to encouraging genocide.
To be perfectly clear, I believe in compulsory military service, but I also believe that people who are only in the military because of such a policy should not be used in foreign conflicts.
Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time. I fought in the war for four years, and I think I grew up more in that time than many people do in twice my life-time. Note that this obviously doesn't apply to certain aspects of maturity, like, say, motor skills, and theory of mind. That should go without saying.
Since you've decided to use yourself as your evidence, in order to attack your evidence I have to attack you. I'm not apologizing because that was entirely your choice. You have not matured enough to know that violence doesn't solve personal-tragedy and only makes the situation worse. That is a far more important aspect of maturity to functioning in society at large than the ability to kill when you have to even if you don't want to, or to keep your head under fire and carry out your orders despite unpleasant circumstances. I think your claim that service should be required because it "makes people better" is based on a very flawed definition of "better", as such tendencies toward aggression and violence as those you've mentioned having aren't anything I haven't heard before from people who served in combat roles extensively. Besides, without conscription people who wish to make themselves "better" in the ways that combat does can still enlist and go do it, you simply don't end up with too many soldiers to be able to pay i.e; a workforce of millions that did not choose their work and are not being paid for it i.e; slavery to the federal government.
I'd like to point out again that the idea that any army would train people who will explicitly have nothing to do with a potential war is silly.
Armies are used to kill people or to threaten to kill people. Pretending they do anything else is a lie. Saying the national guard helps people in times of natural disasters and the like is fine, but their role as helpers has nothing to do with a military purpose or military training. That is, why not simply train people to help people, rather then to kill people and incidentally help people where there is no one to kill?
I'd like to point out again that the idea that any army would train people who will explicitly have nothing to do with a potential war is silly.
Armies are used to kill people or to threaten to kill people. Pretending they do anything else is a lie
No, it isn't.
The modern UK / US / Aus etc forces are regularly deployed for disaster or humanitarian relief, and recieve wide-ranging and specific training for that job. Many ex-military officers go on to work for NGO's in top field roles for precisely this reason. The organisation, resources and reach of military forces make them ideally suited for the job. The Royal Navy, for example, spends much more of its time in aid operations than it does 'killing people'. As I mentioned, Reserve forces spend the majority of their time in such roles.
...and those are the armies with the most current combat operations. If you look at the pared down remits of many EU militaries (Germany for example), you will find they are even further geared towards peacekeeping rather than warfighting.
Yes, military training involves use of deadly force, but it involves many levels before that designed to make use of force a last resort. The reason for this is simple. Force gets people on both sides killed, and that is to be avoided if possible. In fact, for most western soldiers, much of their training will revolve around avoiding escalation. 'Shock' assault units who focus on a quick & massive use of force get a lot of press and YouTube videos, but are small in number.
Pretending armies are only used to kill or threaten to kill people is simplistic and demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the subject.
Pretending armies are only used to kill or threaten to kill people is simplistic and demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the subject.
My basic training consisted of, basically:
A)How to you use my rifle.
B)How not to use my rifle.
Not necessarily in that order though.
Other armies that you mention - yes they do useful things other than killing people, but there is absolutely no reason you have to use soldiers to do these things. The reason soldiers are used in those capacities is to use their workforce while they are not killing people.
I'm not saying killing people is inherently evil, I'm just saying that that is the purpose of armed fucking forces.
Is it a bad thing that soldiers help people in crisis? No. It is, in a fact, a very good thing.
Is that the reason the army spent time and money training them? No, it is not.
I'm not familiar with the training practices of, say, the USMC beyond films like Full Metal Jacket, but I doubt that "Saving Civilians from Floods" and "Spreading Understanding of Western Civilization" come before "That is the Safety" and "How to Shoot People in the Head".
Yes, well no offence, but I can't say the basic training methods of the Israeli army (or the USMC for that matter) have ever impressed me much, or are distinguished by the professionalism of the basic infantryman they turn out. So as a caveat, yes much of this depends on the military institutions of the particular army or even unit - which is why I pointedly said 'western' to leave out places such as Russia.
Nonetheless, you are misleading people by using the basic purpose of armies to ignore the fact that, in reality, they perform a lot of humanitarian functions.
Nonetheless, you are misleading people by using the basic purpose of armies to ignore the fact that, in reality, they perform a lot of humanitarian functions.
I think I explicitly said that armies do perform useful functions. I said that was a good thing.
If anything, you are misleading by saying that armies are not [thank you, Quid] created and maintained to kill people.
My point isn't that armies are evil. My point is that if you'd like to help people, and would also like not to kill people, joining an army is hardly your best option.
Saying, as Church tried to, that one could divorce military service from killing people is absurd.
Really, I don't get what your point is. Are you really - truthfully - saying that death is not the main business of an army?
EDIT: Also, it seems to me that your caveat shouldn't be "western", but "countries not currently involved in long term, wide scale fighting". Yes, British troops are deployed in Iraq, for example, where they kill and are killed but the UK isn't committed to the war nearly as much as the US.
Uh, the USMC is the front line assault troops the US Army. They are not however, the general bulk of the army, but they most certainly serve an important purpose in providing a more elite first line of defense.
Yes, well no offence, but I can't say the basic training methods of the Israeli army (or the USMC for that matter) have ever impressed me much, or are distinguished by the professionalism of the basic infantryman they turn out. So as a caveat, yes much of this depends on the military institutions of the particular army or even unit - which is why I pointedly said 'western' to leave out places such as Russia.
Nonetheless, you are misleading people by using the basic purpose of armies to ignore the fact that, in reality, they perform a lot of humanitarian functions.
Specifically in reality they are capable of performing a lot of humanitarian functions if only because they're a highly disciplined work force and because a lot of humanitarian and military needs cross over - stuff like water purification, infrastructure and transport are all things the military needs to setup quickly and keep going under very non-ideal conditions.
Armies are used to kill people or to threaten to kill people. Pretending they do anything else is a lie. Saying the national guard helps people in times of natural disasters and the like is fine, but their role as helpers has nothing to do with a military purpose or military training. That is, why not simply train people to help people, rather then to kill people and incidentally help people where there is no one to kill?
Specifically in reality they are capable of performing a lot of humanitarian functions if only because they're a highly disciplined work force and because a lot of humanitarian and military needs cross over - stuff like water purification, infrastructure and transport are all things the military needs to setup quickly and keep going under very non-ideal conditions.
All of which I agree with, and all of which doesn't detract from the fact that killing is the main function and the very purpose of an army.
Armies are used to kill people or to threaten to kill people. Pretending they do anything else is a lie. Saying the national guard helps people in times of natural disasters and the like is fine, but their role as helpers has nothing to do with a military purpose or military training. That is, why not simply train people to help people, rather then to kill people and incidentally help people where there is no one to kill?
Man keep your fucking ideas straight.
Shit man, I just forgot to put a "not" in the first quote.
Specifically in reality they are capable of performing a lot of humanitarian functions if only because they're a highly disciplined work force and because a lot of humanitarian and military needs cross over - stuff like water purification, infrastructure and transport are all things the military needs to setup quickly and keep going under very non-ideal conditions.
All of which I agree with, and all of which doesn't detract from the fact that killing is the main function and the very purpose of an army.
No, it isn't. The main purpose is to prevent others from taking or destroying that which they are created to protect. There are a bunch of tacticians who have orgasms over the idea of being able to arm your soldiers with glue guns, tazers and knock out gas and drop localized EMP in order to achieve a decisive, non-lethal victory over an enemy power.
Of course it falls over since behind the man with the glue gun is the man with the rifle since wars are usually fought over things both sides don't want to idly lose. Otherwise NK and SK could resolve their differences in a Starcraft match.
If anything, you are misleading by saying that armies are not [thank you, Quid] created and maintained to kill people.
Look, we're arguing basically the same point but debating clarity of language.
We both agree that the basic purpose of armies is to kill. We also both agree that in practice, armies also perform many relief / peaceful / defensive functions.
Good enough?
PS Electricity, don't want to get into Clausewitz and all that, but it is an accepted tenet of military thinking that yes, the basic purpose of armies is to kill - it is that purpose (threat of killing) that allows them to not kill by using defensive strategies etc. Essentially, in the final balance everything is reduced to ability to kill.
Specifically in reality they are capable of performing a lot of humanitarian functions if only because they're a highly disciplined work force and because a lot of humanitarian and military needs cross over - stuff like water purification, infrastructure and transport are all things the military needs to setup quickly and keep going under very non-ideal conditions.
All of which I agree with, and all of which doesn't detract from the fact that killing is the main function and the very purpose of an army.
No, it isn't. The main purpose is to prevent others from taking or destroying that which they are created to protect. There are a bunch of tacticians who have orgasms over the idea of being able to arm your soldiers with glue guns, tazers and knock out gas and drop localized EMP in order to achieve a decisive, non-lethal victory over an enemy power.
Of course it falls over since behind the man with the glue gun is the man with the rifle since wars are usually fought over things both sides don't want to idly lose. Otherwise NK and SK could resolve their differences in a Starcraft match.
Great image, that.
But you notice that I said, several posts back, that armies exist to kill people and to threaten to kill people, which was later shortened to just "kill people". That is, I understand that the potential ability to kill (or the appearance of potential) is just as important as the killing itself, and in fact much more useful. That is, I agree with you completely.
Well yes, simplistically which is kind of the issue I was raising - saying "armies kill, let's not have them" is simplistic and dumb as a result.
I know, and I agree, but intellectual honesty acknowledges that he is also hitting on a fundamental military principle.
Are you two talking about me? Because it seems so, but I don't remember saying that having armies is a bad thing or that it shouldn't happen.
No but you did stress a lot that that is their function and that they don't really do other, useful things. Which, to an extent I agree with when we're talking about the benefits to people of conscripted service but there's no real issue with the army and not intending to kill people since the logic flips around nicely to "well, those people are trying to kill me, and will keep doing so unless I stop them by whatever means necessary".
Well yes, simplistically which is kind of the issue I was raising - saying "armies kill, let's not have them" is simplistic and dumb as a result.
I know, and I agree, but intellectual honesty acknowledges that he is also hitting on a fundamental military principle.
Are you two talking about me? Because it seems so, but I don't remember saying that having armies is a bad thing or that it shouldn't happen.
No but you did stress a lot that that is their function and that they don't really do other, useful things. Which, to an extent I agree with when we're talking about the benefits to people of conscripted service but there's no real issue with the army and not intending to kill people since the logic flips around nicely to "well, those people are trying to kill me, and will keep doing so unless I stop them by whatever means necessary".
What what?
EDIT: Also, I did specifically say that armies do useful things which are not killing people, and that killing people can be useful as well.
What was my fallacy? Saying you endorse compulsory military service because you said your experience made you a better person?
I admit that you did not say that, and that you may have not meant it, but that is what the discussion was about before your post. I understood your (implicit) support of the idea that military service made you a better person meant you also support a policy of drafting young people.
If that is in fact what you meant by fallacy, I would argue that it is not a fallacy but rather an assumption that seemed reasonable to me at the time, and of which I was aware.
Also, note that I didn't say you support child recruitment, I said that you obviously don't, and that seemed to conflict with your assumed support of the previously mentioned policy.
And a question, to you and other people who said service made them better people. I have spent the last three years in college. I am a better person now (almost 22) than I was when I were 18 years old, but I do not conclude that it was college that was responsible for the change. The question: how can you know that it is the army that makes you a better person and not just maturity? It seems to me that the things that people usually say they gain from service (discipline, responsibility, perspective) are also things that seem (to me) to come naturally through maturity.
The fallacy was comparing encouraging military service to encouraging genocide.
To be perfectly clear, I believe in compulsory military service, but I also believe that people who are only in the military because of such a policy should not be used in foreign conflicts.
Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time. I fought in the war for four years, and I think I grew up more in that time than many people do in twice my life-time. Note that this obviously doesn't apply to certain aspects of maturity, like, say, motor skills, and theory of mind. That should go without saying.
Since you've decided to use yourself as your evidence, in order to attack your evidence I have to attack you. I'm not apologizing because that was entirely your choice. You have not matured enough to know that violence doesn't solve personal-tragedy and only makes the situation worse. That is a far more important aspect of maturity to functioning in society at large than the ability to kill when you have to even if you don't want to, or to keep your head under fire and carry out your orders despite unpleasant circumstances. I think your claim that service should be required because it "makes people better" is based on a very flawed definition of "better", as such tendencies toward aggression and violence as those you've mentioned having aren't anything I haven't heard before from people who served in combat roles extensively. Besides, without conscription people who wish to make themselves "better" in the ways that combat does can still enlist and go do it, you simply don't end up with too many soldiers to be able to pay i.e; a workforce of millions that did not choose their work and are not being paid for it i.e; slavery to the federal government.
When a person is placed in a combat scenario during his formative years, it causes extensive growth stuntage psychologically. I understand that I have a lot of problems as a result of my experiences, but I also understand that a mentally developed adult can handle such experiences and, with the proper conditioning, keep his psyche in-tact.
And I don't believe that combat alone is what is of value to a person in the military; simply going through basic training requires a lot of discipline that a lot of people could use. That is one of the main reasons that I say conscripts should only be used in the military police and in the border guard.
Uh, the USMC is the front line assault troops the US Army. They are not however, the general bulk of the army, but they most certainly serve an important purpose in providing a more elite first line of defense.
USMC is a department of the US Navy, although on a command level it is as autonomous as the other branches are in relation to each other. So they are not the "elite" portion of the US Army, or even the US Navy. Both of those branches have their elite positions filled by the Army Rangers and Navy SEALs respectively. But what the USMC is is not as large as the other branches, because they are really like the army that is built to be able to cooperate with the navy, hence the marine in marines.
What was my fallacy? Saying you endorse compulsory military service because you said your experience made you a better person?
I admit that you did not say that, and that you may have not meant it, but that is what the discussion was about before your post. I understood your (implicit) support of the idea that military service made you a better person meant you also support a policy of drafting young people.
If that is in fact what you meant by fallacy, I would argue that it is not a fallacy but rather an assumption that seemed reasonable to me at the time, and of which I was aware.
Also, note that I didn't say you support child recruitment, I said that you obviously don't, and that seemed to conflict with your assumed support of the previously mentioned policy.
And a question, to you and other people who said service made them better people. I have spent the last three years in college. I am a better person now (almost 22) than I was when I were 18 years old, but I do not conclude that it was college that was responsible for the change. The question: how can you know that it is the army that makes you a better person and not just maturity? It seems to me that the things that people usually say they gain from service (discipline, responsibility, perspective) are also things that seem (to me) to come naturally through maturity.
The fallacy was comparing encouraging military service to encouraging genocide.
To be perfectly clear, I believe in compulsory military service, but I also believe that people who are only in the military because of such a policy should not be used in foreign conflicts.
Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time. I fought in the war for four years, and I think I grew up more in that time than many people do in twice my life-time. Note that this obviously doesn't apply to certain aspects of maturity, like, say, motor skills, and theory of mind. That should go without saying.
Since you've decided to use yourself as your evidence, in order to attack your evidence I have to attack you. I'm not apologizing because that was entirely your choice. You have not matured enough to know that violence doesn't solve personal-tragedy and only makes the situation worse. That is a far more important aspect of maturity to functioning in society at large than the ability to kill when you have to even if you don't want to, or to keep your head under fire and carry out your orders despite unpleasant circumstances. I think your claim that service should be required because it "makes people better" is based on a very flawed definition of "better", as such tendencies toward aggression and violence as those you've mentioned having aren't anything I haven't heard before from people who served in combat roles extensively. Besides, without conscription people who wish to make themselves "better" in the ways that combat does can still enlist and go do it, you simply don't end up with too many soldiers to be able to pay i.e; a workforce of millions that did not choose their work and are not being paid for it i.e; slavery to the federal government.
When a person is placed in a combat scenario during his formative years, it causes extensive growth stuntage psychologically. I understand that I have a lot of problems as a result of my experiences, but I also understand that a mentally developed adult can handle such experiences and, with the proper conditioning, keep his psyche in-tact.
And I don't believe that combat alone is what is of value to a person in the military; simply going through basic training requires a lot of discipline that a lot of people could use. That is one of the main reasons that I say conscripts should only be used in the military police and in the border guard.
You have to gain similar discipline to acquire a four-year degree at most acreditted universities. It's a sort of differently tinted responsibility, but still honestly conforms more to economically productive civillian life than the things my brother told me about boot-camp. I'm sure living in a swamp for a week with next to no food or clean water builds plenty of character, but it won't really be the sort of character that's necessary for meetings with sales-teams or investors or what-have-you. I simply think that military service is far from the only or the best means of teaching people responsibility and requiring them to mature as economically productive people. It's a means, and is an excellent option for some, but for a lot of people it means giving up the ideals that they would fight to protect, which defeats the purpose and breeds destructive soldiers. By destructive I mean internally. Of course, with the right techniques you can break anyone, but do we really want a society comprised 100% of people who are broken to the will of their government? I don't think that's how democracy is supposed to work.
I worry about the mindset that apparently holds being "an economically productive citizen" as the highest good and aim of education. And I'm not even French.
Certainly, I don't want to have a society that is comprised 100% of economically productive citizens. That would be most dull.
I worry about the mindset that apparently holds being "an economically productive citizen" as the highest good and aim of education. And I'm not even French.
Certainly, I don't want to have a society that is comprised 100% of economically productive citizens. That would be most dull.
Excitement at the expense of efficiency is crass at best.
What was my fallacy? Saying you endorse compulsory military service because you said your experience made you a better person?
I admit that you did not say that, and that you may have not meant it, but that is what the discussion was about before your post. I understood your (implicit) support of the idea that military service made you a better person meant you also support a policy of drafting young people.
If that is in fact what you meant by fallacy, I would argue that it is not a fallacy but rather an assumption that seemed reasonable to me at the time, and of which I was aware.
Also, note that I didn't say you support child recruitment, I said that you obviously don't, and that seemed to conflict with your assumed support of the previously mentioned policy.
And a question, to you and other people who said service made them better people. I have spent the last three years in college. I am a better person now (almost 22) than I was when I were 18 years old, but I do not conclude that it was college that was responsible for the change. The question: how can you know that it is the army that makes you a better person and not just maturity? It seems to me that the things that people usually say they gain from service (discipline, responsibility, perspective) are also things that seem (to me) to come naturally through maturity.
The fallacy was comparing encouraging military service to encouraging genocide.
To be perfectly clear, I believe in compulsory military service, but I also believe that people who are only in the military because of such a policy should not be used in foreign conflicts.
Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time. I fought in the war for four years, and I think I grew up more in that time than many people do in twice my life-time. Note that this obviously doesn't apply to certain aspects of maturity, like, say, motor skills, and theory of mind. That should go without saying.
Since you've decided to use yourself as your evidence, in order to attack your evidence I have to attack you. I'm not apologizing because that was entirely your choice. You have not matured enough to know that violence doesn't solve personal-tragedy and only makes the situation worse. That is a far more important aspect of maturity to functioning in society at large than the ability to kill when you have to even if you don't want to, or to keep your head under fire and carry out your orders despite unpleasant circumstances. I think your claim that service should be required because it "makes people better" is based on a very flawed definition of "better", as such tendencies toward aggression and violence as those you've mentioned having aren't anything I haven't heard before from people who served in combat roles extensively. Besides, without conscription people who wish to make themselves "better" in the ways that combat does can still enlist and go do it, you simply don't end up with too many soldiers to be able to pay i.e; a workforce of millions that did not choose their work and are not being paid for it i.e; slavery to the federal government.
When a person is placed in a combat scenario during his formative years, it causes extensive growth stuntage psychologically. I understand that I have a lot of problems as a result of my experiences, but I also understand that a mentally developed adult can handle such experiences and, with the proper conditioning, keep his psyche in-tact.
And I don't believe that combat alone is what is of value to a person in the military; simply going through basic training requires a lot of discipline that a lot of people could use. That is one of the main reasons that I say conscripts should only be used in the military police and in the border guard.
You have to gain similar discipline to acquire a four-year degree at most acreditted universities. It's a sort of differently tinted responsibility, but still honestly conforms more to economically productive civillian life than the things my brother told me about boot-camp. I'm sure living in a swamp for a week with next to no food or clean water builds plenty of character, but it won't really be the sort of character that's necessary for meetings with sales-teams or investors or what-have-you. I simply think that military service is far from the only or the best means of teaching people responsibility and requiring them to mature as economically productive people. It's a means, and is an excellent option for some, but for a lot of people it means giving up the ideals that they would fight to protect, which defeats the purpose and breeds destructive soldiers. By destructive I mean internally. Of course, with the right techniques you can break anyone, but do we really want a society comprised 100% of people who are broken to the will of their government? I don't think that's how democracy is supposed to work.
I'd reccommend you actually talk to and get to know people in the military; characterizing all of them as "people who are broken to the will of their government" as some sort of mindless, robotic slaves is a very unfair generalization.
I don't see Switzerland as the Borg Collective, for instance.
You'd be amazed how diverse the military is and, honestly, how many of them seriously distrust their own government as well since they're the one's who have to suck-up the consequences of craptacular foreign policy.
I worry about the mindset that apparently holds being "an economically productive citizen" as the highest good and aim of education. And I'm not even French.
Certainly, I don't want to have a society that is comprised 100% of economically productive citizens. That would be most dull.
Economic productivity is essential to things like paying rent, paying for electricity and water, buying food and a bunch of fun stuff like videogames and sports and building models and collecting movies/anime/CDs/whatever and building a super-wardrobe and pretty much everything else that most people enjoy doing, and wider economic productivity improves everyone's lives by jacking up demand for goods and services not only of the essential variety but also the indulgent sort. The vast majority of people want to be economically productive, and economic productivity is pretty close to essential for survival in this country, so if the government is going to try to force people to be "better" people I can't think of a better metric for "better" than economic productivity.
I don't see Switzerland as the Borg Collective, for instance.
Of course, a lot of people do...
I agree with most of what you said, but there are better examples of diverse & carefree national identities despite national service.
If the Collective offered chocolate, low crime, and ski slopes, hell, where's the nanite serum!?! :P
But seriously, I think the concept behind Federal Service is simply earning the right to vote. If you're going to exercise power over your fellow citizens, the thought is you earn that right by serving them.
Doesn't even have to be in the Army, I think, for a lot of nations that do this.
Sure all of what you said is correct, it was more a reason for why the government shouldn't be forcing people to be 'better' people, because even though it might be a good choice of metric, and possibly the best (though plenty of people would disagree), it is still a totally fucked up rationale to model society on. Better or even best != good.
I think the rather dodgy reputation of the ABM as a social model worldwide rather supports this.
If the Collective offered chocolate, low crime, and ski slopes, hell, where's the nanite serum!?! :P
But seriously, I think the concept behind Federal Service is simply earning the right to vote. If you're going to exercise power over your fellow citizens, the thought is you earn that right by serving them.
Doesn't even have to be in the Army, I think, for a lot of nations that do this.
Efficiency at the expense of excitement is robotic at best.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
It is just about possible that neither the exclusive pursuit of excitement nor the exclusive pursuit of efficiency is a good idea. Each has its place, and the world would be less interesting if it lost either.
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Obviously your confusion is Sarastro's fault, for not making it impossibly clear to you that he understood me.
Move to Australia. We don't have it.
EDIT: unless you have some bullshit law that says you can't leave the country until you've done your draft.
or if they can call you back for as long as you're a citizen.
If you want to conscript people to do things I'd rather conscript them to do civil service, since in most western countries this might at least inform people before they start ranting about welfare deadbeats or the like.
However by my own moral code we shouldn't be conscripting anyone. We should however be educating enough people that they are motivated to help their country in some way - whatever that may be. As someone said before, in terms of vital services police, ambulance and fire are equally important to any nation.
In other words, I don't think that's is a good reason to justify service. But I'm talking about combat service. I do think there should be conscription for non-combat service but combat service should always be voluntary unless there's an overriding necessity of security. Just to put people's feet close enough to the fire to prevent apathy during war time (or to make sure everything is done to prevent war time in the first place).
But really a pet peeve of mine is those military commercials that try to hypnotize children into believing combat service is some kind of dick grower (which some of them already do), and that's why this might seem like a tone deaf response to the discussion here.
electricity, you motherfucker
longest beat'd ever
Forcing people to go to war, not fine.
Since you've decided to use yourself as your evidence, in order to attack your evidence I have to attack you. I'm not apologizing because that was entirely your choice. You have not matured enough to know that violence doesn't solve personal-tragedy and only makes the situation worse. That is a far more important aspect of maturity to functioning in society at large than the ability to kill when you have to even if you don't want to, or to keep your head under fire and carry out your orders despite unpleasant circumstances. I think your claim that service should be required because it "makes people better" is based on a very flawed definition of "better", as such tendencies toward aggression and violence as those you've mentioned having aren't anything I haven't heard before from people who served in combat roles extensively. Besides, without conscription people who wish to make themselves "better" in the ways that combat does can still enlist and go do it, you simply don't end up with too many soldiers to be able to pay i.e; a workforce of millions that did not choose their work and are not being paid for it i.e; slavery to the federal government.
I'd like to point out again that the idea that any army would train people who will explicitly have nothing to do with a potential war is silly.
Armies are used to kill people or to threaten to kill people. Pretending they do anything else is a lie. Saying the national guard helps people in times of natural disasters and the like is fine, but their role as helpers has nothing to do with a military purpose or military training. That is, why not simply train people to help people, rather then to kill people and incidentally help people where there is no one to kill?
No, it isn't.
The modern UK / US / Aus etc forces are regularly deployed for disaster or humanitarian relief, and recieve wide-ranging and specific training for that job. Many ex-military officers go on to work for NGO's in top field roles for precisely this reason. The organisation, resources and reach of military forces make them ideally suited for the job. The Royal Navy, for example, spends much more of its time in aid operations than it does 'killing people'. As I mentioned, Reserve forces spend the majority of their time in such roles.
...and those are the armies with the most current combat operations. If you look at the pared down remits of many EU militaries (Germany for example), you will find they are even further geared towards peacekeeping rather than warfighting.
Yes, military training involves use of deadly force, but it involves many levels before that designed to make use of force a last resort. The reason for this is simple. Force gets people on both sides killed, and that is to be avoided if possible. In fact, for most western soldiers, much of their training will revolve around avoiding escalation. 'Shock' assault units who focus on a quick & massive use of force get a lot of press and YouTube videos, but are small in number.
Pretending armies are only used to kill or threaten to kill people is simplistic and demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the subject.
My basic training consisted of, basically:
A)How to you use my rifle.
B)How not to use my rifle.
Not necessarily in that order though.
Other armies that you mention - yes they do useful things other than killing people, but there is absolutely no reason you have to use soldiers to do these things. The reason soldiers are used in those capacities is to use their workforce while they are not killing people.
I'm not saying killing people is inherently evil, I'm just saying that that is the purpose of armed fucking forces.
Is it a bad thing that soldiers help people in crisis? No. It is, in a fact, a very good thing.
Is that the reason the army spent time and money training them? No, it is not.
I'm not familiar with the training practices of, say, the USMC beyond films like Full Metal Jacket, but I doubt that "Saving Civilians from Floods" and "Spreading Understanding of Western Civilization" come before "That is the Safety" and "How to Shoot People in the Head".
Nonetheless, you are misleading people by using the basic purpose of armies to ignore the fact that, in reality, they perform a lot of humanitarian functions.
I think I explicitly said that armies do perform useful functions. I said that was a good thing.
If anything, you are misleading by saying that armies are not [thank you, Quid] created and maintained to kill people.
My point isn't that armies are evil. My point is that if you'd like to help people, and would also like not to kill people, joining an army is hardly your best option.
Saying, as Church tried to, that one could divorce military service from killing people is absurd.
Really, I don't get what your point is. Are you really - truthfully - saying that death is not the main business of an army?
EDIT: Also, it seems to me that your caveat shouldn't be "western", but "countries not currently involved in long term, wide scale fighting". Yes, British troops are deployed in Iraq, for example, where they kill and are killed but the UK isn't committed to the war nearly as much as the US.
All of which I agree with, and all of which doesn't detract from the fact that killing is the main function and the very purpose of an army.
Shit man, I just forgot to put a "not" in the first quote.
Of course it falls over since behind the man with the glue gun is the man with the rifle since wars are usually fought over things both sides don't want to idly lose. Otherwise NK and SK could resolve their differences in a Starcraft match.
Look, we're arguing basically the same point but debating clarity of language.
We both agree that the basic purpose of armies is to kill. We also both agree that in practice, armies also perform many relief / peaceful / defensive functions.
Good enough?
PS Electricity, don't want to get into Clausewitz and all that, but it is an accepted tenet of military thinking that yes, the basic purpose of armies is to kill - it is that purpose (threat of killing) that allows them to not kill by using defensive strategies etc. Essentially, in the final balance everything is reduced to ability to kill.
Great image, that.
But you notice that I said, several posts back, that armies exist to kill people and to threaten to kill people, which was later shortened to just "kill people". That is, I understand that the potential ability to kill (or the appearance of potential) is just as important as the killing itself, and in fact much more useful. That is, I agree with you completely.
Sarastro - right-o.
I know, and I agree, but intellectual honesty acknowledges that he is also hitting on a fundamental military principle.
Are you two talking about me? Because it seems so, but I don't remember saying that having armies is a bad thing or that it shouldn't happen.
What what?
EDIT: Also, I did specifically say that armies do useful things which are not killing people, and that killing people can be useful as well.
When a person is placed in a combat scenario during his formative years, it causes extensive growth stuntage psychologically. I understand that I have a lot of problems as a result of my experiences, but I also understand that a mentally developed adult can handle such experiences and, with the proper conditioning, keep his psyche in-tact.
And I don't believe that combat alone is what is of value to a person in the military; simply going through basic training requires a lot of discipline that a lot of people could use. That is one of the main reasons that I say conscripts should only be used in the military police and in the border guard.
You have to gain similar discipline to acquire a four-year degree at most acreditted universities. It's a sort of differently tinted responsibility, but still honestly conforms more to economically productive civillian life than the things my brother told me about boot-camp. I'm sure living in a swamp for a week with next to no food or clean water builds plenty of character, but it won't really be the sort of character that's necessary for meetings with sales-teams or investors or what-have-you. I simply think that military service is far from the only or the best means of teaching people responsibility and requiring them to mature as economically productive people. It's a means, and is an excellent option for some, but for a lot of people it means giving up the ideals that they would fight to protect, which defeats the purpose and breeds destructive soldiers. By destructive I mean internally. Of course, with the right techniques you can break anyone, but do we really want a society comprised 100% of people who are broken to the will of their government? I don't think that's how democracy is supposed to work.
Certainly, I don't want to have a society that is comprised 100% of economically productive citizens. That would be most dull.
Excitement at the expense of efficiency is crass at best.
I'd reccommend you actually talk to and get to know people in the military; characterizing all of them as "people who are broken to the will of their government" as some sort of mindless, robotic slaves is a very unfair generalization.
I don't see Switzerland as the Borg Collective, for instance.
You'd be amazed how diverse the military is and, honestly, how many of them seriously distrust their own government as well since they're the one's who have to suck-up the consequences of craptacular foreign policy.
Margaret Thatcher
Of course, a lot of people do...
I agree with most of what you said, but there are better examples of diverse & carefree national identities despite national service.
Economic productivity is essential to things like paying rent, paying for electricity and water, buying food and a bunch of fun stuff like videogames and sports and building models and collecting movies/anime/CDs/whatever and building a super-wardrobe and pretty much everything else that most people enjoy doing, and wider economic productivity improves everyone's lives by jacking up demand for goods and services not only of the essential variety but also the indulgent sort. The vast majority of people want to be economically productive, and economic productivity is pretty close to essential for survival in this country, so if the government is going to try to force people to be "better" people I can't think of a better metric for "better" than economic productivity.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
If the Collective offered chocolate, low crime, and ski slopes, hell, where's the nanite serum!?! :P
But seriously, I think the concept behind Federal Service is simply earning the right to vote. If you're going to exercise power over your fellow citizens, the thought is you earn that right by serving them.
Doesn't even have to be in the Army, I think, for a lot of nations that do this.
Margaret Thatcher
Sure all of what you said is correct, it was more a reason for why the government shouldn't be forcing people to be 'better' people, because even though it might be a good choice of metric, and possibly the best (though plenty of people would disagree), it is still a totally fucked up rationale to model society on. Better or even best != good.
I think the rather dodgy reputation of the ABM as a social model worldwide rather supports this.
It is just about possible that neither the exclusive pursuit of excitement nor the exclusive pursuit of efficiency is a good idea. Each has its place, and the world would be less interesting if it lost either.