Should Military Service be mandatory for all?

The beauty in the whole redployment thing.......is that those people volunteered to be there as opposed to taking away the freedom of those that dont want to volunteer. We need about 1.5 million people in our military, and there are about 7 million 18 year olds. What you propose would be monumentally, and unnecessarily expensive. A draft is acceptable when absolutely necessary. When not necessary, and solely for the purpose of proving one viewpoints political beliefs as you propose here, it would be nothing short of criminal.

 

Then we are almost in agreement. The only difference I have is service does not necessarily mean military service. If as a matter of conscience or physical abilities one is not suited to military service, there has been and should exist other methods to serve. People think about the Peace Corps, but there is no reason to limit it to that. There are are many tasks the public needs done, some hazardous, some distasteful, and some mundane. The public is going to need someone to do them all. Why not call on our youth to contribute to the public good? I would not quibble on length, type, or compensation for any alternative path, just insist that it exist.

 

This is false, not sure, why so many people think that about Sparta. The movie 300 being about a bunch of jacked guys perhaps?

Hell even wiki says you are wrong. Spartans were by far the most conservative of the Greek city states

 

Thank you for kind reply.
My purpose has nothing to do with proving my viewpoints.
I can't honestly say that I have any. If I did, I would be the first to question their validity.
I'm here because I simply don't understand why there seem to be so many problems
in this society, yet nobody takes responsibility to address them.
They are perfectly content to argue and blame. Most of my posts have been merely questions,
or statements meant to provoke an answer to a particular question that I have.
I find it amazing that most everyone here must think they already have all the right answers,
since they obviously don't have any questions.

To wait until a disaster is eminent before a draft is necessary seems a bit risky.
And to say that a draft is criminal is perhaps a bit extreme. But only my opinion.

 

Mandatory service would certainly make people think twice before lobbying for war, but the problem is how much this would cost. If you think our standing army is already pretty large, it would be much, much larger under this policy.

Seeing as how we should be decreasing military spending rather than increasing it, I can't support this policy.

 

When I implied that you are advocating so in order to bolster your beliefs, I was referring specifically to your statement that.....

....That clearly wasnt a question, it was a statement of your beliefs, and why military service should be mandatory as a result of those beliefs. I am not sure why you keep playing the passive aggressive role. At least be honest with yourself about your positions.

 

The statement I made starts out... "The reason I think...... Do you see the difference? I'm describing a thought that came to my mind.
Nothing more than a thought. And then I followed up with "Just maybe they....". They were simply statements I made to provoke answers,
to understand how the other guy thinks. That is what's important to me. But if you find satisfaction in calling me a liar, I surely don't wish to spoil your fun.

 

Yes, the Spartans were a very conservative, militaristic society.

They were also a very gay society, by today's standards.

Homosexuality was an integral part of their military discipline, since soldiers would be expected to fight with much more motivation with their same-sex lover fighting beside them on the battlefield. This was a pretty common sentiment throughout Greek culture and society.

 

"The reason I think...."....is a REALLY strange way of asking a question, and coming back after the fact and calling it a question is seemingly stretch in logic. FWIW...I didnt call you a liar....I called you passive aggressive.

 

Will you please, for the sake of all, find a worthwhile topic?
Or at least try to focus on this one?
Honestly, nobody cares about my psychological well-being.
They already agree with you that I am insane.
We all agree with you! What more could you possibly want?

 

LOL....the thought that you may be insane truly hadnt crossed my mind.

 

I agree. Seems bad idea. If you come up with any good ones. Please share.

 

It's an interesting,observation although not scientific by any stretch. In these on-line debates regarding reinstating the draft or leaving it as it is, an all-voluntary force. The arguments from actual veterans , often line up in one of two ways...draftees want the return of the draft and volunteers, want to leave things status quo. I suppose we approach the issue differently...one believes a fire should be lit under another's bee-hind...to actually get them to serve...and another view, that of the volunteer, that there will always be enough of those willing to place themselves into harm's way...or at least place themselves in a position to potentially be in harm's way.

Maybe I'm way off base with that observation.

Well perhaps the draftees have a more realistic view of things...perhaps a fire will need to be lit under the respective bee-hinds of those eligible to serve versus those who actually step up and volunteer to serve...if indeed the shee-yot hits the proverbial fan and a dramatic increase in personnel is required to meet the advancing threat. A draft may be needed..

Well let's hope it never comes to that.

pray for peace...there is no re-set button in the real deal.

 

I think a lot of former draftees would never have considered the military until the option was forced on them. I recall serving with an old warrant officer who ended up serving as a career. He was a draftee and supported the draft. He figured a few who might never have otherwise considered the military would end up finding something they were good at and staying in.

 

I like the idea of mandatory service in general, if it includes non-military service among that. Plenty of people are conscientious objectors, and various others would simply be better suited for non-military work.

That being said, the administrative costs for implementing a program of this nature might be a bit high. Even if it was mostly delegated to the states, the costs could be high as well.

There are also philosophical arguments that make a valid point that such a requirement somewhat goes against the idea of having a free society. It's kind of like the Pledge of Allegiance in that respect.

A truly free country doesn't require an oath unless you enlist or enter public office, which is why the Pledge isn't mandatory in schools. By the same token, mandatory service of any kind seems like a less "American" idea than simply giving people the choice to perform it or not.

 

You may well be right. And I'll be happy to pray for peace with you.

 

Thank you all for valuable input.
The reason for my original post in this topic was actually to suggest a way to deter people from starting war at all.
I simply thought that perhaps if everyone got a taste, it would help them make better decisions in the future.
It is only my opinion that war in general may at one time have been necessary for survival, but it is time to move on.
Time to use what we've learned from the past and try something different for a change.
Don't any of you have any thoughts on how to convince people to work together?
Mine don't seem to go over very well.

 

To quote Plato...only the dead have seen the end of war.

I understand your good intentions, and I applaud them...but even under the threat of an across the board draft of any and all able bodied citizenry. I don't think it would be the end of war.

 

Thank you for reply
Yes I seen this post of yours the first time.
I can't see anything wrong with that idea, but then it seemed that you went on to shoot your ideas down.
Considering the cost, both financial and otherwise, of needless "George W." type wars,
don't you think the investment may be worth it?
Like preventing disease rather than treating after the fact?
I don't see how mandatory service (like what you are describing) for younger adults is any more un-American than making them clean their room or do their homework. Some of them may be put in harms way, but you could allow them to make the decision whether to go to combat or choose a different way to serve.
This whole "it's un- American" thing has really got me baffled.
People seem to want all of the rights and none of the responsibilities.

 

Thank you for reply
I wasn't suggesting that the "threat" of draft would deter war, but the experience.

Just because someone made a statement thousands of years ago doesn't mean we can't try something different.
Besides Plato was un-American!

 

Ultimately, the goal of this policy of service seems to be getting people to be more wary of war. In some ways, mandatory conscription would achieve that.

On the other hand, it could just mean that the government would try a different tactic.

For example, Israel's mandatory conscription doesn't make them any less hawkish than us.

In an American context, a change of strategy could just involve more fear mongering. We'd no longer take war lightly with universal mandatory conscription, but we could still be prodded into interventionism through media pushing more fears of foreign groups attacking us or selling the idea that it's in our best interests to get involved.

 

No, I dont think so. The only thing worse than a large standing army of volunteers with nothing to do but collect a pay check is to have them be a bunch of drafties who dont want to be there at all.

 

Thank you for reply.
Yes that does definitely seem a likely possibility.
Perhaps if I can explain why I was thinking along those lines,
you might be able to clarify. So here goes.

"I assume" that the best way for the average citizen to influence government decisions is to vote.
But to make an intelligent vote requires a desire to know the truth about all the issues.
For that vote to best serve the country, all issues must be taken into consideration as to how they affect all citizens.
"IMO" this is where it all falls apart.

The first problem is how and where to find the truth? It seems most just pick something that appeals to them. The truth is beside the point. Perhaps "birthers" for example purposes.

The second is people may actually only have one issue that effects them personally...like high taxes or unemployment or gun rights, or abortion, or their kids dying in Afghanistan. They don't really care about all the other issues enough to actually give them any thought. So instead they just vote for whatever party pretends to address their issue.

This one frightens me. People have this dire need to be considered part of a group. Like "I'm a Libertarian" or I'm a Christian".
And in a country such as this one, where everything revolves around team sports, it's all just about being on the winning team.
It's all about which party wins...Republican or Democrat!
I'm surely not including the whole population in my assumptions, nor am I pointing any fingers.

Just suggesting that simply telling people to go out and vote is not really helping matters
if they don't have the true facts or the experience to make an intelligent decision.

So do you have any thoughts on how to get a mass of individualists to look at the whole picture before throwing the darts?

 

I understand where you're coming from, but this is kind of the paradox of America in general.

We're a nation built on individuality, yet we share the same tribalistic tendencies as other people. We're actually far less nationalistic than most other nations, but what replaces this ends up being factionalism. Inevitably, humans will form cliques. The only difference with us is that we have a greater number of them, and they happen to be smaller as a proportion of the population each.

After a while, it seems like maybe nationalism wasn't so bad of an idea after all. However, that depends on being a nation that identifies by culture rather than by ideology.

America is an ideological nation, not a cultural one.

Some European nations seem to be making the transition toward an ideological nation, but it doesn't look like it's working out for them. By the same token, transitioning American into a cultural nation isn't likely to work either, so we're kind of stuck with factionalism.

My only real solution is looking for a place to move that has a culture you share a lot in common with. I happen to have found some of that with Canada and Ireland, so I'm considering moving to either. Australia is another possibility.

Granted, Canada appears to be transitioning toward an ideological nation as well. They have had a long history of experience with trying to keep two different cultures together (English and French), so this is part of why they seem to handle this transition better than much of Europe.

Ireland is more of a cultural nation.

 

Thank you for reply. I had to look up factionalism and nationalism. I think I understand the factionalism but the US seems to have it's own confusing version of nationalism....per Wikipedia anyway. Nationalism is a belief, creed or political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a nation. As for ideological...does this definition fit? a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization).
Cultural nation was harder to find. Am guessing it tends to focus more on needs of citizens rather than wealth and power?