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.
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.
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
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.
I think compulsory retail service would fix society.
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.
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
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.
AmeriCorps is exactly this, but it’s obviously not compulsory.
Does that still exist?
Some places you can opt to do compulsory public service instead of military service.
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.
My opinion is fuck no.
I was one of the last people in Sweden to muster for conscription, I failed the first (hearing) test and was discharged.
This was just before conscription was ended, and about a decade later we have conscription again in Sweden.
There are two main advantages to universal conscription in my oppinion.
- It gives the population unity, it is a unifying experience that you have in common with everyone, this creates a stronger society.
- It gives the population a general understanding of guns and military action, this is useful in war as people are already familiar with the basic concepts of firearms handling and military tactics, ok, they won’t be as good as professional soldiers, but they understand the concepts and that is a good foundation to build uppon.
I’m all for mandatory military training. Deployment is a separate issue.
A lot of countries make that distinction. Everyone goes through basic but you have to volunteer into a deployable job.
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.
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.
I’m fine with mandatory military service for a country that treats its military in a sane way and would never deploy conscripts outside of a last resort due to existential threat to the homeland. For most countries mandatory military service is just spending a few years learning to be a guardsman and learning a trade and serving your country and community in some substantive way. It should never involve getting anywhere near combat for anyone that didn’t volunteer.
In the USA? Hell to the no, even before Trump.
Change “military” to “national” and I do, with appropriate exemptions for disabilities. There’s usually something a person can do for public service, even if it’s keeping a dying patient company.
I’m not for it but if mandatory service were a thing the population would be more hesitant to go to war knowing their flesh and blood might be included
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.
I’d prefer it be more of a mandatory civil service than actual military. If that includes basic weapons training that’s ok with me.
Singapore does this too and you see them everywhere, with their rifle (ammo less).
I don’t think it would have any impact on gun violence though.
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.
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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