cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1338851
Archived version: https://archive.ph/yDjTx
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230811193345/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-fire-all-regional-military-recruitment-chiefs-zelenskiy-2023-08-11/
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Making education so expensive that the only way for some to pursue education is to die for their country is a crime. If majority of your citizen view being part of army is only for poor people, your country does not deserve to be protected because obviously not enough people willing to fight for it. Turning your citizens into slaves and sending them into the meat grinder makes you a monster.
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I have the opposite view. A country at war should have the draft, and there should be no exceptions, so that the politicians who send other people’s children off to fight also have to send their own.
Most soldiers in a “professional” army are there because their families are poor and they have few other options to make a living.
There will always be exceptions, for example for disabilities or medical conditions. Most of those exceptions will be more accessible to wealthy or influential families that can afford to pay off doctors than poorer families.
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Politicians didn’t send their own children when there was a draft in the US. Trump AND Biden are evidence of this
Trump and Biden both avoided the draft with “1-Y” (medical) exemption. Keep in mind that more than half the 27 million eligible males were exempted or disqualified for some reason, so it’s not as if this was something only politicians did.
I would wager there was a higher percentage of the wealthy that somehow got an exemption
Make declaration of war a mandatory vote for every citizen. Anyone who votes “yes” (or illegally abstains) gets registered for the draft. Anyone who votes “no” is unregistered.
I know it’s not really feasible because governments need to be able to react swiftly in times of war. But these days with computers and cell phones, there’s very little reason that the government couldn’t push a “go download our secure voting app/visit this link to cast your vote” notification via the emergency alert broadcasting system.
Ukraine didn’t decide to go to war.
They were invaded.
After the US set the stage and created the environment to start a war.
How do you reckon it would work when it comes to age? Is the vote limited just to people of military age? Does this mean that whether or not to declare war effectively falls in the hands of ~18 - 30 year olds?
Or is it open to everyone and even some old warhawk could be drafted? Are handicapped people not allowed to vote? Women that don’t meet combat standards?
There is always the option to draft them into some sort of non-combat role. But if you knew you were only going for a non-combat role, it could be a lot easier to vote “yes”.
Lack of a draft is almost directly and solely responsible for the current quagmire of the US military - when we had a draft, normal people were pulled and had to serve with other normal people. They had real lives to go back to. They had family and friends who would listen to them and write their representatives to complain if the use of those human resources was inappropriate. Seeing body bags flying home and a televised razing of a foreign jungle turned a lot of people off from war. And they made their voices heard.
Now, the only people being asked to pay attention are career military professionals. They often do not have a job or life outside of the military to tie them to normal life. They’ve also gotten smarter about where they fly corpses in, so the news can’t provide a solid day-by-day count of the wasted lives. These folks aren’t pushing back against the worst excesses of the military, because their college benefit or their pension require them to shut up and just do what they’re told.
There’s a great documentary called Sir! No, Sir! about the vibrant protest movement from within the military, driven mostly by draftees during Vietnam.
I don’t disagree with your initial reasoning, but there’s a different take that says that what we have allowed is for the worst of us to control the policy for all of us, with nearly no external oversight.
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This is a difficult problem to solve for a society though. The army is needed, because it’s what allows your country to exist. In time of peace, draft is really not optimal, because people are taken a year of their life for absolutely nothing. But the army need to keep its structure alive and functioning, or there’ll be nothing when it’s needed.
The army of professionals is a good solution, and they do a hard job to keep an important piece of the state alive when no one cares about it.
Ultimately I think it’s better if poor people make the core of the army because it means ultimately the safety of the nation is in their hands. Still, culture of the military men should be better taken care of, and elitism of the command structure should be fought.
Being in a country with a very high population means you have the privilege of enough volunteers to protect your borders.
I would be more likely to go the other way starship troopers style only those with the character to defend their country should have the right to vote in that country. Those leeching off the system and letting others doing the difficult things shouldn’t be rewarded
So essentially install a military dictatorship, because only the military gets any votes?
Mate, the Starship Troopers movie was a satire, not a fucking checklist.
I was on about the book.
The film is great but philosophically it’s a shadow of the book.
So only able bodied men and women. Big yikes. Also people who aren’t soldiers are leeches. Even bigger yikes.
Obviously not read starship troopers thet make it very clear that anyone can serve and will be accommodated. And they make it very clear that being in the military isn’t the only way to serve.
It’s just above providing for your country and earning the right to vote.
Oh well if starship fucking troopers says it. You do realize that’s satire right. Jesus fuck you fascists are so fucking oblivious it isn’t funny.
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