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Do you believe conscription is okay? Why or Why Not?
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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100% against.
People don't belong to the government, and shouldn't be forced into doing any sort of job, especially one where they could be killed or traumatized for life.
If the people think their country is worth fighting for and a threat is legitimate, they should choose to defend it if the system is working properly.
Alternative point:
Conscription is not about fighting for your country. It's about ensuring that the children of the wealthy and powerful would die alongside the children of the poor in any conflict. War has always been fought by the poor and powerless to benefit the wealthy and powerful.
You then have a trained, but effectively civilian, group selected from the entire cross section of your country that shares the diversity of all your people and which you can use for all kinds of positive change, like building projects and disaster preparedness and relief.
This is a very different group than career soldiers.
This needs to be thought of as another two years of high school with different curricula rather than raising some kind of militia.
I feel as though that doesn't always necessarily work out well in practice though. If you look at the history of US presidents who were eligible for the draft for example, you have Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Trump and Joe Biden who were all from affluent and/or well connected families and who all dodged it. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of well-off people who dodged it too, but those were just the easiest to look up lol
Elon Musk - the whole reason he skipped South Africa right before his 18th birthday was to avoid being conscripted into the SADF. That's the actual reason - him and his family had no problem profiting off Apartheid until it was his turn to actually doing the dirty work of maintaining it. It's what a lot of rich white kids in SA did.
Bullcrap. The children of the wealthy and powerful always get to have have convenient loopholes to get out of conscription - just look at Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Or, you know... have groups of trained civilians around to repress anything that threatens the precious status quo.
That's a really interesting perspective I didn't think I've seen before. Thanks for posting.