And I bet that most Western nations will bring it right back once a major war starts.
Military Debate: Is Conscription Moral?
- Thread starter Battlegrinder
- Start date
And once it does, it's a bit late for that to matter...
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Yes, that's right. And therein lies your problem, you focus solely on the fact that "they are forcing military service!" Instead of, or maybe they have a good reason that they force to serve? Especially since it depends on your point of view, for someone who lives by the ethos that service is necessary and useful, then forcing is not part of the problem just the solution.
Well, for example, laziness, fear of the military mostly unnecessary, selfishness. Or simply an unwillingness to be uprooted from one's quiet civilian life, because we live from paycheck to paycheck, and any delay or uprooting from this state will make me recover for years after even a month's training.
There are many reasons for this, and it doesn't always have to be a social aversion to expeditionary war, or to force. (Although, between you and me, people have been pretty well dissolved by the "end of history" that they have acquired the misconception that the only wars in history will be expeditionary/missionary).
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Ya'll keep missing the point.
Conscription isn't about making people sign up to defend the regime. You don't conscript people to fight. You conscript people for a year or two of training. The kind of conscription where you just grab a guy off the street, put a rifle in his hands, and point him at the enemy isn't a model any sane country uses (Glances at Russia and North Korea), sane country.
When a row of troop transports pop up on the horizon to attack, or a flood of invaders suddenly pour over the border, volunteers to defend their homeland will show up to enlist unless your country is a failed state already. But suppose volunteer Bob the Office Accountant's only experience with combat was a slap fight with a bully in high school and watching Starship Troopers. In that case, you're going to need to train him for months, even possibly a year, to turn him into even the greenest soldier, time you don't have with the enemy actively invading.
OTOH, if you had conscription, Bob the Office Accountant spent a year or two in training when he turned 18 and learned how to shoot, maintain his rifle, read a map, operate a radio, the basics of how to move and maintain cover, etc. He's rusty now 'cause that was five years ago, but it'll come back quickly and you can get him back up to speed and in a platoon in a couple of weeks, which is much more doable in an emergency situation.
This is also advantageous for both the government and civilians. A great many skills the conscript will pick up going through boot camp, like maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regime, how to work as part of team, and being always aware of your surroundings are stuff that can really help in real life but schools don't teach. On the flipside, if a conscript turned out to be unsuitable for various reasons, there will be a record of it and if that person tries to volunteer they'll know the issue ahead of time.
It's worth noting that only about a quarter of the US military in Vietnam were draftees, it was a mostly volunteer army with a small amount of drafting to fill in some empty slots. However, because the US hadn't practiced conscription as described above, Draftees tended not to have good training and suffered very disproportionate casualties.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Russia openly using conscription to genocide perceived dissident demographics with enemy bullets.
Crimean Tatar Minority Is in Crosshairs of Putin’s Draft
On Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, indigenous Crimean Tatars say they are being targeted by Moscow for the military draft, leaving them with a stark choice: flee their homeland or be thrown into the fight against their Ukrainian compatriots.
www.wsj.com
Russia Is Sending Its Ethnic Minorities to the Meat Grinder
Chaotic mobilization sparks renewed fears that the pain will not be shared evenly across Russia.
foreignpolicy.com
Putin’s Discriminatory Draft
On Sept. 21, 2022, amid mounting Russian casualties in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial mobilization” of the country’s military reservists. Within days, a picture began to emerge of a conscription campaign that had been disproportionately targeting Russia’s ethnic...
inkstickmedia.com
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Putin’s conscription drive targets Russia’s ethnic minorities
After decades of persecution, Tatars, Buryats, Tuvans and other minorities are being called up in droves to be sent to the front lines as ‘cannon fodder,’ according to NGOs and officials
english.elpais.com
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
Bahaha!!! Oh lord. Now that's funny! I was going to say the same thing to you almost word for word, except of course you being on the opposite end of the spectrum.
*Sniff* well one of us is doomed if not both of us then
You are assuming people in the US are self-, aware enough to turn the guns on thier superiors if it's in their interest when I'm not even convinced a good chunk of our nation can even read anymore. (It disturbs me how much I have to read to my customers)
I'll be honest I think America is beyond saving (as a whole) because the people themselves are beyond salvaging. the problem is that government cronies have already bought all the land so there ain't jack to go to.
At this point I can only hope for two things. Balkanization or a good death with an acceptance into heaven. And balkanization ain't likely.
I am curious, have you served or has any close to you served?
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Let me put it this way, if the government is stupid enough to do it. It either has enough power and loyal people who, if there are problems, can suppress the murdered, or it is just plain stupid.Russia openly using conscription to genocide perceived dissident demographics with enemy bullets.
Crimean Tatar Minority Is in Crosshairs of Putin’s Draft
On Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, indigenous Crimean Tatars say they are being targeted by Moscow for the military draft, leaving them with a stark choice: flee their homeland or be thrown into the fight against their Ukrainian compatriots.Russia Is Sending Its Ethnic Minorities to the Meat Grinder
Chaotic mobilization sparks renewed fears that the pain will not be shared evenly across Russia.Putin’s Discriminatory Draft
On Sept. 21, 2022, amid mounting Russian casualties in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial mobilization” of the country’s military reservists. Within days, a picture began to emerge of a conscription campaign that had been disproportionately targeting Russia’s ethnic...Do you really think any other modern goverment would hesitate to get rid of people they don't like if given an opportunity?Putin’s conscription drive targets Russia’s ethnic minorities
After decades of persecution, Tatars, Buryats, Tuvans and other minorities are being called up in droves to be sent to the front lines as ‘cannon fodder,’ according to NGOs and officials
The problem is that this can only work if these people are separated from each other and mixed in with the loyalists. Otherwise, congratulations armed and trained future insurgents!
But that assumes that the acutely government, as in this case, uses it to get rid of weaker and smaller groups, because it represents another group. If, on the other hand, we are talking about a government that nominally also represents those it intends to kill, then all it will achieve is a huge army of people who want to overthrow it.
Unfortunately, this requires getting out of the black mindset.
I personally, unfortunately, do not. But my father, grandfather, great-grandfather(He was still serving in the Tsar's Army!) or all my uncles? Yes, somehow I didn't hear them complain about it, and Dad was happy to tell his stories from the army. And he didn't have it easy, his conscription started when there was a commune and left when it disappeared.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic, it only obscures the picture of reality because most of the time you are only looking for what makes you believe that things are bad. You're just clearly unlucky that you keep running into such people. I'm inclined to think that there are plenty of people around you who, in a moment of need, will put up arms. It just seems to you that this is not the case.... heck, it sounded like you were living in totalitarianism. Identically, many Poles felt during the darkest days of communism, i.e. its collapsing state when Jaruzelski suppressed Solidarity. (Though even before that, they felt that they were the only ones who distrusted the authorities, though constant outbursts of public discontent contradicted this.)
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Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I won't say you don't have a point there, some governments are genocidal.Russia openly using conscription to genocide perceived dissident demographics with enemy bullets.
Crimean Tatar Minority Is in Crosshairs of Putin’s Draft
On Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, indigenous Crimean Tatars say they are being targeted by Moscow for the military draft, leaving them with a stark choice: flee their homeland or be thrown into the fight against their Ukrainian compatriots.Russia Is Sending Its Ethnic Minorities to the Meat Grinder
Chaotic mobilization sparks renewed fears that the pain will not be shared evenly across Russia.Putin’s Discriminatory Draft
On Sept. 21, 2022, amid mounting Russian casualties in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial mobilization” of the country’s military reservists. Within days, a picture began to emerge of a conscription campaign that had been disproportionately targeting Russia’s ethnic...Do you really think any other modern goverment would hesitate to get rid of people they don't like if given an opportunity?Putin’s conscription drive targets Russia’s ethnic minorities
After decades of persecution, Tatars, Buryats, Tuvans and other minorities are being called up in droves to be sent to the front lines as ‘cannon fodder,’ according to NGOs and officials
The thing is, I can be in favor of having a prison system without wanting gulags. I can be in favor of the death penalty without wanting death camps. I can be in favor of having a police force without wanting them to abuse their power.
"The government might do something evil with X" is a legitimately good argument and it bears looking into. Gulags have happened, death camps have happened, and police have abused their power. Having an eye on them is not a bad thing, and double-checking on them is generally a net positive.
However, it is not always the case that the government needs to be banned from X, sometimes it just means there needs to be proper safeguards, enshrined rights, and a close watch on the government. Because there's very little that can't be used to do something evil if there are no safeguards, no enshrined rights, and nobody watching.
Hm, I'm not really seeing that argument. What I've argued, and what most others seem to, is "conscription is another form of taxation".
The legitimacy to conscript flows from whatever source the legitimacy to tax comes from. The legitimacy of government determines how legitimate their taking is.
Or, in a social contract term, it would depend on the specifics of the contract "negotiated" between the individuals/nations and the state. With whatever trade offs of duties and privileges are negotiated.
I think this gets at what I'm suggesting from a bit clearer angle:
Conscription is a tool of the state: it can be used legitimately or illegitimately, and to good or bad ends.
Prison is a good example: imprisoning people is a tool the state can use. The tool I think is neutral: me telling you someone has been imprisoned does not inherently tell me if something unjust has been done: it all comes down to context. The big two that immediately come to mind is
1) Legitimate authority: A Governor of his own volition can't imprison someone, at least by our customs/social contract: someone being imprisoned by a governor's word alone, especially over a long period (there's some grey/wiggle room for immediate/emergency situations: quelling a riot or such dramatic situations). Someone being imprisoned for 20 years on a governors word alone is a violation, no matter the seriousness of the crime. Private citizens also don't have the authority to imprison someone: I for example would not have a right to take your son prisoner as justice for the death of mine. Powers thus have to be exercised by a legitimate authority.
2) Legitimate Ends: Even if as is proper in our system you are imprisoned by the proper authority, a judge or jury, the tool then has to be used to proper ends: A governor saying "this man is my political opponent, lock him up", if that is the reason, then even if the proper authorities go through the proper procedures and due process to determine he is in fact guilty of being the governor's political opponent, that as well would be illegitimate, because no matter how proper it was done, the ends to which it was carried out were illegitimate.
And of course, both of these factors have a fairly large degree of subjectivity, dependent on local culture, expectations, and situation. Making a universal declaration on the morality of conscription difficult, especially when conscription can refer to quite diverse actual practices: Conscription where the colonial overlords are basically kidnapping locals for indefinite time periods to be paid what the colonial masters think they need is different from conscripting citizen soldiers in a functioning liberal system with functional systems one can appeal to about abuse for set periods of time and limited range of tasks.
Edit: the third I just thought of post posting is some thing like
3) Effective outcomes: For example, if someone is imprisoned by a legitimate authority, for a legitimate cause, but then prison is so terribly run that someone merely imprisoned freezes to death, or the prisons are so porous and poorly controlled organized crime freely works through them and there just revolving doors providing minimal actual effectiveness to the desired ends, then the legitimacy is also more questionable.
Legitimacy thus rests on good rules, followed in pursuit of good ends, to good results.
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KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
See, It's the polar opposite here in America. Maybe where you're from Being a soldier is a guaranteed dynasty builder but here in the states, the only thing we have to show for our service is PTSD, lost years of our lives and a "Healthcare system" that don't do squat. Typically those who openly brag about the things they've seen in war are people who are lying about thier service AKA stealing valor. in the century we have fought wars we have fought one maybe two that could be considered being a solider isn't exactly something to be proud of. Honestly, this music video gives a handful of American veteran statistics. It's not pretty.
I seriously hope you're right because I'm tired of being paranoid. I'm tired of wondering when the day comes where society suddenly decides it doesn't like my face or it decides to turn on me because of my preferences or how I vote or what I decide to not put in my body. We call ourselves the land of the free but that's bull. A free country doesn't take your wages so that the rich can give it to their buddies and other special interest groups. It doesn't keep making you continue to pay them to live in/on your own house. (property tax) and it doesn't convince you to try and kill yourself for the sake of the environment. (Believe me it's coming it's already occurring in Canada.) I have no love or trust in my country or my fellow man, and at this point, I'm tired and bitter I just want to be left alone. I just want to have some worthless acreage and a house I can call my own and pass down to my kids.
I know in my heart of hearts though that I shall never be granted that. but, but I hope your right.
Simonbob
Well-known member
Get out of the cities, man.
You have a better chance to connect away from there.
Good chance they'll just follow you out of the cities eventually. I'm not sure if there's any escape from these sorts of people, similar sort of people who were more than happy to go door-to-door in the Soviet Union, even in remote villages.
Live far enough out in the woods that if they go looking for you, they will probably just... never be heard from again?
That's possible, but very few people can handle such conditions themselves I'd bet.
Yinko
Well-known member
The issue with conscription is that it only works as a moral statement if the social contract is valid. However, the social contract is not currently valid, ergo conscription is not moral. The social contract is not valid as there is no chance to escape from society. You cannot avoid government, you cannot avoid citizenship, you cannot avoid taxation. You are forced into a society, so conscription then is defending a structure you have been forced into.
At the same time, from a social cohesion standpoint, conscription is a very good idea. Take every young person and put them in an environment that gives them a common purpose and smooths out the rough edges of regionalism. It doesn't strictly have to be military conscription, you could do the same thing with public works, but military conscription has the advantage of allowing for every adult to know how to use a weapon in times of need, and you can use conscripts as labor for public works as well.
If used correctly, you could take an immoral system where people are forced into a system they resent and turn it into something pretty decent (though still immoral) by making the period of conscription a coming-of-age ritual that is baked into the national spirit.
At the same time, from a social cohesion standpoint, conscription is a very good idea. Take every young person and put them in an environment that gives them a common purpose and smooths out the rough edges of regionalism. It doesn't strictly have to be military conscription, you could do the same thing with public works, but military conscription has the advantage of allowing for every adult to know how to use a weapon in times of need, and you can use conscripts as labor for public works as well.
If used correctly, you could take an immoral system where people are forced into a system they resent and turn it into something pretty decent (though still immoral) by making the period of conscription a coming-of-age ritual that is baked into the national spirit.
There are different societies with different implied social contracts, so making such a blanket statement is unwise.
Yinko
Well-known member
No. The concept of "a social contract" is validated by the premise that "if you don't like it you can just leave" which is untrue.
You absolutely can leave towards a separate society with a separate contract, if one will have you, or even one of the more lawless areas that don't really have much of one. It's not a great choice, but it is a choice.
Yinko
Well-known member
The idea comes from the French Revolution, a period wherein there were both working rival systems of government and wilderness to disappear into without anyone to hunt you down for not paying taxes or for doing to the wrong thing on the wrong land.
Yes, you can go to yet another country with the same set of beaurocrats running an almost identical system of red tape who serve and indistinguishable set of elected stooges who turn a deaf ear to anyone they don't like. But that's not really what it means to "opt out".