Conscription

[Dis]

Originally posted by Kramerman
i dont thihk we will deal with NK till we A) get UN to take burden of Iraq or B) take care of Iraq.... meaning its gonn be awhile. anyother move would be REALLY unwise, especially politically for bush

Who's to say the U.S. would attack. You don't think this pre-emptive thing will fly a second time do you?

In either case, I think it is more probably that NK attacks us first. Actually I thought they would attack during our war with Iraq, but they didn't. So perhaps they won't after all.

[Pekka]

I skipped the last few pages.

David, this discussion is more about conscription in US.
What about other countries? YOu know, if war starts there, I bet there are enough volunteers. But what about us, with less population than in NY?

What about our lands, you can drive from south to north in one day, east to west in one afternoon. If we are not ready, do you think we would last against any invader?
And still, our lands are big considering the population, lots and lots of lands with no population at all. We're one of the top countries with most lands per person. How you think we can handle it, if not conscription (at the moment, future will be different).

I know the faces of war have changed, and it's not about massing troops in lines to wait the enemy to show up, shoot them from foxholes and open field fights.
Our problem in pro army is that lands are so huge, that it could only fight tactical weapons and strikes, like aerial threats and against special operators, pretty much what the war is these days. But what if the enemy decides to pull old school and just march in? They'd be in our capital in one single damn day. I don't think we have enough time at this point to start training volunteers. Or hope we have enough volunteers so we can train conscripts.
We would be annihilated. What do you suggest we would do? Be friends with everyone so war doesn't happen? Well we do that already, but it's no reason to demolish army.

The point is, we need to have able guys ready when the time comes, and we need lots of them. I'm not going into how our defense is build and what kind of tactics it relies on and is based on, but it's pretty much the only working thing against bigger and stronger enemy. And it's not guaranteed to work, naturally. But pro army can't handle the job and plans as of now.

So, do you have alternative to our situation? If not, then I don't understand how it would be immoral, as it is necessary. We have 30 000 new privates every year, so that's not very much in big scale, but it's a lot from our perspective. It is expected, it is how it's always been, and only few people whine about it. It is a cultural thing also.

[David Floyd]

Pekka, if you want to argue a realist perspective, then a)No on is realistically going to invade Finland - sorry, not gonna happen - and b)if, say, Russia wanted to build up and invade in a few years, and was serious about doing so, the Finn army couldn't stop them, conscription or not, the Winter War notwithstanding.

[The Templar]

Re: Conscription

Originally posted by David Floyd
My position is that conscription is slavery. It is immoral, and can never be justified in any circumstance.

What do you know, David Floyd and I actually agree on something!

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Ming
My arugment is simple... You agree as a member of society/country to follow the rules to remain a member.
If you don't like the rules, you can find another society/country to join.

Uh right! Sorry, but libertarian principles of the market do not apply to the realm of citizenship. If I decide for instance, that I want to support universal health care and a decent and a decebt welfare state by moving to an EU country - they aren't going to just let me in, if they want to let me in at all (and I'm sure citizenship would require either a huge fee or a vital skill or occupation).

Funny, even the US doesn't subscribe to such a libertarian notion of citizenship. After all, all those Mexicans voted with their feet ...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Who says military service is my "social duty"?

Congress (ie, the people) .

So if society can derive and justify some benefit from my death, murdering me isn't immoral?

Bingo.

If people aren't willing to defend the nation, why should the nation exist?

Because the government's first goal is self-preservation. If people are lazy ****s it doesn't matter, the government will and should fight for its own survival.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Because the government's first goal is self-preservation. If people are lazy ****s it doesn't matter, the government will and should fight for its own survival.

The government is merely an instrument of the people - as such, it (like any other tool - like a screwdriver) has no desire for self-preservation. Hell, it has no desire period. Governments are ontologically more akin to tools.

What does have the desire for self preservation are the people who benefit greatly under the status quo (i.e. the wealthy, the high elected officials) etc. These are the people who want to preserve their system - it is not a case of some entity known as the government trying to preserve itself.

Lastly, if sufficient people do not volunteer to save the government during and invasion, then the people have decided their lives are not worth the system. So such a system should fail. If the people least served by the system (who are also the first who tend to get drafted), decide they don't want to fight for it, why should those who accrue the most advantage be allowed to externalize the costs of maintaining THEIR system?


As for conscription for little imperial conflicts like Bush's Iraq, an all volunteer army is a great check and balance on a leader's ambition. If Bush gets most of the military shot up in some conflict and no one new wants to join, Bush no longer gets to conduct his little private wars. Also, if current military people opt to retire when their terms are up and no new people join, then that is another great check on the ambitions of a militaristic leader.

Think of how quickly Vietnam could have been brought to an end without conscription? LBJ and Nixon run out of troops and no one else joins? That would have brough Vietnam to a crashing halt by 1968, or 1969 by the latest.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Who says military service is my "social duty"?

Congress (ie, the people) .

So if society can derive and justify some benefit from my death, murdering me isn't immoral?

Bingo.

If people aren't willing to defend the nation, why should the nation exist?

Because the government's first goal is self-preservation. If people are lazy ****s it doesn't matter, the government will and should fight for its own survival.

So if people don't want to fight, the government should force people to fight for a government, even though this means the government is forcing people to do something they don't want to do.

That's a pretty interesting theory of democracy. Whatever happened to government of the people, by the people and for the people.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Lastly, if sufficient people do not volunteer to save the government during and invasion, then the people have decided their lives are not worth the system.

People are cowardly and stupid. What else is new?

Most of them wouldn't even realize that if they lost to a dictatorship the consequences could be disasterous.

So if people don't want to fight, the government should force people to fight for a government, even though this means the government is forcing people to do something they don't want to do.

That's right.

That's a pretty interesting theory of democracy. Whatever happened to government of the people, by the people and for the people.

It takes a back seat when the government fears for its own survival. A government isn't made simply to fold because its own people are too selfish to save it. By living in it, they've sealed their fate when the government is about to collapse. And I have more trust in our elected representatives than the masses.

I'm sure if Floyd was Polish he wouldn't have raised a finger to prevent the Germans and Russians from taking over.... simply because he's an idiot, I don't think we should let a country, which we feel is better, fall.

[Berzerker]

You're making the assumption Floyd would sit by while his country is invaded. How do you explain Jefferson's words in the Decl of Ind where he says it is our duty to overthrow a government that no longer respects our freedom? It appears he, and the signers of that document did not place the preservation of the government above the people...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by The Templar
Lastly, if sufficient people do not volunteer to save the government during and invasion, then the people have decided their lives are not worth the system. So such a system should fail. If the people least served by the system (who are also the first who tend to get drafted), decide they don't want to fight for it, why should those who accrue the most advantage be allowed to externalize the costs of maintaining THEIR system?

Everyone externalizes their costs except heros and there aren't enough of those. The only reason most people 'volunteer' is because they see personal benefit for themselves and they don't think they will be killed.

That being said, conscription is often not in the true interest of those who are conscripted, and they are not asked to share the risk, but to take risk for others who recieve more benefit from the government than they.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You're making the assumption Floyd would sit by while his country is invaded. How do you explain Jefferson's words in the Decl of Ind where he says it is our duty to overthrow a government that no longer respects our freedom? It appears he, and the signers of that document did not place the preservation of the government above the people...

Times change. Jefferson's government doesn't exist anymore, except in fantasy.

Today the social good tends to mean something more than it did then.

[Kidlicious]

Imran,

You fascist. I agree with you that people should be conscripted if it's in their own interest, but you are saying they should be conscripted just for the govts interest. I assume you mean an authoritarian govt then? Then that means that you want the elite to externalize their risks and that just can't be justified.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why would that be an authoritarian government?

Or do you think that the US in WW2 was authoritarian?

Yes, I do believe that people should be conscripted for the state's SURVIVAL (the term 'interest' can be twisted). It is a social good.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Why would that be an authoritarian government?

Or do you think that the US in WW2 was authoritarian?

Yes, I do believe that people should be conscripted for the state's SURVIVAL (the term 'interest' can be twisted). It is a social good.

If the war is in the interest of the people then the majority of the people will surely support it. I can see where a minority might be against it. Maybe they profit from the govt losing the war. There is no way that a war can be in the interest of the people and the majority of people not support the war. Now after it has been decided that the war is in the interest of the people then everyone should be forced to pay an equal price.