Why isn't mandatory military service be a thing for America?

[Felya]

The correct translation of your posts is. "I want more public services and I want other people to pay for it in some way". Pretty despicable.

What language do you think he was speaking, that you need to translate, instead of addressing what he said?

He isn’t a billionaire, when working class people say paying taxes, we know it means us.

Charging the US tax payer 3$ for water on his property, paying 750$ in taxes, trying to have US be liable for his rape... Working class people are not the elites who avoid paying taxes. You are expressing the logic of those who think you need ID to buy bread, because the servants paying more taxes, are the ones buying their bread.

If it helps and stays on topic... Rich fucks like Trump had a rich daddy to get them out of the draft, the next working class shmuck that didn’t have a rich daddy, paid the price instead.

[Ghostpanther]

It should be for all except those with serous mental or physical problems.

[Felya]

Rich elite like Trump, don’t need infrastructure... They don’t need social programs... they have the vertical mobility, to avoid any repercussions as a result of conflict, like a war, by being able to afford to get out of it.

When a rich person tells you that social programs are just making them pay for someone, that’s totally correct. But, when a working class person makes the same argument? They are acting out as a temporarily displaced billionaire, aka lacking any sort of self awareness. You are paying for it... just like you paid for billionaires bankruptcy and bottomless greed.

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It should be for all except those with serous mental or physical problems.

Good call... I’m sure the wealthy will add Afluenza as a DSM category, to have being rich as a serious mental problem. No need for daddy to buy a doctor just for you... It worked to get a rich kid off murder...

Do you think mandatory service, is a form of indoctrination?

It’s funny when you juxtaposition your hate for paying taxes to fund others, but no issue in supporting conscription of those other, that might lead to their death. How do you rationalize that? You don’t want to pay for others, but want others to go to war?

Edit: Sorry... Just realized the answer to that last question... Money > American lives... I’d think that during corona time, it would have occurred to me faster. Slaughter the middle class! The rich need their money, no one needs us to live...

[Machismo]

It should be for all except those with serous mental or physical problems.

No thanks, some of us actually support liberty.

[Zoranon]

It should be for all except those with serous mental or physical problems.

Well this is sad. I though you supported individual liberty, one of the few posters here to do so.

[Zan15]

It should be for all except those with serous mental or physical problems.

LOL had to of course add "physical problems" to the list given his staunch support for Our President Bone Spurs.

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Well this is sad. I though you supported individual liberty, one of the few posters here to do so.

hahah, he is so twisted in the past couple months on what he believe and supports. Its what happens when his talking points keep changing based on every late night tweet

[Shadowferal]

meh...just a matter of time I suspect.

[Mihalik]

South Korea has mandatory conscription for men outside some ridiculously outlandish exceptions I can't really speak for. Maybe it has to do with wealth privileges, but they're really thin and pretty much everyone does military service at 18.

I'm wondering why America with its unemployment crisis and pride in its military strength doesn't have forced conscription. It isn't just for America, but something that can be said for every country that doesn't do it. Even if it scares the shit out of people unwilling to do it at first, people often come out of it with newfound purpose and something to do or work with in life at least. If you ever found that you have nowhere to go in life, you could just throw yourself into the military.

But besides not having forced conscription, I also heard America has some strict regulations to begin with and doesn't just take in anyone unlike countries that make no exceptions to physical and mental strength.

1. Mandatory conscription of military aged men (not including women) would massively inflate the size of the US military, increasing the costs involved. Conscription is only really necessary for small nations exposed to significant security risks that struggle to meet staffing requirements otherwise. South Korea is technically at war, and has been at war since the 50's.

2. Conscript forces underperform compared to professional military forces. Professional military forces due to their training can actually outperform conscript forces that not only out number them, but are better supplied or have access to comparable or better equipment, simply due to their professionalism.

With other words. It's expensive, it's unnecessary and it's counterproductive. Furthermore it massively expands the coercive power of the state.

[Felya]

Well this is sad. I though you supported individual liberty, one of the few posters here to do so.

Welcome to me on November 7th, 2016... this realization has put me on ignore since.

[Ghostpanther]

Well this is sad. I though you supported individual liberty, one of the few posters here to do so.

I do. Supporting your country by serving it in the military is a good way to do it. And the military can teach a person a lot of valuable lessons for life. Only needs to be a 1 or 2 year service. Without the sacrifices made by those who have served, we would not have the liberty we do in the US. That is a sacrifice everyone should be willing to make.

We use to have the draft. We still had the same liberties we have now.

[Shadowferal]

Wait, some people think that previous generations weren't for individual liberty?
Seriously?

[Zan15]

1. Mandatory conscription of military aged men (not including women) would massively inflate the size of the US military, increasing the costs involved. SNIP.

Hey look at the bright side, we can finally have National healthcare when the whole country would now be covered under the VA.

right?

Right??

[Mihalik]

Hey look at the bright side, we can finally have National healthcare when the whole country would now be covered under the VA.

right?

Right??

Not really.

Women would still not be covered unless the draft is expanded. And people with pre-existing conditions (from youth) would also go uncovered as it's not likely even a conscript army would bother with asthmatics, diabetics, people with auto immune condition, physical and mental disabilities etc.

So...nope. Still no universal healthcare coverage.

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I do. Supporting your country by serving it in the military is a good way to do it.

That is your personal opinion. Not an objective fact.

And the military can teach a person a lot of valuable lessons for life. Only needs to be a 1 or 2 year service.

That is objectively false. Skills acquired in the military do not in any meaningful way translate into civilian fields or the labor market, unless we are talking about upper command or specialist level training. That type of training is never wasted on conscripts, not even in conscript armies, due to the time and financial investment required. That type of training is always reserved to command level or the professional cadre of any military force. Basic training alone costs anywhere between 50 to 72k for an average run of the mill recruit. Once you even start moving into the NCO tier that number quadruples.

Furthermore the PERCEIVED social value of skills acquired through military service also decreases when it becomes the norm, it's not exceptional anymore, it's assumed.

Nations that utilize conscription notoriously struggle with internal discipline, morale and the reintegration of former conscripts back into civilian life. Conscription is and has always been an invariably traumatic experience which affects soldiers throughout their service time and afterwards.

The US already struggles with post service reintegration of a smaller number of volunteers. This would get exponentially worse if that number would go up to a million discharges annually.

Without the sacrifices made by those who have served, we would not have the liberty we do in the US.

Partially true. See last point.

That is a sacrifice everyone should be willing to make.

Debatable. Both morally and in the context whether someone actually shares to values or not personally and in the sense of what is the value of a freedom you are forced to protect.

We use to have the draft. We still had the same liberties we have now.

Objectively and self evidently false. Slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese internments, treatment of native Americans, women's rights etc. Historically speaking most Americans never enjoyed the same Civil liberties as they enjoy today. Also objectively speaking many Americans still do not enjoy the same liberties, right and protections.

Furthermore in the context of American history, with a handful of notable (Civil War) exceptions the institution of the US military itself has been used and in some cases remains being used as the very tool of oppression that withheld from people the liberties enshrined in law.

So it's rather unsurprising that many people would refuse to serve the very institution that keeps them and their very communities oppressed.

[Zan15]

Not really.

Women would still not be covered unless the draft is expanded. And people with pre-existing conditions (from youth) would also go uncovered as it's not likely even a conscript army would bother with asthmatics, diabetics, people with auto immune condition, physical and mental disabilities etc.

So...nope. Still no universal healthcare coverage.

.

Why wouldn't women be included in a national manditory service requirement?

Well family members would get coverage. Even after discharge the premiums are reduced. All those juciy low priced benefits that cost the US taxpayer hundered billion a year

Pre-exsisting might have a problem but disability will always have Medicaid and if old enough Early Medicare.

[Mihalik]

Why wouldn't women be included in a national manditory service requirement?

Being eligible for draft does mean you'll get drafted. Women wouldn't be included for the very same reason there will be no universal conscription for men. There are 6 countries in the world with conscription for women, Israel and North Korea being perhaps the most known examples, they are all charactarized by near perpetual war footing tied to their geopolitical situation combined with relatively small populations. Furthermore neither of them attempt to tie healthcare to military service, recognizing how the two are utterly disconnected nor do use private vendors to provide healthcare for their veterans/citizens.

The costs involved would be astronomical.

Every year 2 million men turn eligible for draft. Even assuming only 50% recruitment rate, that's a million people you now have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training, equipping, feeding, housing etc. It's just logistically not viable unless you're running a war economy or are willing to accept a drastic (and I mean drastic) reduction of standards.

VA coverage is a perk, it's crappy, but it's a perk that comes with voluntary enlistment. At the operating costs of the VA (and how it's structured) it would be wildly unsustainable economically.

The VA is not a good model for a universal healthcare system. Not in structure, eligibility, service model, or economic cost.

Well family members would get coverage. Even after discharge the premiums are reduced. All those juciy low priced benefits that cost the US taxpayer hundered billion a year

Pre-exsisting might have a problem but disability will always have Medicaid and if old enough Early Medicare.

Again, it just doesn't make any organizational or economic logic to attempt to tie healthcare to military service.

The list of complications are endless. Like... What happens if you separate from your spouse? What happens to children whose parents lose custody?

Tho first and foremost.... How would you pay for this entire shitshow. Not even talking about the healthcare bit, just about having to train, feed, gear and house anywhere from 1 to 4 million annual recruits for at least 9 months to possibly a year. And keep in mind 95% of them will leave the military and never look back.

It's just an asinine idea all around on every level.

And keep in mind... All those people are effectively removed from the labor market for that time period. As in, they aren't paying any taxes.

[Zoranon]

I do. Supporting your country by serving it in the military is a good way to do it. And the military can teach a person a lot of valuable lessons for life. Only needs to be a 1 or 2 year service. Without the sacrifices made by those who have served, we would not have the liberty we do in the US. That is a sacrifice everyone should be willing to make.

We use to have the draft. We still had the same liberties we have now.

So, in order to properly enjoy liberty you have to experience living as a slave? That is almost on the level of war is peace...

Even leaving aside the huge moral issues, conscription in today world makes no sense both from a military and economic point of view. Yes you can enslave your young and pay them little or nothing, but that still means they wont be doing something that is actually productive and pay taxes and you still need to feed, equip and house them (even if all three of those will be of very poor quality). And it is well known that forced labour is very inefficient.

[Shadowferal]

Funny how arguments citing costs sound similar to arguments against universal healthcare.

[JohnBrown1917]

Funny how arguments citing costs sound similar to arguments against universal healthcare.

Turns out healthcare actually benefits the population while the military only kills people and destroys nations to make more profit for the elite.

[Shadowferal]

Turns out healthcare actually benefits the population while the military only kills people and destroys nations to make more profit for the elite.

The military is part of the population.

[JohnBrown1917]

The military is part of the population.

That does not change its purpose. Why does that even matter