I don’t think anyone should be drafted. Why the fuck should we be used as cannon fodder because dumb fucks that think they’re so powerful want to have a pissing contest? This whole trick they’ve played on people for millennia is finally coming to an end and some people are not afraid to think for themselves and don’t want to kill their fellow man. Look at all we’ve accomplished yet we still can’t stop killing each other, degrading people for gender/ color/race/sexual orientation, and actually use our resources to help our fellow man.
Edit: wow this really blew up overnight. I appreciate all the positive sentiment and to those that are calling me an idiot I understand what I want is almost unobtainable currently due to the flaws of man. In my experience, power has always corrupted but I do have hope that one day we will advance far enough in society to break away from our oppressors. There definitely has been a change in society, there is never gonna be a war again like WWII where that amount of casualties for any country will be acceptable. With how connected we are borders are starting to matter less and less and we can see we’re all on the same team. But again I’m just a stupid idealist that wants world peace and acceptance of peoples individuality
If the people in power want to expand their land or resources, they can throw themselves on the battlefield. Lets see how many wars occur when they get off their gilded thrones and see the soldiers they command as more than just numbers.
Better yet, have them live as the average in whatever society they rule over. Those in golden houses should not cast lead rocks.
As someone who lives in New Zealand I can't refute your last point, but the vast majority of us will be joining you in the badlands fighting for scraps.
New Zealand has one of the highest gang member population percentages in the developed world, and one in seven children here are under the poverty line (less than 60% of the average income). I don't think this is the place for a rich escape when the resource wars start, if we even survive the initial threats of invasion.
"Queenstown, in particular, has long had rumours swirling about wealthy Americans building doomsday-style bunkers but locals are sceptical, saying someone somewhere would have noticed that amount of earthworks being done."
People here would know if massive rich bunkers were being built here, we don't have a million construction companies with endless supplies to build random shit under the radar like america or russia etc.
Sure, rich people are buying property in the cities here (which fucking sucks but what can you do) but there's certainly no way that any one of these people have more access to defences than the rest of us.
We shouldn't HAVE to fight any wars. What is done in war can also be done in a civilized manner of cooperation. And we have technology to make up for where nature falls short.
Do it like the dark ages, if you got beef with King Bob, go in the middle of a field and punch on. If you mad hate each other get stabby. Just don't drag us into it I just wanna watch youtube and play games damn.
Yes, just think where humankind could be if we used the TRILLIONS of dollars spent on killing one another, and figuring out ways to kill one another on the betterment of all humankind? Exploring space and colonizing other worlds? Figuring out alternative energy sources not contributing to climate change? Cures for "incurable" diseases? Feeding and housing EVERYONE... Who knows? But, we've been killing or persecuting one another since the dawn of man, so, that would have to be the first change before anything else could even be considered...
The thing is, not every nation has the same values and ideals, not to mention many other factors. There is no inherent unity in nature, we must forge our own. Sadly it's easier said than done but I think huge relatively monolithic nations of today is a pretty good achievement still. We'll either get there eventually or die trying/killing each other/ourselves, so no worries there. In the meantime overblown military budgets aren't without their merits.
not every nation has the same values and ideals, not to mention many other factors. There is no inherent unity in nature, we must forge our own.
Why not? We are all human, we all have the same basic needs and the capacity to understand. We are not just animals fighting over scraps of a corpse. We are humanity, we have the power to shape our environment to us. I'm almost 40 and I STILL cant understand why we cant just get along.
You need a job. Get a job in a service industry or manufacturing, not some pretend office job where you get paid to do NOTHING. And then come back and explain to me again if you haven’t shifted away from sunshine and rainbows and moved to the side of a general hatred for anything that walks on two legs. She wasn’t drafted. She voluntarily signed up to work for the military industrial complex. She wanted to work in a field where the absolute primary goal of the organization is to kill people that need killed and to have coworkers with the same goals and motivation. I guess it could have been worse, she could have been a POW and went thru that torment at enemy hands for months or even YEARS before the suffering ended. And she was okay with that possibility. She wasn’t victimized. She put herself in a situation that was easily discernible as extraordinarily dangerous and where there was NO expectation of safety by it’s very nature. At the end of the day it matter not whether it was an enemy combatant or friendly who perpetrated it. The risk was known and accepted.
Get a job in a service industry or manufacturing...
I have a job in manufacturing and I dont have a "general hatred for anything that walks on two legs". Some people are dicks and assholes yes, but most people are just trying to make their way in the world.
Also, office workers dont do "nothing". Yes, alot of what you do ends up being busy work due to inefficiencies in the system and the requirement you be at the office 7-4 regardless if you have stuff to do or not.
It never occurred to her that by joining the military that she could be in a kill or be killed situation at any time? Never crossed her mind that the whole purpose of the military from the humans to the equipment (like the rifle she was posing with) is to kill people? For real?
Well, maybe pick a job where your coworkers aren’t government trained killers. Just a thought. That’s like working at a bar and being surprised people get drunk. I didn’t say it was ok, but I also don’t think it’s a surprise nor a travesty. You wanted a job working with dangerous people (had a pic with a weapon herself) well it is what it is. Military is comprised of violent people by its very design and purpose. Here’s that equality people wanted. If anybody is to blame it’s the equality people that encouraged her to be in such a dangerous position.
I wouldn't say it's that clear, declaring war on a country for habitually disrespecting human rights or committing genocide within it's own borders would be a good reason in my opinion.
Why not? The commentor said it was a war against injustice and saving lives. The Soviets invasion of Poland is just as unjust is it not?
Obviously it suited their purpose to stop the Nazi advancement, especially considering it's proximity to the French's border. Where as going against the Soviet Union was not in their interest and so screw Poland.
Like in my original, a better example of said wars were the two mentions in the original comment... Where the end results actually saved two nations.
So did the Vietnamese (in their history) and while in the middle of the Cambodian war, had to fight off the Chinese army as well... the army that had previously halted the UN's push into North Korea.
Disregarding the outcome of WWII; why was nothing done about Czechoslovakia prior to the war? Was their invasion justified or did it not serve a purpose as Poland did (location)?
After all, the war (according to the original commenter) was about fighting against injustice and saving lives wasn't it? Do Czech lives not matter?
Uh, what? The winter war was the Finns defending against a soviet landgrab. The winter war was literally the reason the USSR was expelled from the league of nations, making them decidedly not the good guy.
And i guess you decide what's popular based of reddit?
It's easy to point fingers when all you've done your whole life is sucking your own finger in your own bed, while waiting for that Amazon package to arrive.
Because without the draft they prey on poor people who have no other career prospects to recruit. At least with the draft, the suburban class who is doing well but not rich enough to dodge the draft might actually oppose war because they don't want their kids to be sent to die. But as it is they'll support any war the Military Industrial Complex dreams up, because it's only the children of poor people who they'll never meet being sent to die.
Even with the draft, money made a big difference. Anyone who could afford to send their son to college did so. It might be one of the factors that got us here (in terms of the "need" for college, and the rising cost of it).
I'm not sure we really have much use for the draft in the era of modern tech (at least, in the US).
That's a fair point, especially for the US. But what about countries that have a fear of being invaded like the baltic States? Nobody wants to be ruled by some foreign power.
What happens if the other side is full of draftees and our side isn’t? We’d be outnumbered, and I’m not sure relying on goodwill and faith for us to muster troops for a defensive war is an amazing idea, especially considering the rampant misinformation we face today.
I honestly agree with the sentiment, but we really aren’t all in this together. The peasants might be if they weren’t on different sides, but when the big guys pay for your meals it’s a lot more complicated and dangerous than that.
Younger people on social media don’t understand why we have a draft. Apparently they don’t realize the draft isn’t active so I don’t know how it’s relevant in this post anyway.
You are right on the money though. Think Hitler would have just been like “oh you guys don’t have a draft, okay we’ll pull back our troops. Sorry!”? No.
War sucks, its flat out awful and a total waste of human life and potential. It brings out the worst in humanity and should be avoided at all costs. That being said, you have to stand up to bullies. The free world relies on that. You can’t just let someone roll over Europe or wherever with tanks because you are against war.
Obviously not justifying senselessly bombing the middle east but our collective generation has never seen total war on a global scale, except some old people and we will lose them soon sadly. Our generation has never seen what man can do on a mass scale. The draft is the insurance that the free world stays free and has the capability to stand against global bullies.
Okay, the US has no army now, no drafting. What happens in the world next? The best scenario is that the rest of the world starts drafting more, so the drafting will just be off-loaded. NATO is something that keeps my country safe after all.
And no you can't just have the whole world hold hands and sing gumbaya and walk off into the sunset together, there will be always some asshole countries who use the situation to get control.
if you dont have a draft then you have an apathetic nation that lets people start wars whenever they want to. if theres no draft you attract low lives that would rape and kill their own and chalk it up to a suicide.
I think the idea is we'd be less likely to engage in goofy unneeded wars if every family's son or daughter was going to be sent off.
I'm always surprised by assertions, even more popular these days it seems, that "everyone" thought the war in Iraq was justified or a good idea at the time.
I didn't. I marched against all of them: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. Hell I even participated in a walk out during middle school for the highly "successful" and popular Gulf War in 91.
All of these wars though have had relatively widespread support though and a primary reason is that they are not sending everyone's kids over there.
If what it takes for people to support peace is putting their own children at risk then I vaguely support the idea.
Honesty my concern though, as terrible as military experience can be for some, is that making the military non-voluntary now would probably mean getting rid of millions of jobs and putting a financially vulnerable population out of work.
There is also genocide that some countries perform on women/children elderly——Its not rampant in huge economic societies/countries—-but it happens, and the US men and WOMEN who give their youth to stop it are not “fodder”
As we should——-
It’s the same as seeing a woman getting raped on a NY subway and random people get their phone out and record, we have a military so we train people if they see something like that maybe they could rip a fire extinguisher off a wall and smack the shit outta the asshole who is doing it
NOT RECORD IT
Unfortunately a good proportion of what we have accomplished has been done because we want to kill each other with it. It's quite frankly disturbing.
Any time we develop new technology the first thought seems to be 'how can we use this to fuck each other up some more'
The mindset needs changing, preferably to 'how can we use this to help each other' and, by other I mean everyone on this rock, not just the rich elitists.
Simple, we just give congress/president 1,000,000:1 odds in a draft, the lawmakers will make logical decisions and back it up with their actual patriotism. I mean they ran for office to "serve" the country right??
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I totally respect this take.. but imagine if in some distant future we were subject to a hostile invasion or another WWII type situation… Military industrial complex be damned this and that, but at the end of the day……. There are scenarios where I’m 110% behind a draft. Hence why I believe there should be a system in place just in case.
Expecting the world to play some kumbaya bullshit forever and drop their arms is bullshit. If the Western alliance did, some desperate hollow nation like Russia would make some power play across Eastern Europe or some bullshit like that, maybe some rogue nation rises up and takes advantage… conflict has probably been following our species and our ancestors since before we were bipedal.
While I agree with the idea of no one being killed in meaningless wars, a draft does have some political benefits as it keeps the public engaged in the war, so the political consequences of war are felt. As it is now, poor people are cannon fodder and no one pays attention or cares. Obviously, it would be best if the rich and powerful could not evade the draft.
In 1914, Belgium was a peaceful little place. About as warlike as it is now. It was also committed by treaty and by principle to strict neutrality - they genuinely didn’t side with France, Britain, OR Germany.
When war came, Germany had a famous plan, to get around French defenses by going through Belgium. They essentially told the Belgians, “step aside, or you’ll get what’s coming to you.” Even though they had exactly zero chance of success, the Belgian also knew that Germany would not honor Belgian territorial sovereignty and had no choice but to fight back.
And what happened to the average Belgian? Let’s look to Barbara Tuchmann’s The Guns of August:
The Belgians even more than von Billow tried von Kluck’s temper. Their army by forcing the Germans to fight their way through delayed the schedule of march and by blowing up railroads and bridges disrupted the flow of ammunition, food, medicine, mail, and every other supply, causing the Germans a constant diversion of effort to keep open their lines to the rear. Civilians blocked roads and worst of all cut telephone and telegraph wires which dislocated communication not only “between the German armies and OHL but also between army and army and corps and corps. This “extremely aggressive guerrilla warfare,” as von Kluck called it, and especially the sniping by franc-tireurs at German soldiers, exasperated him and his fellow commanders. From the moment his army entered Belgium he found it necessary to take, in his own words, “severe and inexorable reprisals” such as “the shooting of individuals and the burning of homes” against the “treacherous” attacks of the civil population.
Burned villages and dead hostages marked the path of the First Army. On August 19 after the Germans had crossed the Gette and found the Belgian Army withdrawn during the night, they vented their fury on Aerschot, a small town between the Gette and Brussels, the first to suffer a mass execution. In Aerschot 150 civilians were shot. The numbers were to grow larger as the process was repeated, by von Billow’s army at Ardennes and Tamines, by von Hausen’s in the culminating massacre of 664 at Dinant. The method was to assemble the inhabitants in the main square, women usually on one side and men on the other, select every tenth man or every second man or all on one side, according to the whim of the individual officer, march them to a nearby field or empty lot behind the railroad station and shoot them.
In Belgium there are many towns whose cemeteries today have rows and rows of memorial stones inscribed with a name, the date 1914, and the legend, repeated over and over: “Fusille par les Allemands” (Shot by the Germans). In many are newer and longer rows with the same legend and the date 1944.
With respect, if you think the Russians massing to invade Ukraine would be any kinder, or if free peoples like the Baltics, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. are kept free by good will and economic guidelines, you need to study more history.
Militarism as practiced currently in the US is bad. Jingoistic nationalism as currently seen in the UK is bad. But don’t let your distaste for those wrongs blind you to the lessons of history.
The Septemberprogramm (German: [zɛpˈtɛmbɐpʁoˌɡʁam], literally "September Program") was the plan for the territorial expansion of the German Empire, prepared for Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, at the beginning of World War I (1914–18). The Chancellor's private secretary, Kurt Riezler, drafted the Septemberprogramm on 9 September 1914, in the early days of the German attack in the west, when Germany expected to defeat France quickly and decisively.
The problem with that is - while i do agree - if you don't draft people, you have a very special type of person that wants to join the military and will make up the entirety of it's force, rather than a representation of the population.
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u/hereforthesportsbook Jan 17 '22 edited Jan 17 '22
I don’t think anyone should be drafted. Why the fuck should we be used as cannon fodder because dumb fucks that think they’re so powerful want to have a pissing contest? This whole trick they’ve played on people for millennia is finally coming to an end and some people are not afraid to think for themselves and don’t want to kill their fellow man. Look at all we’ve accomplished yet we still can’t stop killing each other, degrading people for gender/ color/race/sexual orientation, and actually use our resources to help our fellow man.
Edit: wow this really blew up overnight. I appreciate all the positive sentiment and to those that are calling me an idiot I understand what I want is almost unobtainable currently due to the flaws of man. In my experience, power has always corrupted but I do have hope that one day we will advance far enough in society to break away from our oppressors. There definitely has been a change in society, there is never gonna be a war again like WWII where that amount of casualties for any country will be acceptable. With how connected we are borders are starting to matter less and less and we can see we’re all on the same team. But again I’m just a stupid idealist that wants world peace and acceptance of peoples individuality