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Witzkatz wrote:About people refusing service: Refusing to attend service counts as desertion in Germany. This means a military police commando will drive to your house and, if they find you there, will drag you to your barracks, where an officer will probably be a bit angry with you. If you try to evade this by fleeing from your house or even the country, you will be given some time in prison - around 4 months - for your crime.

Ah yes, the Crime of not wanting to be forced to kill some bloke you don't know by some government you probably didn't vote for.

Charming!

Gwar! wrote:Oh yes, the Crime of not wanting to be forced to kill some bloke you don't know by some government you probably didn't vote for.

I'm pretty sure you keep missing the parts were people let you know that people doing NS don't go anywhere near combat (at least not in Germany, for example) and you don't actually shoot anyone...

Unless you just like prodding people

Ah yes, the Crime of not wanting to be forced to kill some bloke you don't know by some government you probably didn't vote for.

Yeah, and again, you don't get send into combat. You're not forced to kill some bloke. You're forced to do your laundry, keep your bed clean, walk around for prolonged periods of time, shoot the gak out of some targets, wear a heavy gas mask and then run, carry the MG3, all sorts of things. But you are not forced to kill anyone.

Yet.

It's actually the perfect self-perpetuation of a military force.

1) Force young people to join the military and soon we have an entire population of 18+ and a little older in uniform.
2) Uniforms look dead sexy.
3) Suddenly those men in uniform have kids that they may or may not know about/want.
4) Continual service is necessary to support the family.
5) Those kids grow up.
6) Repeat steps 1-5.

That is how we got to the First World War.

SilverMK2 wrote:I personally have no idea. I imagine that some arrangement can be reached. One would look to nations which currently have national service to see how they deal with the situation.

Generally they leave the country. If they're pretty enough we're happy to take them and ignore the hardliners complaining about them.

Meet Israeli draft dodger Bar Rafaeli...

We got to World War I because of conscription? And not, say, because of international politics?

World War One was started by politics, however it was the irrevocable mobilisation of massive conscripted armies developed during the 19th century which made it impossible to stop once mobilisation was under way, and turned it into an colossal abattoir.

In other words, if armies had been small and professional, the war probably would have been avoided, or at least would not have developed into a bloody World War.

Of course i see your point KK, there are many sound arguments against conscription and why a nations youth shouldnt bother to learn how to march, cook, shoot and administer advanced first aid, but surely the benefits of having such a well rounded populous outweigh the negatives?

Indeed, a modern NS neednt follow the guidelines here people seem to think (modern Germany might be a good example) with alternative deployments in medicine and social care. It doesnt all have to be focused on defence, but training young people in this manner can help prepare for natural disasters, terror attacks, community support and peace keeping. Couldnt tens of thousands of UK youths engaged in petty crime and general chav-ery do with a bit of direction? Couldnt Spain have used a better civil defence force during last years forest fires?

With many nations healthcare systems under strain and an aging population that will need supporting with medical care of even just good company, or nations with large immigrant communities that need greater integration a 12 month tour of duty for young people would not only serve them well in the long run, but also assist the various ministries with a myriad of headaches.

For example, i joined the Royal Marines at 19, and look, im awesome at pretty much everything!

Apart from capitalising your 'I's.


Arf!

He said royal MARINES, not air force. He doesn't have to capitalize all of his "I"s nor does he know to capitalize all of his "I"s.

Just kidding with you matty, much respect from me to the world's military men.

mattyrm wrote:Of course i see your point KK, there are many sound arguments against conscription and why a nations youth shouldnt bother to learn how to march, cook, shoot and administer advanced first aid, but surely the benefits of having such a well rounded populous outweigh the negatives?

Indeed, a modern NS neednt follow the guidelines here people seem to think (modern Germany might be a good example) with alternative deployments in medicine and social care. It doesnt all have to be focused on defence, but training young people in this manner can help prepare for natural disasters, terror attacks, community support and peace keeping. Couldnt tens of thousands of UK youths engaged in petty crime and general chav-ery do with a bit of direction? Couldnt Spain have used a better civil defence force during last years forest fires?

With many nations healthcare systems under strain and an aging population that will need supporting with medical care of even just good company, or nations with large immigrant communities that need greater integration a 12 month tour of duty for young people would not only serve them well in the long run, but also assist the various ministries with a myriad of headaches.

For example, i joined the Royal Marines at 19, and look, im awesome at pretty much everything!

I learned how to shoot, cook and do advanced first aid without doing national service. I also used to do rambling and hill walking, which isn't marching as such, though neither is it sitting around playing video games.

Spain had national service until late May 2001. I would have thought if it were good for fighting forest fires, the effect might still be felt a few years later. The last conscripts would still have been in their 20s.

Kilkrazy wrote:I learned how to shoot, cook and do advanced first aid without doing national service. I also used to do rambling and hill walking, which isn't marching as such, though neither is it sitting around playing video games.

TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK!

SilverMK2 wrote:I must have missed the point where I said I was going to go round all the schools and force people onto buses at gunpoint to drive them off to "camps" where angry people would point guns in their faces and laugh cruely as they wet themselves.

If you make it required service, either you go or you get arrested. Guess what cops use if you resist arrest? When you start talking about forcing people into involuntary servitude, you're talking about making them do the work at gunpoint, even if you want to deny the threat of force involved.

I also missed the part where I stated that they would be given guns and told to march in front of the real soldiers to act as a spotty human shield...

You also missed the part where I said you said that, since I didn't. Seriously, it makes zero sense to pull an "I missed the part where I said", with something that the other guy didn't say either.

Oh, wait, I didn't say any of those things. In fact, I categorically said that people undergoing national service would not serve in combat roles,

And through what magic power do you enforce this? The 2nd amendment to the US constitution is pretty clear, but DC's gun ban which was a clear violation stood in place for 35 years before the supreme court overturned it. If a clear violation of a constitutional amendment is allowed to operate for over a third of a century before the courts correct it, why should I expect that 'some guy on a message board said these guys would not get thrown into combat' would do any good? You can say not, and put italics tags around it, but you haven't offered any mechanism of maintaining that not.

I also note that you're using the copout phrase 'combat roles', which explicitly doesn't include 'support roles' or 'humanitarian aid roles'. Even if I accept that your message board declaration will be more effective than the constitution at binding governmental actions, your own declaration allows the national service people to be sent into a place like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam, they'd just not be a front line combat troop but still would be exposed to all of the fun of unconventional warfare and in many cases would be a legitimate target for conventional warfare.

What I, and other advocates of national service in this thread, have been saying is that national service is not geared towards producing soldiers or cannon fodder - it is geared towards producing responsible human beings who will be of value to society and themselves.

You've failed to explain how forcing people to work for you at gunpoint makes more responsible people who are of value to society from less responsible people who are of no value to society. You're claiming great benefits from a system of short term slave labor, but have not offered any argument as to how the system produces those benefit, much less the deeper arguments of whether those benefits can be achieved without involuntary servitude and whether the benefits are strong enough to warrant a large human rights violation.



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Witzkatz wrote:An American soldier in my psychology class brought up an interesting aspect yesterday: National service could help decrease racism and prejudices, because people of all social and ethnical groups are forced to work together, live together and be dependent on each other. Food for thought, I think.

People of all social groups wouldn't be forced to work together, the rich and/or well connected will get exmptions or cushy assignments that they don't even have to show up for. That's how the draft has always worked, calling it 'national service' won't change that. Forcing people to work with other races doesn't decrease racism and prejudices, there wouldn't be so many openly racist gangs in prison if this idea worked.

While theoretically refusal to obey orders, I heard that the officer in command in one case simply said "Feth it, this isn't useful for anybody, just let him be." As I said before, there are webpages over webpages how you can trick your way around service if you really want.

So how does the national service plan provide benefits if it doesn't require people to do anything while they're in the program? It doesn't sound like the people involved in administering the program in countries that have it believe it's worth doing.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:If you make it required service, either you go or you get arrested. Guess what cops use if you resist arrest? When you start talking about forcing people into involuntary servitude, you're talking about making them do the work at gunpoint, even if you want to deny the threat of force involved.

Since I am from the UK, I am talking from a non-American perspective. Our police do not use guns regularly, thus by ducking out on NS, you will not bring armed police to your door (though I don't know if MP's will be called on to enforce this - as I mentioned previously I am not pretending to lay out a concrete plan on how this will be done, just a general overview).

You also missed the part where I said you said that, since I didn't. Seriously, it makes zero sense to pull an "I missed the part where I said", with something that the other guy didn't say either.

Sorry, that was a general reply to the vibe coming from a number of people which seemingly equates NS to forcing everyone undergoing it to go and kill people, rather than to anything you said specifically.

And through what magic power do you enforce this? The 2nd amendment to the US constitution is pretty clear, but DC's gun ban which was a clear violation stood in place for 35 years before the supreme court overturned it. If a clear violation of a constitutional amendment is allowed to operate for over a third of a century before the courts correct it, why should I expect that 'some guy on a message board said these guys would not get thrown into combat' would do any good? You can say not, and put italics tags around it, but you haven't offered any mechanism of maintaining that not.

Being based in the UK and therefore not being constrained by your constitution (or your ("your" being "some American's") disturbingly dogged determination to declare everything "unconstitutional" that you disagree with - not always a bad thing in some respects), and having, obviously, different laws regards quite a number of things, I am not going to comment on your legal/lawmaking system.

However, I will again stress that I'm not a policy maker in the government who is laying down what is going to happen, exactly as it is going to happen. Feel free to get bogged down arguing with yourself over what you see as potential problems - I'm certainly not going to stipulate in detail the exact mechanism for the formation, maintenance, rules of operation, etc for those undergoing NS, nor the organisation that supports it. I'm just "some guy on a message board"

However, there are many western nations which have some form of NS and as far as I am aware their programs run fairly well without people getting shipped off to the front lines, either deliberately or by accident.

I also note that you're using the copout phrase 'combat roles', which explicitly doesn't include 'support roles' or 'humanitarian aid roles'. Even if I accept that your message board declaration will be more effective than the constitution at binding governmental actions, your own declaration allows the national service people to be sent into a place like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam, they'd just not be a front line combat troop but still would be exposed to all of the fun of unconventional warfare and in many cases would be a legitimate target for conventional warfare.

Again, you seem to be thinking that I'm attempting to debate this on a deeper level than I actually am. Please see my comments above. In relation to your comment, I can only point out the models presented by other western nations regards the way they use NS personnel in supporting their regular armed forces.

You've failed to explain how forcing people to work for you at gunpoint makes more responsible people who are of value to society from less responsible people who are of no value to society. You're claiming great benefits from a system of short term slave labor, but have not offered any argument as to how the system produces those benefit, much less the deeper arguments of whether those benefits can be achieved without involuntary servitude and whether the benefits are strong enough to warrant a large human rights violation.

Well, for a start a structured environment where personal and group responsibility saturate every activity and there is strong positive and negative reinforcement can bring out the best in people. Also means that we might be able to get people into career paths that suit them, and/or trained up so that when they leave NS and go on to other things they have that little bit extra to drive them forward than the 1-2 weeks of work experience that most school leavers have. The physical training might also help towards healthier people. The discipline (both external and internal) hopefully will lead to happier, more productive people.

As I mentioned previously, the question is just how much is this worth? Just how many rights can one limit, remove, etc before you go too far? How much are the benefits worth in these terms is debatable.

Germany (being the most mentioned NS country in this thread) has decided that the benefits are worth it, and they are quite a progressive, modern nation (on pretty much any index you care to measure by).

SilverMK2 wrote:Since I am from the UK, I am talking from a non-American perspective. Our police do not use guns regularly, thus by ducking out on NS, you will not bring armed police to your door (though I don't know if MP's will be called on to enforce this - as I mentioned previously I am not pretending to lay out a concrete plan on how this will be done, just a general overview).

your police do use guns regularly. Beat cops don't carry guns in the UK, but armed response teams are a regular part of the police force, and there are plenty of armed guards (for example, at airports). If you don't go along with the police when they come to arrest you, are you trying to tell me they'll just say 'cheerio' and leave you alone? No, they'll try to bring you in, and if you resist they'll call in the armed response team. Once you're in prison, if you try to walk out they'll just say 'blimey, please don't try to escape?' I don't think so.

Trying to ignore the fact that you're advocating forcing people to labor with the threat of a gun by arguing that beat cops don't carry guns just indicates that you're not really being honest about what your plan entails.

Feel free to get bogged down arguing with yourself over what you see as potential problems - I'm certainly not going to stipulate in detail the exact mechanism for the formation, maintenance, rules of operation, etc for those undergoing NS, nor the organisation that supports it. I'm just "some guy on a message board"

I'm not interested in detailed rules, just a general description of how you prevent it from happening once the system is in place. Enlightened despotism is the ideal form of government, but until you offer an explanation for how to get the incorruptible philosopher-king in the first place, it's not something that should be tried in the real world.

However, there are many western nations which have some form of NS and as far as I am aware their programs run fairly well without people getting shipped off to the front lines, either deliberately or by accident.

Every nation that has some form of Ns that I'm aware of had it start off as conscription, which of course is all about shipping people off to the front lines. They've only turned it from conscription to National Service after WW2, and none of them have had their military under significant manpower stresses since they've adopted national service. It doesn't sound like any of the countries with a NS program have had a reason to want to ship people off to the 'front lines' since they moved away from conscription, so that doesn't really offer any reassurance.

And again, I'll note the weasel-word 'front lines', which seems to pervade this kind of discussion. The objection is not just to sticking people into direct combat units, which the military likely wouldn't want to do anyway, but to sticking them into dangerous areas. Rear-area troops are still attacked by 'insurgents', and are even legitimate targets for conventional warfare. Humanitarian aid in an occupied country similarly exposes the conscr... National Service Crew to attack.

Well, for a start a structured environment where personal and group responsibility saturate every activity and there is strong positive and negative reinforcement can bring out the best in people.

Your reasons are all 'can bring out' and 'might do this' kind of stuff, I think you need something a bit better than 'well, this might make things better, if we're lucky' to justify adopting a system of forced labor. Right now you can't show any benefit, you're just saying 'oh hey, it might do good'. I think that you need more than 'this might not make things worse, and could make things better' before you talk about throwing people in prison for not joining up with your system. If you had some concrete benefits, we could look at how they match with the costs, but as it is you're just hoping there might be benefits, so that's clearly not worse serious human rights violations.

You've also got the problem that according to people with experience with Germany's system, there is no personal and group responsibilty or strong positive and negative reinforcement. If someone just shows up and doesn't do anything, the officers in charge just say 'ahh whatever, it's not worth the bother'. So even if I accept your benefits, it doesn't look like the primary example of a NS system actually functions in the way you say would be needed to provide them.

Germany (being the most mentioned NS country in this thread) has decided that the benefits are worth it, and they are quite a progressive, modern nation (on pretty much any index you care to measure by).

Actually, according to what people with experience with the system have said, Germany has decided that the beneifts are really worthless, and keep the program around out of inertia. Officers involved don't care in the least if you actually do anything while you're in the program!

When I consider what my country has done for me, my country asking me to risk my life for them is a fairly gak deal.

As Muhammad Ali said on refusing to go to Vietnam "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. They never called me [see forum posting rules]." Pretty much sums it up. Why the feth should I or anyone be forced to carry out the military agendas of some grey haired witches in government?

SilverMK2 wrote:

However, there are many western nations which have some form of NS and as far as I am aware their programs run fairly well without people getting shipped off to the front lines, either deliberately or by accident.


Germany (being the most mentioned NS country in this thread) has decided that the benefits are worth it, and they are quite a progressive, modern nation (on pretty much any index you care to measure by).

There are relatively few western nations which have any form of National Service. Germany is dropping their national service programme.

Austria, Denmark, Germany (dropping theirs), Greece, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland (citizen army) and Turkey. India apparently has some kind of national civilian service.

Some people might argue with the inclusion of some of these countries in "western".

Mattyrm, i think you need a good dose of the awesome Flight of the Conchords: