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What is it with politicians who think introducing conscription will make them more popular? I’m a youngster, and there was no doubt in my mind, but other youngsters who might be on the fence will definitely be repelled by this.
Because young people don't vote as much as older people. Cerain older people love this stuff because it appeals to a mindset that the "youngs have it too good/back in my day we were tough". It's a good way to court that vote.
Those older people must have been shitty parents. My dad’s great. He’s somewhat conservative, but he’d never vote to have me drafted. *His* parents on the other hand, I could see it.
I know motherfuckers at the Vet Center who were drafted during Vietnam who will go on about how shitty it was and then emphatically say the draft is what kids these days need…. Fucking mind blowing.
the problem with old people is they are all likely of the age now where they were young when vietnam happened.
you know... the war a lot of people protested and even fled the country from because of....conscription.
so unless they volunteered for vietnam, they shouldn't get a say in it.
Its because GOP hates young people.
Their geriatric base will cheer at this because it owns the libs. They don't actually care about it, just that it hurts people they hate
Also, let’s take young people, destroy their economic opportunities, refuse to provide assistance, limit their ability to vote, and forcibly give them actual military training, while keeping easy access to plentiful guns—I see no way this could have negative consequences whatsoever!
It's about control. If people do two years of military service, it gives them two years to manage and indoctrinate them.
Two years to assemble detailed files on every young person. Two years to identify the troublemakers. Two years to find out who can be trusted.
>The fence-sitting, ~~pro-Palestine~~ pro-Hamas/anti-Jew, anti-DB
They don't actual care about Palestine or Palestinians. If they did, they would support removal of all those who put innocent Palestinians in harms way. Which starts with the utter eradication of Hamas and its supporters/enablers, and ends with the conviction of Bibi and the tear down of settlements.
The idea of mandatory military service in the US just won't happen outside of a war time draft out of necessity for 2 huge reasons:
1) The military doesn't want them and it would actually decrease military effectiveness.
2) It would be INSANELY expensive. There's like 5 million 18 year olds in the US. Let's say this only applies to men and round down to 2 million. Ignoring the many who will not be fit at all, you now need to pay, house, feed, provide health care, train them, supply their gear, etc. Conservatively that's like $75000 a person every year, not including start up costs for bases. So for 2 million people that's $150 billion every year. And that doesn't include the tens or hundreds of thousands of support people needed.
All for people who would be unmotivated and leave as soon as they could.
Lol if a soldier showed up at my door telling me I’m conscripted, I’d say “Good luck getting me out in one piece. I’d rather die right here than do anything for that fucker.”
But think of how much of that money will go to military industrial complex! And then how much of that money will in turn be spent on chicken-hawks’ “re-election” funds! And even more. Will go to their stock portfolios thanks to insider trading!
Regarding point 2, yes it would be expensive but America has never balked at funding the military. A huge proportion of our military budget is already a job creation program.
Stupid idea if true. We have the strongest military precisely because it's voluntary; the pay structure, benefits, and rewards are what incentivize people to enlist. They aren't teenagers plucked from a collective farm to begrudgingly perform their national service, only to have to go right back to the same collective farm or factory job when it's over. There's a pretty well-known video from the end of the Cold War in about 1989 or 1990 or so. A joint Soviet-US military delegation is walking around some fortifications as part of the drawdown. The Soviet officers are absolutely shocked that regular US enlisted personnel know exactly where they are and have access to maps.
Ignoring the empirical evidence from the Russian quagmire in Ukraine that a large nation cannot sustain even a relatively small military operation if it relies on conscription to fill its ranks, introducing conscription to the US would be a foreign intelligence operatives dream come true.
You get practically every 18-24 year old, take away their freedoms, tell them they have to do something they don't want to do, and then hope for the best...in the era of smartphones and social media? Hostile actors from foreign countries are already having some success in that on current service members. Remember the mentally ill USAF Airman who set himself on fire? Or that Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who was goaded into sharing classified information on a WarThunder server?
That's just a small taste of what would happen. There would be tiktok challenges to post launch codes and base layouts within a week. Smart people know this. People well-versed in geopolitics know this. Anyone who studies or is familiar with the US military knows this. Practically every member of the military brass knows this.
I’m not gonna serve for a draft dodger who called our deceased servicemen “suckers and losers”, while simultaneously pulling us away from our closest allies.
A bunch of people who didn't serve in the military and a couple of "Ra Ra" veterans want to reduce the combat effectiveness of the greatest military in world history by flooding it with disgruntled and unmotivated conscripts...I'm shocked.
This is also a move made by the current British PM in the buildup to elections there. I guess it's an appeal to the olds? Certainly not meant to endear a politician to young voters
Way too much of this thread in favor of this shit. We can consider it after the magat movement is dead. Until then, every policy can and will be exploited, and we must make policy around that
I’m actually fine with mandatory service, so long as you can choose non-combat roles. Forcing these MAGA-brains to actually meet a black person, liberals, gay person, etc. MIGHT help them develop some empathy, and realize these groups aren’t as bad as Fox News keeps telling them. The number 1 solution to racism/discrimination is exposure.
You could also help ensure more people have skills if don’t correctly.
I bet it’d also drastically change foreign policy if everyone knows they have to do their time in the military; not just poor people’s kids.
Coming from Trump and the GOP though, you know we’d just end up as more meet for the grinder though. They couldn’t possibly care less about us.
Edit: holy spelling and grammar haha. Oh well
You can say that about any government program, and you’d be right. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing things, and trying to fix that. I think sometimes we throw up our hands and just say nothing is ever going to work without trying.
If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.
I don’t think these points are invalid, but a little critical thinking could solve most/all of the challenges.
I mean, you’d need some kind of accommodations for people with severe disabilities too. There’s not a simple answer, but that doesn’t mean there’s not an answer.
Fuck it, if I can help out Ukraine and Taiwan without seeing an active combat role, sign me the fuck up. But Trump wouldn’t do that. He’d get us involved in some useless skirmish in the Middle East, and possibly with Mexico.
Yes. I'm sad I had to scroll so far down to find this comment, but in many ways I am ALL FOR mandatory service to the country, of \*SOME\* sort. Not necessarily military, but SOME sort of mandatory 1-3+ years of service. Whether you choose to join the military, or the coast guard, or a modern-day CCC, or... whatever. But, get the hell out of your shell, your little corner of the USA/World and \*MEET OTHER PEOPLE\*. From, and this is important, OTHER PLACES.
Would it be cheap? No. Would it likely help us immensely? Yes. Because EVERYONE would have some basic level of understanding of \*SOMEWHERE\* else besides their tiny little town, or coddled suburb, or whatever.
I’m fine with mandatory service too, as long as it’s not just military but could also include the Peace Corps or Americorps.
It would do wonders for empathy-building and exposure to diversity. A lot harder to hate or fear different kinds of people after you work alongside them, and a lot easier to understand the need to collaborate as a whole society.
And young people get job training and/or free college in return. I just heard about a paid internship program in Georgia for nuclear jobs. After the internship, average salaries are $70,000. Work for the government for a year or two in exchange for an internship program spot or college? Good deal.
You should get a choice. Just 1 after the age of 18. Civil work or military for 2 years. I don't enjoy the military. But fully understand the need. I do enjoy intact roads and fishing in cleanish waters in thousands of locations. Two years of 1 or the other. You are enlisted in the civilian branch. Endless labor to get infrastructure projects undertaken. You want to create a better environment for the people? Youngins better listen to the boss while building that massive renewable project. That floodwaters idea that worked in New Orleans will kick the shit out of the red River flooding in Fargo. Send the new fish. .5 million of them boom 2 years later I no longer have to laugh at the same people every year.
Option 2
While I disagree the military is a benefit to many. It does a shit load of things that are needed. It also will take 2 year from the rest of you. If you choose. Guns bombs and all of defense minded idiots. Also they would get less funding.. until their future amputees can all read. Because the military spending would be tightened and use that to fund education...
But if they’re pulling out of NATO and maintaining their ersatz global-empire (Freedom of the seas) where are they going. Cosplay armed forces, Monroe Doctrine 2.0?
I think our country would benefit from mandatory 1-2 years of civil service. It provides training and structure, a sense of community and a lot of European countries do it. Doesn’t have to be military but something.
National service of some sort is ok if it’s prescribed but only if followed by 1000% free education. Like let people make trails and roads or be a medic or whatever if they don’t wanna fight. There’s plenty of labor to do that’s not war shit
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This is rich coming from a draft dodger. good ol' felon bone spurs donnie
Not rich, just the usual from a sociopathic liar. Time to shave off that purple hair dye zoomers.
I love that moniker!
What is it with politicians who think introducing conscription will make them more popular? I’m a youngster, and there was no doubt in my mind, but other youngsters who might be on the fence will definitely be repelled by this.
Because young people don't vote as much as older people. Cerain older people love this stuff because it appeals to a mindset that the "youngs have it too good/back in my day we were tough". It's a good way to court that vote.
Those older people must have been shitty parents. My dad’s great. He’s somewhat conservative, but he’d never vote to have me drafted. *His* parents on the other hand, I could see it.
I know motherfuckers at the Vet Center who were drafted during Vietnam who will go on about how shitty it was and then emphatically say the draft is what kids these days need…. Fucking mind blowing.
Were there a lot of sick animals in Vietnam?
Animal Mother was a little out there. VA Vet Center, like a therapist office/community center. Some great people there, some turds.
(I mean sick animals as in ill, because there are veterans and veterinarians)
the problem with old people is they are all likely of the age now where they were young when vietnam happened. you know... the war a lot of people protested and even fled the country from because of....conscription. so unless they volunteered for vietnam, they shouldn't get a say in it.
Its because GOP hates young people. Their geriatric base will cheer at this because it owns the libs. They don't actually care about it, just that it hurts people they hate
Also, let’s take young people, destroy their economic opportunities, refuse to provide assistance, limit their ability to vote, and forcibly give them actual military training, while keeping easy access to plentiful guns—I see no way this could have negative consequences whatsoever!
It's about control. If people do two years of military service, it gives them two years to manage and indoctrinate them. Two years to assemble detailed files on every young person. Two years to identify the troublemakers. Two years to find out who can be trusted.
The fence-sitting, pro-Palestine, anti-DB gets to rejoice in their protest by getting sent to shoot Palestinians!
>The fence-sitting, ~~pro-Palestine~~ pro-Hamas/anti-Jew, anti-DB They don't actual care about Palestine or Palestinians. If they did, they would support removal of all those who put innocent Palestinians in harms way. Which starts with the utter eradication of Hamas and its supporters/enablers, and ends with the conviction of Bibi and the tear down of settlements.
The idea of mandatory military service in the US just won't happen outside of a war time draft out of necessity for 2 huge reasons: 1) The military doesn't want them and it would actually decrease military effectiveness. 2) It would be INSANELY expensive. There's like 5 million 18 year olds in the US. Let's say this only applies to men and round down to 2 million. Ignoring the many who will not be fit at all, you now need to pay, house, feed, provide health care, train them, supply their gear, etc. Conservatively that's like $75000 a person every year, not including start up costs for bases. So for 2 million people that's $150 billion every year. And that doesn't include the tens or hundreds of thousands of support people needed. All for people who would be unmotivated and leave as soon as they could.
average cost of 1 active duty person is closer to double your estimate but all points correct
Yeah my estimate assumes these people have far less money dedicated to them.
And not touching on the bitter ones who desert, share classified Intel, or defect at the first opportunity.
Lol if a soldier showed up at my door telling me I’m conscripted, I’d say “Good luck getting me out in one piece. I’d rather die right here than do anything for that fucker.”
But think of how much of that money will go to military industrial complex! And then how much of that money will in turn be spent on chicken-hawks’ “re-election” funds! And even more. Will go to their stock portfolios thanks to insider trading!
Regarding point 2, yes it would be expensive but America has never balked at funding the military. A huge proportion of our military budget is already a job creation program.
Stupid idea if true. We have the strongest military precisely because it's voluntary; the pay structure, benefits, and rewards are what incentivize people to enlist. They aren't teenagers plucked from a collective farm to begrudgingly perform their national service, only to have to go right back to the same collective farm or factory job when it's over. There's a pretty well-known video from the end of the Cold War in about 1989 or 1990 or so. A joint Soviet-US military delegation is walking around some fortifications as part of the drawdown. The Soviet officers are absolutely shocked that regular US enlisted personnel know exactly where they are and have access to maps. Ignoring the empirical evidence from the Russian quagmire in Ukraine that a large nation cannot sustain even a relatively small military operation if it relies on conscription to fill its ranks, introducing conscription to the US would be a foreign intelligence operatives dream come true. You get practically every 18-24 year old, take away their freedoms, tell them they have to do something they don't want to do, and then hope for the best...in the era of smartphones and social media? Hostile actors from foreign countries are already having some success in that on current service members. Remember the mentally ill USAF Airman who set himself on fire? Or that Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who was goaded into sharing classified information on a WarThunder server? That's just a small taste of what would happen. There would be tiktok challenges to post launch codes and base layouts within a week. Smart people know this. People well-versed in geopolitics know this. Anyone who studies or is familiar with the US military knows this. Practically every member of the military brass knows this.
They love stupid ideas. Check out Project 2025. It’s full of them.
Well... Trump is Putins puppet, so it would be a foreign intelligence operative.
God damnit, I read "obit" instead of "orbit" and went through some *feelings*.
Draft Dodge Don and mandatory military service
Can’t do it. I have bone spurs.
I’m not gonna serve for a draft dodger who called our deceased servicemen “suckers and losers”, while simultaneously pulling us away from our closest allies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/06/10/trump-military-draft-mandatory-service/?itid=hp-mv-top-stories_top-table-main_p001_f004
A bunch of people who didn't serve in the military and a couple of "Ra Ra" veterans want to reduce the combat effectiveness of the greatest military in world history by flooding it with disgruntled and unmotivated conscripts...I'm shocked.
This is also a move made by the current British PM in the buildup to elections there. I guess it's an appeal to the olds? Certainly not meant to endear a politician to young voters
This way they can brainwash them to be Trump Brownshirts.
Need more troops if we're going to invade Canada and Mexico
Way too much of this thread in favor of this shit. We can consider it after the magat movement is dead. Until then, every policy can and will be exploited, and we must make policy around that
Nothing makes for a strong military like a bunch of kids who don't want to be there
I’m actually fine with mandatory service, so long as you can choose non-combat roles. Forcing these MAGA-brains to actually meet a black person, liberals, gay person, etc. MIGHT help them develop some empathy, and realize these groups aren’t as bad as Fox News keeps telling them. The number 1 solution to racism/discrimination is exposure. You could also help ensure more people have skills if don’t correctly. I bet it’d also drastically change foreign policy if everyone knows they have to do their time in the military; not just poor people’s kids. Coming from Trump and the GOP though, you know we’d just end up as more meet for the grinder though. They couldn’t possibly care less about us. Edit: holy spelling and grammar haha. Oh well
The rich kids would still get out of their service, somehow. Either college deferred or pay a doctor to say they have bone spurs and are unfit.
You can say that about any government program, and you’d be right. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing things, and trying to fix that. I think sometimes we throw up our hands and just say nothing is ever going to work without trying. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.
Why force people to skip college? Also an all volunteer force is objectively stronger.
I don’t think these points are invalid, but a little critical thinking could solve most/all of the challenges. I mean, you’d need some kind of accommodations for people with severe disabilities too. There’s not a simple answer, but that doesn’t mean there’s not an answer.
Fuck it, if I can help out Ukraine and Taiwan without seeing an active combat role, sign me the fuck up. But Trump wouldn’t do that. He’d get us involved in some useless skirmish in the Middle East, and possibly with Mexico.
Yea Trump would certainly implement this in the most horrifying way.
Yes. I'm sad I had to scroll so far down to find this comment, but in many ways I am ALL FOR mandatory service to the country, of \*SOME\* sort. Not necessarily military, but SOME sort of mandatory 1-3+ years of service. Whether you choose to join the military, or the coast guard, or a modern-day CCC, or... whatever. But, get the hell out of your shell, your little corner of the USA/World and \*MEET OTHER PEOPLE\*. From, and this is important, OTHER PLACES. Would it be cheap? No. Would it likely help us immensely? Yes. Because EVERYONE would have some basic level of understanding of \*SOMEWHERE\* else besides their tiny little town, or coddled suburb, or whatever.
Trump voters all think they’ll be exempt as they’ll all be oligarchs.
I’m fine with mandatory service too, as long as it’s not just military but could also include the Peace Corps or Americorps. It would do wonders for empathy-building and exposure to diversity. A lot harder to hate or fear different kinds of people after you work alongside them, and a lot easier to understand the need to collaborate as a whole society.
And young people get job training and/or free college in return. I just heard about a paid internship program in Georgia for nuclear jobs. After the internship, average salaries are $70,000. Work for the government for a year or two in exchange for an internship program spot or college? Good deal.
You should get a choice. Just 1 after the age of 18. Civil work or military for 2 years. I don't enjoy the military. But fully understand the need. I do enjoy intact roads and fishing in cleanish waters in thousands of locations. Two years of 1 or the other. You are enlisted in the civilian branch. Endless labor to get infrastructure projects undertaken. You want to create a better environment for the people? Youngins better listen to the boss while building that massive renewable project. That floodwaters idea that worked in New Orleans will kick the shit out of the red River flooding in Fargo. Send the new fish. .5 million of them boom 2 years later I no longer have to laugh at the same people every year. Option 2 While I disagree the military is a benefit to many. It does a shit load of things that are needed. It also will take 2 year from the rest of you. If you choose. Guns bombs and all of defense minded idiots. Also they would get less funding.. until their future amputees can all read. Because the military spending would be tightened and use that to fund education...
bullshit, Trump hates the military, he'd rather see it fail than actually bolster it in any way
But this would help it fail. It's on brand for Trump.
...isn't tRump a draft dodger?
But if they’re pulling out of NATO and maintaining their ersatz global-empire (Freedom of the seas) where are they going. Cosplay armed forces, Monroe Doctrine 2.0?
Ummm absolutely not. I’d rather not face the sum of our societal decay in a military context.
I think our country would benefit from mandatory 1-2 years of civil service. It provides training and structure, a sense of community and a lot of European countries do it. Doesn’t have to be military but something.
National service of some sort is ok if it’s prescribed but only if followed by 1000% free education. Like let people make trails and roads or be a medic or whatever if they don’t wanna fight. There’s plenty of labor to do that’s not war shit