The Original Internet Political Quiz.

[HappySqurriel]

sapphi_snake said:

HappySqurriel said:

First off, who said anything about mandatory military service for combat positions? Last I heard, there were 8 to 10 support staff in the military for every combat ready soldier; and I would (personally) argue that those combat positions should be entirely voluntary.

Beyond that, the vast majority of citizens in most western countries have been struggling because they haven't developed valued skills within the economy. Over 30% of people don't graduate high school, and only 20% to 25% of people graduate from college or University. While there are those that do seek out technical training, over half of the population hasn't developed skills that are valued within the economy.

With that said, the western democracies that have mandatory military service (Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, etc.) tend to be far better off in a lot of significant ways (compared to the United States) that can in some way be attributed to this mandatory military service. For example, the self confidence and discipline that often comes from Military training could be a significant factor to why people in these countries are less likely to abuse their social programs; which allows their social programs to be more generous without bankrupting the country.

I don't know the difference between "support staff" and "combat ready soldiers", but if it involves any type of training (basic training, or whatever they call it) I'm against it.

As for the education thing, that's not the job of the military, and the military in my country doesn't even do that (unless you enroll in the Military Academy, where you can get an engineering degree).

As all that "self confidence" and "discipline" nonsense, all the military does is abuse people, traumatise them (through things like hazing) and dehumanise them. All it does is creates broken little sheep.

It sounds to me like you have an irrational dislike of the military based on uninformed opinions from biased sources ...

What I'm talking about isn't significantly different from how the Canadian Reserves operate (providing vocational training and funding for college); and (having known dozens of reservists in University) I have only ever heard overwhelmingly positive things said about military training.

The only legitimate, informed, argument against manditory military training is the poin of why it is the responsiblity of the military to train citizens; and this is the primary reason I'm (personally) agaisnt it. But this completely unsupported belief that people are somehow worse off from military training is bullshit.