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Sweden brings back military conscription

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#401

Post by LanceH »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #374
LanceH wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conscription is straight up slavery. I don't see any way around that. The arguments seem to be, "you'll only be a slave for a while, if you live", "we need slaves", "you'll get paid to do the work you're forced to do". If you want an army, be worth defending -- both in terms of paying the soldier and being a country that a soldier would want to work for.

>Conscription is straight up slavery. I don't see any way around that. // Which person owns you in your analysis of that being slavery? Or is being owned by another person not a part of your definition? In a democracy, you're a slave to your own country, effectively. There are people making decisions on your life, all the people voting in the country including you, no? It may be wrong, just doesn't look like slavery…

What does single ownership have to do with anything? Is it somehow better than any number of people can spend your life for you?

What other compulsory actions does the government take that authorize the expenditure of your entire life?

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#402

Post by coldtea »

michaelmrose wrote: post #372
coldtea wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That may be so. What does happen on the other hand is that many countries throw people in prison for refusing to serve. And rightly so. The only reason the country exists in the first place, is that people were willing to fight to establish it, and to serve and fight to defend it. Else it would be not some magical global brothership of unicorns and love, but what was there before modern countries: empires and feuda…

You say that its just to throw people in prison for refusing involuntary servitude on the basis that that service is necessary for the existence of the state that the individuals rely on. Now what I wonder is why the state would be in a position to need to use threats to inspire its citizens to serve. Perhaps it doesn't want to pay sufficient money to acquire the individuals its needs. In effect it is saying that it…

>Now what I wonder is why the state would be in a position to need to use threats to inspire its citizens to serve.

Because some citizens are selfish or unique snowflakes for whom service is beneath them, but they still like the other advantages the state provides them.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#403

Post by coldtea »

vidarh wrote: post #304
coldtea wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That may be so. What does happen on the other hand is that many countries throw people in prison for refusing to serve. And rightly so. The only reason the country exists in the first place, is that people were willing to fight to establish it, and to serve and fight to defend it. Else it would be not some magical global brothership of unicorns and love, but what was there before modern countries: empires and feuda…

Being willing to fight for something is orthogonal to being forced to fight for something under threat of prison. Most of those who kept up the fight for Norways freedom from German occupation under World War II, for example, were not military conscripts - the military surrendered quickly - but civilians who formed resistance groups. The idea that you need to be willing to let yourself be coerced into slavery to prov…

>The idea that you need to be willing to let yourself be coerced into slavery to prove your willingness to fight is deeply offensive to me.

Well, the idea that service to your country is considered slavery and not a duty is offensive to others.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#404

Post by EliRivers »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #388
EliRivers wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as well as dying to not lose honor. While recognising the differences in our attitudes towards life, this evoked from me a very big WTF. Not just because your life is all you have while honor is basically someone's opinion, but also because it's not even as much as one whole step away from being prepared to kill people for your own honor.

Parent poster said they want to die (and presumably kill, for what else would risk dying?) to prevent them from _speaking a different language_ near posters's home, so I don't think killing for honor will give them pause.

Yes, that was a bit of a trip to read.

"I wouldn't quite mind dying for things like my language to be dominant in my home and spoken by my leaders"

I wonder if the parent poster's language is currently the dominant language or a minority language. There are people who already kill and die for their culture to become dominant.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#405

Post by koolba »

derefr wrote: post #390
koolba wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it will deter them, I'm saying it's already a crime. There's nothing special about going after them for it. With our current volunteer system nothing stops a nut job from signing up. That's why they have psych exams and ongoing mental health monitoring. It's no different if you have a draft with everybody having to join. Heck, I'd bet you'd get less overall craziness (as a percentage) from the populati…

I wasn't positing psychosis; I was positing a spontaneous violent resistance movement forming as a rational response to conscription in otherwise mentally-healthy individuals: the same people who would draft-dodge, but angrier at the state and interested in seeing their country actually lose an unjust war. You know, like you'd feel if you were an Iraqi citizen under ISIS.

And I'm proposing that in the event that happens, we round up those domestic terrorists, give them a swift (but fair!) trial, lock them up, and finally throw away the key.

You'll find little to no sympathy from most people, including your humble commenter, for domestic terrorism and treason.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#406

Post by hythloday »

michaelmrose wrote: post #369
maus42 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally or literally? And that depends on your definition of slavery. It did not always mean every and all things involuntary, it used to mean trading people as property who did not have the same rights as a free citizen. Afterthought. I just remembered that some of the more radical leftists call working for a salary a wage slavery, which is similarly silly.

Not every society that practiced slavery regarded your slave status as an immutable part of your being nor does slavery require trade if you are born a slave in a family and live in bondage you are a slave without having changed hands. To be a slave is to have your personal freedoms subordinated to another while people always enjoy a finite degree of autonomy which varies substantially from society to society and eve…

I don't think that you literally mean literally, but an obvious difference between slavery in the United States and conscription in the United States that you can avoid the latter by permanently renouncing your citizenship.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#407

Post by vidarh »

coldtea wrote: post #403
vidarh wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being willing to fight for something is orthogonal to being forced to fight for something under threat of prison. Most of those who kept up the fight for Norways freedom from German occupation under World War II, for example, were not military conscripts - the military surrendered quickly - but civilians who formed resistance groups. The idea that you need to be willing to let yourself be coerced into slavery to prov…

> The idea that you need to be willing to let yourself be coerced into slavery to prove your willingness to fight is deeply offensive to me. Well, the idea that service to your country is considered slavery and not a duty is offensive to others.

Good. I certainly would hope to offend people who cheer on that kind of oppression, as to me they are morally little better than the slave drivers they cheer on.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#408

Post by throwaway7767 »

igivanov wrote: post #171
mmmBacon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is not something that can be controlled once it breaks out. Non-aligned militaries that come into close proximity is something that's very dangerous. At the very least an incident between militaries can cause a diplomatic crisis or at worst start a minor war. The very presence of military forces in the Baltic is a deterrent for that reason. Also Russia has continually violated Swedens air space. Russian pilots ha…

>Russian submarines have been spotted in Swedish waters. this bullshit has acquired a life of its own no matter how often it's debunked. Please educate yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents there is not a single confirmed case. (But there is one from the distant USSR times.) Overall this hysteria is an excellent example of Western/Swedish propaganda. I suspect that "Russia has continually…

Russia does send military jets regularly into other countries airspace. It happens regularly over Iceland for example[0]. The lie is not in saying it happens, the lie is by omission by selectively reporting it when convenient to make it seem that it's something new or surprising. We always see these stories during periods of increased tensions, suggesting that these flights are a response to recent events, when in fact they have been a standard thing for decades. The other omission is that NATO countries (yes, I know Sweden is not in NATO, I'm talking generally here) do the same for the Russians, and western media never reports on that.

I mean, it's understandable, right? The military has to be prepared for lots of different situations, and in order to properly prepare you need to know your neighbors defenses. Finding out at what point your jets get intercepted tells you a lot about what you can get away with. It would practically be negligent of them not to do it.

As for the submarine issue, I'm not familiar enough with it, but I believe you are right that there are no confirmed cases in recent history. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's common for Russia and NATO to send subs to probe each others defenses for similar reasons.

[0] http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/09/26/russian-bombers-fly...

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#409

Post by throwaway7767 »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #113

I can give a bit of context. Mandatory military service in Sweden only ended in 2010, so this is not a huge change. During the cold was period, almost all men did ~1 year of military service. After that it was a regular job, but in case of war everyone could be conscripted. By the '90s it dropped to maybe 1/3 of young men. Everyone went to a 1-2 day testing session, and then some were selected. In practice, it became…

> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at least a portion of them.

At the same time, military training involves quite a lot of indoctrination as part of getting people to shut up and follow orders. I'm not sure it's particularly healthy for democracy to send a large part of its citizens to indoctrination camps.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#410

Post by antman »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How do you motivate a conscript? When I was in the British Army, which is volunteer only, commanding a basic training troop if someone was wanted to give up we could say to them 'if this isn't for you then you can go home' (of course we did coach and mentor people to help them, I mean in cases where people just give up and stop soldiering when an exercise gets tough). They usually worked extremely hard to get into th…

You can also remimd them that serious offends during conscript service can also lengthen their service time.

When you're a small country you can't afford many and top level people. I was in the army research and out of 130 people I had two with people two CS PHDs and most of them had at least one. Designing a database with these people was nightmare :)

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