Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe != The EU
[flagged]
Umm, what is Switzerland, and what do the EU tyrants (has Gessler been replaced?) say about that?
Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could see letting them join an academy early, but you can't send them to fight before 18 and you should give them a chance to back out when they actually turn 18.
Recruits can leave up to the end of their first six months of service - so 16½. After that they are committed until they are 22.
I don't see how you can get a minor to sign an enforceable contract. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pick an age of majority. It should be the same age for joining the military, voting, drinking, owning a gun, driving a car, consent, etc. You don’t get to call a 16 year old a child only when it’s convenient for you.
The age of majority in the UK is 18. People who are younger than 18 are minors/children, not adults.
It's not quite so simple. Although the age of majority is 18 according to the Family Law Reform Act 1969, that is primarily relevant to financial contracts (debt), criminal sentencing, and tobacco. Drinking, you can drink in private from sixteen, although you can only purchase once at eighteen. You can start a company at sixteen. You bear primary authority over your medical records from sixteen, and your caregivers cannot access them without your consent. You can vote in some elections from sixteen. But you can't adopt until 21.
The TLDR is that in the UK, age limits are quite case-by-case, and tend to range from 16 to 21, although in more niche cases can range from 11 (the age you can open a bank account) to 30 (the age of suffrage for women in the 1918 Representation of the people act).
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#54Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#55A bit of an aside, but it seems like the South would've had a lot fewer able-bodied, young men to fight the war especially since they weren't inclined to arm black soldiers. Given that the south was primarily agrarian with fewer urban areas to draw from - the population was more sparse. How did the confederacy think they could win given that difference?
At first glance one might suspect that South's disinclination to arm black soldiers would harm their ability to field a large proportion of their population, but that wasn't the case. The ready availability of slave labor enabled free men, who would have otherwise been required at home to work the fields or bring in the crops, to go off and fight instead. IIRC, around 80% of able-bodied free men in the South fought i…
> When your country gets invaded, you don't grab your abacas, you grab your gun.
The confederacy was not being invaded when they chose to start the war.
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't actually be deployed until you're 18 though - it's basically a way of front-loading training.
but if the UK was invaded, you'd be expected to pick up arms in the kingdoms defense right?
Honestly, probably not. Even in WW2, the closest there got to 16-year-olds fighting (at least without lying about it) was in the Home Guard (sometimes called the Dad's Army because of its use of retired soldiers), and them fighting would mean the enemy landed on Great Britain itself. It's not impossible, but I imagine something similar would happen in almost any other country under active occupation. Which doesn't mean I think it's good (or bad), I just think the UK doesn't stand out.
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
At first glance one might suspect that South's disinclination to arm black soldiers would harm their ability to field a large proportion of their population, but that wasn't the case. The ready availability of slave labor enabled free men, who would have otherwise been required at home to work the fields or bring in the crops, to go off and fight instead. IIRC, around 80% of able-bodied free men in the South fought i…
> When your country gets invaded, you don't grab your abacas, you grab your gun. The confederacy was not being invaded when they chose to start the war.
[deleted]
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The age of majority in the UK is 18. People who are younger than 18 are minors/children, not adults.
It's not quite so simple. Although the age of majority is 18 according to the Family Law Reform Act 1969, that is primarily relevant to financial contracts (debt), criminal sentencing, and tobacco. Drinking, you can drink in private from sixteen, although you can only purchase once at eighteen. You can start a company at sixteen. You bear primary authority over your medical records from sixteen, and your caregivers c…
Wanted to mention that 16 year olds could buy cigarettes until 2007, went to check the year, found that more interestingly:
You can smoke cigarettes at any age, but you are not allowed to buy them until you are 18.
If you are caught smoking by a uniformed police officer or park keeper in a public place when under 16, he or she can take away your tobacco and cigarette papers.
s.7 Children and Young Persons Act 1933
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
At first glance one might suspect that South's disinclination to arm black soldiers would harm their ability to field a large proportion of their population, but that wasn't the case. The ready availability of slave labor enabled free men, who would have otherwise been required at home to work the fields or bring in the crops, to go off and fight instead. IIRC, around 80% of able-bodied free men in the South fought i…
> When your country gets invaded, you don't grab your abacas, you grab your gun. The confederacy was not being invaded when they chose to start the war.
On the night of December 26, Major Anderson's men were ordered to turn their overcoats to hide the military buttons and to take off their caps, so as to be taken for the civilian laborers who passed daily between Forts Sumter and Moultrie. The ruse was successful, a turncoat matter one might say. The act of soldiers posing as civilians in war historically has been viewed as an act of perfidy. With the ruse, Union troops took Fort Sumter without a shot fired. They had spiked the guns at Fort Moultrie and set fire to their carriages. Some at the time and later considered this clandestine move to Fort Sumter an act of war, the first in the coming conflict. US Secretary of War at the time, John B. Floyd, could not believe Major Anderson had made such a move, because there was no order for such an act. He asked the major to explain his action.
...
Finally, Lincoln acted. On March 29, he had sent a note to his secretary of war: “I desire than an expedition, to move by sea, be got ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next.” Despite many rumors of evacuation, Fort Sumter apparently was to be reinforced, a move expressly forbidden by Southern authorities after months of patient and unsatisfying negotiations regarding the evacuation of the fort. US Naval Captain Gustavus Fox, commanding the reinforcement expedition, was instructed to enter Charleston Harbor and send a boatload of provisions to Fort Sumter and to do no more, unless he was stopped or fired upon. In either of those cases, he was to try to force a passage, with the help of US Navy ships beyond the harbor, and supply the fort not only with provisions but also with troops.
Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
#60A bit of an aside, but it seems like the South would've had a lot fewer able-bodied, young men to fight the war especially since they weren't inclined to arm black soldiers. Given that the south was primarily agrarian with fewer urban areas to draw from - the population was more sparse. How did the confederacy think they could win given that difference?
The will to fight is also a finite resource in war. There was also no material way that North Vietnam or the Taliban could prevail in a straight up fight; the strategy in all these cases was to inflict enough death and destruction that the United States would give up and sue for peace.