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Sweden brings back military conscription

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#371

Post by discombobulate »

maus42 wrote: post #366
discombobulate wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another definition from the Oxford Dictionary is, 'A person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something'[0]. Being forced to fight in a war is being 'controlled by something'. In this case, a government. They're government slaves. [0] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/slave

Yes, we also can say in English stuff like "Uncle Joe is slave to alcohol". Here we are discussing slavery as a concept, which is different.

From Wikipedia[0]:

'Slavery is, in the strictest sense of the term, any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will.'

Note:

'In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will.'

The broader description isn't a metaphor.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#372

Post by michaelmrose »

coldtea wrote: post #299
vidarh wrote: post #295

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. This is the case in Norway, for example. And if you do show up and get processed, once you are part of the military you risk being put in military prison if you the subsequently refuse to serve. This is what happens during peace time.

> 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 ought to take a minority of the citizens freedom rather than take a little bit more of everyone's money. This is pretty despicable and it ought to just raise taxes to pay sufficiently.

Perhaps it lacks the moral authority to inspire service even at any price. In that case it ought to reexamine WHY its citizens have lost faith in it instead of using force.

Lastly perhaps its facing an existential threat that can neither be ignored, nor dealt with otherwise.

You blindly suppose that the state deserves such service and neither examine whether it really does nor if it could acquire such service without trampling the rights of its citizens.

It speak like a dangerous nationalist and your attitude concerns me.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#373

Post by michaelmrose »

dragonwriter wrote: post #314
mrob wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conscription is slavery, and many conscripts will consider themselves to have a moral obligation to resist slavery. If you give them access to the whole military machine you greatly increase the opportunities for sabotage. With the traditional rifles in trenches style each individual conscript has very limited chance to fight back, and you can always call them traitors and murder them if they try.

> Conscription is slavery In much the same sense as jury duty is slavery.

You are pretty much forced to show up and provide a convincing reason why you ought not to serve beyond that its trivial to get out of if you don't want to be part of it.

Its also essential to our justice system and usually a very small burden.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#374

Post by pbhjpbhj »

LanceH wrote: post #96
entropyneur wrote: post #57

I am quite surprised by the number of people here (and even larger numbers elsewhere this is being discussed) who don't seem to have any ethical problem with conscription. Thought the idea of killer slaves was completely off limits in the West. Now all of a sudden we are debating cost effectiveness. Guess I thought wrong.

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 to me.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#375

Post by dropit_sphere »

discombobulate wrote: post #364
dropit_sphere wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your proposal for staffing a national defense force?

In my country, we have a professional military. It's more expensive than turning teenagers into combat slaves (The Hunger Games?), but the people in the forces choose to be there. It seems intuitive to me that highly trained individuals with combat experience and a mind for controlled violence would be better than amateur teenagers at defending a country. The military professionals I've meet are fearless under combat…

Sounds reasonable, guess you're right.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#376

Post by discombobulate »

dropit_sphere wrote: post #375
discombobulate wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country, we have a professional military. It's more expensive than turning teenagers into combat slaves (The Hunger Games?), but the people in the forces choose to be there. It seems intuitive to me that highly trained individuals with combat experience and a mind for controlled violence would be better than amateur teenagers at defending a country. The military professionals I've meet are fearless under combat…

Sounds reasonable, guess you're right.

Kudos.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#377

Post by Broken_Hippo »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #145
zmb_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200k dudes with guns Conscript military doesn't mean that you just teach everyone to dig a hole and sit in it with a rifle. You train conscripts into every role you need in a 200k strong modern military. Including operators and maintainers of the hi-tech death machines, sigint operatives, radar operators, tank crews, missile forces, officers of all kinds, and yes, the guys that dig holes and sit in them with rifles…

You literally cannot use conscripts for anything of "operators and maintainers of the hi-tech death machines, sigint operatives, radar operators, tank crews, missile forces, officers." First of all, most of them take at least a year to get up to speed, if not more, and they have to maintain their competence. You cannot just release a conscript after his year long stint, and call him up ten years later - the ten year…

> Oh, and officers by their very definition cannot be conscripts.

That isn't even true in the US. There are avenues for folks that start at the bottom to become an officer, at least in the US Navy. I don't see why conscripts wouldn't follow the same path of promotion that an enlisted person would. Besides, you are assuming all of the people in the conscript start at the bottom, when it would be more intelligent to train those capable of being an officer to use their skills more effectively.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#378

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #348
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hogwash. A slave is property. Inherent to slavery is some form of dehumanization, being somehow below the ruling class...a subhuman. You are not the pet of the state. You are not regarded as less than human. This is hyperbole. You may not like being subject to taxes and laws, but you have remedies, such as renouncing your citizenship or leaving for an area not governed by a state.

"A slave is property." Yes, and so are citizens of a state. "Inherent to slavery is some form of dehumanization." No. The definition of a slave (first hit on google) is "a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them." In ancient times, people who lost wars may have been subjugated as slaves, but there was no pretense that they were less human. I think you might be thinking of racial slavery…

> be thinking of racial slavery, which was inspired by a belief that other races were subhumans.

No, I'm not thinking of racial slavery. I'm thinking of slavery defined by Aristotle, whose view is representative of the classical world: "

"anyone who, while being human, is by nature not his own but of someone else…he is of someone else when, while being human, he is a piece of property; and a piece of property is a tool for action separate from its owner."

If this doesn't sound dehumanizing, I don't know what qualifies.

As stated before, a citizen of a state can renounce said citizen and emigrate to Bir Tawil or some other unclaimed territory. Unlike Aristotle's definition, you, by nature, are not of someone else and has the free will to choose to leave. That states have laws limiting absolute freedom does not equal slavery

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#379

Post by Steko »

zilean wrote: post #138
mzs wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine shows how much can be tolerated.

Well, Russian economy is still in recession. And Russian forces tecchnically never fired a gun in Ukraine or Crimea.

Russian forces have fired many guns in Ukraine, full stop.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966...

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#380

Post by Trundle »

dragandj wrote: post #125
Kenji wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now imagine you're a country with less than 10% of the population and need to produce a force of 200k soldiers in order to have a credible deterrent against an aggressive neighbor. How do you do that without conscription? Well... you PAY THEM (enough)? You make the workplace worthwhile and attractive, like you have to for every job ever? How do you get enough nurses? Policemen? Engineers? You conscript them all? Thi…

Heh, nice idea, pay them. With what money? Even Switzerland would have a really difficult time with that. The problem with small countries is that, well, they are small and poor. Even if you pay small wages, 200k is still a lot of paychecks, that has to be funded from taxes to the small population. For the record, I am against military conscription.

Taxes and printed money (so basically you pay with taxes and inflation). Sure if you have to tax so much and inflate so much that everyone not in the military is broke and starving then it's close to the same thing as just conscripting them, but at least the cost is then shared by the entire populace rather than young men in most cases and young men and women in Swedens, and results in more proper compensation of soldiers.

In a low wage + draft scenario you're basically sending the young (usually poor) of a country off to die so the seniors (wealthier than the young) can still enjoy holding property. Then the surviving young come back and are getting fleeced just the same as they were pre-war by the people whose status they just defended. If not fighting in a war is not a viable option then it should at least result in massive wealth transfer. Hell, I'd rather see straight up seizure of wealth to pay for the military over a draft.

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