Are there good arguments for it? If it's compulsory, maybe you need to run your country differently so people feel its worth voluntarily defending. And/Or you can recruit heavily in areas where folks are disadvantaged and have few options, dangling education in front of them in exchange for being willing to kill or die for you.

The funny thing about knowing 18 year olds at 50+ vs being 18 years old is you can see the children these kids still are. Allowing them to join? OK. Forcing them to murder for you? As a veteran who joined at 19, no.

https://youtu.be/UQH3ZYTtY68

[–] heroball@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What about the argument that it gets more buy-in and attention from the public? That if everyone has to participate, then the public will care more and hold the military more accountable? I agree that forcing people to serve a genocidal military is wrong, though. And maybe compulsory military service doesn’t hold the military accountable (see Israel). Or maybe that is further proof that the Israeli population supports the IOF

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

There's some gray - but most of it is predicated (I think) on some version of "there's no other way" to defend the nation. I'm just less convinced now that I'm older that this is a true statement - but I don't claim to have the answers. Any alternative approach would likely require a serious paradigm shift, and I don't personally see that as likely without something catastrophic preceding such a shift.

My position is primarily that I'm unwilling to ever say that it's a good idea to take an 18 year old, force them to join the military, and expect them to kill. We've got laws that make it clear we don't trust them with alcohol so it seems cruel and unfair to take someone who likely has next to zero life experience past high school, and then force them into your military.

[–] heroball@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago

I agree. It just depends on if you can have a “good” standing military or not. If that is possible—to have a peaceful standing military dedicated to self defense that spends the rest of its time idk helping people or providing labor or something—I’d be cool with it. But sending teenagers across the world to shoot poor brown people is obviously loathsome .

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