Re: Inaccurate...akikoOctober 22 2009, 14:11:04 UTC
Germany requires all males to perform either military or civil service for a period of 9 months when they reach 18 or 19 (or complete the Abitur, whichever comes last.) Surely their military can't have lower requirements than ours. (Turkey apparently also requires it, but it's easy to avoid and, according to some sources, a complete joke unless you're a career man.)
Smarr is spot on in one respect: Germany is far less gung-ho about getting into pointless, ill-thought-out wars than the US.
One point where I might argue is that men *and women* ought to be required to serve, as a feminist. Whether it's 9 months in the National Guard or AmeriCorps should be left to the individual.
Re: Inaccurate...smarriveurrOctober 22 2009, 20:34:11 UTC
Well, one thing to bear in mind about the German military is that they've pretty much been under constitutional mandate not to engage in active combat since WWII, in the BRD anyway. So they don't get into wars, ill-thought-out or otherwise.
Israel, on the other hand, also requires service, three years for men, two for women. Women who choose the IDF itself and other highly trained positions are in the three-year bracket, too, though. I think that's the model I'd head for - the nine-month/one year system seems too brief for the person to be useful in any capacity beyond unskilled labor, and with life expectancies going the way they are, two to three years isn't as major a commitment as it seems, especially if it's the same for everyone
( ... )
See, I think there has to be emphasis on the military service angle, even if only in terms of weighting service duration - otherwise it defeats much of the purpose to me. It's another complicating factor
( ... )
Well, we currently have about one and a half million members of the military on active duty from the four branches of the DoD - Throw in the Guard/Reserves and other DoD personnel, it gets to two and a half million. If we had this sort of mandatory service arrangement, though, we might also be able to cut into contractor workforces as well, for which I've got no decent numbers. I can't imagine we would replace many of the existing positions with two or three-year "conscripts", but an additional pool of a million or so per year (CIA world factbook puts about 20% US population under 14, as pointed out elsewhere in thread, 3 in 10 qualify under current guidelines) from which to draw might relieve some massive burdens on military spending with regard to contract services and shorter term enlistees. But I don't honestly know. This is all primarily a gut reaction
( ... )
Um, there are indeed pacifists. I'm one of them, and I have met several others - including the lover who had done his military service, turned pacifist, and when he was called up for the brief repetition training of 2-3 weeks was perfectly willing to do another 18 months civilian service instead, to avoid being in a combat position. One of the mistakes people make is thinking of pacifists as meek and gentle. Some are, indeed; some experience a deep-seated revulsion at the thought of killing others. Other, like me, lack that revulsion, but have made a moral decision. It's not that I can't kill, it's that I won't. Sadly, people like me rarely come across as genuine pacifists.
I never said there weren't real pacifists. However, given that one way out of mandatory military service would be to claim conscientious objector status as a pacifist, it stands to reason that only some fraction of people claiming to be pacifists would actually be so - some portion would certainly be individuals just trying to avoid the rigors and risks of military service any way they can.
Comments 18
Reply
Reply
Smarr is spot on in one respect: Germany is far less gung-ho about getting into pointless, ill-thought-out wars than the US.
One point where I might argue is that men *and women* ought to be required to serve, as a feminist. Whether it's 9 months in the National Guard or AmeriCorps should be left to the individual.
Reply
Reply
Israel, on the other hand, also requires service, three years for men, two for women. Women who choose the IDF itself and other highly trained positions are in the three-year bracket, too, though. I think that's the model I'd head for - the nine-month/one year system seems too brief for the person to be useful in any capacity beyond unskilled labor, and with life expectancies going the way they are, two to three years isn't as major a commitment as it seems, especially if it's the same for everyone ( ... )
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
One of the mistakes people make is thinking of pacifists as meek and gentle. Some are, indeed; some experience a deep-seated revulsion at the thought of killing others. Other, like me, lack that revulsion, but have made a moral decision. It's not that I can't kill, it's that I won't. Sadly, people like me rarely come across as genuine pacifists.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment