Political Memes

People who want to do raping and murdering and be praised for it? Though they could just be cops for that.

I will stand behind US Military maintenance to the degree that NATO remains the top world power, but I will also stand behind any global demilitarization such as the many past treaties to dismantle nuclear weapons. It's okay for nuance to exist.

Only if you're parents are wealthy...

It is that easy.

I see no problem here: I refused to serve in the military and did my service in a hospital instead. The Ukraine war did make me reconsider my attitude towards the necessity of a draft army.

Conclusion 1: I would emigrate and work against my country of origin in a heartbeat if they started a war of aggression (hello Russians) - unchanged from before

Conclusion 2: I would support with my medical and other skills those defending a non-aggressive country I live in

Conclusion 3: I might fight, given no other choice. But I would try everything else first, and I would probably not be good at it (fighting) at all.

Yeah but... That is kind of the problem.

Imagine that the US goes full hippie and dismantles its entire military, sending all the money to schools and hospitals and infrastructure and its economy. Fixes poverty, free healthcare, yay!

Pardon my French, but China and Russia would ass duck it into oblivion within a week. THAT is why we can't have nice things. As long as there are dictators out there, we will continue to need armies, unfortunately.

Russia has shown that depending on each other with economies doesn't work to keep the peace, all you need is a greedy bastard who is happy to throw hundreds of thousands of innocent lives into the meat grinder, happy to ruin his countries economy, all so he can play the next tzar.

So like it or no, we NEED armies and given the choice of being ruled by the US or China or Russia, I'll choose the US a hundred times over, as idnlike to stay out of punishment camps for the rest of my life.

Or, hear me out, maybe poor people shouldn't have to turn to the military as the best way to get out of poverty.

Maybe colleges and trade schools should be free instead.

And lots of people join, get messed up, and then are denied proper healthcare by the underfunded VA system.

But even if the military was great for the people enlisting, it wouldn't change the fact that they are joining one of the most rapacious, lawless, and brutal militaries in the world.

In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. [wikipedia]

your cheapest option is the military

That was truer 60 years ago, when enlistment promised WW2-era benefits and minimal wealth disparity meant your dollar stretched significantly farther. Today, over 1.2M veterans are on some form of food assistance. Military health benefits have been privatized to the point of comic relief. The old GI Bill and housing benefits have been whittled down to a small recruitment bonus and some tax exemptions. The pay for your first five years of service is well below what you could earn in the private sector and there's virtually no path to advancement outside of the officer's corps.

But what military recruiters lack in financial incentives, the make up for with bald face lying. You get sold a pack of lies about "job experience" in technology fields, when most of the actual work is menial labor (professional jobs are heavily outsourced to private military contractors). You get promised a package of benefits that are nearly impossible to claim, even assuming you make it all the way through your term of service with an honorable discharge. You're subject to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse for which you have no recourse. And also there's the question of your proximity to a combat zone, which cares a litany of additional perils.

The military is not a cheap option, it is a high stakes gamble. Its possible to come out the other side better off than a peer who worked a trade job or took debt to get through community college. But the tail risks are enormous, and the benefits are increasingly illusionary.

Let’s carry on that anti-military sentiment.

Its a shit job for suckers. Even assuming you're a rah-rah keyboard commando, you've got no interest in actually taking these jobs. That's the whole reason why poor people are targeted. They're not being offered a sweat heart deal. They're simply the most misinformed and desperate group of people and therefore most likely to fall for the bait.

That's pretty specific to the US.

Not exclusive, but.

We do conscription here, and we do it because we live next to Russia. I consider myself a conditional pacifist, but I do hold a rank in the army and would go to defend my country against Russia.

I would want global demilitarisation, but as long as autocrats hold militaries as powerful as Russias, North Korea's and others, it just doesn't seem too practical. Also, I don't trust the US with theirs, but unless the Russian trolls get through enough to bother the election (with their "oh don't vote Biden" bs, yes he's a shit ruler as well but compared to Trump he's not a fucking fascist) and Trump wins, I will be very concerned.

So I don't shit on the military, and support Einstein's take on the subject, but it has to be simultaneous globally or at least start with the scarier armies.

If all "good" countries just voluntarily completely disarm, the shit ones will abuse it to no end.

Just look at Gotland. Sweden basically demilitarised it ~2005 or something in the name of Baltic cooperation and international trust. Russia instantly started spying on the island and even testing how close they can get their bombers.

Now Sweden has rearmed it, AA-guns, a few tanks, several hundred soldiers.

I wish they didn't have to do that, but we can't trust countries with leaders like Putler. Or Trump, for that matter.