• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    12
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    I always thought conscription had benefits. Tidy up the youth, teach them teamwork, toughen them up and give them self-reliance, will really help with the obesity problem.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      26
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      The best argument for conscription is that, like politics or the police, the psychology predisposed to choosing it is not necessarily the most beneficial to be involved with it.

      If you could choose to serve only in natural disaster relief, humanitarian, or aid operations it would make it significantly less conflicting.

      Ultimately the requirement to be involved with, and potentially murder, in anti-democratic or anti-humanitarian operations, and acts of aggression, that could have been decided entirely by self-serving corporate or political interests makes conscription a dealbreaker.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        47 months ago

        As someone said above:

        Draft soldiers of Germany are not allowed to operate outside of our own borders and are used to fill the gaps that stem from professional soldiers working abroad. The Bundeswehr and especially the draftees can only be used for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and defense.

        Which seems fairly reasonable to me

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        27 months ago

        Starship troopers style. Interesting.

        Also with conscripts they don’t normally see fighting they are just normally ready. They tend to just be trained reserves.

    • RBG
      link
      fedilink
      English
      187 months ago

      Haven’t heard a stronger backwards boomer opinion in ages. Gheez…

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      147 months ago

      Nothing gives people self-reliance like training them to do exactly as they are told, nothing more, nothing less and god forbid they develop a thought of their own on an issue and consider voicing it.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      97 months ago

      Do the army even want a bunch of nerds, theatre kids, goths and bisexual disasters - speaking as someone who was all of those as a teen - in the army? I thought the army liked people who shut up and ran around a field.

      “Oh if you don’t they put you in jail”

      ok how is that good for society?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        87 months ago

        It’s not good at all for society. It’s slavery with the addition of a heightened risk of death, all to serve the whims of guys in suits far from the battlefield.

        Previous commenter thinking it’s a good thing because it will whip the rabble into shape is delirious. These are peoples sons and daughters that we would be sending off to die in the mud. Shameful.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          47 months ago

          even if they never see war and just do a bunch of calisthenics in a muddy field - it’s still being yelled at rudely to do push-ups instead of… working a job? Being in education?

          I have absolutely no issue with OP being in the army - a good friend of mine was in the Signals. I respect him, but also, it would’ve done most of the people I know no good at all.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        17 months ago

        I wasn’t saying it for the good of the army I was saying it for the good of the people.

        The army will get the best out of them that they can. Sounds like they could do with it more than most.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          77 months ago

          why can’t I decide what’s best for me? ages 18-21 I worked for my local city in projects designed to get local young people at risk of offending into projects like (legal) graffiti, music, arts, sports and volunteering.

          Surely that was a better benefit to society than learning how to walk in the same rhythm as a group of other people?

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            17 months ago

            Same reason we don’t let kids decide if they want to go to school or not. Not everyone is going to make the right choice. People do things for their and societies good. You really don’t think most people are currently doing that can you?

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              47 months ago

              but we let these “kids” choose their degrees, or jobs and - indeed potentially train them for the military - at that age.

              And who is to say the military is the right choice? If someone yells at me to do push ups in the mud - in any other context I am well within my rights to tell them to fuck off. Which is entirely normal behavior.

              In general, yes, the majority of people are doing some kind of good for themselves, families and communities. People volunteer, raise kids, donate to charity, recycle, care for sick relatives, help their neighbors and friends…

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                1
                edit-2
                7 months ago

                I think your right.

                As much as the fat kids and the kids that have no will power and blame their lack of drive on others could benefit from structure, teamwork and exercise.

                You’re right, ultimately it is too late and it just trying to fixing a failing of the state. We need to give these people more attention in school and turn them into better people than what we turn out of schools currently.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  37 months ago

                  it’s interesting to me that you see childhood obesity as “an absence of military training” and not such things as

                  • lack of support for health education in schools
                  • lack of health meal choices for school cafeterias
                  • lack of free support materials for parents
                  • subsidies and support for low income families to get access to fresh and healthy foods
                  • tariffs on high fat and high sugar foods
                  • regulation on grocery store prices
                  • more free activities for young people
                  • subsidized sports programs and facilities
                  • etc etc

                  “oh that’s expensive”

                  the us military spends $64,000 per second every second.

                  • @[email protected]
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    17 months ago

                    I didn’t say that. I say conscription would help these overweight people and it would help in other ways.

                    Then I also said that getting to that point is a failing of the state.

                    You don’t know where I stand on any of those points because we weren’t talking about it.

                    I don’t really care what the US military spends per second.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        227 months ago

        Currently, just barely under half of Germany’s population is overweight.

        That’s only ten percent less than the USA, which sits at 57%.

        And yes, it causes massive health problems, staining the healthcare system.