This question was inspired by a post on lemmy.zip about lowering the minimum age to purchase firearms in the US, and a lot of commeters brought up military service and training as a benchmark to normal civilians, and how if guns would be prevalent, then firearm training should be more common.
For reference, I live in the USA, where the minimum age to join the military is 18, but joining is, for the most part, optional. I also know some friends that have gone through the military, mostly for college benefits, and it has really messed them up. However, I have also met some friends from south korea, where I understand military service is mandatory before starting a more normal career. From what I’ve heard, military service was treated more as a trade school, because they were never deployed, in comparison to American troops.
I just wanted to know what the broader Lemmy community thought about mandatory military service is, especially from viewpoints outside the US.
Realizing the US Army is the most socialist institution I’ve ever encountered didn’t happen till years after I was out, lol
You want school? Get it! You want food? Get it! You want clothes? You already fucking got em
I’m not sure from the context of your comment with that “most socialist” line if you know or not but…
Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. End line.
Everything else is just how the society organizes itself. The US Army seeing to the basic needs of its troops is not socialism, it is the government doing things. Scandinavian countries providing maternity and unemployment benefits is not socialism. It is the government doing things.
The US Army is not socialism. Nor is any other professional military, not even the ones working for socialist states. They are organizations trading capital for labor to empower the state.
If you were a slave soldier, taken in a war raid, working for a monarch like the Janissaries, they would probably still provide you all of the necessities to function, even spending money to entertain yourself and maintain morale, and it wouldn’t be socialism either.
It’s socialism as described by the GOP though, which is why it’s so funny.
Yeah, but at the same time that’s how they logic themselves into “the more things the government does the more socialist it is, and when it does a lot of things, that’s communism.”
All that misinformation has a purpose, and it’s not to make the world a better place.