You have to understand “capitalist” in this case means “I’m in high school and someone looks greedy”.
Like, there’s nuance and then there’s “everyone who is not an anarcho-socialist-utopian-solar-punk-revolutionary is a capitalist”.
And I say this totally not defending capitalism, I’m just smart enough to see a difference between “fisher-price my first socialism” vs reality…
Having a greedy oligarchy isn’t capitalism, it can be just as bad if not worse but the idea things being different is lost on these folks… if you are going to argue that Putin taking everything for himself is just Russia being “capitalist” then you are literally telling the world “I can see lots of trees, but no forest…”
No shit. Doesn’t make them capitalists and it doesn’t make a mob boss the monopoly man. Regardless of “systems” I wouldn’t call China capitalist nor Russia and comparing them to or claiming them as such wouldn’t be accurate or even helpful really.
It’s not helpful in assessing current context or motive. But yea let’s just call em all capitalist…
No communist in America is a communist. They all want to be communist (wannabe communist, like wannabe badasses), but they are not. You are what you eat.
i don;t like conscription into the military but i’ve always felt some sort of manatory non-military civil or social service or peace corps participation would do a lot for encouraging civic participation in exchange for some sort of universal educational system or some form of reimbursement for secondary education.
In this day and age it feels like a McDonald’s worker could ai copilot a drone better than the folks over in Israel, so no I totally disagree with conscription without certain safeguards in place to prevent genocide or other dumbfuckery.
The title is not entirely correct. They don’t plant to “introduce” conscription. Germany had conscription from its formation of the Bundeswehr in 1955 until it was put on hiatus in 2011 because people back then thought that Ivan was no longer a problem. So what they think about is not “introducing” but just reactivate it.
The changes will be that while before 2011, conscription was only for men, it is planned to be for both sexes, and military service will no longer the one preferred service (back then, you had to go through quite some hoops if you did not want to serve in the Bundeswehr and do your time in e.g. social services). This time, the military option is just one of several that can be chosen.
At this stage it’s all hot air. Nobody has even started talking about how to finance it and the defense minister isn’t even 100% sure he will get his requested additional funds for the next cycle. When somebody asked him about the topic he replied that he isn’t categorically against it but he would have to finance (and restructure, as the necessary infrastructure for it has been degraded/scrapped) more important topics first.
That is so sad, these kinds of times should already be over in humanity’s history. Why doesn’t anyone have a solution? Are the war mongering powers just waiting for the new nuclear deterrent? Future AI terminators pls just go straight to Russia/China/USA leadership and let the humans be
I think it’d be better if we disregarded highly authoritarian leaders in general and embraced socialism. Back in the day, kings and emperors fought their battles, but it didn’t make their feudalism any less… feudal.
Humans cooperated and formed large confederations long before capitalism and liberalism were ideas.
It’s true that unequal and selfish organisations have often consolidated power and squashed other organisations but we’ve also seen humanity going the opposite way many times before.
To shrug our shoulders and say humans are inherently greedy so socialism can’t work is a cop out. We’ve dismantled unequal power structures many times before and we can do it again
[T]he ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting.
Let’s say your country was about to be invaded, your house stolen and you sent elsewhere or killed so that citizens of the invading country could occupy your house and your land instead.
And all of that not happening was hinged on the physical prowess of an old guy who’s probably been in politics for decades.
There’s also conscription in places which don’t attack others, because of an attack threat from a neighbor. I just hope that whatever helps humanity forward, goes to the root cause. Imperialist state oligarchs are a good start. And other billionaires
This is an unserious proposal. Germany spends about 1.5 percent of its GDP(*) on defence, much of it wasted, and increasing it to even 2 percent has involved painful and extended political wrangling. If the country collectively cannot find the will to tweak its budget to fund a modest increase in defence spending, it is not going to countenance universal conscription.
It’s a serious proposal, but not as a universal conscription. It’s intended to only call everyone in for the health check and use that as a way to get young people interested in the army.
There are different models floating around, the most serious being that everyone (including women) gets called in and you basically choose between civil service and army. The civilian side can ramp up slots rather quickly, the army doesn’t. So the army probably will ramp up over several years.
Also, I wouldn’t call 100 billion € a “modest increase”.
To be honest, conscription aside, I think a gap year of civil service would be a good idea. It gives you a break from school - university - work, you don’t feel like you lost time since everyone has to do it, and you get into a mindset outside of your preplanned route, which might do you good.
I’m going to have to disagree. It’s forced labour, no amount of pretty words changes that. It’s also not a “break” if you have to work, and considering that you’d be unskilled and probably physical labour with no (simple) way for you to quit if faced with abuse, it probably won’t even be under good conditions or compensated fairly.
Except that you need to actually house, feed, clothe and train those draftees and most western militaries no longer have the capacity to do that at scale.
The fact that it is legally easy does not say anything about how difficult it will be organizationally
To be honest, getting a majority to agree that the youth should do what most other generations did seems easier than taking money out of other budgets. Even before Russias attack there had been calls to make every young person do a year or Service for society. The plan was more socially beneficial back then but the sentiment of just ignoring what the younger generation wants isn’t new
This is PATENTLY wrong. It’s 1.49% of GDP, not budget.
Defense budget is 10.9% of the governments budget, it’s the second largest budgeted item after social wellfare and in front of infrastructure (which is crumbling) and debt. To increase it to 2% of gross domestic product means spending an additional amount equal to the entire budget for education and research.
But the point remains: 2% of GDP is the NATO target, getting even to that point for Germany has been like pulling teeth, and a serious implementation of universal conscription would be a much bigger ask.
As much as I would like to see Russia get shitmixed by a proper first world army (not that Ukraine hasn’t been doing phenomenally), I think that might actually put putin in a corner.
Ideally we’ll just keep giving Ukraine equipment and propagandize how hard they’re kicking russian ass and sanction the hell out of Russia until the people and oligarchs lose their appetite for Ukraine.
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.
How about our military stays between our own borders. Let those that want to go go. But don’t force a bunch of our youth to go fight someone else’s war.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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…
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.
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.
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