Obligatory Military Service worse than Darth Vader?

Metaverseguy: I think I'm pretty damn lucky to live in a country with no required military service. Lots of protests during 'nam got rid of the draft. But I know that many countries still do require this. I feel like it's a terrible duty to have to risk your life for something you don't necessarily believe in. While the greatest generation had to deal with it during WW2 I would definitely be a lot less patriotic if I had to prove how much I love my country by potentially bleeding to death from bullet holes for it.

Seriously, one independence day is enough.

It's too bad that when diplomacy fails tanks and war planes are forced to be sent in to persuade.

Outbackjack: Any country that insists on conscription should have its leaders and elite put their families on the front line.

Not in the Texas rangers where they can go AWOL.

duncan124:
Portugals recent history and Political ideas have been totally coloured by its Military Service.

Outbackjack: Which ironically left East Timor vulnerable.

duncan124:
Which kind of free speech were you stamping out this time Jack?

Metaverseguy: I wonder if it's appropriate to put an apostrophe in "Portugal's recent history" since it seems possessive. Although, I'm quite sure that Political shouldn't be capitalized. I hope my strict grammar rules don't offend anyone, but I like to keep it nice and tidy when necessary.

duncan124:
Its just modern English Fortran. Modern history shows that the UKs Welfare state was totally created by the military.

Metaverseguy: How so? I didn't understand things were so cause and effect.

Outbackjack: Duncan.

Still raving on about all the fake humans?

Don't worry .I find your posts highly entertaining sometimes.

duncan124:
By spending. Either the amount or how it was spent. Often on things that they ' wont be using this year'. So it did not matter how they were made.

And by direct intervention for whatever idiotic reason. The MOD would say ' Right this is how things are' and the policy would have to fit around the facts according to the military.

Now the MOD is kaput the ' Para-militarys ' are moving in on Camerons DWP.

Para-militarys = those who in groups wear military uniforms or clothing/equipment.

I saw an advert for a DWP Jobcenter worker 'for the military' the other day.

demented diode: ^^^^^Thers always been par-miltarys since the begining of time ,,nothing new

duncan124:
I agree Diode.

Its a mental health problem. In conjunction with other mental problems and unemployment it produced the IRA and Cameron was a supporter of the IRA.

He clearly wants the groups of people who have no work and are often refused benefits to form para-military groups or supporter groups.

In the past people had to wear their sides colours and later they were issued with uniforms but in todays world there is no reason to have a military uniform to do military activities.

demented diode: just like India supplying the Taliban , against America , and tipping them off, Its a dirty game there playing.But I don't agree Duncan about uniforms tho u need em just like old days to see who is on what side , little alone good boots and uniforms with heaps of pockets and if ur lucky some body armour , Exct ISIS but there crazy

duncan124:
Uniforms started because fighters needed clothes that had some protection from swords and because when the fighters were n't employed by the local rich man they often could not wear their fighting clothes or they would have been beaten up by the locals themselves.

In contracts for mercenaries there were often agreements to supply clothes and weapons which the employer would buy in bulk from suppliers increasing the number of interested parties.

demented diode: yep so we can agree in the modern age, id want all the kit if im going to fight for someone

duncan124:
Winston Churchill was a War Profiteer.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:War_Profiteer_Veteran_Cartoon_Life_1919.jpg


http://www.resistanceisnotfutile.us/WarProfiteeringInWWI.aspx

Metaverseguy: Well, that sucks but here's a good quote I saw of him the other day.

"Winston if I was your wife I'd put poison in your coffee."

W: "If you were my wife I'd drink it!!"

Captain Canada: Totally agree there Jack.
If leader's were to do the fighting alongside with their families,there would be fewer wars and less profiteering , just saying Eh.

Metaverseguy: Yea it's definitely something that governments and society need to fix. No one should be sending troops to anywhere in the world to risk their lives for reasons they don't even understand without reading a book about previous deceptions. Military hasn't really changed very much in the last thousand years, except advanced technology that is more harmful to everyone. Whereas battles were only between countries within a short proximity 400 years ago, the entire planet is susceptible to whoever owns advanced military technology today.

Unfortunately, since there is so much poverty in large areas of the world it's easy for armies to hire soldiers to do their bidding. Look at the recent insurgencies from ISIS. Those guys are terrible yes. But most people probably decided it's just a local war and no one outside should get involved. Then they beheaded some journalists. But they were able to find out the identity of those terrorists - English and American. Even though they were citizens of the western nations that went to war against those guys they became traitors. My point is that war sucks.

Captain Canada: Mr Fortran you said """Unfortunately, since there is so much poverty in large areas of the world it's easy for armies to hire soldiers to do their bidding.""" Sir,look at your own backyard,the USA.
How many young men and women join the American armed forces to escape poverty from the ghettos or the obtain a education ????

Metaverseguy: Well unfortunately that's life and I have no control over it. At least they don't have the draft anymore, at least not here since there are so many volunteers. I joined the military and I got the gi bill to help a little bit with college and then I find out that the intelligence found no WMD in Iraq. I and thousands of others could have lost our lives for nothing and many people did lose their lives in Iraq. Governments would rather just spend millions on developing the best weapons and military technology and negotiate by dropping bombs than actually a bunch of rational and sane human beings. I'll never understand it. It's as if every civil lawsuit or trial was settled by the defendant and plaintiff just duking it out in a boxing match. There really isn't anyway that the UN or any international body can sanction the US for the time so we just have to listen to the UN complain about the USA but not do anything about stopping them.

By the way USA hardly does anything by itself. It's usually joined by Canada, UK, and several other nations.

Captain Canada: So you and thousands of other volunteers went to Iraq and found no WMD.
Your government lied to you about WMD,so when you came back home with your buddies alive ( countless young men and women never made it back alive unfortunately ) Did you get a weapon and tried to harm those who lied to you????

Metaverseguy: Well I never went to Iraq personally but I was in the service. No I didn't try and hunt down the people that lied to us. There's too many to count. I'm not some lunatic like from Taxi who would risk life in jail to try and assassinate some POS. Besides, the intelligence community all suggested they were certain there was WMD's so you can't blame them for believing about bad data. Some people even suggested that people from the Bush administration should be convicted of war crimes, but it will never happen.

Metaverseguy: Captain Canada it's not as simple as you think. Don't forget that Canadians went over there along with Europeans after they successfully attacked two large buildings full of people here in the US along with places in Europe. There was reasonable suspicion that Hussein was attempting to get materials to make WMD's. I don't understand why you understand so little about this topic, but I don't really like discussing topics like this in public forums, as you could probably understand why.

This is a very sensitive subject that we are still involved in and we don't even understand everything that happened 10 or 20 years ago.

Outbackjack: It's simple.We were outright lied to.

Metaverseguy: Most of the language used in the selective service system is pretty obfuscating anyways. There's no draft but you're still required by law to register for the selective service system. And the laws regarding the draft flip-flopped for about 3 decades. Not every duty station was in the midst of war, but I don't get what made all those guys think they had the right to use anyone's life as a solider in battle. I guess that's why there was so many things that disqualified military service like poor eyesight, flat foot, etc.