Was talking about this today, and thought it was a good topic for discussion. What do you think of the German/French conscript rule, you know the one which is still in place in Germany/France today? Where all males have to take a year in the army at some time under 25 (well I know thats the rule in Germany, however not sure about France).

Personally, to put it bluntly, I think it is a heap of crap. I mean its a waste of the majoritys lives, and to make it compulsory is way over the top in my opinion.

Also, have any of you Ironworkers actually experienced this? If so how did you feel, did you like it etc? Just give us some info.

I think if we had it in the USA, we'd have a much better calibre of citizenry. IMO, the best I've seen is the Swiss system, where every male is a member of the army for life and normally does service for a few weeks a year.

thats all fair and good, but what if you dont actually want to?

It is your country after all. For now France and Germany do not have to fight. It can change in the nearby future. Also a point that says "you have rights but you have also duties" needs to be considered. 1 year is not lots of time. Here we have 3 years and much more problematic service too.

what is it like? Maybe it just seems alien like to me because I live in the Uk where such as system is not employed, I suppose you have a right ot fight for your country and all, but doesnt it disctract you from your career? And I mean, if I was in a good paying job I wouldn't be too happy if I had to leave it to go and work in the army for a year.

Although to balance that I suppose it gives the country a lot more security, as it always has a trained army, and also some people might discover there career there. But ahwell.

Certainly. Having freedom without duty inevitably leads to an irresponsibile, capricious, and spoiled society.

Ross, IMO doing things you don't WANT to do builds character. I don't WANT to be at work right now, for instance.

Check your research there Ross. I left Europe not long ago, and recall German parliament dropping the draft run to 9 months. That allows enough time to train and equip the draftee, place him in a Kaserne, then return him to civilian life without a loss of skill impact. All the while keeping both lefties and righties feeling happy.

But to your post. The Swiss and Israeli system are good to an extent. However, my nephew was pulled from university studies to go back into uniform from last year Spring to this year Fall. I really don't see how his serving has done anything for the re-call or the 'strip'.

In our system, we are starting to recall IRR(Inactive Ready Reserve) guys back to active service. These are guys who have served and got out with time left on their 8 year contract. But not yet a draft as the Vietnam era saw.

It would do a lot to improve the "Fat, dumb and happy' society that my daughter is growing up in. It would make resposibility for one's actions have real meaning, along with building a sense of compatability and team work. However, as a 20+ year man, my view may be slightly tilted.

Yes, but you don't have to spend your service time in the army - you can also spend it in a voluntary organisation. There are currently around 60,000 german men working in hospitals, caring for the elderly etc. in such a role.


As far as 'community service' option is concerned, I don't have a problem with such a system under those circumstances providing that it applies equally to both sexes (which it does NOT in Germany). It's just one extra 'year of education' afterall - and spending a year working with alcholics or drug abusers in some rehab centre or working with old folk (and giving back to the community) might give some people a real life education that they might not have had - but certainly needed.

In terms of military service though, I think it just plain daft. It used to have a purpose - but now its outdated. A modern army is small, fast, employs high tech weaponry and requires intensive training. The old of days of 'cannon fodder conscripts' is no longer applicable.

[ 05-20-2004, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

Tell that to the Chinese.

And the North Koreans.

it's not about developing cannon fodder soldiers. It's about insisting that every citizen have some basic competence and training -- and "knocking the chip off the shoulder" of 20 year olds. ;) Besides, most of our lardass kids could use a good boot camp tour to get their bodies back in shape.

[ 05-20-2004, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

yeh but some peoples bodies are passed redemption, how the hell must they feel having to do all that excercise.

Btw does anybody know what happens to people who refuse to do their service? (I know this will vary between country to country)

[ 05-20-2004, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: RoSs_bg2_rox ]

A massive army means nothing if you don't rule the sky. And the army doesn't count at all if you have nuclear weapons at your disposal - beyond guarding the warheads that is.

Yep - but that could be achieved via community service. Nothing would teach a rich kid about the *real* hardship in his own country than being forced to wipe the butt of an old person that's too old to take care of business himself, or working in a soup kitchin to understand what 'social problems' are all about. What's more, the lesson is financially good value for the state.

Better to teach kids how to look after their fellow citizens and understand the lower rungs of society than to teach 'em how to use a gun. Leave the army to the professionals and get the kids involved in their communities instead.

I'm opposed to any kind of compulsory service. Most of them turn out to be a bunch of lazy punks who don't want to be there. And you're right Skunk. It takes too long to train people in the fields required to run a modern military.

I pay taxes, that's a fair contribution and the only compulsory "service" I will tolerate. Any other service I make to society is as it should be in a Nation built upon the principles of freedom and liberty- completely voluntary.

Sorry, guys, but I roundly disagree. I think conscription is a good thing for a society. I will admit that a "civil service" side is an acceptable alternative, Skunk.

I've been drafted for voluntary service this week, and I'm starting as a paramedic on the 1st of July. I actually think it's a brilliant idea because it forces people to deal with the real life instead of isolating themselves.
However there is one major flaw: MONEY!
I'm currently attending university and working part-time for about 500EUR/month.
This "civil service" year I will work full-time and earn 180EUR/month, food provided at the institution.
If I wasn't in the lucky situation that my mother owns the flat I'm living in and pays the power bill, I could start living under a bridge.

yeh thats the thing, that just totally sucks, they should have to match your current pay or something. Also I think Chewbacca has hit the nail on the head, if you pay taxes surely that is enough of a contribution, as you are taking your share in running the country. (I know that is a bit exagerated but that is really what it boils down too)

The problem is that not everyone pays their taxes; quite a large number of kids get their 'life lessons' from gang banging and 'dead end' jobs because they have no real idea of how to put their life and skills to use productively.

Again, I would see it as the last year of 'compulsory education', rather than as a 'contribution' to sociey. Unless of course, we see school education as a form of 'slave labour'.

all this contention comes from a predominantly american perspective... that freedom is free, all you have to do is pay taxes and vote. i think, living here in germany, that the system is great. i have never heard the german soldiers complain about the duty... though i pass them nearly every day as i go to work on the american base (which they guard for us).

they dont have very many fat people here... life is a bit more lean than that, so the issues of overweight kids not making it through boot camp is not as drastic as would be in the united states. and their troops are not lazy, they are actually well trained and attentive to their jobs.

as to civil service, they do work jobs other than general military duty. the military can be employed to build houses, repair roads, serve food, and a plethora of other things as well. believe me, the german young men get a feel for duty and honor that the youth miss out on in the US.

there are things i dont like about living in germany, but there are many things which are also better in ways too. one of those things is the incredible sense of pride, duty, and honor which seems to be shared by all the germans. it makes me feel much safer knowing that my neighbors all have pride in their country and in themselves without needing to bring others down

Just a little addition to this thread : France is over with the conscript rule since 1998 or so (at the age of 18 years old, a french boy had to do 2 years in the army, then they reduced it to 1 year, then 10 monthes, now its gone for good for eveyone born after 1979). Now we only have to do three "citizen days" as they call it where they teach you...well I'm not sure what cause I didn't do it (shame on me yeah).

Oh - and just one other addition. As a German being in the Air Force for 15 month years back (that was the term then) - the main reason for the introduction of this system in the 1950´s wasn´t mentioned here. The armed forces (there was no social service as an alternative then) should be interwoven with the civil society so no military caste could evolve like in Nazi Germany.
The alternative to serving in the army was jail - social service as an alternative was introduced about 10 years later but till nowadays you have to serve in the army OR the social services. Total refusal still means jail.

Yeah, we'll tell them if they could ever get their troops out of SE Asia...

Personally, I don't feel a government has a right to your time. They take their cut of your income, they demand your help in time of war, which THEY make, and they want me to give up time in compulsory? Screw that!

The US military is as fearsome and dangerous as it is out of the fact that those who are there want to be there. Conscription inevitably degrades the quality of the military, and like forced volunteerism (I call it slavery, but I'm a romantic at heart) it actually cuts against a willingness to serve time for the public good. If a draft were to roll around, where everyone would be examined, I'd be turned over, as I have certain health problems that preclude me from serving.

To me, conscription is in every way wrong, and it doesn't have anything going for it. The US Army has said as much, that an army of conscripts is not what it's looking for. A free man is far more dangerous to his enemies than a slave, and that has been proven over history repeatedly.

Also, Bill Clinton and his forced community service has bred more apathy than you can imagine...

Consider that when people were MORE active, and more concerned, they weren't required to be at all, the Gilded Age was hardly a time of forced anything by government power.

Or you could have private enterprises do such a thing... After all, people making their own money is a good thing. In that last sentence, you imply that young men in the US are not honorable. If we had any more European 'civilization' or 'honor' I'd have to tear-ass it to the hills and avoid human contact till my death. I don't do so well when forced into things.

In the US, you aren't government property, and you don't owe the government, it's just the opposite. If you want to live in the echoes of feudal servitude, fine, but don't tell us to live that way.

[ 05-31-2004, 10:06 AM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

oblivion, i said i currently am in germany. maybe you should take a look at where i'm from before you presume to educate me on what it's like in america. i LIVE there. i AM a youth. i know that on average youth in america don't know a spit about real honor compared to ALOT of people, and i know it because i've been in it. in fact, your entire post drips with "i'm going to get mine and thats the final line."

yes, a volunteer military is effective. but the german military does not serve the role that the american military does. the people arent opossed to conscription, its just a natural sense of DUTY... which is something apparently lacking in american culture, which your post verifies so clearly. what does a man know of honor, if when his country needs him, he heads for the hills? where is his sense of pride, and integrity, if he hides and lets someone else carry all his obligation for him? it does not exist. such a man is without honor, and really shouldnt be counted among men.

the germans have freedoms that americans don't have, they have restrictions and duties that americans don't have as well... but one thing they have not forgotten, which it seems more americans forget every day, is that freedom is not free.

I live in America too. I didn't say you didn't know America, but you seem to have forgotten the most basic virtues, which have been corrupted by a bad government, which has too much power.

I want to strip down the government, I don't want to do community service BECAUSE THEY TELL ME TO. I'll serve my community as a good citizen, I'll help people out because they are in need of it, but I won't do it out of fear of coercive force by a group more powerful than I.

I don't want anything from this system that it doesn't owe me, and it has no right to my time. I'll pay my taxes, I'll vote, I'll participate, but I'm not about to advocate forcing others into it. That's indoctrination. The kind of compulsory service programs the DNC, Neo-Cons and the Klintonistas have proposed are no different, at all, from the Fascist programs used in the 1920's and 1930's in Italy and Germany. In fact, the philosophy behind them, and this is the most horrifying part, the philosophy behind them is identical, right down to notions of group identity being more important than individual freedom. Damn dirty pack rats.

Then it's mutated beyond its real value. A military should not be any more than a body to defend the people of a nation/feudal estate/cooperative/social group of some sort. The soldiers of Rome digging aqueducts are still soldiers, and for that reason they were forbidden from entering Rome as soldiers in formation, under a commander.

Yes, that's right. I value individual freedom over group identity or group security, and I don't feel in debt to a state which is oppressive. What I owe my people I will pay in my own way if I can, but I don't owe this government, which is trying to tell ME how to live, anything more than 35%.

What if the country that 'needs him' has continually violated his rights, has failed to act according to the written foundations which limit and extend in exactitude its powers? As I see it, he was the one deserted first.

Unless of course his obligation is violated, perhaps by breach of contract, if the people could automatically file a suit against the government at their time of choosing for this, the whole system would be dismantled by now. Another thing, the government truly has distanced itself from us as a people, for it can't even be sued unless it agrees in advance to be party to the suit.

Because he won't give away his natural rights to a body which has abused him? The welfare state, the forced volunteerism, political disillusionment, the Kennedy Assassination (when a group of high-up government employees can have their boss murdered, leave the evidence pointing right at them, and get away with it, it's hard to feel obligated to that government, which is rotten) as well as stuff like Watergate and abuses by the DNC for financial advantages over the years (no different from GOP abuses, mind you) and the complete loss of interest in politics (which I believe was deliberately brought about) and total obscuring of the heart of the issues via the two-party system, let's face it, people didn't give up on caring, they were made apathetic. Don't worry, the government will take care of you and make your trouble go away. The recent troubles have been something of an awakening for me, and I no longer trust the government. I feel it is my DUTY to my people to do what Thomas Jefferson said, that it is not only my right, but my DUTY to overthrow this government.

Like freedom of speech? In a country where it's illegal to display violence against human beings in video games? Where Return To Castle Wolfenstein was outlawed? Where the Swastika and anti-semitic anything are illegal? Sorry, but there isn't much freedom in a country that tries to suppress and bury something under the skin.

Yes, they haven't forgotten they 'owe' something to the state, they are state property in their own eyes. I don't feel freedom is something instantly available, and the struggle is constant. If we were to adopt compulsory service, we would lose the battle. I don't want to do that.