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As I've often pointed out, .5% of our population fight 100% of our wars
And that is wrong. Less then 10% of the population are veterans, and I would wager to bet that at least 6% of those are WWII, Korea, and Vietnam era - when we still had conscription until it was discontinued in 1973.
Should I ever be elected President of the United States, one of my goals would be reintroduce conscription - even if it makes me a one term president. I find it unacceptable that only .5% of the population shoulders the burdon of defending the other 99.5% ... I feel that defense of the nation is a obligatory duty for all citizens of the republic.
My proposed system:
- all males and females would be conscripted barring only those who have severe mental illness or physical disabilities.
- Conscripted at age 18/high school graduation (whichever comes last). Serves 4 years on active duty.
- Serves another 4 years in the reserves.
- Serves until age 45 in the Home Guard (which would replace the National Guard - the Home Guard WOULD NOT be eligible for service outside their state or territory of residence).
And that is wrong. Less then 10% of the population are veterans, and I would wager to bet that at least 6% of those are WWII, Korea, and Vietnam era - when we still had conscription until it was discontinued in 1973.
Should I ever be elected President of the United States, one of my goals would be reintroduce conscription - even if it makes me a one term president. I find it unacceptable that only .5% of the population shoulders the burdon of defending the other 99.5% ... I feel that defense of the nation is a obligatory duty for all citizens of the republic.
My proposed system:
- all males and females would be conscripted barring only those who have severe mental illness or physical disabilities.
- Conscripted at age 18/high school graduation (whichever comes last). Serves 4 years on active duty.
- Serves another 4 years in the reserves.
- Serves until age 45 in the Home Guard (which would replace the National Guard - the Home Guard WOULD NOT be eligible for service outside their state or territory of residence).
Conscript the highschool drop outs the minute they drop out ..
And that is wrong. Less then 10% of the population are veterans, and I would wager to bet that at least 6% of those are WWII, Korea, and Vietnam era - when we still had conscription until it was discontinued in 1973.
Should I ever be elected President of the United States, one of my goals would be reintroduce conscription - even if it makes me a one term president. I find it unacceptable that only .5% of the population shoulders the burdon of defending the other 99.5% ... I feel that defense of the nation is a obligatory duty for all citizens of the republic.
My proposed system:
- all males and females would be conscripted barring only those who have severe mental illness or physical disabilities.
- Conscripted at age 18/high school graduation (whichever comes last). Serves 4 years on active duty.
- Serves another 4 years in the reserves.
- Serves until age 45 in the Home Guard (which would replace the National Guard - the Home Guard WOULD NOT be eligible for service outside their state or territory of residence).
I agree with many of these points, however there is another detail that would surely be raised and that is nationalized health care as a result of mandatory military benefits from serving.
Not sure how that would have to be structured, but over all, at least it would change the face of how the general public perceives governments foreign interventions. On one hand, there would be a greater reluctance to engage in war and on the other, those wars that were seen as just would instill sense of continuity and shared sacrifice which would offer greater solidarity.
The reality was WWI was like the US Civil War on steroids with machine guns, trench warfare, chemical warfare, and barbed wire and airplanes causing untold death and inhumanity. It wasn't anything glorious.
The irony of your remark is that the US actually lost far more soldiers in the Civil War than WWI. That war left the US with 1 million dead or wounded (South lost 30% of its male population, North about 15%), and hundreds of thousands more permanently maimed. It was not uncommon in the decades following that war to see disfigured veterans on a daily basis. WWI left no such scars on the US, unlike the Civil War which affected nearly all Americans for several decades.
In that way it seems most people have been completely desensitized to war over the past decades.
We have a professional volunteer military. The draft was ended by Republican president Richard Nixon and it is never coming back. Draftees never made good soldiers compared to volunteers anywhere in the history of the world.
I think the reason why young people are accepting of war today is they realize the need for it. America is under attack by an enemy that will never give up trying to kill us. We have never faced a situation like this anytime in our history. In previous wars we knew that the enemy could be beaten down to the point where they would either surrender or give up. No so in the case of Islamic jihadists. For them it is death or victory (or both in the case of suicide bombers). With this reality staring them in the face, young people and,in fact, all Americans are much more accepting of this war that hs been forced on us than past generations have been.
I guess the number of people willing to go to war is on the decline, let alone the number of parents who want their children to do so. Especially after the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan American soldiers are tired of those wars, the purpose of which they don't even understand.
The number of people blaming Muslims for everything and wanting to express their hate may rise, but most of them want to stay at a safe distance
I don't think video games is the culprit. Younger Americans fall victim to the God, apple pie, baseball crap just as easily as those that enlist at any other time period in history. Propaganda is ageless. Usually promoted by those who are so far removed from the actual death and mayhem of it.
And, frankly, as long as you have hooligans who make statements like objection to the war is cruifiying those that are actually doing the serving--it will continue. What they really want is to keep others from hearing the truth.
And I don't think that these younger kids are even going to get it until they have lived through their parents or family coming back home and dealing with PTSD. Or they get suckered in themselves. They will then spend their entire lives trying to put it into perspective while the said individual spends, if that, the next 20 trying to figure it out for themselves.
I guess the number of people willing to go to war is on the decline, let alone the number of parents who want their children to do so. Especially after the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan American soldiers are tired of those wars, the purpose of which they don't even understand.
The number of people blaming Muslims for everything and wanting to express their hate may rise, but most of them want to stay at a safe distance
I can absolutely understand that. However, given he is an adult, how do you do that?
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