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komponisto comments on Let them eat cake: Interpersonal Problems vs Tasks - Less Wrong
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Military service is generally understood to be coercive, so you're right to have a negative reaction to it (and so do I). Volunteer-only armies are extremely rare exceptions - far more rare than rape is compared to sex.
Really? I suspect a lot of young Americans would view the idea of coerced military service as another one of those bizarre practices from the distant past.
Which only goes to show that they don't read their own history books about drafts, or newspapers about stop-loss policies and the National Guard deployments.
Some may not read history, but it doesn't follow from what I said. They may know very well that the draft existed in the past.
(I've noticed that a lot of people old enough to remember e.g. Vietnam have trouble accepting that we're in a different historical era now; they often speak in a way that suggests they think the draft could easily be brought back, when in fact the political reality is such that that's extremely unlikely.)
National Guard service is voluntary, and stop-loss concerns people already signed up.
The draft still exists.
As for how difficult it would be to put it back into operation, that's hard to say; consider how many people thought a black man would not be president this side of 2100. The right question is how difficult it would be to get into a war or other national emergency which could make use of the draft; in such situations, the preferences of young people are irrelevant.
As for National Guard and stop-loss: you have a very strange idea of coercion if you think stop-loss isn't it. There may be a clause in their contracts saying something about contracts being extended indefinitely, but that strikes me as like signing a contract to sell yourself into slavery.
Stop-loss itself is coercion, but it's coercion applied to those already in the military. Citing the (current, contingent) existence of stop-loss policies doesn't support the idea that military service is inherently coerced. You may as well cite the fact that military personnel have to follow orders (also obviously coercion).
You're right, military enrollment is not inherently and always coercive; many countries have volunteer-only armies.
For purposes of scaring people with an analogy for "entitlement" rape, we can use the following scenario: your worst enemy, who looks a little like you when he wears a wig, has signed an 8 year irrevocable combat unit contract in your name. It "only looks like" your signature? Tell that to the military police kicking down your door...
Wikipedia has more.
But, yeah, it's deceptive at best.
Back during World War 1, the Supreme Court ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment doesn't apply to the military. In the context of ruling about the constitutionality of the draft, they devoted one paragraph to the Thirteenth Amendment issue:
In other words, they said that they don't want it to apply, so it doesn't.
Israelis have a different perspective.
I realize that. In fact I was specifically calling attention to the difference in perspectives.
Well, then, the analogy should describe more explicitly the idea of coercive military service. That should serve to scare people as intended :-)
Incidentally, we have on-and-off political and media wrangles about abolishing the draft here in Israel. Service in actual combat units is already volunteer only anyway, everyone else goes to "battlefield support" and desk jobs.
The biggest argument, sometimes the only argument, brought out in favor of keeping the draft is that it's good for us (the young soldiers) to suffer for a few years. Creates strong character, and so on. Or as the (old male) politicians sometimes put it, "we did it, why shouldn't they?"
This reminds me a lot of all those people who try their best to find an explanation of why universal death is in fact a good thing and necessary for us to remain "truly human" and it would be evil to try and become immortal. They, too, currently rule the media and perhaps the popular consensuses on the subject.
Of course the real explanation is simpler. We'll have the draft for as long as the parliament and government is made up in large part of retired generals; and the army's high command is made up almost entirely of elite (volunteer) combat unit veterans; and people actually being drafted cannot influence the decision, not even by voting in the general elections. (Right to vote is granted at age 18. The draft is also at age 18, or when you finish highschool. General elections are every four years, so almost everyone votes for the first time during or after their army service.)
You know, I once saw someone argue that the single greatest tool the Mormons have for their legendary retention rates is their policy of having everyone go overseas or somewhere to do missionary work for a couple years; the idea being that spending years dealing with hostile or apathetic infidels will, by sheer cognitive dissonance, turn the missionary into a fanatic. Somewhat like those psychology experiments where the more you argue for a position & hear arguments against it, the more you brainwash yourself into believing it.
This would seem to be a useful tool for anyone wishing to preserve the military state of Israel.
Mormon missions do not always take place overseas, and they aren't required of everyone. (It's a social expectation of men, but still optional even for them, and very much a voluntary thing for women.)
Point taken; should I have said 'policy of having many or most Mormon men and some women go far away'? I could be wrong, but I don't think that materially weakens the 'Stockholm syndrome effect', as it were, the possible utility of making everyone serve in the military.
(And it may be a social expectation but I wonder how important the distinction between expectation and policy/law is; when I was a Catholic, we were told clearly that confirmation was optional - yet not one of us felt that we had the genuine option to not be confirmed, and so all of us were.)
Confirmation in Catholicism is administered to children, who are less free to reject social expectations than most adults. Mormon missionaries have all reached the age of majority, and while there may be social consequences, they're a bit farther removed than "disappointment of parents on whom one is unavoidably materially dependent". I personally know multiple adult Mormon men who never went on a mission.
It was the "Really?" that threw me off. To me it seemed to invite a "Yes, really," reply.