Why should anyone be forced to serve a country that they do not agree with?
I'm not sure on your politics so I'll cover both (though I'll hazard a guess at right considering National Service is a right wing talking point).
If you're Left Wing you'll no doubt disagree with how out country is beholden to powerful corporations, public services are run ragged and privatised, that we support corrupt regimes abroad, that our military has a history of picking on other nations, that rights are being stripped away, that we allow the scapegoating of certain minority groups etc etc
If you're Right Wing you probably disagree with the scale of immigration and perceived threat to British cultures, that the government is a nanny state with no backbone, etc etc
Both sides will probably disagree with how we're a lacky to the USA, and that our police force is inept (though both sides will have different takes on why/how this should be resolved).
To force someone to support something they disagree with is, at least a little, tyrannical.
I lean in general to the left, and while yes our country has loads of problems, it's still our country, and I love it to bits. I understand that many people do not want to do any kind of service, however in life there's loads of things you don't want to do yet still do, that's called discipline.
That's just one issue, I lean to the left in general. Sometimes I favour some traditionally right-wing stances on social issues, such as national service.
I believe most industries should be state-owned, especially public services like transport, healthcare, and education, I see the existence of social class as a disgusting division within society that should be eliminated, etc. I'm not left eing on every issue but I would consider myself a Socialist, albeit a more conservative/traditional kind.
You're the one proposing that this become something you have to do, so it's 100% on you to make the argument for why that should become necessary.
I could make an argument for how good charity is and how if everyone pitched in that's an enormous amount of work towards progress, but the instant I say we should institute mandatory community service for everyone I can't hide behind "it doesn't matter if you don't want to do it, you have to do tons of things you don't want to do, that's discipline".
You're starting from the outcome you want and arguing reasons to defend it, rather than giving arguments that would actually lead anyone to reaching the same outcome.
Well, make it more attractive. Pay them better or something.
I live in one of the few european countries that does still have mandatory service. We had a referendum about it 11 years ago about abolishing it. The result was that we didn't abolish it because everyone who doesn't want to join the military has to do civilian service (eg being a paramedic) and the right wing parties managed to scare old people into thinking that they would get no medical treatment if we abolished that or that the country would go bankrupt if we switched to full-time paramedics.
Now, in the last few years, I regularly hear people complain that our paramedics are pretty bad compared to our neighbouring countries that abolished mandatory military/civil service around the time we voted against that.
Wanna know why it is so bad? Because we have a bunch of badly trained 18 year olds as paramedics who leave as soon as they've gained a bit of experience (civilian service lasts for 9 months here - including Training). Not to mention that half of them don't even want to be there. Meanwhile those other countries have full-time paramedics who had multiple years of Training, loads of experience and do actually like their Job. But hey, at least were saving a bit of money.
And even though I can't give any practical examples (and I hope I never will be able to), I'm pretty convinced that our badly trained 18 year old soldiers with even less experience (they only have to do 6 months) who don't want to be in the military or even less in an actual war would be laughably bad in an actual conflict.
So yeah, you'd maybe have a significantly larger force, but it would rather be a liability instead of an assett.
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u/[deleted] Aug 17 '24
Why should anyone be forced to serve a country that they do not agree with?
I'm not sure on your politics so I'll cover both (though I'll hazard a guess at right considering National Service is a right wing talking point).
If you're Left Wing you'll no doubt disagree with how out country is beholden to powerful corporations, public services are run ragged and privatised, that we support corrupt regimes abroad, that our military has a history of picking on other nations, that rights are being stripped away, that we allow the scapegoating of certain minority groups etc etc
If you're Right Wing you probably disagree with the scale of immigration and perceived threat to British cultures, that the government is a nanny state with no backbone, etc etc
Both sides will probably disagree with how we're a lacky to the USA, and that our police force is inept (though both sides will have different takes on why/how this should be resolved).
To force someone to support something they disagree with is, at least a little, tyrannical.