It would benefit, but at a cost.

Always nice when the pro slavery folks out themselves. To bad this place is moderated more than the Chinese Internet.

I'm not a fan of conscription (having been a conscript myself), but to call it undemocratic is asinine. A conscript military would, if anything, be more democratic than a professional one.

One man, one rifle, one vote.

Welcome back.

One of the things that makes America exceptional in the world is that we don't have conscription.

Bigger armies does not equal better armies if the quality of the soldier goes down.

We need a smaller force with better training, that has the capacity when necessary to train and lead draftees for an existential conflict.

The camouflage welfare types, including the career NCO's and officers who are thinking about that 20-25yr retirement and the minimal risk along the path, are the problem.

If we devised a system that rewarded the most creative, brutal, efficient warrior class in history, and paid them to further the foreign policy of the empire, we would be much better off.

Cut the turds loose, and give their pay and resources to the warrior class.

Makes sense when you're facing a constant existential threat. Does it make sense when you're not, or is it a vice that results in a pool of trained manpower your ethically challenged politicians can take advantage of?

In Sweden, you never had that worry in the last few centuries. Why? You simply haven't been big enough, or economically powerful enough for it to be a risk.

During the Carolingian times, was it really a benefit for the king to have that pool of men ready to hand, in order to go off seeking glory and empire? I might point out that a contributing factor to the fact that you've avoided folly in recent centuries is that you've never really overcome all the losses you suffered during the Carolingian times until about what, the late 1800s? How many villages were left unpopulated in Central Sweden, after the disasters in Russia? I think you're looking at things through a set of rose-colored contemporary glasses, to be honest. Go back a few centuries, and consider how much better off Sweden would have been if the Kings had kept their asses home where they belonged, and focused on Sweden instead of building ephemeral empires?

Conscription here in the US would be a disaster, for all too many reasons--Not the least of which is making it entirely too easy for the politicians to get up to stupidities.

We didn't have conscription in the Carolingian Era. You just proved my point.

 
You THINK conscription would hurt the USA, but fail to see a bunch of countries that are Democratic and flourishing quite well "despite" having conscription.






I know guys who joined simply for the only reason they could get college paid for. All volunteer armies are not made up of only hard charging, killers who want to drink the blood of their enemies. A ton of them have that fucking FSA mindset with the military. A bunch joined the Army to do 20 years and get a retirement.






Democratic nations all throughout history have used conscription. So let's just kill this myth that only dictatorships muster up drafts.




 

1968 called, they want their worldview back

If you don't know what you're talking about, it's best not to say anything.

Its the pay that attracts the turds.  If we had a draft, the pay would suck.  But those who live to do it would still be here.

In the absence of the current benefit system, we would have a different army unquestionably.  I think it would be better, but I am not sure.  But it would be cheaper.  So if you keep the budget the same, there would be a lot more for resources.

No

I'm going to quote this passage from a website, for background:

"Charles XII's army was not homogeneous due to its practicing two different ways of recruiting in Sweden: communal draft according to the so called “indelningsverket” and enlistment of mercenaries.

Unlike other armies in Western Europe, which in the main consisted of mercenaries, the largest and best part of the Swedish army, including almost all infantry, was regular Indelta units, that gave the army its national specific flavor.

The Indelningsverket system was introduced gradually. It originated as early as the 16th century in Gustavus I Vasa's reign (1523-1550), when the first drafts of Royal army recruits from a number of the country's provinces (län) took place. The major role in the formation of the regular Swedish army was played by a great army leader of the Thirty Years War, King Gustavus II Adolphus, (1611-1632). At the time of his successor Queen Christina (1632-1654) in 1634 a special state law was issued instituting permanent infantry regiments, 20 of them in Sweden and 7 in Finland. They were recruited from strictly defined läns that gave them their names.

The Indelningsverket was finally settled at the time of Charles XI (1660-1697) who carried out in 1680-1696 a military reform called “Young Indelningsverket”.

The core of Charles XI's military reform was to replace periodical recruit drafts with permanent duty of peasants to support the personnel of the Royal army. All cultivated lands in the state were divided between communities called indeltas. The peasant households making up such an indelta had to present one soldier. The indelta provided him with a land plot (torp), a house, uniform as well as additional provisions. Arms and ammunition was issued to a soldier by the state. An indelta uniting peasant households that had to put forward and maintain one infantryman was called “rote” or “rotehåll”, and the peasants who made it up were called “rotehållarna”. The salary of non-commissioned officers and officers was also paid by a number of households assigned to that function. Those NCOs and officers also lived in the same locality in farmsteads assigned to them, where a standard house (boställe) appropriate to the rank had been built.

A regiment was named after the lan in which it was recruited and lodged, e.g. Västmanland Infantry Regiment from the Västmanland län etc.; inside a regiment soldiers were divided between companies (kompaniet) that formed battalions. Once a year soldiers were summoned to a muster in order to maintain their combat efficiency. In case a soldier went to war the indelta provided another one who was a sort of replacement for that serving at the regular regiment. If that soldier also went to war the indelta could put forward a new recruit; such recruits could form, when needs arose in the wartime, so called “third line regiments” (tremanningsregementen) that were used to get their name after their chief (e.g. Uppland Third Line Infantry Regiment that was in 1700-1712 commanded by Count A. L. Lewenhaupt was called simply “Lewenhaupt's Regiment”). The fourth line of recruits was sent to reinforce the regular regiment (in place of dead or missing soldiers of the second line), and the fifth line recruits could also make up, as a last resort, provisional regiments — those of the fifth line (femmänningsregimenten). Due to the Indelningsverket, Sweden thus acquired instead of a small mercenary army a numerous mono-national army with the settlement organization. "

Charles XII's Swedish Infantry at Poltava

If you're saying that the Indelningsverket wasn't a system of conscription, well... I really don't know what to say. To me, they're at best first cousins to each other. Either way you look at it, it was involuntary servitude in a military service, and it led to the Swedish kings having a pool of easily abused military manpower to take off adventuring with. Was that a good thing for Sweden, in the long haul? From my perspective, not only no, but hell no.

The Allotment System wasn't a form of conscription. They were professional soldiers supported by neighbouring farms, and they served for life.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Conscription.

I don't have a problem with pay and benefits being symptoms of success for a professional warrior class.

If a man can exceed the current standards by a factor of 10 or more in technical and interpersonal skills, as well as exceed the current physical standards by a large margin, he should be compensated first with world-class training, then the remaining means of pay, education, housing, and healthcare.  I never knew a combat arms soldier who would take new barracks over tough, realistic training, or better yet, the opportunity to deploy and export some violence.

 
That would be a big step in the right direction. Plus getting rid of shit where people with criminal records or G.E.D.s are allowed in. Not to mention being more scrupulous with a person's background and upbringing.

well.

there is 3% of the current military.

An army full of selfish, entitled, leftist, anti-establishment saboteurs?

Probably wouldn't do so well.

Exactly. No to question.



 

$288 a month. That was the big selling point when I was in. It was a huge raise from the previous $124.50 a month.

You trust the politicians? I sure as hell don't. Give them a ready pool of manpower to play with, and they'll abuse the shit out of it. That's been proven by history, everywhere they've had conscription. You think the Romans wouldn't have stayed a Republic, without Marius turning their armies from being recruited strictly from the property-owner class to coming from the plebians who didn't have two sesterces to rub together? Granted, it's not precisely on point as an example, but it's one of the first cases where an easily available mass army eventually killed a republic. If Marius hadn't put his reforms into place, odds are that Rome wouldn't have turned into an empire. They might have lasted a lot longer as a small city state in Italy, albeit without quite as much glory in their reputation.

To a degree, you can abuse either system. The rub is, when a conscript system is available, it's too damn easy to abuse in a massive way, and get into trouble that isn't easily recoverable. Follow the course of the French Revolution, and ask yourself if Napoleon would have come to power absent the First Republic having smoothed the way for him by building the massive conscript armies that they did? And, which set the stage for the next hundred-odd years of European military adventurism.

Without the Jacobins and their enemies building those mass armies, we'd have seen a lot less death and bloodshed spread across Europe. Which were, I point out, enabled by conscription systems set up by all parties. It's a tool that should be there, in case of things like the Nazis and the Japanese Empire, but as a general peacetime policy, it's a disastrous temptation.

Sweden did conscript people from her peripheries, like Finland.

In Finland, there was a saying,

"Swedish army is most brave army!  Always fighting to the last Finn!"

There were plenty of foreign adventure escapades penetrating into Livonia, Ingria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia, where Finnish marksmen earned their reputation long before the time of independence and the Winter War.

Swedish Empire

 
No I don't trust politicians.


However, just having a conscript Army doesn't give a government the power to do whatever it wanted. As we saw with Vietnam, people revolted against the government by the masses.


Either way, I think our current policy of who we allow in to the military must be changed.

Were they voluntary citizen-soldiers, serving freely in wars they or their representatives voted on participating in?

Last I looked at it, they weren't. They were basically soldier-serfs, and considered property of the King. If I remember rightly, if you killed or injured one of them, you were answerable to the king for damaging his property, were you not?

Hell, if anything, that's worse than conscription: Lifetime involuntary service? Er... That's a bit worse than doing two or three years as a conscript, I'd say.

Final effect was the same, however: A pool of manpower the king controlled, and whose utilization he was answerable to no one for.

Which, I'm afraid, is pretty much what conscription is, when you get down to it. Who controlled Napoleon or Hitler, for example? Both of them sent their conscripted armies off to war, and spent their lives like water. Simply because your experience in contemporary Sweden hasn't included that sort of abuse doesn't mean that it's not an inherent potential in the system. Which it is, I'm afraid. Unaccountable, cheap manpower to throw into battle results in adventurism, more often than not. Would Sweden have even had conscription, without the mass conscript armies of Germany and Russia as threats?

I was commissioned a few years after the Army finally got its act cleaned up after the draft.  The stories some of my SNCOs would tell me sounded like fucking science fiction.  The one takeaway I got from that is the all-volunteer military is the only kind of military we should want.

This guy nailed it.  

 

I consider logisticians, mechanics, medics, clerks, and all the people it takes to sustain the direct combatants warriors.  The problem with most of the military is that it doesn't, and most of the soldiers in those positions don't see themselves as very connected to the outcome either.

If you look at the Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh trail complex, for example, that chick pushing a bicycle laden with 82mm mortar rounds, or the dude filling in Arc Light craters with his bulldozer well over a hundred clicks away from South Vietnam saw themselves as integral, important, essential elements to the fight, with fervor in their veins and an end goal in sight.

How do we internalize the National resolve to execute our foreign policy in the military?  We've been using materialistic instruments to achieve that end, namely college money, excellent pay, healthcare benefits, housing, etc.  That isn't substantial enough, nor does it cut to the core of why we fight.  We need a way to put everyone's skin in the game, to engage them on a level that instills a sense of "do or die" for love of Country, Camaraderie, and the mission.

Just the concept is anti American. From the very beggining the United States has maintained a professional army. It would be hard on the economy and it isn't constitutional. Not in my mind. For that matter I think the drafts the U.S. has imposed were also a terrible breach of civil liberty. This country was designed and made to be for the independent man. Best man for the job. If you have someone doing something they dont want to do they will suck at it. Not to mention the standards for entry would have to be horrifically reduced.
Its not freedom, its not effective, its not American.

The generalization that conscripts make poor soldiers is simply incorrect. I suspect you believe that because you never served with a soldier who was drafted.
Some conscripts make poor soldiers, just as some volunteers make poor soldiers.
Some conscripts were very good soldiers and some were among the most courageous men I served with.

Govt forcing you to buy health insurance = horrible

Govt forcing parents to send there kids to public school = horrible

Govt giving out "free" College education at taxpayers' expense = horrible

Govt forcing people to join the military where they can "learn skills" at the taxpayers' expense = Pretty good idea


lol GD

North Vietnamese drafted everyone.

just sayin'

 


I can't quite make out the picture. Do you have a bigger one???


 

Selective Service System is an out-dated system that will not work should the nation ever have to do another Draft.

The problem is that it requires voluntary action on the part of a young man to sign-up when he turns 18 and not everyone does.  The other issue is that young men change addresses A LOT and not every one of them is updating their residence and mailing addresses as required.  Now both things are punishable as felonies, but literally if you punished folks for not updating their addresses you'd have to put over 85% of young men in prison since most folks don't even know about the requirement (GAO did a study and found that to be true).  

So, draft comes up.  Notices go out and a shit load of men don't get them or don't get them in time to meet the military's mobilzation requirements. It's an unworkable system based on ancient laws and ideas of doing things. If it's to be kept they really need to find a way to make it automatic enrollment and tie in address to State DMVs or the Federal Post Office, Student Loans, and so forth.

Haha hahahaha hahaha!
If you think a conscripted military will ever be as effective as a professional one I believe you should put the pipe down, sir.

This is what I meant when I posted the OP.

Also, have my eyes fooled me or did some really lump slavery and conscription into the same category?

Yup, what was the K/D ratio there???lol

Yes.  Can we achieve the same outcome with different methods of recruiting and training?  Piles of arms might work for a while, but won't go over too well in the US.

Draftees when I was in were almost all shit birds.

Also if you were dumping say another 500 billion dollars a year into our current military instead of obummercare then it would be perfect as is.
The U.S. armed forces are literally the most awesome and terrifying forces the world has ever known. By far. Why mess with something so brutally good at destroying and killing?
With a more aggressive approach to recruitment and better bonuses and pay, you'd get the same effect with more efficiency.

T. Mastronunzio

There has got to be a better way to handle excess population. Even a universal basic income would have similar costs, and could probably extract more value out of the tail ends of the distribution - and with less rancor, less destruction of professional status, and less moralizing.

1.What do you think the CDC works on everyday?
Seriously.
2.Why GMOs?
3. Why fluoride?
4. Why no cures for AIDs,Cancer etc...
Can build a warp drive and nano tech but can't fight a virus?

Worked out well the last time.

All for it. Two years of universal service with mil option. Replace every entry level employee and contractor in every fed, state, and local gov job nationwide with kids on a stipend.

This is not a communist country. What you are talking about is civil war level.

but you pay taxes for your dmv master to make 80K a year.

so how you work for your government master matters.

"No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it." Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome."
from Robert Heinlein

"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!"
   from Robert Heinlein
   Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)

It isn't unconstitutional for driving to be a privilege.
The roads are built and maintained by tax dollars, therefore, it makes sense to pay the DMV. Would you rather all infrastructure be privately built? Cities to be corporations? I am all for reducing if not getting rid of social programs all together- food stamps, illbombyacare, welfare and shit. With few exceptions for people that can not provide for them self because of a serious disability. But make it much more difficult and rigorous to make the cut. DEPORTATION OF ILLEGALS BY THE US MILITARY I AM FOR. They committed an act of war by stepping onto my soil and I believe it is the duty of our armed forces to take care if it.
I am for a lot of things. However infrastructure is a must. The DMV is fine.

really?  We have to have driver's licenses?  

That must be done by the  government?  by inference, is national defense somehow less essential?