None whatsoever.
Individual rights has real meaning only when others protect them.
Individual rights are never free.
You can have freedom of speech, movement, assembly and property rights only when the group you live in agrees that you have those things and protects them when you can't. When the existence of that groups existence or freedom to organize is threatened, it's time to pay retroactively for the rights you had and pay so that you can have them in the future.
In practice you can always serve unarmed or be in civil defense organization, but when whole nation prepares for self defense, everyone must make an effort.
I think professional armies are ethically more problematic. You create profession that fights and kills for your nation and government and it can be used to fight wars that are not that important or well thought. If war is not big national emergency, it's probably not a just war.
I think 'War Is a Racket' by Major General Smedley D Butler provides ethical solution. When there is a war, you conscript everything, people and profits. If one is not going to war, one works with the same pay as a conscript until the war is over. Business can't keep the profits until the war is over. This would take the ethical problems out from professional armies.
Wouldn't you have issues with the most capable people just leaving?
Russian and Finnish systems are not the same. Not even close.
You may see yourself as a non-1% with no particular ethnicity or religion, but there are poor Muslims who would rather die than be rich Catholics, and there are poor Finns who would rather die than be rich Russians.
I understand that you don't fit in those categories. But there are actual human beings that do.
1. You are very much in the minority. The vast majority of people have some amount of ethnic, religious, or nationalist pride. They want to be ruled by one of their own. They are not eager to die for this, but are often willing to do so, as long as they're not being made chumps of.
2. They're right, and you're wrong. Or, to put it another way, their way promotes the success of their civilization, and yours does not. This seems fairly intuitive, as what we're discussing here is the willingness to die for one's civilization. Should it surprise anyone that the willingness to die for a civilization helps that civilization?
I really need to make some sort of Selfish Gene type simulator for these conversations.
1. There's a difference between what's popular & what's ethical.
2. Since we're being intuitive here: Throwing a bunch of amateur teenagers at the problem doesn't seem like the best solution. It could be a cheap solution. A type of hidden tax which taxes the lives of people who have no way to vote. Two foxes and a hen voting what's for dinner type of thing.
Edit: 'type of thing' added.
I can certainly agree with that. My citation of popularity was to defend conscription from exactly the kind of reasoning you describe: "No one really cares about national sovereignty and it's just a few suicidal wackjobs whose quixotic desires shouldn't impinge on the lives of us normal people."
>2. Since we're being intuitive here: Throwing a bunch of amateur teenagers at the problem doesn't seem like the best solution. It could be a cheap solution. A type of hidden tax which taxes the lives of people who have no way to vote. Two foxes and a hen voting what's for dinner type of thing.
Surely you're not against universal suffrage!
I'm not the OP. And that 'reasoning' is a gross perversion of what was said.
The OP didn't say no one cares. My reading of his comment was that no one should care. The OP also expresses his lack of care for such a situation.
> it's just a few suicidal wackjobs whose quixotic desires shouldn't impinge on the lives of us normal people
No one has said this, either.
> Surely you're not against universal suffrage!
The people who can't vote on the matter are the teenagers being conscripted. When the law was passed for their conscription, they were too young to vote. I hope that's adequately clear now.
It's more expensive than turning teenagers into combat slaves (The Hunger Games?), but the people in the forces choose to be there.
It seems intuitive to me that highly trained individuals with combat experience and a mind for controlled violence would be better than amateur teenagers at defending a country. The military professionals I've meet are fearless under combat (so I've heard), don't panic when they've been shot, and can endure physical discomfort that would crush the average person.
Not that I'm particularly stuck on the above idea. It's the first off the top of my head.
If you want an army, be worth defending -- both in terms of paying the soldier and being a country that a soldier would want to work for.
Which person owns you in your analysis of that being slavery? Or is being owned by another person not a part of your definition?
In a democracy, you're a slave to your own country, effectively. There are people making decisions on your life, all the people voting in the country including you, no?
It may be wrong, just doesn't look like slavery to me.
What other compulsory actions does the government take that authorize the expenditure of your entire life?
No, it's not automatically better AFAICT, in practice I think it's likely to better on average. It's more that it was claimed to be "slavery" in actuality, not "like slavery" but actual slavery. So it's in some ways semantic but more it's that I think the position is substantially different to slavery - it's not just that it's a group of people, it's that it's a democratic country that you are also part of (as opposed to a corporation owning you, or an individual owning you). They're different conditions. In practice they perhaps share some [a lot of] downsides.
Which is reasonable, given someone disrupts your life and gives you a force hourly pay that borders satire.
I don't think that's the case in modern times. Unless you believe Russia (that's what we are talking about here, right?) would enslave swedes or subject them to genocide this argument doesn't work.
Here's my personal perspective:
I was born in 1991, in South Africa. South Africa was involved in the South Africa Border War[0] from 1966 to 1989. Because of this war, we had conscription up until around 1994.
So I have no obligation to join our military, nor do I want to. (It has become really shitty since after the war). I look at my father and his generation. None of them wanted to go to the army because it seemed like a waste of time, and no one believed in the war. But they went anyway because it's better than going to jail for 2 years.
Reading up on the war, I also don't agree with the justification behind it at all. Nevertheless I would have loved to be conscripted into the army. A 2 year (paid) break from studies and/or work. A time to get super fit, learn new skills, make new friends. And the best part of it, is that no one can give you shit for it because it's expected of everyone.
I really wish I had the time/money to just take 2 years off (where I am provided with food and shelter by someone else) and I can just focus on self improvement.
I mean, I could join the army voluntarily, but it sucks, we are not at war(less to do, less to learn, less exciting etc), and it puts me back 2 years in my career. (But if everyone was forced to do it, I wouldn't really be 2 years behind)
I am a former conscript. We were paid approximately $350 USD a month and rarely had time for personal improvement. The way I see it: many of us lost two years of earning potential, and entered the workforce two years later than our peers.
Why were you conscripted and not your peers?
> rarely had time for personal improvement.
I guess it depends on which army you are in, and at what point in history.
My dad joined the Signal Units (He got a degree in Electrical Engineer before doing service) and he got a ton of practical experience which helped him in his career after the army.
Everyone I talked to that was conscripted into the SADF didn't regret it.
All male citizens here are conscripted. Females and foreigners aren't.
My human guess and desire is that conscription would give the average citizen a better understanding of what their human rights are and why they are worth defending. I think a major issue with the US military is that the average citizen is distant from the decisions and consequences of military actions made on their behalf.
There are necessary wars.
And ultimately, a failure to be able to defend against neighboring beligerants is fatal to a society.
That said, I'd be one of the first to get the hell out if it came to war. I have better things to do with my life.
I always like to point out that the predecessor to the Western civilization, the ancient Mediterranean, including Greek city states and then later on Rome, was famously built upon slave labor. Even the democratic Athens had a large slave population. However, in a Greek city state like Athens (or the earliest form of Roman legions) the free men -- the slaveowners of the society -- were also the hoplites fighting the wars the city would be involved in. Being a citizen of such a city-state is one the origins of the Western concept of citizenship.
The distinction if you are able to view your community as "us", towards whom you have obligations and duties, not as "them" who rule over you.
Being forced to fight in a war is being 'controlled by something'. In this case, a government. They're government slaves.
Here we are discussing slavery as a concept, which is different.
'Slavery is, in the strictest sense of the term, any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will.'
Note:
'In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will.'
The broader description isn't a metaphor.