Published on 12, July, 2020
I see this old chestnut has come to the fore again. I can see problems with it.
Does the military want all these people for a year or so and what will they do with them?
If people are made to volunteer for things like life boats, special constables and library assistants, will it mean that the training for such things will outlast the service time?
Will real jobs be at risk because people are volunteering?
If theres no sanctions how will they make people do it?
Will it mean that those currently on benefits will be sanctioned for not "doing their bit"?
Will this idea have mission creep? If not enough people volunteer, will some kind of sanction be imposed?
It all sounds desperate to me, like a political party flailing about to find vote winning policies that are ill thought out.
It won't come in until 2029 anyway, just in time for another election, hmmm?
The kind of regressive thinking that seems to define conservative thinkers. I've never understood this notion that putting teenagers into the military builds character, or gives you 'real world skills'. Even worse, the idea of sending troubled or anti-social teenagers into the military. Sure, let's teach them how to kill people.
It's just another attempt to use vacuous nostalgia for 'our lost Britain' as a vote-harvester.
Captain Grover said:I've never understood this notion that putting teenagers into the military builds character, or gives you 'real world skills'.
I have family who are career military and they found it was a great way to learn a lot of skills that would be difficult to get in civilian life without money or access.
There were things like getting a driving license (my nephew gained up to the HGV license which has obvious use outside the military), training on vehicle maintenance, sapper skills (civil engineering in a very hands on way), electronics (admittedly a bit niche now) and IT skills.
There are typically lots of other avenues this opens up if you want to develop skills while being paid although this needs more than the part time conscription model to access, but it is now open to you.
Captain Grover said:Even worse, the idea of sending troubled or anti-social teenagers into the military.
I often wonder if this would be a good way for so many of our snowflake generation to learn the importance of discipline, whether self or imposed and that there are a lot of positives in spite of the negatives.
Captain Grover said:Sure, let's teach them how to kill people.
There is almost an unheard of thing in the military these days, certainly for any European army.
If push comes to shove and we get into a conventional war then we need to send someone off to do this horrible job and who better than those who society has invested least in so far. This is how politicians will view it.
Who should we send? They need to be fit, maleable and dispensible. Can you think of any other group who would be fit for purpose here?
Iain said:I often wonder if this would be a good way for so many of our snowflake generation to learn the importance of discipline, whether self or imposed and that there are a lot of positives in spite of the negatives.
Snowflake generation? That dismissive term is exactly the type of nostalgia-for-something-that-never-was which helps no-one. You want to harken back to a time when there were no 'snowflakes'? Please tell me when that was. I was born in the 70s. I remember the outcry if someone said a swear word on TV or a naked breast was visible. How's that for a snowflake generation? Or let's go back further, when people had an attack of the vapors every time a woman achieved a position of power. Snowflakes everywhere!
Millennials and Gen Z are having to live with the economic wasteland that decades of rampant consumerism has left behind. They are shackled with massive student debts, find it almost impossible to buy property, and live paycheck to paycheck. They're disciplined enough. More so than I ever was at that age.
We see how young people seeking adventure from troubled backgrounds in the Edwardian age lied about thier age to enlist in the Great War (WW1) and it was similar in WW2 - what we now see was common to both world wars was that they were lied to and betrayed, even if they made it back safely and not injured from both world wars where their comrades were not so lucky and it turned out they fought on the wrong side - some wars are more controversial than others, such as the Vietnam war or the Iraq war or in Afghanistan - they are using people, especially young people as cannon fodder, and this is morally repugnant