Comment on [REPOST] Military Wife Demands Salute? Never!
TheHalc@sopuli.xyz 11 months agoYou live in Finland.
We have military service here because we’re a small country with a large and aggressive neighbour that not only has attacked us within living memory, but is currently demonstrating what it does to neighbouring countries that it thinks it can get away with attacking.
If military service makes sense anywhere…
EarWorm@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I am not against military service. I am against MANDATORY military service. Do you honestly think that giving people a choice is a bad thing? That making people choose between learning to kill and obey or going to jail is justified? Or do you think that the majority of young people wouldn’t serve if it wasn’t mandatory? Please.
TheHalc@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
This is like saying:
No-one wants mandatory military service, but it’s necessary for the sake of society as a whole. Maybe one day it won’t be, but clearly that’s not the case now.
As for choice, you do have a choice and you know it. Civilian service is a thing here.
EarWorm@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Are you actually comparing paying for healthcare, infrastructure and social security to military service? That’s pretty ridiculous and I think you know it.
Mandatory military service is absolutely not necessary for the sake of society. In Norway, for example, around 80% are released from service and it’s doing quite alright. Sweden is doing fine, too and only a portion of eligible people are actually called in.
And you’re just glossing over the fact that the overwhelming majority in Finland would still serve if it wasn’t mandatory, according to polls the willingness to serve has never really dropped.
And regarding the civilian service, I went there. It’s a year for everyone, instead of 6 months minimum for the military. You also get paid the same as the fresh recruits in the military, which is simply not enough for a civilian. You try living with the day wage if you don’t believe me. And that pay is for a 40h work week. Those conditions are in places worse than the conditions in open prisons, like in Suomenlinna for example. So civilian service is in essence a prison sentence.