Some in the former president’s camp say it’s time more young adults put “some skin in the game.”

JD Vance appears to be in on requiring the kids of non-billionaires to serve in the military too:

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a potential Trump running mate, said in an interview that he sees a clear need for measures to boost participation. “I like the idea of national service. And I’m not talking about in wartime,” he said, calling for more Americans to put “some skin in the game.”

  • geekworking@lemmy.world
    1·
    9 months ago

    Ozzy summed it up well:

    Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor

    • Kairos@lemmy.today
      1·
      9 months ago

      Just in case anyone doesn’t know: the Kain supreme court case about conscription basically had the decision of “But Mom! All the other countries do it!”

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      It would be far from “slavery” in the typical sense.

      If this happened, those people would get food, housing, healthcare and job training while getting paid for it.

      Though I’m definitely not in favor of conscription because how can you call yourself free if you’re required to do involuntary military work for the government.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    Okay, let’s thinks some of this through.

    measures to remedy what they see as a “crisis” facing the all-volunteer military.

    This is accurate. All branches of the military are having problems meeting their recruiting requirements, because kids in general in the US are no longer fit enough to make it into basic training in the first place. So while there are enough raw people that have the mental aptitude that are trying to get in–but just barely–so many of them are unable to meet the physical requirements that the military lacks the personnel that it needs.

    He described the concept as a common “rite of passage,” one that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among America’s youth.

    Okay, yes. This is potentially correct. However, you’re also going to see a lot of resentment. So perhaps you won’t see the esprit de corps that you might want.

    he says leads to “unnecessary delays” and “unwarranted rejections” for some people with disabilities or other conditions who otherwise want to serve.

    I was one of those people that might have been an “unwarranted rejection”; I scored quite high on the ASVAB at the time (I think 96th percentile in the mid 90s), but was disqualified because I was on Prozac. Now I would be disqualified because I’m on the autism spectrum. (I was then too, but hadn’t been diagnosed.) I might have done well in the military. I might have hated it. But I never got the chance to find out.

    Only 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in the armed forces, Army data shows.

    Okay, see, here’s a huge problem. Mandatory military service would mean expanding the military by 100x. Even if you only served 18 months or 2 years as a conscript, that’s an ENORMOUS amount of money that has to be spent by the gov’t feeding, housing, clothing, training, providing healthcare, and paying (since you kinda gotta pay the troops) for so goddamn many people, and that assumes that they entirely cut all post-separation benefits for anyone that is conscripted (e.g., no VA for people that become disabled, no GI Bill, etc.) The infrastructure spending alone for that, and the number of new bases that would need to be built, is staggering. Right now we spend 3.5% of our GDP on the military. Even if we went low-tech for all the soldiers that were conscripted, you could expect to see that number triple, easily. That means that you’re either doing massive deficit spending, cutting everything else that taxes are spent on, or raising taxes by a lot.

    • Tower@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      expanding the military by 100x

      Send massive amounts of money to defense contractors…

      entirely cut all post-separation benefits for anyone that is conscripted

      without any future liability obligations…

      you could expect to see that number triple, easily

      and leaving tons of room to grift…

      cutting everything else that taxes are spent on

      all while also getting to fuck over the poors?

      Somewhere, a senator just spontaneously jizzed his pants.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    9 months ago

    That’s the worst idea I’ve heard on so many levels.

    Drafting people is immoral.

    Also, it’s politically stupid because the draft is just… Extremely unpopular. Universal mandatory service will be radically less popular.

    Then, you’re filling the military with a bunch of people who don’t want to be there. Suddenly a sizable portion of the US military is composed of new recruits who don’t want to be there. If only half the people who come up for mandatory service actually get drafted, that’s still more people than are currently in the US military. This will do wonders for effectiveness and morale.

    Finally, once they get out, you have an insane amount of GI bill benefits to pay out, to say nothing of the long term VA costs that come from more than doubling the size of the military. (Potentially up to a 10x increase, assuming four year term of service and roughly 4M 18 year olds per year).
    Or you can change the law to deny GI bill benefits to draftees, which is definitely going to be popular with the people whose life you’re stealing.

    I suppose “draft everyone” is technically a way to give everyone subsidized college education and universal healthcare, but I think there’s better ways.

    Just the dumbest possible people.