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Let's have mandatory military service in the U.S.
Our educational system is turning out citizens who don't understand the military well enough to make informed voting decisions, who don't have meaningful job skills, who have no sense of duty or service, and who have never been a part of something larger than themselves in a meaningful way. A required stint of military service could provide an immersion experience that would help to overcome all of those.
Topics:
career development education future geopolitics
Closing Statement from Erik Richardson
I think this is an interesting debate, as far as it goes, but I also learned a valuable lesson about whether TED discussions have enough diversity of perspectives—both to figure out what ends are worth accomplishing and to map out a way to better accomplish those ends.
Dustin Rodriguez 30+
The military has a purpose. It does not produce upstanding citizens who will participate honestly in a democracy. It produces killers. That is its primary goal above everything else. Killing causes severe psychological damage to human beings, regardless of their training. This is why the number one killer in the US military is suicide and why the Pentagon has declared it as their 'most important problem'.
We need people who, when told to establish a facility like Guantanamo, tell their commanding officers to pound sand because it is such a profound disputation of everything the United States was founded upon. No fair trial? If that sounds good to you, then face the fact that you hate America and its basis. Patriotism is a matter of ideology, not a matter of being willing to do anything for unelected leaders.
Comment deleted
Erik Richardson 500+
Perhaps I should have used a different term than 'mandatory.' What you are describing is merely a draft (and a rigged one, from the sound of it!). I was suggesting the type of arrangement where everyone is required to serve—children of politicians right alongside everyone else. Otherwise we still end up with the problem of people who have never served and whose children will never have to serve deciding to send other people's children into harm's way.
Timothy Chuang
I think the answer to your discontent lies in reshaping or fine-tuning America's public education system then. Mandatory military service may be one solution, but I hardly think it would be the most optimal. Besides - and you can correct me if I'm wrong - I don't think it would be constitutional let alone affordable.
Tim blackburn 30+
Lee Wilkinson 20+
1. Brian, I believe you opinion of Americans is rather insulting to the many hardworking and patriotic ones I know. I am not American however my wife is and I lived there half my life so I believe I am qualified to comment. All of the Americans I know are hard working, educated and patriotic. They would all serve their country at the drop of a hat. Correct, some of them drive SUVs, but they worked many long hours in order to exchange their creativity and input for the privilege of owning one and a nice house and taking a vacation. To generalize in such a way is not a very intelligent way to conduct one's self in a debate with the gravitas that this one has and you may represent yourself more effectively if you tried a different approach.
2. Erik, I am completely against the idea of Mandatory Service short of a National Emergency and I am sorry but America gas not yet experienced such a situation and I hope it never does. The trade off for service to those who do not want to be there is disproportionate to the benefits one might gain. I can tell you from experience that there are many who have never got over their time in the service. After September 11th there were many saying we should go to war and retaliate and the same people are now wondering what has happened to their children when they return a shell of their former self. They will have seen things which will haunt them for the rest of their lives, shatter their dreams and wreck their bodies and all of this because you my friends have some warped idea that Mandatory Service will 'Make Men' out of them. I do not often say this but you are both wrong. America is a wonderful country with amazing people in it who if given the chance can turn the world on it's end in a positive way. You are the dreamers and torch bearers, not the killers and oppressors.
Erik Richardson 500+
As you yourself have argued that those who serve have better, more informed judgement regarding these issues, what is your alternative? Do you really think a world where the politicians who have never served, and whose children will never have to serve, can continue sending other people's children into combat is working all that well?
Debra Smith 200+
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Debra Smith 200+
Julie Ann 10+
Erik Richardson 500+
Collin Sine
Julie Ann 10+
Debra Smith 200+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Debra Smith 200+
The one thing that would probably happen with manditory military service is that politicians might be more careful if there was even the slightest possibility that their kids could see action.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Sanjay Seth 500+
With all due respect, it seems you treat militarism as something apolitical and something exceptional.
To you, it seems there's a vision of militarism as something apolitical, something everyone should participate in without recourse to preference, cultural norms, and so on.
Further, you understand it as exceptional in that you see the military as a panacea for a many particular modern problems and at the same time divorce it from its own issues of soldiers' trauma, the violence they are trained to participate in, and so on.
You are right to say that immersive experiences are behavior modifying, but to focus on militarism as the ideal immersive experience misses the point, I think.
The reason some people won't develop marketable skills, don't have a sense of duty or service, or who don't have a sense of being part of a whole is because their own lives and identities aren't immersive. Indeed, they are incredibly fragmentary and spliced together - and the only immersive quality is the sense of mixed metaphor present in one's life.
To say that the solution here is to remove this necessary confusion with the sureness of a military experience is to lash out at a symptom rather than a cause.
On a more practical level, though, this idea is bankrupt. Our generation has remarkably little nationalism and exceptional patriotism like yours did. And that kind of cultural change didn't happen in a vacuum. To try to renationalize a youth disaffected with the violent projects of older generations and get the sense of meaning you felt in WWII, when the enemy to you was clear, your cultural place was clear, and so on, is missing the point.
We aren't going to get that back (even if I don't agree 'we' even had it in the first place).
So, I disagree with the idea that militarism is the solution to these problems. Indeed, they come from many places and to attack this problem with militarism just exacerbates the larger disaffection of youth to these large projects.
Erik Richardson 500+
My suggestion that everyone serve is not a stance in favor of militarism. Not everyone who serves comes out the other side favoring military action and intervention as the best or primary solution to problems, nor would I want them to. What I AM arguing, though, is that this is one feasible way (the only one I'm aware of) for them to be able to balance their decision making processes with an ability to understand things from that point of view. I would hardly claim that is the best or most important point of view from which to see major issues.
Erik Lidén Dalarud
Erik Richardson 500+
Collin Sine
Debra Smith 200+
I am a mother. I prayed every time I was pregnant that my child would never experience war and never kill anyone else.
I would rather go than let one of my kids go- and I do not want anyone else's kids to go either. Now if you are proposing a sort of civilian service to country- I might agree- but no one is going to every compel my kids to go if I am still kicking.
Erik Richardson 500+
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Debra Smith 200+
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Erik Richardson 500+
But if they're not willing to risk and sacrifice for it, why should someone else? I agree with Brian, below, that voting is another example of people wanting something for nothing.
I think you do a disservice to military men and women to imply that they would not do their job and keep their fellows safe just because they didn't "want" to be there. I am not at liberty to talk about my own background, but I can tell you that neither my dad nor my grandfather "wanted" to be in the military or at war, but they sure as hell did their jobs while they were.
Collin Sine
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Erik Richardson 500+
I think only giving that insight and benefit to those who either a) favor militaristic solutions (the gung ho) or b) are stupid and easily duped creates a malfunction in the composition of our military decision makers, and it ensures that those who are generally against the militaristic worldview are handicapped in their future decision-making because they lack the ability to integrate that perspective from inside the uniform into their political discourse.
Brian Beauchamp
Collin Sine
Erik Lidén Dalarud
Erik Richardson 500+
lynn eschbach 30+
I do believe that young people need to learn more about being a "part of something larger than themselves in a meaningful way". I've wondered about soldiers, like those that were first on the beach on D Day. Or the front line in the Revolutionary War. I can't imagine what it is like facing that kind of sacrifice and if one lived through it, how it might enlighten the rest of one's life.
In answer to your question . . . maybe. If all young people had to participate.
Collin Sine