this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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This question was inspired by a post on lemmy.zip about lowering the minimum age to purchase firearms in the US, and a lot of commeters brought up military service and training as a benchmark to normal civilians, and how if guns would be prevalent, then firearm training should be more common.

For reference, I live in the USA, where the minimum age to join the military is 18, but joining is, for the most part, optional. I also know some friends that have gone through the military, mostly for college benefits, and it has really messed them up. However, I have also met some friends from south korea, where I understand military service is mandatory before starting a more normal career. From what I've heard, military service was treated more as a trade school, because they were never deployed, in comparison to American troops.

I just wanted to know what the broader Lemmy community thought about mandatory military service is, especially from viewpoints outside the US.

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[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 57 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

More hilarious when considering the US Military is an inherently socialist institution.

My sister and brother-in-law will go to the commissary, stay on base housing, get their paycheck from the US Govt., receive public Healthcare, and the GI Bill, then promptly go home and post on Facebook about how socialism bad.

[–] DempstersBox@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Realizing the US Army is the most socialist institution I've ever encountered didn't happen till years after I was out, lol

You want school? Get it! You want food? Get it! You want clothes? You already fucking got em

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm not sure from the context of your comment with that "most socialist" line if you know or not but...

Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. End line.

Everything else is just how the society organizes itself. The US Army seeing to the basic needs of its troops is not socialism, it is the government doing things. Scandinavian countries providing maternity and unemployment benefits is not socialism. It is the government doing things.

The US Army is not socialism. Nor is any other professional military, not even the ones working for socialist states. They are organizations trading capital for labor to empower the state.

If you were a slave soldier, taken in a war raid, working for a monarch like the Janissaries, they would probably still provide you all of the necessities to function, even spending money to entertain yourself and maintain morale, and it wouldn't be socialism either.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Socialism is the workers owning the means of production.

For instance, Trump's plan for the feds to buy TikTok

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hell no.

The premise of M-L types who wanted the state to control production for the workers is that the government was the workers, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat. In doing so excess production would be traded within the system to provide things like healthcare and housing.

In theory.

That obviously didn't work out too hot, but even that is different in theory from a fascist or otherwise oligarchal state controlling production for the benefit of the owner class with absolutely no pretentions of providing social services with the profits. They are proudly ripping up any social safety net they find as a matter of ideology.

Tl;Dr it's quite literally the opposite of socialism when kings or oligarchs control and profit from the state owned enterprise. That is just the eponymous late stage capitalism, or neofeudalism/technocracy depending on the angle you want.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's socialism as described by the GOP though, which is why it's so funny.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah, but at the same time that's how they logic themselves into "the more things the government does the more socialist it is, and when it does a lot of things, that's communism."

All that misinformation has a purpose, and it's not to make the world a better place.