Not a big surprise, given that mandatory military service was just reinstated
Currently, the service is not mandatory (yet). The Bundeswehr is trying to fill their annual quota with volunteers. Only filling out a questionnaire has recently been made mandatory for legal aged men while remaining optional for women.
Aside from the obvious reason that no one wants to be shot and maimed or killed in an emergency, and that no one feels like wasting part of the best years of their life rotting away in a barracks:
Why the fuck would anyone want to fight for a system that—especially under this government and probably even more so under the next fascist oligarchy—doesn’t give a damn about young people and, on the contrary, is cutting back more and more on education and social services just to line the pockets of the already rich? “Solidarity isn’t a one-way street!” Oh, come on… just fight your own fucking wars if you think that’s what has to be done.
Because we don’t fucking fight for ‘the system’ but for our families, our way of life, our freedom to say what we think and love who we want, and all those other soppy reasons. If anyone ever attacks Germany, you bet their ‘system’ is infinitely worse than any gripes we have with the current state of affairs.
That’s not to invalidate your good points of criticism, but those are peace-time policy points. If we cannot ensure our own survival in a world where increasingly the weak are preyed on by the strong, a comment like yours might land you in jail or face down in a ditch. Seems worthwhile to me to defend a political system that mostly prevents that.
Okay, before we end up talking past each other, I’ll try to rephrase my comment more clearly:
Article: More Conscientious Objection
My comment: The current system/government is becoming less and less supportive of young people, yet expects them to be willing to defend it voluntarily.
So this is about the philosophical, macro-level question of why it’s “worth it” to die for a society.
In my view, the subjective arguments “for friends, family, and village” and “the enemy is evil” are secondary in this discussion because they have been and continue to be put forward by every side in every war. Even the young soldiers of the Revolutionary Guards believe they are defending their social environment against the “evil West,” and I’m sure this sentiment was also present among the fanatical young Russians who fell in Ukraine during the first years of the war.
Specific examples where I currently observe a “lack of solidarity with young people”:
1. Lack of climate action—The current government is actively sabotaging the energy transition in favor of special interests.
2. Dismantling the welfare state—Germany is ramping up military spending, while cutting back on higher education, parental allowance, and advance child support payments, among other things—all areas that disproportionately affect young adults.
3. Growing inequality and dwindling opportunities for upward mobility—by European standards, social mobility through one’s own efforts has never been easy in Germany, and the situation is currently getting even worse.
Because the one that is trying to conquer us is infinitely worse.
Did Iran try to conquer the US?
According to the Russians they also ‘defend’ themselves in Ukraine. And the enemy has always been the face of the devil no matter which side you ask in any war in history.
/edit:
Also: Are they? Our Western socies are, by the will and power of people like Merz and his pupper masters, transformed into cleptocratic oligarchies where the neofeudal ultrarich reign over their wage slaves. This outlook doesn’t differ much from modern Russia. Which is exactly my point: If the system that expects me to fight for it doesn’t differ from ‘the ifinetly worse’ enemy any more (due to the greed of the people that would los the most assets after a defeat)… why should I be motivated to die defending it?
You’re confused, we’re talking about Germany here.
Are you seriously trying to hypernormalize the likes of Russia?
Germany is a democracy with widening economic inequality. Russia is a brutal, expansionist dictatorship run by a Mafia boss. They are nothing alike and you know that.
They are CURRENTLY nothing alike. But if you’re not seeing the possible trajectory of the current development of the German society you’re either ignorant or surprisingly naive.
Looking at current polls: Are you absolutely certain that Germany will remain a liberal democracy if the AfD—those Russian puppets—are in power? Right now, it seems as though that is the will of a significant number of voters.
The U.S. is also formally a liberal democracy, but you can read in the news every day just how much of that exists only on paper and how little the separation of powers actually functions there anymore. Personally, I wouldn’t want to defend such a system—which, at least as things stand now, seems to be on the horizon here as well—with my life.
When AfD advisors are even publicly speculating about a “clarification of hegemony between France and Germany,” alarm bells start ringing—at least for me. (Source: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/usa-venezuela-afd-100.html)
Are you seriously trying to hypernormalize the likes of Russia?
Also this wasn’t about the normalization of Russia but about showing how ,We’re just defending ourselves against the evil enemy" can end you up on the front of a war of aggression pretty quickly. The US for itself has waged several wars of aggression in the last decades, all internally excused with ‘reasons of national security’.
Removed by mod
Are the mods trying to compete with .ml standards?
Was propably ok to remove it if there is a desite to keep the discussion civil. The depth of my feelings about the subject are difficult to express while being civil so it is what it is
Yet, the reason mentioned by the mods wasn’t at all about the tone of your comment.
Did’t look at first why it was removed. Yeah, advocating first thing certainly not true. For the second part maybe. Incidentally, if you look at the European convention on human rights (?) conscription matches forced labour, which, I think, is a different thing. Or would match if it was not explicitly excluded. So it is not without its problems, though widely accepted.
