Conscription: State sponsored slavery?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Encourage volunteers all you like, but if you can only defend your country with conscripts there is not much to fight for.

Or, put another way, if your country is filled with people who wish to enjoy its blessings, and not return any sort of favors, then what is it worth?

I'm pretty glad that the military we have today, all-volunteer, is as highly talented and motivated as they are. I do wish our government would quit wasting their blood and toil in idiotic foreign-policy decisions, though.

[Warren Dew]

Allow me to go over them, one-by-one:

1. a. A state of subjection to an owner or master.

This certainly applies to a slave, and not to a conscript.

To the contrary, this applies to anyone who has a boss who can tell them what to do, during working hours. And in the military, you can be told what to do at any time.

"Servitude" is a much broader term than "slavery". The term "involuntary" in the 13th amendment is not redundant.

[Svartalf]

The justification for conscription comes down to the justification of the war you are fighting and it should not be needed in peacetime.

Actually, it is, because the last thing you want when fighting a war is to have to give basic training to green soldiers while using them as if they were fully trained.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The justification for conscription comes down to the justification of the war you are fighting and it should not be needed in peacetime.

Actually, it is, because the last thing you want when fighting a war is to have to give basic training to green soldiers while using them as if they were fully trained.

You can always use them for minesweeping.

[Svartalf]

You're worse than bazaine and nivelle

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You're worse than bazaine and nivelle

Svarty, you have no idea.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Allow me to go over them, one-by-one:

1. a. A state of subjection to an owner or master.

This certainly applies to a slave, and not to a conscript.

To the contrary, this applies to anyone who has a boss who can tell them what to do, during working hours. And in the military, you can be told what to do at any time.

Not at all. My supervisor at work is not my master. If I have a problem with him, I can take it up with his supervisor, and carry my case. Neither slavery nor servitude offer this possibility of appeal.

This same concept is in play in the military -- the chain of command. Anyone in the American military who had a problem with an appointed superior could avail himself of this system, or of the unit's Inspector General as well, in order to have his case heard. The IG/CoC system wasn't limited to only volunteers. Your supervisor in the service is not your "master", and certainly not your owner. Your supervisor must answer for his actions to an objective code of conduct regulating his treatment of you, something no slave-owner in America ever had to do.

Would you like some examples of conscripts who filed formal complaints against superiors which resulted in the punishment of that superior?

Can you provide the same for a slave who complained of treatment by his owner?

This is yet another difference between a conscript and a slave: the right of appeal.

"Servitude" is a much broader term than "slavery". The term "involuntary" in the 13th amendment is not redundant.

That has already been addressed. Conscription is not servitude, as has been shown. Slavery is one form of it.

[Hermit]

I don't know if this will resonate with anyone, or clear anything up, but this is how I'm feeling about it...

If I were drafted into the army, against my will, I would FEEL like a slave. Would I literally, by the dictionary, BE a slave? Dunno. Don't really care. Probably depends on what dictionary you use. But I would FEEL like a slave. The loss of freedom would FEEL like slavery. And I think perhaps that's where some of us are talking past each other.

Certainly resonates with me, but then the use of the word is being stretched beyond its meaning as it is traditionally understood. When I think of a slave I think of someone who is owned, someone who can be bought and sold on the market like a cow. If you want to ignore the part of the definition where a slave is someone's property like that, you may as well also speak of wage slavery. Well, many employees feel like wage slaves, but if they can be slaves, the meaning of the word becomes diluted to the point of meaninglessness.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In twenty years in the Navy I was in a total of seventy-two countries at least overnight. "Just passin' through" a few more. I got every duty station I asked for, and had a great deal of fun. There was no draftee that didn't have the same chances I did. (If they were stupid enough to volunteer for the things I did, more better, but not required.) I doubt most people even knew who the draftees were unless they made it known.

[Warren Dew]

Can you provide the same for a slave who complained of treatment by his owner?

I can do better than that: I can cite laws which govern treatment of slaves and prevent undue abuse. For example:

An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye.
And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.

Exodus 21:26-27, New International translation.

When slavery is legal, there are usually laws regulating it, just as for conscription.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can you provide the same for a slave who complained of treatment by his owner?

I can do better than that: I can cite laws which govern treatment of slaves and prevent undue abuse. For example:

An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye.
And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.

Exodus 21:26-27, New International translation.

And can you name even one case in our history in which that "law" was cited? A docket-number? We are, after all, not discussing ancient history.

No?

When slavery is legal, there are usually laws regulating it, just as for conscription.

Feel free to enumerate cases where a slave-owner was prosecuted for abusing his property. The laws in the slave states are generally regarded not as protecting the slaves, but rather protecting the rights of owners to abuse their property.

[Warren Dew]

And can you name even one case in our history in which that "law" was cited? A docket-number? We are, after all, not discussing ancient history.

Actually for legal slavery other than conscription, we are discussing ancient history.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And can you name even one case in our history in which that "law" was cited? A docket-number? We are, after all, not discussing ancient history.

Actually for legal slavery other than conscription, we are discussing ancient history.

1860s US?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually for legal slavery other than conscription, we are discussing ancient history.

Well, you're making your task even harder. Now you must convince the readership that apples are rocks and not oranges.

Get back to me when you get those docket numbers, eh? Remember: we want cases where slave-owners were prosecuted for abusing their slaves. Documentation.

eta: Biblical citations of prosecutions will need secular support, because just as the Bible is not the law in any nation on Earth, is it not reliable history.

[Cunt]

I am quite convinced that conscripting men to kill against their will is a form of slavery, Thumpalumpacus. You are going to have to go further to convince me otherwise.

Just because you were in the service doesn't mean you have special knowledge. Any are able to understand that a government which needs conscripts is ordering a slave army.

I also understand that being a slave was a bit bleaker than being a conscript for a few years. I don't want to diminish that, but as there are degrees of rape, there are degrees of slavery.

Heck, it even sounds like those who served in the military, and were 'conditioned' early enough, are still largely slaves to the idea that conscripts are not slaves.