Conscription: State sponsored slavery?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Reparations were a part of the issue, but get overplayed, IHMO, because they're such an easy target. Hitler's racism wasn't due to reparations.

[Coito ergo sum]

Hitler's racism was not due to reparations, and his racism was not unique. Anti-Jewish hatred in Europe is as hold as Europe. Pogroms were not new to Europe in the age of Hitler.

Without the overall blame for the war being leveled on Germany, the confiscatory reparations, and elimination of any real Germany military, and the thrusting of Germany into an economic malaise that the German people blamed on outsiders, and also the "Jews who controlled world banking" and such nonsense, Hitler would never have had much play or persuasive power. He was attractive because desperate times breeds an attraction to leaders like Hitler, and he gained popularity because with his rise, Germany's fortunes seemed to rise, and the fate of the nation turned around, and they stopped taking it in the ass from France and Germany, and they rebuilt an army and nobody could do anything about it....Hitler brought them respect again.

But, anyway - to the point of World War 1, that war started for very different reasons than WW2, as you are no doubt more aware than I am, and it was, plainly, a war between old world colonial powers, fighting an old colonial war with new and nasty weapons. It started because of alliances, and when the Austrian Empire invaded Serbia, the Russians were committed to attacking Austria...and the Germans were committed to siding with Austria against Russia, and then the French were committed to side with Russia against their enemies the Germans, and the Brits came in on the side of Russia, and then the Turks and the Italians sided with the German powers -- all due to treaty commitments.

Nobody was the bad guy. They were all bad guys.

[Tyrannical]

Historically, the Jews have been kicked out of every country in Europe over the last thousand years for reasons I don't pretend to fully understand. But they were an alien culture living in a host country primarily loyal to themselves and not their country of residence.

[Hermit]

The NSDAP never got more than 33% of the popular vote until after Hitler leveraged himself into the chancellorship, the enactment of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung, the Ermächtigungsgesetz and Gleichschaltung. Had the defeat of Germany been followed by a Marshall Plan instead of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler would have been little more than a footnote in the history of early 20th century Germany. The Weimar Republic would have prevailed after the communists and socialists had gradually metamorphosed into a party with policies much akin to today's SDP, the UK's Labour Party or Australia's Labor Party.

Unfortunately Clemenceau prevailed over Wilson. To this day I cannot understand how the French Prime Minister missed out on the vilification he so richly deserved, except for the fact that now almost everybody would go "Huh? Clemenwho?" and concentrate their bile on Paris Hilton or whoever the current Prügeljunge is.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's highly speculative to say that Hitler would not have appeared, in some form, after WWI. The issue of the stab in the back still remained.

[Coito ergo sum]

Historically, the Jews have been kicked out of every country in Europe over the last thousand years for reasons I don't pretend to fully understand. But they were an alien culture living in a host country primarily loyal to themselves and not their country of residence.

Well, yes, they were an isolated culture behaving in a way easily identifiable, and alien, to the larger culture. But, this does not explain it all. They've never faced that level of persecution in the US or Canada, and other isolated, peculiar groups have also lived without much persecution in North America. Look at the Amish. Those folks are seriously weird, and they have lived in North America for nearly 300 years without any major problems.

I've never understood the hatred of Jews. I was raised Lutheran, which was historical anti-semitic back in the day - Luther was a rabid antisemite. But, my church was milquetoast about it, and was the love everybody type church. I couldn't even recognize a difference between Jews and Christians, and I didn't even know the kid down the street named "Schwartz" was Jewish. I didn't care. My biggest exposure to Judaism was that some kids didn't have Christmas, but they had Hannukah and got eight days of presents. I thought that was amazing, imagining 8 straight days of presents like our Christmas was, with multiple presents each day.

I encountered antisemitism in my professional life early on, where some folks began acknowledging that there was a difference between the "Jewish outfits" and the "Christian outfits." Working for a Jew, I was told, was thought to be rather more difficult than working for WASPs. I worked for Jews here and there, and didn't have a problem, generally. One guy I worked for looked like one of those caricature posters from the 1930s Germany, and he was a tight-fisted monster of a person. I chalked that up to him being a greedy, evil bastard, and not his Judaism, which he more or less honored in the breach.

I think the traditional Jew hatred in Europe had a lot to do with Catholic upbringing, and later Protestant upbringing, blaming the Jews for murdering Christ, and the Church pushing rumors about Jews with horns on their heads, eating Christian babies, stealing Christian babies, poisoning wells, and all that. And, any group that is perceived as successful, while being "close knit" and "taking care of their own" is going to raise the ire of the masses, from time to time.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's highly speculative to say that Hitler would not have appeared, in some form, after WWI. The issue of the stab in the back still remained.

I acknowledge the speculative nature of any such what if discussion.

However, Hitler was not wildly popular, except with a relatively small minority of Germans, early on. His Beer Hall Putsch failed, he lost his first attempts at election, and was never elected to any position by a majority vote of the German people. He got in as the leader of a minority party in the Reichstag, and then he maneuvered politically to make Hindenberg appoint him Chancellor. Had he not had the backing of as many rabid fans, who were largely responding to the humiliation after WW1, he likely would not have had the political clout to muscle Hindenberg, murder opponents, and orchestrate the burning of the Reichstag, thereby getting himself appointed dictator. Without the humiliation of Germany after WW1, I think he doesn't get the same support he got because the people who supported him would not have had the same level of anger, angst, and incentive to go Nazi. It was a dissaffected, pissed of and humiliated group that formed the Nazis. Had they been living decent lives, feeling some pride, I believe many would not have gone radical fascist...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

His party got the most votes in that election.

[Hermit]

It's highly speculative to say that Hitler would not have appeared, in some form, after WWI. The issue of the stab in the back still remained.

Yes and yes, but it is no more speculative than to say that Hitler would have risen to power even if there had been a Marshall Plan rather than the Verailles Treaty. At any rate, I do not claim that Hitler would not have appeared, in some form, after WWI. I opine that he would have been little more than a footnote in the history of early 20th century Germany. History is awash with movements and their leaders that caused quite a stir in their time, but turned out to be a bit of a blip in the long run. They are out of the public eye for that very reason. In many cases you'd have to read more or less obscure monographs by historians to find them. For instance, I don't think many people have ever heard about "The Levellers". They were a noted and significant movement for a short time in 17th century England, but ultimately a fizzer. Or, many people have at least heard about Bolsheviks. What about Mensheviks? Nada. Even though they were more powerful than the bolshies for a while on the runup to, and at the beginning of, the October revolution, they are practically unheard of now.

[Coito ergo sum]

His party got the most votes in that election.

In 1932 Hindenberg got 53% of the vote. Hitler 36% and the Communist Party guy got like 11%.

[Hermit]

His party got the most votes in that election.

...which was 33.09% of the vote.

I need to correct myself at this point. The NSDAP got more than 33% in the previous election four months earlier, in July 1932. It amounted to 37.3% of the total.

The point remains: a large majority of Germans never voted for the NSDAP or Hitler until well after he leveraged his way into the Chancellorship.

And I still claim that if there had been a Marshall Plan rather than the Versailles Treaty, the Nazis would have had a snowflake's chance in hell of attaining power.

What any of this has to do with the initial question: "Conscription: State sponsored slavery?", I don't know.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Illegal orders fair enough. What about fucking stupid ones that will get you dead?

Those can be overridden as well.

I was a firefighter in the Air Force, and in 1992 was deployed to Riyadh AB as part of Operation Desert Calm. As a Senior Airman (E-4), I was the Station Captain for "Station 2" at the north end of the airport (really just a glorified hooch for one crew, mine), in command of one fire truck and my two crewmen.

Part of my area of responsibility was the data processing room for the base ... a building with a couple of hundred computers, with all the transformers, batteries, and other electrical accoutrements. As you can imagine, such implements all in one building creates quite the fire hazard (due to the increased likelihood of faulty wiring, and increased heat generation), and so AF Reg 92-1, which deals with fire safety, specifically addresses electronics matters, and requires that buildings with heavy electronics loading be equipped with halon 1301.

Major Bagadonuts running the DP room had his command covered by water extinguishers, not the smartest thing I've seen an officer do, but not the dumbest either. I'm doing the quarterly nispection, and notice that out of 12 extinguishers, only one (a five-pounder) is halon; the others are water. I gig him on it. I'm going over the inspection results with him, and we get to that, which is a "fix-or-fail" gig. He tells me to change it. I tell him no, "as per reg blahblahblah". He asks me what a Senior Airman knows about the regs. I get on the radio, tell my Asst Chief of Ops what's going on, he brings the reg down from the station library, I get my change order in writing, and Major Bagadonuts learns that gold leaf on his shoulder doesn't mean as much as he thought it did.

The question is, at what point does "obligation" become "slavery"?

Actually, not quite. The question, per opening post, is a bit more specific: Is conscription state sponsored slavery? Of course we'll want to range more widely in this discussion, but don't you think the opening post is a good place to start the discussion from?

I think the matter calls for a little more nuance.

Of course, we could just all type "yes" or "no" and be done with it, but that would hardly be an interesting discussion ... more like an opinion poll.

It's highly speculative to say that Hitler would not have appeared, in some form, after WWI. The issue of the stab in the back still remained.

I think the betrayal of the 14 Points at Versailles stung much more. It's true that Hitler was able to use that apparent shell-game to prop up his narrative of "stab-in-the-back", but had Wilson's ideals been observed, Hitler's blatherings about SiB would've fallen on uninterested ears, imo.

[MrJonno]

The state making you do something you don't want to do is not normally slavery in a democracy, the rule of law is you obey laws even if you don't agree with and is the only way any society can function.

Through interesting the European Convention of Human Rights/ Council of Europe have ruled conscription illegal without a non-military alternative which I think just about every obeys these days with the possible exception of Greece

There is certainly no duty to defend your country but they may be a legal requirement to do so

[Coito ergo sum]

The state making you do something you don't want to do is not normally slavery in a democracy, the rule of law is you obey laws even if you don't agree with and is the only way any society can function.

Do you oppose civil disobedience, a la hippies and Occupy Wall Street?

Through interesting the European Convention of Human Rights/ Council of Europe have ruled conscription illegal without a non-military alternative which I think just about every obeys these days with the possible exception of Greece

There is certainly no duty to defend your country but they may be a legal requirement to do so

In the US, the Amish are exempted from the draft. Amish!!!

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

They only invaded Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Norway, the balkans, North Africa, and started bombing the UK after war was declared....by us.

Ah, you're an appeaser. Should have known.

An Appeaser feeds an agressor with own stuff - a pragmatist feeds them with other people's stuff. In this case Eastern Europe and Russia. and maybe even give 'em a hand extending the 3rd Reich all the way to.........China Worked with the Commies.