How could Canada deter an invasion? Nukes and mandatory military service
How could Canada deter an invasion? Nukes and mandatory military service
Mandatory military service and nuclear weapons may be new ideas for Canadians, but other friendly democracies have been using these strategies for decades.
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What a weird response. Primary and secondary education are mandatory for everyone in Canada. This is mandatory CIVIC service. High School in many provinces have mandatory volunteerism in your community. E.g. Ontario requires 40 hours of volunteering.
We're proposing 2 years additional paid service. Think of it like adding 2 years coop program. Not entirely unlike Cégep in QC, but not in the classroom, but in the workplace. Each individual could pick their program. Military service would be one possibility where THOSE WHO WILLINGLY CHOOSE IT are basically a fulltime Canadian Forces Reservist, or a newly formed Civil Defense unit for their coop term.
For conscientious objectors like you, you can select CIVIL service. Could be in daycares, nursing homes, hospitals, agriculture, homebuilding, care for the homeless, addiction treatment, filling potholes, disaster relief, tree planting, maintaining national or provincial parks, forest firefighting, disaster relief, any number of government projects etc...
No one is asking you to pick up a gun. No one is asking you to fight. No one is asking you to wear a uniform or get a haircut. Your assignment is chosen by you subject to qualifications and availability/demmand of the role. Like Katimavik, it could also be an opportunity to travel to another province and learn more and experience all that Canada is. Your time is paid so you are not a slave.
This is a win/win proposition.
Hiding behind calling yourself an anarchist, while enjoying the rights and freedoms of Canadian democracy is hypocritical. If you want to live your values you could try moving to any number of failed states and lawless lands. I hear Mogadishu is lovely in the spring.
Education has direct benefits for literally every single aspect of society. It also is flawed in Canada and serves a large part in the means by which working class people are indoctrinated into nationalism and anti-socialist and anti-revolutionary politics.
Civil service is only a thing in select countries. The majority of countries that have mandatory enlistment do NOT ALLOW you to participate in any kind of service that isn't directly associated with the military. I am not a conscientious objecter, I am an anti-statist anarchist, and I am against involuntary servitude in every single way that it exists. I have no moral qualms about violence being used to further the well-being of the working class. I am anti nationalist in every single possible way and absolutely resolutely opposed to the draft. You're never going to get me to believe that compelling anyone UNDER THREAT OF STATE VIOLENCE to PERFORM LABOR is morally justifiable or beneficial. The draft was the beginning point of many aspects of the modern workers' rights movement. It is wrong no matter where it shows up. One of the most abhorrent aspects of society is the military. I'm a woman, have a look sometime at how often women get r*ed while in the military.
I'd happily pick up a gun. I am pro-gun ownership. I am anti military in every single conceivable way. Absolutely I would shoot nazis if they came here and I had weapons with which to shoot them. But no, a thousand times I will never join a military. It is indefensible to force civilians under threat of state violence into involuntary servitude. It definitionally isn't voluntary. It's wrong, wrong in every single way.
To your last bit, typical of anti working class conservatives like yourself. What's your response to native communities? Do you think that native Canadians should be forced under threat of state violence to join the Canadian military or otherwise be forced to do involuntary labor for the Canadian state?
I am living my values. My values are anti authoritarianism and pro workers rights. You clearly don't even know what anarchists are. Every major workers' rights movement in history has had large participation by anarchists. Anarchists are the ones who fought back against Stalinists in Spain and Ukraine. Anarchists were the primary force behind the workers' rights revolutions at the end of the 19th century. My anarchist beliefs are foundationally a part of my beliefs in the safety and well-being of working class people. I am not an egotistic isolationist. I am saying that categorically pointing a gun at someone and forcing them to do something is wrong. It's always wrong. Threatening violators with prison time is wrong. The draft is wrong, and it is one of the best parts about this country that we do not have one.
Ok. I get it. You are irrational. You keep bringing up militarism while I have refuted it over and over again. That is not what anyone but you is talking about. Public education is mandatory and you are ok with that because it benefits the individual and society, but adding a 2 year PAID COOP in any number of civil projects of your choosing is now military conscription under threat of state violence? This is irrational.
Show me the lists of state violence for kids who play hookie? Where are the prison camps or mass graves or any other evidence of state violence against students? Is tree planting or community building nationalism? Is a paid coop in a field of your choosing slavery? Are you for real?
I don't know who hurt you, but I'm sorry it happened to you. You have some PTSD sounding ramblings invoking ghosts of something or somewhere or someone that has NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED HERE. You keep pulling these ghosts back into the conversation like a trauma response. It is preventing you from objectively seeing what is being discussed and participating rationally. You talk about the worst examples of what other countries have done like that's the only option, rather than imagine what is possible and desirable for us all in a time of crisis. Canada is in a crisis. You also appear to be in one of your own.
For the record, I am not conservative. I'm progressive, pro-labour, class conscious NDP voter capable of complex thought, subtlety and nuance. No bigotry here. I'm fighting for a Canada that rejects American privatization for a return to Canadian standards of a mixed market economy where well regulated private enterprise thrives where it can and social enterprise thrives where it must.
I love Canada. I love even more the vision of what Canada can be when community works together.
Putting someone in prison for refusing to do labor for the state is violence, yes. Definitionally. I don't even know where to go with this conversation if you don't understand that incarceration is violence.
Do you think the draft is a suggestion? Do you think that in countries with the draft that refusing involuntary servitude is like... optional? Just a pat on the wrist and off you go? They incarcerate you at best, and in its most vile instances they literally shoot you.
Involuntary servitude is involuntary servitude no matter whether it's being forced to work under inhumane conditions in a factory or being forced to do community labor. It's wrong. I'll happily plant trees given the choice to do so, but no, the state does not just get to force me to do labor for it.
Nationalism is the basis for a lot of what you've said about Canada yes. Even going so far as to say I don't deserve to have rights because of my strong objection of the draft. No community labor isn't itself nationalism, but Canada isn't my community. My community is the people around me, Canada is the state whose borders I was born within.
Don't even know what you're on about with ghosts or ptsd. My opposition to mandatory enlistment and involuntary servitude is not a mental illness? Unless you want to point out what exactly it is that I'm invoking, it's probably a good idea not to accuse someone of being mentally ill who you know nothing about.
I'm not in crisis. Canada is also a state, not a person. There is an international crisis in the form of the rise of american fascism both in the US and here. The response to this is not authoritarianism. Not having a draft is one of the best things about this country.
Bigotry is not the only thing that makes a conservative. But fair enough, you're an authoritarian. Or at least are fine with some aspects of authoritarianism? The draft is a necessary aspect of authoritarian states. It is an authoritarian policy in that it literally places the rights of citizens beneath the desires of the state. It puts individual bodies at the whim of the state. Directly.
You are certifiable. No one but you is talking about the draft. No one is incarcerated for skipping school, but it is mandatory. You keep bringing up nonsense that does not need to exist.
I think we're done here.
I never said anything about incarceration for skipping school. Skipping school and refusing the draft are 2 entirely different things.
If you can't or don't want to defend your position, you're not obligated to do so.
I've already refuted your nonsense. You keep invoking the ghosts of authoritarian conscription and refuse to accept the parallels between an enhanced fundamental education with a coop portion and invoke your own irrational fears.
Disingenuous argumentative trolling. Welcome to my ban list.
Conscription is authoritarian, definitionally. Education and conscription are two entirely different things and it is wildly disingenuous to try and equate them.
Cute line, I'm not trolling though. If you're unwilling to defend your position then just stop responding, stop making a spectacle of yourself.
Just FYI, you're the only one making a spectacle of themselves in this thread.
I was heated, sure. I responded to the notion that conscription can or should be brought here the same way I would if someone said "times are tough were going to have to start using slave labor to save the economy." Mandatory enlistment, forcing everyone in society to join the military, is equivalent to that, in my opinion. It is one of the most objectionable things any society has ever done, in my opinion.
I completely agree with you that mandatory enlistment is essentially never acceptable as if a conflict is so dire, you'd expect citizens to feel empowered to join the fight without fear of penalty or retribution if they didn't.
That being said, I think most of what you were replying to was not an argument for mandatory enlistment, they were suggesting that we might want to include a couple years of work placements following high school, with one option being military service but other choices being available and none decided by the government. I also believe they were suggesting that the penalty for not doing so would be similar to penalties for not attending high school and not what we've seen countries implement as penalties for conscription. I'm not saying that plan is perfect but I can at least see a significant nuance between their suggestion and military conscription.