By going to jail you potentially loose all of your future. If you are single you los the chance at marriage, children, etc. If you are married with children, you cant provide, raise your children, etc.
Or you allow yourself to get drafted do some bad stuff for a year or two, put it behind you and get on with your life. Historically most choose to give a up year or two of thier lives.
Thats your value scale. And its very easy to say when its not your reality.
I don’t see how going to jail for a few years could be more devastating to your future then going to war. If one chooses to go to war there is the possibility that they will not come home, they will be seriously injured or emotionally damaged. I think it is more correct to say, “By going to war you potentially loose all of your future.”
If you are married with children would you rather go off and fight some war that has nothing to do with you or to stay with and protect your family?
Some choose to give up a year or two of their life and end up giving their entire life for a cause that they didn’t even agree with.
I guess I could always resort to mass killing out of conveniece but I’d hope that when the time comes I don’t take the “easy way out”.
Well, we should probably mention that there were soldiers in one of these conflicts who did something for freedom of Americans. They were the heroic soldiers that took part in the GI Revolt. Contrary to what you may expect enlistees were actually more crucial to it than draftees.
One is a know quantity the other is not. You dont go- you know you will be on the run or in prison. You do go - the chances are that you will make it back home to your family.
Of course everyone would choose to stay with thier family. But you are introducing a false choice into the scenario. THey dont get that choice!
Yes they did. That was a chance they took. Not very appealing, however neither are the alternatives.
Easy way out!? My whole point is that there are no easy ways out.
Along the same lines, the christmas truce along the western front in WWI. But it was to be short lived and through threats of violence the leaders of both side soon had thier pawns back killing each other.
I think we both would agree that it is unfortunate that anyone would ever have to make this decision. There are positive and negative consequences associated with both options and it’s up the to individual to decided which they think will lead them to the greatest overall satisfaction whether it be fighting in or escaping from the war.
With that being said if change is expected to occur then revolutionary action must be taken. People must admit that their compliance is what allows disasters such as conscription ( slavery ), taxation ( extortion ) and war ( mass killing ) to take place and that if they choice to stand up against it liberation is inevitable.
I think “easy way out” may have been to strong of a statement. What I meant was that if someone chooses to fight in the war because they believe that it is the most convenient option they have done nothing to solve the fundamental problem but have instead embraced it. I know most people do embrace state control over their lives on a regular basis but until people begin to stop change cannot be expected to occur.
Agreed. However be careful blaming people who may feel that something unjust is being done but go along because from the information they have, they feel that they would stand up to it alone or that the personal sacrifice would be too much. We all make the same decision every day.
Fair enough. But I happen to believe that most people accept state control (not embrace) because they feel it is inevitable and too big to fight. So they choose to live thier lives as best they can.
I think the attitude you show is useful in that enables you to at least theoretically have the ability to reach out to these people, whereas for most others there is too much of a gulf. I sometime end up in a role similar to yours in relation to some other groups who I am not willing to give up on.
I find myself harshly judging others at times. But I have to step back from time to time and put myself in the shoes of others. That results in very different outlooks when it comes to soldiers, who dont want to kill anyone but dragged into political disputes between our rulers and horrible people who get joy from killing other human beings.
I just think that if we alienate ourselves from the rest of the world with inflamatory rhetoric we are handicapping ourselves.
They send helpless teenagers off to die and they know that, so they have to justify it by making everyone feel guilty and so in turn in our guilt to the families and such we except bullshit