MentalEdge

Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse. That’s not what the word “conscription” means, and I’m pretty sure you know that.

You’re just being an ass because a year of mandatory service is what the law uses conscription for in Finland, DURING PEACETIME.

In wartime, being unable to leave the country, forced to fight on the front lines, is also conscription.

Conscription, also known as the draft in American English, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law.

“you cannot leave the country and will be kidnapped and forced to die a horrible death on the front lines”

When done by a state, that is literally still within the definition.

Good? No.

Normal? Absolutely not.

Justifiable? Arguably.

The way it’s actually happening? I don’t even know. You didn’t initially comment on that or the posted article, you commented on the general ability of a leader being able to send citizens to fight.

As horrifying as it is, and as someone who lives in a country where that question could become very relevant very suddenly, I think you’re wrong. The conclusion I came to, is that the ability for a nations government to “trade in” the few to save the many, is not optional, if continued long-term existence is desired.

You’re free to disagree on where the line for where that price is too great to pay in comparison to surrender, and you surely know better than I do where it is for Ukraine.

But it does exist. Countries the world over give their leaders the power to wield their human populations as a shield against threats. There is absolutely nothing unusual about that gruesome reality.

As for what I’m suggesting you look into, that would be the stuff you don’t get to see from a first-hand perspective. Statistics, large scale policy, international relations, industry and economic trends.

You’re presenting a distinction without a difference.

Both are effectively the same thing, a citizen pressed into service, against their will.

Jail-time is the best case scenario, and in no way intrinsic to the concept.

nazi past (and present)

oooook then

Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.

That’s literally what conscription means in legal terms, though I imagine most military organisations would object to the term “cannon fodder” as they do try to use personnel to get something done, not just send them running into enemy lines of fire for no reason.

I going to stop trying. I can see I’m not going to succeed in changing your mind. You’re holding on tight to some stuff that’s completely immaterial, and I won’t be able to show you what you actively refuse to see.

Just think about what I’ve said. Maybe look some stuff up. Especially when it comes to conditions in russia, and how Putin is bending over backwards to keep the invasion going.

Look into the weapons deals with North Korea, for example.

and crush anyone who would go against that gangsterism millitarily

Are you seriusly arguing that taking war off the table is “unfair”?

Economic problems, even international economic conflicts, should have economic solutions.

Not military ones.

Ukraine was invaded because it was the one country where Putin thought he might still have sufficient support.

I am fully convinced he genuinely believed it would be over in three days.

Literally no-one is claiming any of that shit is democratic.

Stop confusing wartime martial law with democracy. It makes you look like an idiot, when clearly you have far more developed ideas to discuss. It completely ruins any actual argument you might make for what is right and wrong.

Such as this article you commented on, demobilising someone who should never have been mobilised is a no-brainer, and it is fucked as hell that it isn’t happening.

Russia has mandatory military conscription. If they want to send you to war, they can, and will, paid or unpaid. Is this news to you? The laws are in place, but Putin is avoiding them for fear of national backlash.

Do you think the country would go into uproar if he used those laws on the people who fought back for three years? I’m not sure it would even if he pulled it on his own people. Not for a while at least.

The difference, is population size. Putin is allowing it to be voluntary, because he can still afford to (he actually can’t, and russias economy is eating itself alive to be able to keep paying fighters more and more, as normal jobs have to pay more and more, due to labour shortages as more and more working age adults are lost to the war… It’s a vicious cycle that’s going to culminate in involuntary conscription being the only option left to keep invading).

But Russia can, has, and I am absolutely certain, will, send people to die against their will.

And it is “happening again” right now. Last time, it was Georgia.

History is irrelevant, past “personalities” of countries do not define how they will act in the future.

NATO is a defense pact. NATO is not what Putin is scared of, that’s just a convenient name that groups together the countries that he percieves as the “source” of the threat.

Putin is fully aware that NATO presents absolute zero military danger to Russia.

The only reason he hates it, is because each nation that joins, stops worrying about appeasing him, because membership significantly reduces fear of russias military power, and hence his influence over that country.

What he is scared of, is progressive western culture. Gay people and trans rights movements give him the heebie jeebies and he doesn’t like that stuff coming closer and closer to russias borders, where imaginary lines on the map do nothing to stop the spread and intermingling of culture and ideology.

Russia isn’t at war to survive. It’s at war because Putin is mentally stuck in the 80s and can’t handle social progress.

Let me put it like this.

You are offended by a leader that sends his people to die in defense. As you should be. Such a thing is horrifying.

What I do not understand, is your preference for a leader guilty of the very same crime, but for the difference that he sends people to die, in offense.

If Ukraine surrenders, this will all happen again the next time Putin would like some more territory.

And then, you and the people you care about, would be subject to the very same danger that current citizens of russia are. If not even moreso.

Why would Putin sacrifice from his pools of supporters, when he can conscript from newly conquered territory, amassing a force to take the next slice of Europe that tickles his fancy?

Maybe you’ll be sent to fight us finns?

You got out. You made your decision. You were able to decide to begin with. A lot of people don’t have that option, and that means someone is making decisions for them. I’m not saying that’s a good thing.

But AGAIN, democracy is not a tenable ideal in wartime.

It is a peacetime luxury, often flawed in implementation even then. Frequently too far away from a meritocracy to function efficiently.

You keep bringing it up as if there’s some kind of hypocrisy happening, because you see “democratic” people supporting dictatorship.

But decisionmaking during wartime isn’t something you can just “call a vote” on. Democracy doesn’t work under siege. That’s the whole reason basically every democratic government has the alternate operating mode of martial law, complete with legal systems written up a ready to go.

By personal perspective, I mean exactly that which you are talking about. You, what your situation would be like if you were still there, what it is like right now for the people you care about personally.

Like I said, I would probably trade in my country for those same people, too.

But I’m not sure I could live with it. I care about other things, many of which being a subject of the current Russian state would make it dangerous for me to care about.

Yes.

Except when they don’t, and pointlessly send their own people to die for basically no reason (Vietnam).

The US is a travesty of a nation that sometimes does some good. I said absolutely nothing in support of their various brands of BS.

And if you think Finland worked with Germany during operation Barbarossa for any other reason except to maintain its existence in the face of an imperial soviet union, I don’t know what to tell you.

And yeah, people are gonna gang up and surround you if you keep hugging a nuke, threatening to set it off if anyone tries to stop your tantrums.

I don’t hate Russia. Its people are perfectly capable of decency and peaceful co-operation.

But it’s current leader is a madman with genuinely dangerous delusions.

What?

Literally no-one here wants war. That’s why Finland maintains such efforts to be ready for it, should it happen against our best efforts to prevent it.

What?

There are no wars for democracy. Like I said, democracy is a peacetime luxury. Finland fought for independence, and hence the ability to choose to be democratic.

The US has not endured a war on anything but their own terms since the british tried to turn them back into a colony.

It absolutely would, and would be extremely better off than it is now, what are you talking about?

That is a discussion with no resolution. Like I said, I don’t know where the point is, when sacrifice become worse than surrender.

Particularly because both are unknowable quantities.

You seem to consider the matter from a purely personal perspective, which is perfectly valid, but will of course result in different conclusions than someone who cares about what changes it would mean for society, and the state of the world. And you obviously view Russia a lot more favorably than I do. I’m not interested in changing your mind there.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the western world should tolerate any of this. I think Ukraine should have been admitted into NATO, immediately, and for article 5 to have been retroactively shoved up Putin’s ass before this ever got out of hand.

I think, that in similar fashion to Russia, the western world has the power to end the conflict tomorrow, and is failing to do so.

When under attack, countries rescind the freedom and rights of a subset of its population, in order to maintain them for the rest.

In a democratic country, the laws to do that are created in advance, and the power to wield them assigned through election.

Everyone hopes they will never be necessary, but we can’t be surprised that when under military invasion, they are used.

“Meatgrinder” effectively illustrates the pointlessness of war, but you are using it as if to dismiss the fact that sustaining that same “meatgrinder” is the only reason the country of Ukraine still exists.

I’m Finnish. I am watching everything that happens in Ukraine as something that might happen to my country, and to me personally. In a paralell universe, Ukraine is at peace, and we’re the ones suffering a pointless “special military operation”. If Putin was smart, and looked to the future, going for our lithium reserves would have made a lot more sense than the fossil fuel resources of Ukraine. (Then again, rare earth minerals are present in Ukraine, too)

And you misunderstand me. I do not want you dead. I do not want you fighting for me. I do not “support” war.

But I understand the systems and mechanisms of a nation, which maintain its existense. The standards of a peacetime government can only be so high, because maintaining them does not risk trading in the existence of the nation that is upholding them.

Should there be a trial afterwards, investigating sacrifices that were obviously pointless? Absolutely.

And is there a point where the sacrifice is no longer worth it in comparison to surrender? To this, I have no answer.

I would probably trade in my country, to see my friends and family spared. But I am a lot less certain that would result in a better world afterwards.

There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?

Organized wartime defense is a lot more complex than kidnapping a bunch of people and sending them in the general direction of the front. That isn’t how any of this works.

I know of one country that’s behind the agression… And one that probably IS using such tactics, considering their battlefield results. One which could stop at any time under no threat to its own sovereignty.

I honestly cannot comprehend your failure to realize that wartime and peacetime standards of government differ more than a little, or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best.

That goes for all of us, unless you happen to be an actual commanding officer on either side of the conflict?

You really haven’t looked at the legal systems around defensive service of most countries, have you?

Please. I am genuinely asking. Show me a country that doesn’t have legal systems in place to press its population into defensive service, and/or suspend elections during wartime.

I live in Finland, we have one the MOST WILLING populations IN THE WORLD when it comes to self-defense.

And you know what? The military police still regularly arrests deserters who fail to show up for their conscription. And we’re not even at war.

The alternative, is to not be prepared against threats like Putin, who will WIPE YOU OFF THE MAP given the chance.

Democracy is a peacetime luxury.

Not sacrificing thousands to save millions, is a privilege of the leaders who live in a parallel universe that doesn’t have Putin in it.