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[Darvi]

Considering that we're now Ready For Hillary, it's only a matter of time until somebody makes a survival horror game called Four Years at Hillary's.

sorry m8, do you see a better candidate? There's no other strong democratic contender and on the republican side there are too many. However they're mostly man children and ultra-conservatives. Chris Christie stands a reasonable chance if he runs, but will likely horrify the centrists as the republicans always do to appeal to the far-right base. Honestly, at this point, I don't even support many democratic policies, but Hilary is a beast and I'm fucking disgusted at the republicans. Which is not to say i'm not disgusted at the democrats, but they are at least more reasonable (as far as I can tell) and socially pretty great.

If anything call your game four years at the republican controlled congress *shivers*

U callin me m8, m8?

I was just poking fun at the "Ready for Hillary"-slogan, geez.

[smjjames]

Huckabee is entering. I'll update the OP later since I'm going to head to bed now.

Dear god. Mike Huckabee might be one of the leading examples of why I have become disgusted with the republicans.

He's not really the worst, but still, earlier he had said that 'gays won't stop until there are no more churches', and yet he claims he has gay friends O.o ? I'm not O.o at the fact that he has gay friends, just that he has them while acting in such a bridge burning way.

[Helgoland]

Don't give a shit about any practical argument.  Forcing people to fight other people to the death is immoral to the point that the potential extinction of the human race due to alien invasion is about the only scenario where I'd find it justifiable.

Why should it be any more immoral than fighting and killing those people in the first place? Both actions are mostly an exchange of lives for the achievement of polititical objectives.

[Frumple]

That... should be pretty obvious? There's a ruddy clear moral distinction between, say, voluntary and involuntary bloodsports. You're trading lives for entertainment either way, but the latter is notably worse.

It stops being an issue of the people involved trading their lives for X, and starts being an issue of the people involved having their lives traded for X. Regardless of what the X is, that's a damn obvious difference, t'me anyway.

[Helgoland]

Who ever claimed that the other side exclusively employed volunteer soldiers? Not to mention that there's quite a few ethical problems with killing volunteer soldiers too: Policemen know they may get killed while on duty - does that make it okay for me to take potshots at them?

Let me rephrase: How is fighting using conscripts any more immoral than fighting against an army that consists of conscripts?

[Frumple]

... why does the comparative morality of the two matter? They're separate issues. If they were equally immoral, all that would mean is that fighting conscripts using conscripts would be doubly immoral.

[Sheb]

While a volunteer army is certainly a more efficient armed force, I quite like the idea of a citizen's army, made up of draftee. If anything, the fact that the government has to draft people rather than send in its mercenaries makes actually starting a war much harder. You can't go on with your live and pretend nothing is happening when you risk being drafted and sent to die.

And when a war is justified, it is only just that the burden of defending the nation falls equally on all.

[Helgoland]

Beautifully said, Sheb. I fully agree.

... why does the comparative morality of the two matter? They're separate issues. If they were equally immoral, all that would mean is that fighting conscripts using conscripts would be doubly immoral.

My point is that if you decry using conscripts as immoral, you either have to call for the abolition of all armed forces or apply a double standard.

[Sheb]

I find your argument really weird Helgoland. If using conscripts is bad, don't use them. If the guy in front is using them, and you end up having to kill people that were sent there against their will, that's on him, not you, at least if you're fighting a defending war.

[Frumple]

Or just call for an end to all offensive action. Or just acknowledge that killing conscripts is also, y'know, bad, regardless as to if your forces are voluntary or not. Or as Sheb mentions. Any other dozen things. False dichotomy and whatnot.

I will say that from what I recall of US (human, really) history, though, I'm incredibly damn doubtful having a draft would notably impede the difficulty in starting military conflicts. Major powers in general don't really become less belligerent or militarily adventurous when they're using conscripts/draftees, from everything I can remember.

[SalmonGod]

The thing about war is it's always, universally and without exception to my knowledge, a product of the power elite manipulating a population into believing that another population is worthy of hatred and a threat to their safety and freedom.  Sometimes war may be a matter of genuine self-defense against an aggressor, but in every one of those cases, it's because the aggressor population has been manipulated.  The army that exists to defend against that aggressor will be made to serve unjust aggression against someone else later.

Case:  WW2 had many populations acting in self-defense against a clear aggressor.  The U.S. built up their military might to combat that aggressor.  The Axis were a product of a population whipped up into a frenzy of hatred by leaders who took advantage of a period of emotional vulnerability.  What did the U.S. do after the Axis were defeated?  The exact same fucking thing.  Their leaders whipped up their population into a frenzy of fear and hatred against first communism, and then terrorism.  That military which was formed once for defense has for decades since maintained its existence as an aggressor.

And this will continue until we give up justifying the build-up of personnel and tools of war for any reason.  War is a product of self-fulfilling prophecies.  Two sides fighting against each other because each is convinced that they're under attack and the other's lives are worth less than their own anyway... and only one side can ever be right in this, if any at all.

No soldiers - no war.  If people throw their own lives away by choice, then not much can be done about it.  That's a cultural issue.  Gullibility.  When people are forced into it, that's something else.

[Descan]

Not to mention, I think SG probably would go "Yeah, that sounds good," for an abolition of all armed forces, so your slippery slope there didn't exactly work as intended

Ninjer'd

[Sheb]

Major powers in general don't really become less belligerent or militarily adventurous when they're using conscripts/draftees, from everything I can remember.

Well, to me the fact that Vietnam spawned a strong anti-war movement while Iraq did not is a good example of the influence of the draft.

[wierd]

Correlation is not causation.  There are such things as coincidences.

Take for instance, the uproar over the Watergate hotel scandal, vs the nationwide apathy over the Snowden documents.
It's just as likely that the previous generation had more "give a shit" about geopolitics than the current generation does.

Watergate was small potatoes compared to what Snowden has released via the press.

[mainiac]

Blaming war on vague elites is like blaming it on thermodynamics. Equal parts true and meaningless.