Meme Thread for Both Posting and Discussing Memes

[bintananth]

I think a worthy compromise is to allow the people who don't want to serve to have their citizenship downgraded, still having all of the rights except the rights to vote, hold political office or get a government job.

"Service equals citizenship" - ala Starship Troopers - is complete bullshit.

I'll never pass an army physical because I've lost a toe and am in my mid-40s.

EDIT: @Abhorsen ... I have very foul and unpleasant things to say about Libertianism which start with the N-word and get worse.

 

[Aldarion]

"Service equals citizenship" - ala Starship Troopers - is complete bullshit.

I'll never pass an army physical because I've lost a toe and am in my mid-40s.

Starship Troopers' Federation very specifically reserves paper-pushing and similar positions in the army for people unable to pass the physical.

Everybody, literally everybody, has the right to earn the franchise as long as they are not a leftist-progressive hack able to understand the oath.

By the way:

https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf

 

[Morphic Tide]

"Service equals citizenship" - ala Starship Troopers - is complete bullshit.

Except in Heinlein's novel great pains are gone to to be very clear they WILL find a job for your. It's about testing your character, not getting value out of you.

 

[Abhorsen]

And it should, because we lost our independence despite an army of volunteers to serve later as slaves in other armies
So you know, your argument breaks down to a simple fact, either you are a super army or you are conquered.
So we prefer our own army where we can set our own agenda rather than a foreign army. Even despite 'slavery'. If you want to believe in fairy tales, believe. But the reality is that there is a limit to such action.

Again, you are arguing that the slavery is justified:

At best, one could give an argument that the slavery is a necessary evil (I don't buy it here, a volunteer force would work fine), but never forget that it is evil.

It's still slavery. It's still evil. The pretense that it's not leads to evil.

If you want an army, pay one. Poland, with it's alliance with the US thru NATO, and not having to worry about the gap made by Kaliningrad/Belarus like the Baltics, I'm dubious about needing it. They could have done fine on a one front war in WW2 (they pushed back the soviets in the 20s fine), and Russia's a lot less scarier than we thought at the beginning of the year.


As for service = citizenship, I hate it. It justifies the state as something it is good to work for, when your own government is the problem 9/10 times. It also emphasizes the coercive nature of the government by putting the tools of coercion (voting, when democracy is morally dubious at best) behind coercion. So only people willing to be coerced will have the power to decide whether to coerce.

On top of that, the idea that it would stop leftism is laughable. Leftism would just toss your service if you failed to obey orders like... getting the jab, misgendering someone, etc, so you wouldn't qualify unless you acted as the politicians want, while also allowing easy, cushy service for those connected.

 

[Carrot of Truth]

If you want reality of Middle Ages, watch old (preferably pre-1960s) movies. They may not be perfect, but they are far closer to truth than any modern trash.

Old movie:

Modern garbage:

It would almost be perfect but then they went and uttered the word "Chain mail" its just mail the chain part is unnecessary and retarded.

 

[bintananth]

Except in Heinlein's novel great pains are gone to to be very clear they WILL find a job for your. It's about testing your character, not getting value out of you.

The biggest problem I have with that story is that you have to earn citizenship and be considered worthy by serving the state before it's granted.

 

[Batrix2070]

They could have done fine on a one front war in WW2 (they pushed back the soviets in the 20s fine)

You do realise that both the armies you are talking about were conscripted? From the beginning of the Second Republic, our army consisted of a volunteer core and a mass of conscripts which the volunteers commanded and led. Of course, because of effective propaganda, these conscripts were happy to serve under duress.

I will say more, in the Second Republic, there was no escape from compulsory service, military or otherwise.
Have you completed your university, Mr Student?
That's great, welcome to the officer/non-commissioned officer corps of the Polish Army! Here's the address of the officer/commissioned officer school you're supposed to go to.
If you can't? No problem, in logistics, medicine, communications and similar places we need people too.

If you want an army, pay one.

Well, that's what we pay for, we chose the one that, in our experience, is the most effective. Professional core, conscripts mass.

oland, with it's alliance with the US thru NATO, and not having to worry about the gap made by Kaliningrad/Belarus like the Baltics, I'm dubious about needing it.

Well, we have come out perfectly well to any allies that we have such a saying.

Can you count? Count on yourself.
However, we prefer the US Army to help us where we are too short handed and not bail us out.

 

[Aldarion]

It would almost be perfect but then they went and uttered the word "Chain mail" its just mail the chain part is unnecessary and retarded.

Eh, I can't count the number of times I have seen people write "scale mail", "plate mail" and so on. So I just tend to ignore such mistakes. They're too frequent to be worth losing steam over.

 

[Carrot of Truth]

Eh, I can't count the number of times I have seen people write "scale mail", "plate mail" and so on. So I just tend to ignore such mistakes. They're too frequent to be worth losing steam over.

I blame DnD for a lot of the stupid fantasy tropes we have now a days.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Eh, I can't count the number of times I have seen people write "scale mail", "plate mail" and so on. So I just tend to ignore such mistakes. They're too frequent to be worth losing steam over.

Yeah, I instead have all my characters wear studded leather armor so I won't risk making such mistakes.

It's still slavery. It's still evil. The pretense that it's not leads to evil.

Do you also think it's slavery when a mom makes her kids do chores?

Seriously, this is a really stupid take. Humans are social animals, we all live in a society. Taking from the society you live in and claiming it's slavery to be asked to give anything back is the real evil.

 

[Zyobot]

Tbe fair, Poland in World War 2 actually put up a creditable fight, considering the circumstances. If memory serves me, the author of Poland Betrayed even posits that Poland might have successfully defended itself from German attack if it weren't for the Soviet betrayal.

Sure, not denying the Poles fought valiantly and made life exceedingly difficult for the invaders, despite Poland as a whole getting gang-raped by them.

That said, my understanding is that the Wehrmacht wasn’t the cutting-edge, technologically supreme force of destruction the Wehraboos and other naive WW2 hobbyists portray them as. In fact, as I understand it, they relied on captured vehicles and even horses to lug troops and supplies around, not to mention French tanks actually being superior to German ones pound for pound — despite the French commanders’ incompetence in putting their superior army to good use in practice. Never mind some of the really dumb and wasteful “Wunderwaffe” projects Hitler blew the Reich’s money and best minds on, like the Landkreuzer and other ill-thought mechanical monstrosities of the sort.

 

[Cherico]

The biggest problem I have with that story is that you have to earn citizenship and be considered worthy by serving the state before it's granted.

In story its because things got really really bad and you had a conservative backlash to what was essentially a collapse of society due to rampent hedonism and lawlessness, and from the sounds of it, it happened when there was a war and the returning troops found that their leadership had run the country into the fucking ground, and wanted to just throw the people who had fought for the country into the gutter like trash now that they were done with them.

Which honestly sounds like a pretty realistic reason for a revolution and a cultural backlash.

 

[Skallagrim]

Seriously, this is a really stupid take. Humans are social animals, we all live in a society. Taking from the society you live in and claiming it's slavery to be asked to give anything back is the real evil.

I notice that's the exact same thing socialists say when they raise taxes to pay for the "free" stuff they want to hand out to their voting cattle.

Speaking of taxes, that's also "giving back" by your logic. So at the very least, you should admit that nobody should be forced to "give back" twice. Therefore, anyone who serves in the military should be forever exempted from taxes. And anyone who pays taxes should be exempt from the conscription. Be a bit fair and at least give the people a choice of how they want to "give back", why don't you?

 

[Zyobot]

I notice that's the exact same thing socialists say when they raise taxes to pay for the "free" stuff they want to hand out to their voting cattle.

Speaking of taxes, that's also "giving back" by your logic. So at the very least, you should admit that nobody should be forced to "give back" twice. Therefore, anyone who serves in the military should be forever exempted from taxes. And anyone who pays taxes should be exempt from the conscription. Give the people choice of how they want to "give" back, why don't you?

It’s also not really “asking”, either, so much as mandating that you give some of your stuff in return under threat of “unpleasant consequences” if you don’t.

Plus, most people don’t explicitly consent to the deals their government gives them — and even if they didn’t, they’d still be forced to go along with it and told they need to “give back” for things they never asked for, so…

 

[Bear Ribs]

I notice that's the exact same thing socialists say when they raise taxes to pay for the "free" stuff they want to hand out to their voting cattle.

Speaking of taxes, that's also "giving back" by your logic. So at the very least, you should admit that nobody should be forced to "give back" twice. Therefore, anyone who serves in the military should be forever exempted from taxes. And anyone who pays taxes should be exempt from the conscription. Give the people choice of how they want to "give" back, why don't you?

Yes, I'm also in favor of people paying their taxes.

As for paying twice, that depends on if you get more than one benefit from society. If one has both, say, usable roads and a military protecting them from warlords one could fairly say they've gained two benefits and should thus pay twice.

And yes, it can lead to socialism if carried too far. As with anything, going to an absurd extreme is going to have bad results. It's up to the nations in aggregate to decide where they lie on the spectrum.

 

[Aldarion]

Sure, not denying the Poles fought valiantly and made life exceedingly difficult for the invaders, despite Poland as a whole getting gang-raped by them.

That said, my understanding is that the Wehrmacht wasn’t the cutting-edge, technologically supreme force of destruction the Wehraboos and other naive WW2 hobbyists portray them as. In fact, as I understand it, they relied on captured vehicles and even horses to lug troops and supplies around, not to mention French tanks actually being superior to German ones pound for pound — despite the French commanders’ incompetence in putting their superior army to good use in practice. Never mind some of the really dumb and wasteful “Wunderwaffe” projects Hitler blew the Reich’s money and best minds on, like the Landkreuzer and other ill-thought mechanical monstrosities of the sort.

Oh, definitely. Wehrmacht had a lot of flaws.

 

[Cherico]

I notice that's the exact same thing socialists say when they raise taxes to pay for the "free" stuff they want to hand out to their voting cattle.

Speaking of taxes, that's also "giving back" by your logic. So at the very least, you should admit that nobody should be forced to "give back" twice. Therefore, anyone who serves in the military should be forever exempted from taxes. And anyone who pays taxes should be exempt from the conscription. Be a bit fair and at least give the people a choice of how they want to "give back", why don't you?

Not workable with todays culture.

The country already treats our veterans like shit, if they were not getting tax money from them they would just treat them ten times worse with active discrimination.

 

[Zyobot]

Yeah... honestly, not sure I even want to know.

Oh, definitely. Wehrmacht had a lot of flaws.

Thought so, yes.

Of course, probably the most glaring thing the Wehraboos and "German science!" fetishists ignore is how, for all their talk of wonder weapons, the US got the best wonder weapon of them all. (Hint: they were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the war. 😉)

 

[bintananth]

In story its because things got really really bad and you had a conservative backlash to what was essentially a collapse of society due to rampent hedonism and lawlessness, and from the sounds of it, it happened when there was a war and the returning troops found that their leadership had run the country into the fucking ground, and wanted to just throw the people who had fought for the country into the gutter like trash now that they were done with them.

Which honestly sounds like a pretty realistic reason for a revolution and a cultural backlash.

Here's what you have to be to be elligibe for the US Presidency: a natural born American over the age of 35 who meets residency requirements ... and that's it.

No one was bitching about John McCain III having Panama as his birthplace in '08. A whole lot of people were complaining that Obama was some sort of "Sekrit Mooslum from Africa" despite the fact that he was born in Hawaii and, unlike Panama, Hawaii is an actual integral part of the US.

 

[Abhorsen]

Do you also think it's slavery when a mom makes her kids do chores?

Seriously, this is a really stupid take. Humans are social animals, we all live in a society. Taking from the society you live in and claiming it's slavery to be asked to give anything back is the real evil.

Yeah, but we allow most of totalitarianism inside the household. Your analogy doesn't work: we allow parents to do a bunch of stuff for children, because children aren't old enough. We have parents give kids an allowance, and force them to do specific jobs. Do you call this communism? We let parents determine whether their kids can have guns, thus gun control is justified. We let parents ground their kids for saying naughty words, thus censorship is justified. I could go on.

A parent's relationship with their child is not a good analogy for a citizen's relationship with government.

Again, forced labor has a name: slavery. Simple as.

Well, that's what we pay for, we chose the one that, in our experience, is the most effective. Professional core, conscripts mass.

No, you aren't just paying for the army. You are enslaving a large part of it. And the slavery is wrong. Maybe it's a necessary evil, but still acknowledge it as evil.

Well, we have come out perfectly well to any allies that we have such a saying.

Can you count? Count on yourself.
However, we prefer the US Army to help us where we are too short handed and not bail us out.

I think it's admirable that you have this position of self-sufficiency. But to be self sufficient by relying on slavery is wrong.

Maybe you guys cannot afford to operate an all volunteer army, and have rightful fear of enslavement by Russia. In doing so, you've decided as a country to enslave a portion of your population for a limited time in order to lower the chance of what you view as permanent enslavement. That's still slavery. All I'm asking you to do is acknowledge the necessary evil as the evil it is, and not play the name game, pretending that it isn't.