In a 2007 article, Judge Posner swept through the idea of mandatory conscription for all young adults over 18. He pulled numbers out of thin air as to how much such a program would cost to fund. Out of the blue he gave a cost of $27,000 per person (excluding administrative overhead) for a mandatory workforce of 4 million conscripts.
Numbers are a way of denigrating the value of human beings. It is a knee-jerk way of trying to neatly fit each multidimensional youth (in this case) into a one-size-fits-all box.
This is a prime example of bureaucratic mind babbling endemic in professorial types. They speak to us from a mountaintop enclave of rich, over educated pontificates who love to tell us mortals what is best for our lot. They have as much connection with mortals as does a rock.
Nothing in society should be mandatory other than rules and laws protecting us against aggression and fraud. Conscription is an attempt to force people to follow the will of the privileged. No doubt the well-heeled will finagle their children out of service, just as President Bush did with his son’s country club stint in the Air National Guard.
Service should be a natural extension of good upbringing. Why should we force our children to behave in a fashion we reject vehemently? If families and schools become living laboratories of beneficence, the needs of society for the least fortunate will never go unmet. Armies can be trimmed.
The previous paragraph especially applies to Israel with its accepted principle of mandatory service in the army. When we create armies and use unwilling people to fill their ranks, then it is time to reconsider our right to exist.
The same principle applies to America’s relentlessness quest to control the world through military adventurism. It is near impossible to teach morality and public service when we Americans have held on to the nuclear deterrent for 65 shameful years after being the only nation to irradiate two cities.
It is no wonder that so many volatile nations wish to now join the nuclear club. The example America has set led to this proliferation and to the unfair labeling of states wishing to balance the scales as being terrorist cells. We need a caring society which looks to government as a last resort
Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.
~Albert Schweitzer~
We need a caring society which looks to government as a last resort in restoring order or providing for the helpless. Conscription is a sign that a society has failed to provide moral, intelligent training to its children. Leave no child behind.

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