IMHO it should be mandatory in any country. It's a small price to pay for living in said country. It's not like they'll send you to a war zone, you are just being prepared to defend your homeland against threats, be they external or home-grown. I think the best way to make this more palatable to people is to highlight that their forefathers have fought for their country before and you can view this as a tribute to their heroism.
1. Why I have to do something while getting nothing in return? It is the slavery!
2. Why I have to defend some gang (they call themselves "government") if I don't support them?
1. By that same token we can also call taxes economic slavery. They take our money yet we don't really have much of a say on how they actually spend it. Use mah money to feed those freeloaders? How dare they! Should we refuse to pay our taxes?
2. I was thinking more in the line of a defensive war. I don't see anything wrong in spending a few months a year in a military camp training to fight off invaders. When they do come in, it wouldn't really matter whether you like your government or not.
IMHO it should be mandatory in any country. It's a small price to pay for living in said country. It's not like they'll send you to a war zone, you are just being prepared to defend your homeland against threats, be they external or home-grown. I think the best way to make this more palatable to people is to highlight that their forefathers have fought for their country before and you can view this as a tribute to their heroism.
Conscription isn't half bad. A lot of youngsters have been born and raised in liberty and some of them seem to have difficulties respecting other raised in the same sphere.
And I guess if you feel threatened by a neighbouring nation, why not?
Russia and Sweden never shared land border in the past hundred years
I think it is obvious that this is all ruse to somehow get out tens of thousands of immigrant Africans and Arabs out of their ghettos and force them to socialize and learn discipline. I doubt it will be very effective as modern armed forces are not very effective at stomping out extremism or tribal mentality. They will learn how to use guns properly, though.
Then that's more reason to not allow them anywhere near guns.
I believe some countries (Israel for example) make exemptions based on religious beliefs and other things (parenthood, criminal record, etc). There is one notable exemption though - Singapore. They routinely imprison Jehova's Witnesses for refusing the draft. If Sweden ever get a right-wing, anti-immigration gov't, they'll probably love the idea.
Even no one will force you to serve. There will still be a contract army. It has already been proven that this is effective. As one learned philosopher said, you want peace, prepare for war. Maybe this is the case.
You can never be too safe. If war do break out, you'd want additional people to supplement your standing army. Better train them before war come than rushing to cram everything in their heads as the enemy forces closes in. Maybe train civilians for a year or two, and then just give them a month-long refresher course every year or so.
