Of course we all know the real problem is that there are too many people on the planet packed too densely in too few areas, but that is a potential discussion for another thread ; ]
To help the conversation along I will clarify that in this hypothetical system the armed forces are the institution not the intent, there wouldn't be any fighting going on! Just the structure of military life is all that is needed. My opinion is that supposedly only the best of the best get to be soldiers with access to all sorts of things the average Joe doesn't have just because they may at some point risk their lives? Well what if everybody in the country started off with the same teaching, it wouldn't be exclusive and we all know that what's common is usually cheap, so every child gets to have their childhood and when they reach "legal" age (18 in Australia) they get to grow up, most folk in society today are Peter Pan-ning it by extending the childhood faze of life as long as they are able, they remain at home for longer, spend more time between secondary school and college or just avoid college altogether (for many and varied reasons, I know). They have plenty of relationships and avoid commitment despite churning out multitudes of children of their own, they cant afford to settle down so they are transitory a lot of the time. This is not how a young persons life is best lived I reckon ; ]
Take a person born in the seventies to a below average family, the family unit is not tight and has very little income, too many children of one or other parent causing the common step-family problems, that child has no decent home base to launch off of and so falls by the wayside in society, the child emulates the parents and slips into familiar patterns and becomes just another consumer. Now imagine that child is given a military style (life) education from age 18 onward, then works with the chronologically advanced among us.
What do we think that child could have become, where would that child be today as an adult?
The military has no bearing on the measure of the man, a mans actions are by which he is defined and if you have no solid foundation to build on how are you ever supposed to be expected to stand up to be counted, this proposal gives the youth that choice whatever their financial and sociological standing, it evens the playing field.
Now lets look at conscription, in theory it offers stability, going to college is mandatory, you would learn discipline and work ethic, you're mostly devoid of distraction and dependant for the large part upon no other but yourself, you learn camaraderie and mateship, form lifelong bonds and have people around you that you can depend on. Rather than amplify your weaknesses and dwell on what you cant do you are convinced that you are capable and can move forward with support from people who actually want you to succeed. The kind of conscription I am talking about is in terms of "you have to do it, it is the law" not; "we are going to war", if a war ever breaks out then any person brought up this way would be free to enlist of their own volition as the actual military wouldn't have any claim to these youths save for saying they made them what they are today, unless of course they are then actually conscripted like they were in the previous wars LOL
Well, lets dissect the aged care portion of the suggestion, aged care is flagging, it is an industry that is growing exponentially and ex-military style personnel could well bolster the ranks of dedicated nurses quite easily, leaving them to do the proper nursing and not be overstretched and understaffed like they are now, our youth would lose the stigma that is slowly being attached to the elderly in the western world, they would learn acceptance of the end of life and about dignity, they would come to appreciate the wisdom of the aged like the eastern countries do, having revered their own elderly for many centuries. They would learn patience and how to be humble, something we can all benefit from actually! This is still all theoretical mind you.
So, we set someone from a training/ learning regime like that onto the open road and they can literally fit in anywhere, unlike in comparison, the youth we see now that have no interest or attention span, they only have self as the all pervading drive. Wouldn't you rather someone that is going to help given the opportunity than somebody who sees the opportunity as just another chore?
As to being able bodied or not, it seems to me that there is some confusion as to what able bodied is, for people who are not able bodied, we want to be treated like the rest of you, but then there are those scamming scumbags who want something for nothing and will always be able to convince everybody of the unfortunate maladies that prevent them from doing an honest days work for an decent wage. I firmly believe that everybody that wants to work can be found something to do!!! Ask a disabled person if they want your pity or just to be valued.
It has been my understanding from the point of view of having had a job in the government sector, in employment as it happens, that if somebody says I have a job for you and you turn them down for a valid reason then all the more power to you, but if they adjust things for you so your needs are accommodated and come back and offer something more suited to you and you turn them down again, then there is a very good chance that you are plain lazy, should they then further tailor a job to your laundry list of ailments and you still turn them down... then you are no longer fooling anybody except yourself. I am not one of those people but have been put into the same category, which is something that sticks in my craw.
Everybody... CAN... do something, whether it is answering phones or sorting screws of different sizes into bags, hell, there are people out there that get to test video games for a living, and equally, there are also people that would convincingly reason as to why they could only play games recreationally so that their disability allowance wouldn't be cut off!
Anyhow, If we went a step further with this scenario why couldn't we incorporate military training into regular jobs, rather than teach all jobs from a military perspective we could have regular business people take classes and tutor students. But our young people would also be brought up better physically so surely crime would eventually drop and athleticism and health would be on the rise from the trickle down effect. Obviously I don't have all the answers so it is foolhardy of me to attempt to redress all points to the contrary ; ]
Well, one step even further again could see all youth from this point on, being "on file" in such a way that if a [job name] is needed suddenly in [place], it could be looked up on the database to see who has had training in that job that isn't currently employed, and bam, they get relocated and employed.
And again, don't mistake that I am talking about militarising whole countries because you can have military style training without needing to go to war to justify it, just look at all those bootcamps that people go in for nowadays, we don't have to actually train them FOR anything, just give them the training. It seems to me that the government would be all for this as having to pay for jobless shits just sitting around doing nothing would be instead channelled into stopping the next generation from having to be jobless in the first place, by virtue of what I propose with some obvious fine tuning.
So the end result is an entire world where all youth are made to feel self worth, that would bring about a drop in unplanned pregnancies, in turn lowering the burgeoning population, it would lead to a shift back to common sense and reasoning, and accepting fault and taking blame, you'd get a rise in community spirit and civic pride, a return to acceptance of all persons which would further foster tolerance and inclusion. Of course these things are very long term benefits, this probably wouldn't be seen in any of our own lifetimes but it would pervade national culture as it was the intention from the start, if the goal from the start had been to gain dominance by military might and numbers, then the outcome would be more or less what we are seeing most developed countries doing right now ; ]
It stands to reason that all these benefits far outweigh the expenditure and the ideas eventually pay for themselves, it could be argued that countries would in fact end up profiting, but I cant give all the answers or do all the thinking otherwise this becomes less of a conversation and more of a lecture.
