The people who say that sort of thing heard someone else say it once and just parrot it. When you try and delve deeper into their political philosophy you realize that there's nothing under the surface.
My Brother-In-Law is like this, What he knows about the political situation of this country wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp. Yet he's perfectly comfortable telling me how all political parties are the same.
Sometimes i find people will also use it as a 'discussion shut down' when they don't want to get pulled into a larger conversation about politics.
They have their reasons, like knowing they have little knowledge on the subject, or knowing the person they're talking to and not wishing to engage with them too heavily (i may be guilty of employing this tactic at times).
Another unfunded pledge from the Conservatives. What do we want? Housing! What will we get? Conscription!
David Cameron already did this anyway with the voluntary National Citizen Service. He also promised to eventually make it involuntary but never did, presumably because it was unworkable, expensive or both. So, what has changed to make it workable or inexpensive?
The realistic prospect of an armed conflict with Russia is what has changed.
Whether we cannot afford it is irrelevant, we may have no choice. We couldn't afford it in 1939 and it wasn't long ago that we'd only finished paying for our WW2 debts.
Unless something drastic happens that Putin comes to his senses we are in most likelihood heading for very dark times.
Which is exactly why the army has been asking for more funding, which it actually needs. It doesn't want conscription, which it recognises would be a waste of resources.
Other countries considering a bad idea doesn't make it a good idea.
The military part of the proposed new national service is going to be optional however, those “conscripted” can choose a civilian volunteering path instead. So I’m not sure how this scheme would help with the threat of future conflict when nobody chooses the military option.
It’s a ridiculous gimmick to distract from the Tories failures in areas people do care about.
You think NATO v Russia is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, and USA v Russia is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think 966 million people v 145 million people is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think a country that has been at war with its small neighbour for 10 years and is struggling v the largest military alliance in the world with the largest economies in the world would require conscription?
I've been a bit of a dick here to get my point across but making excuses for the tories bringing back conscription is also a bit dickish.
If you want to sign up, go for it. If there comes a point where it's required, I'm a relatively young fit man so would consider signing up too. But only when there's a need for it. There is no need yet.
Plus, if we're going for WW3, we're all gonna die in the nuclear blasts before we even get a chance to put boots on the ground anyway.
Tbh as much as this annoys me, if it became mandatory I wouldn't really resist it. Because I can see the necessity of it, and it could easily do me some good.
I quite often think about Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, and how the continual underfunding of public services over the past 14 years has led us to a place where we’re essentially there anyway.
Old people often have grandkids, though. Sure, there will be some that will think that it will do them good, but surely some others will not like the idea of their grandkids having to give up a year of their life.
Ah yes, that will make new Torys. Boot camp. Break their will to make them into good/conservative citizens. Don't see that working.... though I can see old voters (who didn't actually do it either) might think that.
We funked up the NHS Policing and local services. By cutting funding to the bone. While refusing to invest.
But thats OK. We will use 25 days of teenage slavery to fix a bit of it.
Or you can learn to kill people ready for our next oil war.
Of course we will concentrate on selling how beneficial it is to the youth. While helpfully forgetting to mention. You can all already choose to do this shit. All we are adding is a mandatory requirement. So slavery to achive our own goals. And make some old folks vote for us.
Basically another culture war using folks who won't vote tory to convince folks with nothing to lose to vote tory.