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Call to bring back national service.

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anotheoldgit | 15:18 Sun 14th Aug 2011 | News
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http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/264874

It seems that 72 per cent supported the idea, and only 17 per cent were opposed to it.

Before any dismiss this out of hand, please just think about it.

/// Senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: “If you are in being taken to hospital in Germany, the likelihood is that you are being driven by a conscripted ambulance driver. There are all sorts of important ways that National Service could benefit society, while at the same time instilling some much-needed discipline into youngsters.” ///

I personally think that Patrick Mercer MP is talking so much sense, it need not be military service, it could cover many civilian positions.

The youth would be taken off the streets and away from their home environment, also away from any peer pressure they are likely to encounter from the gang culture that is so prevalent today.

Apart from those obvious advantages, they would experience discipline, and learn a skill at the same time.

Taking into account how much our broken society is costing us, the introduction of a type of national service would be self funding.
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There is a vigorous training regime in the forces before anyone holds a gun or goes near the front line. Being a male oriented regime would do wonders for our displaced youth who can't see a future for themselves. Better the forces than prison !

Its irresponsible of us to pay our jobless youth to loot and stretch our police resources.
AoG....I often agree with you (and others) but don't always have to specifically state it and by not doing so, doesn't always mean I disagree!
I'm not following Gromit's argument, AOG - I might agree with him, but my thoughts are my own.
Well, it would certainly have made the riots more interesting if the police were facing fit, trained gunmen, instead of a few hundred stupid yobs.
Good parenting and teaching children respect and manners would start them off right and perhaps then with other things set in place, there would be no rioting like we've seen of late.
Yes, but if it's "National " service this means everyone not just the yobs.You can't just discriminate and conscript the unruly ones you would have to conscript everyone of an age to serve .You can't pick and choose .
Why should the law abiding youth be called up .Those with good jobs or students .
I think it's just an excuse for more cannon fodder .
Government shouldn't keep poking their noses in these wars which are not of our doing and stop throwing money at despots in other countries and spend more on rooting out the causes of hate and discontent on our own streets .
No, it just wouldn't work, firstly the armed services only want those who want to be there, perhaps a military style boot camp would be better, run by ex soldiers, because quite honestly the whole idea of training them to use firearms and then shipping them off to Afghanistan doesn't bear thinking about. What would the other soldiers make of it, not a lot i expect.
as to the one soldier so far caught up in this, it was idiotic, because presumably he will be kicked out of the army, so loses his career.
"Will you never end? "

lol.

--

[note: the following is all personal opinion. Just a warning.]

On a serious note, I tend to be against national service, but I'm certainly open to persuasion on a few points in favour of it. A couple of observations, for instance, do make me think a bit harder about my opposition to it.

For instance, I think it's hard to deny that youth unemployment is something of a factor in the recent violence - regardless of what exactly you think that impact is. It's also long been a factor in all kinds of social ills. Aside from the recession, a big reason for the longer-term youth unemployment we've seen is simply because the economy is tilted very heavily towards skilled work - in decades past, our manufacturing industry required large numbers of unskilled/unqualified work, whereas it doesn't anymore, and neither do most sections of the economy on anything like the precedented scale. Now, personally, I think that's a fairly inevitable, understandable, and overall justified development from several angles given the UK's situation. But it does also have consequences - one of which is youth unemployment. A scheme not-quite-but-similar-to national service would, hypothetically, fill the gap and potentially solve some problems with it, just so long as it didn't necessarily mean automatic military service and there was some element of choice in it (e.g. who you volunteered for or something like that).

Of course there are numerous objections to this. It does seem to require a substantial surplus to fund - as in Germany. It's also a case of the state making people do things they otherwise wouldn't - which, personally, as a believer in freedom, I think is something you should consider very carefully in all scenarios to justify.

On balance, if pushed, I'd probably put myself in the against column. But the kind of issues listed above do at least raise some interesting questions.
Your Tory MP is wrong they recently voted to stop National Service in Germany, really refreshing that your role models have their facts so right as usual isn't it AOG?
Very true Kromovaracun. The state "made" my husband do his National Service back in the late sixties in Germany .
He lost 18 months of his life and his apprenticeship learning how to fire a gun and do a lot of pointless marching about on the Lüneburger Heide . He said it was a complete waste of time and that those who were dodgy when called up were still dodgy when they were discharged :)
let's replace all this amateur violence with proper, professional violence complete with arms training?

You don't think it need be military service? What then? Train them all in nursing, or what exactly?

And what good is 'learning a skill' if nobody wants to hire you? Ask any skilled person who's been sacked. So what saleable skill is it you propose to teach them all?
K with freedom comes responsibility, and you have to earn respect to get it back, not something many of these people seem to understand.
Former Forces personnel are greatly over-represented among the prison population so having discipline and learning skills need not be the answers.
No em you shouldn't have to ' earn respect', people should respect one another from day one, that is they ought to respect their children and set an example to their children in their treatment of others, not say ' well that person hasn't ' 'earned' my respect' so I don't need to respect them.' THAT is exactly where the problem lies, with lack of SELF respect because no-one has been afforded any. If you don't respect yourself, you can't respect other people- it's very simple.
hear hear Nox
Nox, not simple, and not true. Parents should be there to help, guide, teach their children, to respect and care for one another, sadly much of this doesn't happen. This is not a new thing, but we are picking up the tab for this now.
corbyloon, many of those service personnel shouldn't be in prison but be in a hospital, or counselling, getting the treatment they need. Once out of the service where do you think they fit into the grand scheme of things, even though they may have a trade in the army, that might not be needed in civvy street. Many do have mental health problems, there are charities that help, just not enough.
AOG

If you cannot see the irony of you calling for National Service while serving soldiers are pillaging tneir local community, then I am clearly wasting my time.

Also, one poster supporting National Service claimed it was working in Turkey, so I posted a link to rioting in Turkey by young people.
Gromit, was it more than one soldier,
I'm in favour of Nat/Ser but it doesn't have to be military.
The big advantage of NS is that youths are more mature when they finish it, as well as facing possibly the only discipline in their lives.
When we had NS it was after you had finished your apprentiship ,training and education . At the moment we have new teachers standing in front of a class of students who are almost of the same age . Some in fact look older than their teacher. Many of our best teachers are those who have some experience of life outside the classroom.
Most of our services would be better served by having more mature people in their ranks. Social services , nursing , police etc. they all need the respect that maturity gives.
As a bonus I remember illiterate youths coming into the army and within 6 weeks they were reading and writing letters home.
em10

I am just going off this statement from the military

// Army sources admitted that they were braced for a number of soldiers to be charged following this week’s rioting as the majority are on summer “bloc leave” in August. //

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