Conscription Yes Or No?

[Theland]

A friend of my son, going nowhere, rubbishy jobs and boozing like hell, just finished his basic training in the Royal Navy.
He looks fantastic, stopped drinking, slimmer and fitter, and more important, happier.

So as a lifelong civilian myself, I want to ask all of the service men and those retired, "Would conscription be a positive thing?"

Given the drift of some of our youth, would it help them?

Thinking of the opening scenes of, "Full Metal Jacket."

[vetuste_ennemi]

"Do not live to eat, but eat to live".

Is that chiastic? Or Antimetabolic?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Nice if we could find common ground and agree that it's both.

But would prefer the correct description of the rhetorical device.

[ABerrant]

Antimetabolic.

Chiasmus is a reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words

[vetuste_ennemi]

Can you give an example, ABerrant? And is the oft quoted JFK dictum a case of the one or the other?

[douglas9401]

These are areas of the language which are a mysterious to me, not because they are easy but because they are haaaaard.

Right , that's me off to the moon and to do the other things.

[murraymints]

Army has enough to deal with without adding baggage to the formula that does not want to be there..

[Kromovaracun]

I've never liked that JFK quote. It's creepy. We are not born servants of the state. In a democratic society, the state is there to serve the people - not the other way. It makes me think of that weird, culty 'pledge of allegiance' that American schoolchildren have to constantly make.

Conscription is enormously expensive, violates individual liberties, and would make the army less effective as a fighting force. The state takes its due already - it isn't entitled to a year or more of your life.

[Old_Geezer]

Not ever been a serviceman but I say, during peacetime, no. It's no longer vital for the nation in peacetime, so it would simply be an imposition on someone's life when they should make their own life decisions.

[dannyk13]

Yes ( but without the GI's depicted in Full Metal Jacket). I served alongside conscripts who had benefitted greatly from their training.

[1ozzy]

You can lead a duck to water, but, you can't make it swim.

Or was that a horse and drinking?

[woofgang]

NO

[woofgang]

I don't think there is anything creepy about the JFK quote. there are many things which we can do for our country in everyday life.....not drop rubbish....look out for each other in small ways....offer help where its needed...

[Ken4155]

Where would the money come from for this mass conscription? This government has whittled the British Army numbers down so much that we no longer really have an army. More a decent sized militia.

[Zacs-Master]

Pointless debate. No government would ever dare bring it in.

[emmie]

heaven help us if we ever go to war again.

[dannyk13]

Emmie, I don't think that there will be much need for boots on the ground in any future war.It will be a nuclear holocaust.

[Old_Geezer]

Oh don't worry. Trump'll convince us to spend more on the military as part of a trade deal.

[THECORBYLOON]

VE have a look at this wiki link, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimetabole

[ToraToraTora]

according to that an antimetabole is a sub group of chiasmus.
eg "To finish first, first you have to finish" is a chiasmus but not an antimetabole because the exact words are not used in both sides.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Thanks, Corbyloon.

From your link:

" It is related to, and sometimes considered a special case of, chiasmus".

And from Wiki on chiasmus (comparing the two):

"Chiasmus balances words or phrases with similar, though not identical, meanings".