Sofia Orr is likely to become the first woman since then to be jailed for refusing military service, but believes it is ‘wrong to take children and make them into soldiers’
And she’s right.
Any government/country is actually just a kind of service (you pay taxes and get different goods from it). Every person should have the right to choose the provider of this service (change the country) or completely refrain from it. It means that mandatory military service is no less than slavery. People are not guilty for being born in a country they don’t want to fight for (or that they don’t want to fight at all)
I think you are on the right track with your ideals of the world, but I also guess you kinda know that this is not how states operate. Of course there are different types of states, but if you think of democracies, they are also not service providers to their citizens. On the contrary. Democratic states are the abstraction of all the private interests of their citizens. This is what they protect and advance. What arises out of that is that occasionally these interests will suggest a war is what the nation desires.
I do not believe in “nation’s interest”. That’s the thing that made USA an aggressive state. It also means that the minorities’ opinions are completely rejected. And yk politicians often like to do what people didn’t ask them to do. Democracy is good but the right of choosing the country and freely leaving one must always be there
yes, I also don‘t believe in the nation‘s interest, yet it somehow pretty brutally exists. Something‘s got to grow, somethings got to give.
This is why promoting peace and good ideas is important. If the society is informed, it can change the situation
At first you got to have a good analysis of how society and the economy works. Unfortunately this already is a tricky thing, because not everybody agrees.
Of course not everybody agrees. And we shouldn’t force them to agree. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make the world better for everyone. Ik it sounds naive but I’m just getting into all of this. Now I’m not an expert at all. I think you get the main idea. I’m not capable of detailing it very much yet
I think the point they are trying to hint at is that it makes sense to try and understand the emergent forces that culminate in events as horrific as war.
You may “not believe in national interests” but something closely resembling that is a force governing social behavior.
So while it is important to pass moral judgements on these phenomena, you will be more effective at doing so if you can abstractly evaluate them absent moral judgement. Just as you couldn’t coherently understand an ecology if you cannot accept obligate predators as a concept because of the moral implications of predation.
We will all differ in our moral and strategic assessments, but we all cohabit the same world, in which we can all recognize common truths arising from nature.
Eh… Close, but they are also a concentration social power (and fundamentally deferred violence), and rights only really exist in the context of social power. You can try and establish your own personal sovereignty but you can be sure that any state that cares to will test that. Sometimes the most you can do is accept that it is able to imprison you or go down fighting, and if you are committed to pacifism the latter is a harder option.
Fighting is the last option. It’s needed when a state becomes usurpated and (unpopular opinion) when the current situation creates an objective high risk for the society or its part and waiting for the election is not really an option (such risk can be exhibited as genocide, severe discrimination or just as creation of a good environment for spreading aggressive ideas. All are dangerous). I think the best thing to do in a democratic society is trying to promote ideas which you think are right so people who agree can join you and you all can have a bigger influence on elections and people who aren’t sure about their views can also find yours appealing. Leave the enforcement part for people who really know what they’re doing and who you’re sure are doing it for the higher good
Hasn’t it always been young people who make the bulk of the armies?
Sorry. Choose your governments carefully.
Well, she’s certainly part of a minority. The majority of the political parties in Israel are extremely right-wing, not much choice there.
I’d be happier probably dying for a cause I hate fir a couple of years rather than rotting in a military prison for the rest of eternity.
Yeah and killing other people? Sure thing buddy.