I do not believe that there was any meaningful continuity between the continental army and the modern US army.
As for the Emancipation Proclamation, I feel that it can be debated whether the union army was fighting against slavery, but let’s pretend I lost that argument and we agree that they were. The current US military is only responsible for that in the same way I’m responsible for my grandfather getting his first job. Which is to say, not any sense I don’t consider laughable.
I don’t think the structure of my character is sufficient justification to forcibly press me into service. Feel free to argue that somebody’s got to do the work and you don’t mind pressganginging people to accomplish it, but don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor in the process.
Nope.
Not in those examples.
Was it immoral to join the Wehrmacht? It’s hard to say no since they were an enemy and aggressors and had an awful national leader doing awful things.
On the other hand, I think all countries have a right to self-defense.
I’m not so sure continuity matters; my point in both cases is that politicians can proclaim what they want, but frequently (too frequently), it takes armed force to make those things be effective. The Emancipation Proclamation was just so many words, without the Union Army defeating the Confederate Army so that it could be enforced, regardless of *why *the Union Army was fighting. Same thing for the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Army.
That’s what the concept that war is an extension of politics is about.
If you think your military is used immorally then quite obviously it’s immoral to join it. I think a lot of people ignore that with “what about the good stuff?” And while killing other people may be morally defensible in certain circumstances, joining the military is giving someone else authority over that decision. That can only be justified by assuming they will make better moral decisions than yourself.
Absolutely not.
Well, continuity matters if we’re talking about whether the US Army can be credited with winning our independence from the British, which I thought was what we were talking about. A lack of continuity would mean it would make as much sense to for the NFL to claim the credit.
And even with continuity, it comes off like a fifty year old man bragging about his high school football career. After a certain point, if you have to dig back centuries to find things you’re proud of, you don’t have anything to be proud of.
(Not that the army lacking proud accomplishments makes joining it immoral, mind you.)
If your country is moral, it’s military will be also. I just got out the reserves after nearly 30 years, got a congratulatory letter from Justin Trudeau himself.
Well, he signed it.
Well, a staff member may have used a machine to sign it for him.
No.
This World is imperfect, & we have no choice but to do as we must to survive.
To refrain from killing, if unneeded, but…
s with many things, the answer is “it all depends.”
First of all, the way I see it the military is one big team. They all work together towards a common goal. Whatever the team does, every member is responsible for it. A crewman on a cargo vessel that carries weapons to a war zone is morally responsible when the weapons are used to kill human beings. He may never personally fire a shot, but he’s still a killer. Every job in the military is a killing people job. No exceptions. That includes the medical staff and the chaplain.
And yet so many refuse to accept the moral responsibility for their actions. They try to explain how they didn’t kill anyone. That, in my opinion, is inherently immoral.
And then we’ve got to examine what they are fighting for, and why. Some wars are necessary. Some fights are moral and the people who participate might well be good people. Those who joined up to fight against Hitler I can admire. But then there are others who just see killing people as a career. They just willingly participate in any fight they are sent to, good or bad. And that is about the worst possible thing somebody can do without going to prison.
To take an example, consider the Iraq war. The first people to go in had been told that Saddam had WMDs and was a threat to the lives of innocent people. They put themselves in harms way for the protection of others. They might be good people, some of them. And then it turned out that they had been lied to. The war was a pointless waste of human lives. And yet some people continued to enlist. Knowing damn well that the war was wrong, they nevertheless joined up and willingly took part in it. That’s immoral.
No.
I enlisted during Vietnam Nam, after college. I believe that I was exposed to others from different walks of life and vice versa, I see this as valuable to society and perhaps could reduce tribalism a bit.
As a matter of fact, I believe in mandatory service - which could be military. Or something like the CCC, National Parks, domestic Peace Corps, drug or mental health services, etc.
Everyone does their year or two and gets something in return - perhaps more tuition if you choose the military.
I believe that mandatory service is basically slavery. Every time it’s proposed I get chills.
Why limit moral responsibility to the military, then? Why not the spouse waiting to throw their deployed service member a big party when they get home? It’s basically the same logic used by airmen to justify (to themselves, at least) carpet bombing during WWII. Why not just cut right to the chase and hold the whole nation inescapably, morally accountable for the actions of every government employee, to include those in the military? I mean, if you still pay taxes… Why not stop? The worst they can do is put you in jail, and you could always try and emigrate to one of those countries that never ever does anything wrong, right?
ETA:
You volunteered to go to Vietnam?
No. (Two of my cousins are Iraqi War vets, and I know them, and THEY’RE not immoral people)
Most of the people of my generation are the grandchildren of WWII/Korean War veterans. I don’t think my grandfathers were immoral either, because they chose to fight against the Axis.
“They are good people, therefore, their actions must be good,” has some logical flaws in it.
Circumstances have arguably changed in the seventy or eighty years since your grandparents served.
This is likely based loosely on something I posted a few days ago, where I said I hold the unpopular opinion that it’s usually unethical to join the military. Not immoral, unethical. I’m hesitant to elaborate, but often choose unwisely, so I’ll elaborate a bit.
First, I say “unethical” because, while I don’t claim to have any supernatural insight into ethics, I do ascribe the view that ethics are as subjective as mathematics, that there are certain principles that apply better to the actual world we live in than others. I may poorly understand those principles, but it seems to me that they’re probably a feature of the universe, and it’s a good idea to try to understand them.
Second, I figure that we should try to act on the ethical principles to the best of our understanding. And even if I may respect your different ethical position, I may still think it’s wrong, and act to prevent you (or dissuade you) from engaging in acts I understand to be unethical.
Third, armed forces require you to subordinate your understanding of ethics to someone else’s. This may mean killing people even when you do not believe the situation warrants it.
In extreme cases, e.g., fighting Nazis when the Nazis look like they stand an extremely good chance of taking over much of the world, the ill of subordinating your ethical understanding to that of other people can be overwhelmed by the ethical necessity. The ends justify the means, sometimes.
But in general the people at the top of military chains of commands have not convinced me that they’re adequately concerned about protecting innocent lives. This applies to modern US military commands, as well as those of every other nation I’m familiar with. Including Canada’s.
So I don’t think it’s ethical to join the military.
Again, I recognize this is a vastly minority opinion. I don’t expect others to agree. I think others can disagree, and can even join the military, and still be good people who are worthy of respect. But I’ll not respect them for making this specific decision, and I’ll wish they’d chosen otherwise.
No, I volunteered in a role that that meant I would not go to Vietnam. (Sorry about the typo)
No, it’s not immoral.
No, and I like the policies many countries have of having “military service by foreign national” be a pretty decent path to citizenship. I know some guys who are much happier in their highly-structured, military jobs (not every job is like that, but these guys’ are) than they’d be in the looser world of most civilian jobs. And, as in Canada, in Spain the military is a superb emergency-situation resource; they’re good for anything from helping people and animals in natural disasters to providing tent cities for a million-people meeting.