Participation in X is not a requirement (or guarantee) of special insight or knowledge about X, nor does it make one’s opinions more valid by default than someone who does not participate in X.
This is extra specially doubly true when participation in X does not require training or education in the thing you want to opine on.
Being in the military does not make someone’s opinion about the value of the military in “preserving freedoms” more informed.
That’s a fair point. I guess I’m looking at force projection versus defense, and where the (admittedly blurry) line lies between the two.
Because if we’re going to say that it’s the mere existence of a capable standing army that preserves our freedoms, then awesome.
It’s when someone tries to argue that any of the actual projections of US military force over the past 60 years have actively done something to preserve those freedoms that the question becomes problematic. I don’t feel that our adventure in the jungle preserved any freedoms, nor our ongoing safaris in various deserts.
That we have and maintain effective armed forces is inarguably useful. That those armed forces have fought to preserve are freedoms in recent memory is unsustainable in my opinion.
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I was just hoping to clarify your position. I was making no arguments.
This has been addressed, but if like to point out that this discussion isn’t about the inner workings of the military but its place in our society. One needn’t have been a soldier, airman, sailor, or marine to have a part in that discussion.
And I do hope you’re not accusing me of commenting out of a “near-total lack of knowledge” regarding anything military. I recognize this is a passionate issue for you, and I totally appreciate that. But not everyone is out to get you, not everyone is questioning your motives, and not everyone without a uniform is an idiot.
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Actually I’m just gonna retract that statement, it made no sense on a number of levels and I apologize. It’s the heat getting to me, man. 
I think World War II was a definite threat to our freedom because Hitler would have never stopped, and the Japanese were a grave threat in the other hemisphere. Some say that Germany could have never defeated the United States, but they were perilously close to developing nuclear weapons before we did. Had they done so, that could have tipped the scales. Besides, if we had been truly unbeatable, wouldn’t that have been because of our military?
I don’t know why this notion keeps cropping up on the Internet - the idea that if the USA didn’t defend South Korea, that the North would just march over Seoul. South Korea’s military is very capable and advanced, and most likely entirely capable of beating back a Northern invasion all on its own. The presence of U.S. forces in Korea just makes the war even more winnable and even more quickly so.
People always seem to think that without US support, allies would crumble.
Yes, I would say the US Armed Forces preserves our freedoms much in the same way your local police force protects you against crime, even if you aren’t robbed on a daily basis. Perhaps “freedoms” is an overly broad term in this application, but the fact is, our armed services, in conjunction with our intelligence and law enforcement agencies serve to protect the United States and it’s allies against those who would seek to harm it.
You would be hard pressed to convince me that the average enlisted person has any more insight into global politics and international affairs then the average factory worker has insight into the global economic affairs of General Electric.
That’s a very good way to put it. Good analogy, and also a good way to note that the premise is a bit simplistic, even if there is some truth to it.
Agreed. Being a bird doesn’t make you an ornithologist. In fact, it probably prevents you from being an ornithologist because (if you forgive me mixing metaphors) it’s hard to see the forest when the trees are in the way.
Furthermore, suppose two young people are thinking about military service. Person “A” believes that the military preserves freedom, wants to be part of it, and plans to join. Person “B” believes that the military is a drain on society, doesn’t want to be a part of it, and plans not to join. On the day they make their decision, before either of them has even had a chance to join or not join, how is one opinion more valid than the other? It makes zero sense to say that B has no right to have an opinion on the subject. This is equally true even after A has joined the military and served for years.
You might as well say that people who have never flown on an airplane have no right to express an opinion about where to build the airport. That’s ridiculous.
There is a very old notion that people who have been in the military are morally superior to those who haven’t, because the former are willing to risk their lives for their fellow citizens and the latter are not. But this is a fallacy. Just because a person chooses not to join the military does not mean they aren’t willing to risk their lives for their fellow citizens, it only means they aren’t willing to risk their lives in this specific way. A person who refuses military service but then goes on to be a firefighter is obviously risking their lives for other people. In fact, one could argue that the firefighter is morally superior to the soldier because, while both risk their lives for other people, the firefighter risks their life for everyone but the soldier only risks their life for the people on their own side while actively trying to hurt people on the other side. Imagine you’re a firefighter called to a building with eight people inside, seven of which are tenants and one of which is a burglar. Suppose you decide to save seven tenants and then make no effort as all to save the burglar. Even worse, suppose you physically prevent the burglar from leaving the building, trying as hard as possible to make sure the burglar dies in the fire. You’d be a pretty awful firefighter, wouldn’t you?
<sarcasm> But hey, I have no right to express an opinion about it, because I’ve never been a firefighter, right? </sarcasm>
I don’t know about “morally superior”. But I think that choosing to serve in the military does present one with moral, physical, emotional and other challenges that a person who does not join the military may never be exposed to.
Some of whom (more and more occasionally these days) actually served, and have an understanding of the military that the rest absolutely will not.
Right. Because experience never adds to knowledge nor informs proper decision-making, and lack of it never leads to bad decisions or false opinions.
There is such a thing as an educated officer corps. I know, I was part of it.
To continue along the ‘what if’ track, do you think there would be Russian missiles in Cuba without a strong US military? What would the effects have been when the Soviets controlled the seas? How many of those Eastern bloc countries would have been freed? (And, along similar lines, would the USSR have fallen?) What would an unfettered Russia have done without us counterbalancing them?
I’m saying the decision to join or not join is itself a moral challenge. If we only listened to the group who made one decision and not the people who made the other, that would be an extreme case of selection bias.
People who butcher their own cows before eating them are facing moral, physical, and emotional challenges that the average American does not face. Now imagine a person who says, “I think the beef industry is bad for America.” Surely you wouldn’t tell that person they have no right to express an opinion unless they first get a job in a slaughterhouse.
This is really impossible to say with any certainty. There is a ton of speculation about what would have happened if the axis powers won WWII, which I think could have happened if we stayed out of it (especially if they got the bomb first). I don’t think a de-facto invasion would have been impossible (we surrender, they install military bases “for protection”).
Having served in the military may make you more qualified to offer an opinion on the efficacy of certain tactics in amphibious assaults (it also may not, if you’re a bomber pilot who had no reason to learn about such things).
It doesn’t make you any more qualified to answer the philosophical question of whether the military “preserves our freedom.”
Sure, buddy. The 2nd biggest military in the EU is “leeching” off Greece. Whatever you say…
*Germany *leeching off Greece…still laughing, here.
It’s correct as of 2016 (not 1 year ago, the article I read was from a year ago, but the figures relayed to then). Can you show anything that suggests that Germany has increased its military to the size it is obliged by treaty to? If not, then they (and 23 other countries) are leeching from the handful that are meeting their obligations.
Oh, I’m not disputing that Germany isn’t (currently) meeting NATO targets (although they are ramping up), I’m laughing that you think that means its “leeching” off Greece.
Of course Greece can meet its piddling treaty obligations - it has all that German bailout money to prop up its fiscus, after all. And its treaty obligations are, of course, only piddling because its GDP has shrunk so much - much easier to get the 2% that way…conscription doesn’t hurt, either.
I actually have a really good solution to this, which I advocate whenever this topic comes up in conversations: they should simply have the military be more involved in building infrastructure. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy Seabees should have massive recruiting drives, they should lend the resulting manpower to domestic projects, and it would help everyone.
And this is my point in a nutshell. You have no idea what I (or anyone else who has ever served, especially on the leadership side) know about the military or you don’t know, because you’ve never been there. You don’t know. But you sure can generalize.
I’ve given a number of examples already. All I’ve heard from anybody else is ‘how dare you question our knowledge?’
Show of hands. How many of you have actually served in the military? And what makes you qualified to answer that philosophical question?
I have. That doesn’t make me more qualified that anybody else.
But apart from simply existing, I don’t believe the armed forces are preserving my freedom. In fact, considering the bordering-on-impossible likelihood of anybody successfully invading the US, which others have pointed out, we could likely get by on a much smaller military than we have now.
What’s more, I don’t think the military has killed anybody to protect my freedom fora very, very long time.