"Fully committed to peace" Is it time to bring back conscription in Germany?
At the beginning of March, Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) defence policy spokesman Florian Hahn called for the reintroduction of compulsory military service before the end of the year.
"We can’t just sit back and watch as the world around us becomes more insecure," he told German tabloid Bild.
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Highly contentious question, but Germany should bring conscription for everyone (including women) with the option of doing volunteer/civil service.
The German constitution is very gender bias in that it only allows men to be forcibly conscripted. To be fair they can also choose a civilian alternative, but still sexist.
TBH, I wonder whether the constitution is "unconstitutional" in this regard:
GG §3 explicitly states that men and women are equal before the law and have the same rights. So GG §12a limiting compulsory service to men and GG §12a (4) even explicitly forbidding to force women into service to me at least, clearly contradicts GG §3.
Same rights, and women can get into the military as well
But not the same required duties, as only men are required to do their military or civil duties to the state
Background to the thought is, that women already provide those duties by giving birth.
Yeah, it is sexist, but at least women aren't forbidden to join the military.
It's just not mandatory - for the year (or months? Don't know the current regulations in Germany) as men need to
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority, which has been abused to write all sorts of silly self destructive shit into it, like the "debt brake" which has been a major factor in the crumbling of Germany's infrastructure over the past few decades.
Why not write something sensible into it for a change?
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority,
Only that Putins party and the pacifist Linke have over a third of the votes. The former has a lot of open facists in its ranks and the later hates the idea of killing Nazis, because that is violent.
pacifist Linke
I wouldn't call rolling over and surrendering to the threat of an imperialist invasion "pacifist", but yes, German politics, as politics everywhere, is full of insane crackpots.
Won't happen as it'd require a change in the constitution but the Nazis and the far left have a blocking minority for that.
Not far left, just left. Germany doesn't have anything resembling a major far left party.
In my opinion the actual reason for suspending conscription back then was saving money on all the (socially very beneficiary) substitute services you could do.
Now we are reaping the fruits we sowed by letting a bunch of self serving neoliberal arse clowns run the country for decades.