> It could also a be a slower kind of suicide to let that nuclear power invade and take territory piece by piece, unmolested.
If this is how you feel, you should enlist. Otherwise, you're just demanding that other people's sons and daughters should be sent to die fighting for someone else's country.
> Otherwise, you're just demanding that other people's sons and daughters should be sent to die fighting for someone else's country.
That's how democracies work, and they can't work any other way.
I mean think it through: if what you say must be avoided, then no country could go to war, even to defend others, unless more than half the population was enlisted in a ponderously oversized military.
> Why is it a "tired trope" to say that you should not be asking other people to do things that you yourself would not?
Because it's a superficially appealing idea that actually makes no sense. In a democracy, anyone gets to ask its government to do anything. Putting extra conditions who can ask is just muzzling democracy. Should the decision to go to war only be up to only the members of the military? No, since that would be clearly undemocratic.
And your idea can be applied to so many different questions, to equal nonsense: Are you a member of the police? Then you better not express any opinion that high crime rates should be lowered, since you're not willing to be the guy to stop them. Don't like trash on the street? Better not complain unless you're willing to quit your job and become a garbageman.
What you're forgetting here is that there is a clear precedent for what I'm suggesting. People forget this, but in WWI, the British upper classes actually lost children at a higher rate to the war than those in lower classes. This was because, at the time, the British elite would never have been okay with the idea of sending people to die, without having skin in the game themselves. It was a matter of basic morality (and honor).
What you're suggesting is, on the other hand, completely immoral. It's far too easy for us to sit in our comfy homes, earning nice salaries for tapping away on our keyboards all day, while some poor kid from middle America or inner city LA has his life cut tragically short because people like us say, "Oh man, that Ukraine situation is really bad, someone should really do something about that"
That isn't actually a precedent for what you're saying, unless the UK at that point was sufficiently undemocratic that the lower classes you're saying participated in the war at a lower rate didn't have a say in the decision to fight it.
It's also a bit presumptuous of you to assume that anyone posting this kind of thing on Hacker News has never had "skin in the game." I was still part of the 1st CAV headquarters in 2014 when we sent two brigades to Estonia in response to Russia invading Crimea. Military veterans are not exactly unheard of in software development or any other field of work. And, for what it's worth, I don't believe my vote should be worth more than yours because of that. We're not living in the world of Starship Troopers.
For starters, not everyone is of military age. Does that disqualify them from having an opinion on matters of nation and international security?
Additionally, even if they aren't willing to enlist themselves, that shouldn't disqualify them from having an opinion on this. They pay taxes that fund the military and other agencies for the purpose of national security. Countries have militaries for exactly these purposes. Citizens enlist in the military with full knowledge that they could be called to battle one day. Do you think the military should only engage in war if every enlisted member agrees to do so? No other input should be taken?
I refuse to work in a solid waste plant, yet I ask others to do so.
I refuse to work as a Doctor, yet ask others to do so.
There are many jobs I refuse to be engaged in, but need doing.
So it's okay to give people who will never be forced to step onto a battlefield and die the power to decide who to fight and when to do it?
> That's how democracies work, and they can't work any other way.
Bullshit. This is how democracy works now because of universal suffrage. Historically it is not the only form of democracy and it is most definitely not a fair system.
I don't know about starship troppers. I'm just saying it's not at all fair when 50% of the population can elect leaders who have the power to order the other 50% to die on their behalf. That is the current situation with men and women in the vast majority of countries today, including mine: men and women can vote but only men are conscripted into military service.
If this is how you feel, you should enlist. Otherwise, you're just demanding that other people's sons and daughters should be sent to die fighting for someone else's country.