Yeah, there’s a reason most people join the military when they are 17 or 18 and essentially children and a few of the “adults” join when they’re like 21. We basically consider it one of the most heinous acts to allow 14 year olds to be in your army, but we heavily recruit 17 year olds.
5 Likes
^Now, it’s worth noting that student loan debt is likely a significant driver for the middle demos, meaning it still involves a considerable amount of, effectively, economic coercion. But while it’s a popular leftie talking point, it’s really not true that ‘the poor’ do most of the fighting in America’s wars. Make of that what you will.
1 Like
Our society deeply fetishizes the military and heaps mountains of unearned praise on anybody who serves, no matter how trivial their contributions. That’s going to be very attractive to a lot of young people.
6 Likes
Also, the vast, vast majority of people who join the military never get anywhere near a combat situation. It’s actually a pretty smart career move for most people with very little risk.
I mean, it’s defensible to say $65K a year is poor in a big city, and I’m not going to dispute that income inequality’s a huge issue. But for one thing, it’s going to be trivially true that the poor fight most of the wars if you regard the entire bottom 85% as poor. They’re going to do most of pretty much everything, by definition. And for another, when it seems like the absolutely destitute are less susceptible to the economic pressure than those who are merely struggling, the story has to be more complicated than that.
Blame Marius I guess, you had to actually own land to have the privilege to fight for it back in the day
3 Likes
The Gracchi would’ve won.
1 Like
GracchiBros > BernieBros imo
2 Likes
Yeah, fair point.
Maybe it’s logarithmic?
2 Likes
Lmao 65k in America is not poor wtf.
$65k for a family would be pretty hard depending where you are, at any rate I’ll highly the most relevant part of the statistics for you so its more clear…
Fkin lol
Maybe didn’t pay close enough attention but thought the 65k was individual.
I hate to break it to hopeful Iranians but popular politics is not the solution for anything.
You’re not wrong, but the more immediate factor was that Rome was overextended militarily. It was trying to conclude a war in north Africa while facing hundreds of thousands of invading Germans(?) from the north. Dealing with this required a lot more soldiers. Even if the Gracchan reforms stuck let’s say, there would still have been a chunk of poor people who could not meet the eligibility criteria who could otherwise be recruited to fight.
Yeah, it’s a vanguard revolution or no-
Sorry, wrong forum. Never mind.
They should always be equal before the law, but they are not equal in terms of value to society.
You should start picketing funerals to raise awareness of this important fact.