Universal national service, of which only a portion goes to military service will have the same self-selection issues that you believe to be the case in the current all-volunteer military. I.e. if there is a problem with self-selection by political ideology into all-volunteer military service, that will still be the case with national service of which only a portion can be taken by the military.
Civilian national service, if required immediately out of high school, could be beneficial if it came with education, training, or apprenticeship for skilled jobs, reducing the cost and debt burden of education and training for many new entrants into the labor force. If not, and only used the people for low skill high school graduate (or dropout) jobs, that would be a wasteful use of labor, since two years now of high school graduate labor would be less valuable (both to the individuals and the economy as a whole) than two years later of more skilled labor for those who would otherwise immediately go into education, training, or apprenticeship for more skilled jobs after they complete the education, training, or apprenticeship.
Also, the US military overall may not be as right-leaning in all areas as is commonly assumed. Those in the military may be more likely to be “national security conservatives”, but that does not always mean that they are right-leaning in other areas. Of course, some things learned during military training can make any kind of violence-prone extremist more dangerous.
Perhaps of more immediate concern to most people may be differences of opinion between police officers and the general population.
What’s perhaps as disturbing as extremists in the military is the fact that a leaked Oath Keepers membership list showed over 300 members to be current or former employees of the Department of Homeland Security. The membership list ran only up to 2015, the pre-Trump era. My guess is that what Trump did to legitimize extremism likely resulted in that number tripling or even quadrupling. Homeland Security is the department charged with dealing with domestic terrorism - like Oklahoma City - among other things. Fix guarding the hen house?
According to https://www.adl.org/resources/report/oath-keepers-data-leak-unmasking-extremism-public-life , the leaked membership list of about 38,000 appeared to contain 373 believed to be in law enforcement jobs and 117 believed to be in active US military service. These numbers are about 0.011% of the US population (0.015% of the US adult population), 0.047% of law enforcement personnel, and 0.0086% of active US military personnel, respectively.
Knowing the military members I know, it’s definitely not a threat. I think they thought they were larger of a majority than they were - hence, Jan 6th happening. I think many that day thought a coup would be easy. Not so.
Jan 6th and its aftermath has actually given me more peace about the stability of our country. The fringes tried and were ground to a halt. Many afterward had their eyes opened to see what happened and what could have happened. There will always be supporters, of course, just like there will always be KKK members (or any other fringe group), but they aren’t anywhere near a majority and I simply don’t see their numbers rising. Nov’s election confirmed that (to me).
But this is a rabbit trail. It’s quite similar to how many who have a strong faith assume everyone else does (or should) too. Reality isn’t that way, nor has it ever been, even back to Biblical days. Read the Bible if in doubt. Most people didn’t follow God. The writers - prophets, apostles, etc, were all trying to get more to do so and strengthen the faith of those who already did.
The only time strong faith (in anything) will show high percentages is if one’s life depends on it (life here on earth - “believe or die” or “believe or we’ll make your life far worse”). Then yes, most will say they believe because it’s not their hill to die on, but it’s just words. That’s addressed in the Bible too in James, Chapter 2:
“14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Why would James (and several others) have addressed it if they weren’t seeing it happen?
January 6 could easily have been a blood bath. Where would the country be today if the insurrection it’s had succeeded in hanging Mike Pence and executing Nancy Pelosi? We came very close.
Y’all are making some good points here, but if you want the thread to continue without interruption, you should find the breadcrumbs back to the religious implications of it all. One question I have for all of you is whether The Crusades were heretical?
Sure it could have, but it wasn’t. That’s my point and what gives me reassurance.
The Christian Far Right ran a candidate for Governor here in PA. He outright said he was for God and Country and didn’t believe in Separation of Church and State, among other things. He lost and it wasn’t even close.
Those who are deeply into their faith think others feel the same as they do - the “Silent Majority” it was coined a few decades ago. They’re wrong. I don’t think they’re increasing in numbers either.
What is heretical depends on what point of view one comes from. The crusaders’ opponents probably thought that the crusaders were heretics. The crusaders themselves probably did not think so.
But George Santos did win in NY. And the fact that the 1/6 insurrection wasn’t successful doesn’t mean the system is unbreakable. Rather than reassurance, I think that the lesson of 1/6 is that we need to be ever more vigilant. And I’m not a pessimist by nature; I’m much more of an optimist. But after supporting my wife in her battle with cancer over the past 2 years, our motto has become “Expect the unexpected.” And “Be prepared.”
There are Christians, and there is The Church. The Crusades are believed to have been a response to a speech by Pope Urban II, who headed The Church, requesting assistance in retaking the land the Seljuq Turks took from the Byzantine Emporer. The Crusades were caused by The Church getting involved in politics. As a Christian, I don’t recall any preaching by Jesus that ever called believers to take up arms against their brethren (quite the opposite, in fact). So … IMO, the Crusades were heretical to the teachings of Christ. I’m not so sure they were heretical to the beliefs of The Church, because The Church believed that the Pope is infallible (therefore his beliefs would be the beliefs of The Church). I’m not sure it was quite so simple, but I do often wonder how a Christian church could ever justify the Crusades.
I wonder how Christians justify a lot they do in the name of God. The New Testament just doesn’t support it. Over and over again I read two main commandments. Love God and Love Your Neighbor (including the works involved to do so as posted above). A close third is Don’t Judge others. Nowhere are we told to Take Up Arms and Fight for _______. It was never done by the early disciples/apostles either. We are told how to live “our” lives, but not told to push our choices onto the world.
It appears to have come into play by some leaders when they realized they could turn religion into supporting them (not God) by directing their followers to do so.
Yes, also known as the “Albigensian Crusade” it was part of the backwash from the Latin Church’s defeat in the Holy Land. Different kings and members of the nobility began butchering each other and calling each other heretics. IMO, such largely politically motivated campaigns lacked the popular support of the first crusades or the subsequent defense of Eastern Europe against the Otttoman Empire.
Actually the Albigensian Crusade was motivated largely by monetary factors. The Cathar “heresy” was so successful that people were leaving the churches, which meant that they were no longer giving money and there was a revenue drain. The churches no longer had the money to make their expected payments to the bishops and the bishops no longer had money to send to Rome. The Church decided that this was an intolerable state of affairs and that the Cathars had to be stopped one way or another. Preaching wasn’t working to bring the “heretics” and their money back to the fold, so a military expedition was mounted. The “crusade” was named after the town of Albi, which was one of the Centers of Catharism, but it should have been called the Cathar Crusade because that’s who was targeted.
Yes, it was another result of a failed attempt to attack Jerusalem, this time by way of Cairo. The Venetians had been commissioned to build a fleet of ships and were in the process of assembling an army when it became obvious they had more ships than troops to fill them. Not wishing to get stuck holding a worthless bill of lading, they forced the would-be crusaders to invade Byzantium instead. The sacking of Constantinople by troops loyal to the Western Church and the subsequent looting of countless Byzantine relics is probably the principal reason for the next 800 years of suspicion and enmity between the two main branches of pre-Reformation Christianity.