this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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[–] oce@jlai.lu 44 points 1 year ago (58 children)

What do you suggest doing when your home is invaded by people who want to erase your culture?

[–] deadcream@kbin.social 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

It's also the home of people being drafted (even more so than for political elite of the country). If some of them want to get the fuck out (yes, from their home) then those thay have elected shouldn't have the right to force them to stay and die.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

It's a little more complicated than that (and the original post is a ridiculous oversimplifications with the intellectual level of a 5-year-old, if that much).

It's down to how much do each of us owe to the Society we grew up in and the Society we live in (if not the same) and thus how much do we have a moral duty to pay it back when called upon it to protect said Society.

Different people will decide differently on those things and thus determine in their own minds what they think their "duty" is.

Then of course, on top of this there's also the whole "protecting my family", "fight alonside my friends", plain old "warrior spirit" and such motivations on one side, as well as "having to stay to work to feed my family" and such on the other, but that's not really to do with "duty" and "moral".

In this specific case there is also the HUGE moral element that they're paying to avoid the draft, and those doing so actually have money, so they're likelly bigger beneficiaries from Society than those who can't afford to make such payments, which brings in a massive element of injustice (one might make the case that the richer the person the more they have a duty towards the Society that made the and kept them thus).

Ultimatelly the draft itself should include some elements to make it fairer (and it does, up to a point, thinks like not drafting poor people with lots of kids - who need to earn a living for their family - or people who don't have the local citizenship - who likely owe much less to local society than the locals) but in this specific case it absolutelly make sense to throw the book at those who are local citizens who have more money than most and yet use it to evade a duty to Society which is likely higher than that of most other people.

[–] 22dobbeltskudhul@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As corrupt and shitty the Ukrainian state is, very few people owe their life to it. Draftdodging is morally defensible in almost all wars.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Society is not the State.

Only certain political subcultures in the United States and most absolute dictatorships (like China and Russia) think the State is Society.

States are just one form of organisation that naturally emerges in Societies to manage certain aspects of it. They're not Society, just as Legal is not the same as Moral (i.e. sometimes what's lawfull is imoral and what's moral is illegal).

In fact I agree that people have no duty to the State.

And in Russia that does mean that they have no duty to obey the draft, because it was the Russian State that made the war and it's not being done for the good of Society.

However in Ukraine people would be fighting for Society, not the State and in fact they would be fighting against the State: the Russian State, which is trying take over their land, their things and even control their lives and impose their will on them.

On the Ukranian side this is very much a fight for Freedom from a State which does not operate for the good of people and doesn't even want them to be free.

In fact it even makes sense for some Ukranians to be against the Ukranian State as it operates and still join to fight because the Russian State would be even worse - they're fighting for their families, their friends, their neighbours, even themselves, not for the Ukranian State.

I'm surprised so many people read your post without holding the simple truth that Society (all of us) is not the State (just a few people, sometimes not even elected and when elected, often only through lies and rules that mathematically rig the voting systems). I suppose there are a lot of politicans that want people to confuse such things as Nationalism and Patriotism, hence people who are constantly fed that political spin also end up confusing related elements such as the State, the Nation and Society.

(Also most actual Political Thinking has been killed in the last 4 decades and replaced by techniques from Marketing, so it's unsurprising that most people haven't really pondered by themselves on these things which were all the rage for ideologies back in the first half or the XX century, especially in the US where politics has long ceased to be about grand visions for the future of society).

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Draftdoging an economic or offensive war is much different than draftdoging a defensive war.

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