Originally posted by Ayukat:
*Yawns yet again.* I can never understand why I keep
getting flamed at when I never even flamed anyone in my entire NS
ranting stunt, sighs. Maybe I should flame back? Anyway, there is
nothing wrong about NS, the only biggest mistake is that they
shouldn't force people [b]against their will, its like
raping someone for 2 1/2 years. I made my point. About the shooting
part, you think I am going tell you I am going run away?[/b]
hm.. i hope u should understand that alot of times, there are
things which we do even though it seems against our wills. does
anyone like to pay taxes? but do you see a mass exodus from
it?
observe that in both the case of taxes and national service one
does have the choice to run away.
its called national service, and not volunteer corps, or regular
service, precisely cos its compulsory.
i hope u understand tt the chinese haf the cultural mindset (at
least in the past) that the good boys will not join the armed
forces. taking this into account, plus the fact that the great
majority of our population is chinese, do you think our national
service will be meaningful if we leave it to choice?
and even though we have advanced through years, and our chinese are
now more receptive of being in the armed forces. does that
guarantee that we will have sufficient willing males to volunteer
for ns, given that there are, undeniably, "better things" to do if
they dont serve ns?
and taking into account also the fact that numbers do play an
important part in an armed force, in terms of deterrence (the fact
that our total recallable strength is 300 000, and this is in fact
a larger number than some of our neighbour's armed forces), do you
think its feasible to run a non-compulsory ns, and still hope to
achieve the same effect?
and also note that singapore is not the only country practising
this policy.
this is just my rationalisation of the policy. i am not trying to
change your mind about ns - i am just responding to your statement
that ns shouldnt be forced. i hope now i have given you a better
understanding of why ns has to be forced.