To put it into perspective, the USA is making the draft system automatic from the end of this year and there’s opposition to it since the current system is that the individual is registered via the Selective Service System (it’s put into the database when one gets a driver’s license for example). From their case, the American government’s argument is: “it saves money from military recruitment campaigns” which is a pile of horse shit.
I mean, there are European countries where the draft is normal and expected for men over 18 (Austria, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus & Croatia) including both Norway & Switzerland (despite them NOT being EU members at all). And yes: Ukraine has the draft, since men ages from 18-60 cannot leave the country due to them being made to stay behind on fending off against Russia.
But there are also European countries where the draft is non-existent, remains dormant or abolished: France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Belgium, Netherlands, Albania, Ireland or the United Kingdom. However, what would happen if your country’s government suddenly enacts an automatic register for conscription?
As in, your country’s government refers to a name list of guys who possess EU identity cards, driver’s licenses or passports verifying if they’re over 18 by putting their name on a database. Like this: your name refered from your EU identity card now put into a conscription register meaning you can be called up at any time when the circumstances deem it necessary, like all of that done behind everyone’s back.
The whole American registration system is strange and confusing to me. Americans need to sign up themselves for nearly everything government related?
I’m used to registration by the parents a few days aftee birth. After that the government keeps track of most things like being allowed to vote, draft, place of residence. In some countries they keep track of elligibility for benefits, healtcare related things, or taxes too. Of course a lot of these things are (semi-)automated, it saves a lot of work and expenses.
Yes, automatic enrollment of citizens into all sorts of things that are mandatory anyway isn’t weird, it’s what I’d call a functioning administration.
Having 54 governments masquerading as one will do that.
China is more like this actually. Citizenship is at the regional level.
That excuse doesn’t count.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland are all federal republics as well, with strong state governments in addition to the federal government, and they manage just fine.
Hell, moving between EU (not a federation!) countries seems to require less registrational duties (if you’re a working person i.e. have ‘equal status’) after registering the move with your own and host country’s governments…
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are combined smaller than the U.S. in both land area and population. And this is important because the diversity in the population meant pushback against a national ID.
I really don’t think that its the size of the country or population that meant push back against a national ID. I’d argue it was the weird “rugged individualism” thing that Americans have, I mean just recently I was reading about how Americans were against postcodes and one of the reasons they mentioned was this attitude of individualism, anything the big scary government does is seen as a personal insult and a slippery slope towards some sort of authoritarian state.
Yes and part of that is how big this country is