>> Because it seems that for being so obsessed to be prepared for war the only ones affected are the working class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWijx_AgPiA

Private jet travel? Cryptocurrencies? You’re just naming things that you don’t like. The reality is that these are not large contributors.

Look at any other war in human history, when was this any different for the upper classes?

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The only thing we can do is refuse to participate.

Europe no longer needs its people, our governments have demonstrated clearly that the average person is irrelevant and replaceable. Our industries have been sold off and outsourced, we no longer make anything except spreadsheets to enable globalists and asset stripping private equity parasites. Our history and diversity has been deemed non-sacrosanct, if some other country in the world can provide infinite cheaper labour then they are invited to replace us.

In a decade there will be no jobs even for the Uber imported class - we will all just be a burden on the super-rich who want to enjoy the European land in peace without so many people. Do not let them have this. Refuse to fight.

I think you ask the question wrong. There can be endless debates about whether woman should fight or not. The _real_ question is why only German men are restricted by the law. Even if women do not fight they should be subjected to the same restrictions as they'd have country-bound functions in a war scenario as well - be it fighting or not. And I'd even go a step further and argue that the rule should apply to each and everybody in Germany. It's kind of ridiculous that German men have their movement restricted because of a hypothetical defense situation while Ukrainian men are not just invited by Germany to avoid being drafted and they can come and go as they like.

Having said that. The real problem with that law is not even the law itself but how it came to being, which unveils a completely messed up and incompetent legislative procedure in the German government and parliament.

Women can help the front line fighters but if I was running a country I would not want to put a large number of women on the front, especially young women.

Sure they can fight and kill.

But a country that loses its ability to make more people won't last longer than a generation.

Two things a country needs from which all other needs derive: people and a border that can be defended.

Men historically get sacrificed to protect the border. And women "sacrificed" to make more people.

Food, entertainment, religion, government, taxes, education, etc... it's all to serve those two fundamental requirements.

At the risk of feeding this troll, I'll go for it here.

Men and women are essentially different in real biological ways, as well as emotional and socialization.

For millennia, women and children have been held innocent and protected. This is why Christian societies don't throw them on the frontlines as cannon fodder, but rather, the men go in front and the men fight, as expendables, while the woman and children can be protected far behind the front lines of any conflict.

Women can bear children, feed their infants, and care for families even while men are occupied or absent. Women are much more capable of restarting a civilization even when the men are decimated. It is a very logical and pragmatic decision to protect women and children from warfare and violence.

Conversely, armies of female warriors have enjoyed legendary status as especially fierce and undefeated. How many of us have enjoyed "Wonder Woman", "Calafia", Amazons, and the rest?

Furthermore, a soldier may be victimized by rape. SA of a male has different consequences than SA of a mature woman. You can imagine that a woman who becomes pregnant faces difficult decisions for the rest of her life. Again, the expendable nature of men makes us less susceptible to SA and ransom plots and other manipulation by the enemy.

So the trouble today, is that women are "empowered by equality" and demand every right and privilege that is due to men, and that extends to dirty horrible jobs, and fighting in combat. Women who are empowered by equality are also going to be subjected to responsibilities and duties that they didn't have before. Societies are simply coming up with no other choice but to put women in combat, because the women are doing every other job and it seems absurd to hold back.

Naturally, putting women in harm's way, and even conscripting them, eventually seems necessary if the adversary is doing it too. I am not sure that our Islamic or East Asian adversaries are doing this, but perhaps Westerners believe that we can thus gain the upper hand. I propose that it will disadvantage and disgrace us instead.

It’s a constitutional issue.

Article 12a of the German constitution states:

"(1) Men may be called up for service in the armed forces, the Federal Border Guard, or a civil defence unit upon reaching the age of eighteen."

The current administration has a majority, I think three votes (excuse my inaccuracy), to change the constitution. Women can fight as well, and they do. But there is currently no legal, constitutional way to officially draft them.

Some of the toughest soldiers I trained were women. I got put on my back on international cqc training exchanges by Israeli women more often than by anyone else.

Also, most of the high-profile politicians only have daughters, take the German Chancellor (two daughters) or the Prime Minister of Bavaria (1 1/2 daughters). They don’t have any personal interest that their daughters might get drafted. That’s another dimension to the problem.

Women in general are a great military asset, as they provide a non-male perspective you won’t get only working with testosterone-dominated brains.

It’s not like women don’t want to protect their fellow citizens.

It’s that the German military has huge structural problems to include them into the force properly, and the people in charge also know that, for a lot of men serving, they are still not equal, and a lot of men in the service don’t want to fight alongside a woman and trust them to have their back.

It’s a mix of toxic masculinity bred inside the military and a lack of combat experience alongside women. If you ask any American or Israeli soldier who fought alongside women in actual combat, it will be tough to find anyone to critique their value as soldiers or questioning their equality in the service.

I also appreciate your female perspective on this very much. But Sweden, in terms of gender equality, is miles ahead of Germany in many places. And to be fair, Swedish women live a more independent and less male-reliant model of relationships and live than most people on this planet.

The German defence minister acknowledges this, btw, by often talking about how implementing the "Swedish model" would raise a next generation of soldiers with a more modern view of freedom and responsibility that is more balanced between the genders than the current conservative societal model in Germany that is the man goes to work, the woman stays at home and takes care of the kids and the man fights to protect them if necessary.

> I would do my best to defend my country if it became necessary

I still don't understand this in my 40s and after serving in military (conscription) - why would you defend any country?

I can't imagine scenario when I am defending any country just because some other management wanna take over, I mean, what's the point risking your life for having different politicians maybe speaking different language.

If you fight people are gonna get killed, so unless it is some evil taking over who wanna do genocide, if it's just about gaining area/resources whar's the point in fighting?

I'd sure protect my own family if it would be in danger, but if I don't fight other soldiers why would they care about my family?

Btw. while I agree the conscription should be equal, you need much more women to repopulate the country than you need the men, since men don't give a birth.

It's ridiculous that the German government now has to officially state "Please ignore the letter of the law, we didn't mean it that way."

The whole handling of it is utterly incompetent. To reinstate a law and then have it informally and temporarily deactivated.

https://youtu.be/dZUu6OkTHlY

The suspension doesn't change whether you get drafted or not, it just reduces peacetime bureaucracy at the expense of making a future draft more chaotic if it does happen.

The usual suspect would first need to cross Poland, not to mention finishing what they started in Ukraine.

I'll be scrolling HN from the trenches long before any army reaches Berlin.

Really? I did expect nothing would happen. I though it was just a very old rule that was not enforced. Low low chance they could or would have enforced that.

A doc holding your balls and asking you to cough checks for an inguinal hernia, where your intestine pushes through the inguinal canal. This canal is much wider in men, hence it being much more common in men.

I am in no position to judge the procedure on a medical basis but know that it is (or was) near universal for potential recruits and has become a bit of a meme.

Your strong reaction to this procedure is something for you to dwell on.

The medical examination doesn’t say much. Your take on it that they’re perverts wanting to look at genitals tells more than you think

That's, like, your obsession, not their's.

whats the deal here with the genitals? normal part of life, and having someone check if theres nothing weird/curious in a full body health check doesn't sound unreasonable. was okay for me too. and girls do get their private parts inspected deeper every year at the female health docs than once in a lifetime ball touching from some drafter, different level, just accept it

It used to be that way, and probably will be that way again. I know of a few of people who got an early testicular cancer diagnosis that way. So it seems that there is a medical use for it.

Isn't this just a standard part of a physical exam?

Isn't that just part of a physical exam in general? I remember the first physical exam I had in collage we all had to do that.

I had to undress back then.

But anyway:

"The Clash - The Call Up (Official Video)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ScaGjwkg2Y

eh, this stirs memories of the similar exam in Italy (abolished ~20 years ago).

The doctor would also grab your testicles and ask to cough, to diagnose varicocele. I wonder how many young men have undiagnosed issues since the military exam was abolished.

The previous major war was in Afghanistan with 150,000 German soldiers: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-honors-soldiers-who-fought-in-...

Rules that are not enforced are bad as they create space for arbitrariness and corruption. It was a mistake by gov't, opposition & media that this wasn't spotted at the time the law was revised.

The most surprising thing is that the ministry didn't figure this out itself. You'd expect the people drafting laws to consider such things. Thus, it's an indicator of ministerial sloppiness. Not a nothingburger.

The rule was literally changed in January. No, it didn't exist all the way back to the beginnings of the cold war!