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Suggestion for increasing the military: Recruit in inner city
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by ishambat | January 5, 2011 at 08:54 pm
276 views | 2 Recommendations | 18 comments
There are many in the military who believe that the military needs to be larger. Some propose draft as a solution to this problem; others are claiming that feminism makes males unsuited for war. There is a real solution to this problem that the military is overlooking. And it is as follows:
Recruit in the inner city.
Think about it. The inner city is already full of battle-hardened youths who aspire toward strength and courage but, lacking appropriate guidance for such propensities, turn into gangsters and wind up behind bars. If they go into the military, they will make excellent soldiers, having already seen combat and as such having advantage of experience over other recruits. The military will not only teach them strength and the courage toward which they strive, but also discipline and principle that they need to be effective. With military job training, scholarships, and skills taught in the military, they will be in a position to make for themselves a better life. And having been taught both strength and discipline, they will be in the position to direct other young men in the inner city, who have stength but not discipline, toward better paths than gangs and crime, by defeating the undisciplined strength of the gangster and steering it toward better pursuits.
The military will benefit; the recruits will benefit; the inner city will benefit; and the taxpayer will benefit as the people who otherwise would be in prison at taxpayer expense will instead be productive citizens.
When the purpose is to recruit people who are suitable for the military, the logical place to look is places where people already understand war and value qualities, such as courage and toughness, that military requires. The young men in inner city totally fit this bill. That there are some people in America who are unsuitable for military service is a non-issue. The number of people in inner city who are highly suitable for military service is more than enough to fulfil the recruiting needs of the military now and for foreseeable future. And if the goal is indeed to strengthen the military rather than bully civilian population, then that's a viable strategic direction in which to look.
This, then is my recommendation to the military: Set up recruitment in inner city. The military, the inner city, the taxpayer, and America will greatly benefit from this step.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (18)
at 23:09 on January 5th, 2011
That is and always has been a primary recruitment source as well as rural areas where there simply is no work.
at 15:08 on January 6th, 2011
What inner city guys and young men in the country have in common is that they both have macho culture, and that makes both of them suitable for the military.
at 03:59 on January 6th, 2011
Gang banging crackheads ain't goin' to make it on the Island. Might be ok for the army tho. :-)
at 15:09 on January 6th, 2011
The trick is to get to them before they become gang banging crackheads.
at 15:49 on January 6th, 2011
Thats funny ishambat..lol You'll need to start recuiting them around twelve then_and thats not a joke.
at 16:00 on January 6th, 2011
On the other hand, I've known quite a few people who had been into drugs who cleaned up their act and ended up doing well enough. A person who's been a gangster would also know how to fight, as well as having had experience with life-threatening situations, which would make him suitable for the military.
at 20:44 on January 6th, 2011
Actually this whole scenario has been thought of and tried in the past . Didn't work for a number of reasons, mostly anti-social personality disorders, lacking self control and military discipline.
Of interest:
http://www.nickturse.com/articles/misc_recruiting.html
at 16:21 on January 7th, 2011
This interests me. Why would there be more people with anti-social personality disorder in the inner city than outside the inner city?
As for self-control and discipline, isn't that something that the military is supposed to teach?
at 20:27 on January 6th, 2011
We can turn the Army into a social welfare nursery. The trick is to find out how to convince your gangbangers that it's more cool to kill the nations enemies than dope up their mother, sell their sister, and shoot up the neighborhoodies everytime they don't immediately get what they want or feel like someone might have slighted their ego. Never mind the fact that you can not change people. People have to be willing to change their negative thinking and behavior. When it comes right done to it the choice in thinking and behavior has always been.
at 20:38 on January 6th, 2011
All of which changes one is much more likely to make in an environment that promotes better ways of thinking as opposed to one that promotes worse ones.
These are all people who aspire toward strength and toughness but, lacking appropriate guidance for such things, turn into gangsters. Military would provide the appropriate guidance.
The result will be: Stronger military; better habits and attitudes on the part of these people, allowing them to become contributing citizens and to better direct the inner city youth; and a reduction in the money that taxpayers have to pay to keep these people in prison.
at 01:57 on January 7th, 2011
Omitting the fact that these people have made their choice. Good and decent law abiding citizen not being one. I don't see your proposal working out very well unless your plan incorporates a inner city mandatory draft. Otherwise it will be no improvement over the voluntary recruitment from these centers.
at 16:26 on January 7th, 2011
36: There are hardened criminals and there are misguided youth. One group has made its choice; the other hasn't.
I am of course suggesting voluntary recruitment rather than draft, as well as ad and publicity campaign targeting these people.
at 01:29 on January 8th, 2011
You must not presumme by my comments that I wholely disagree with your idealism. However pragmatism is essential to the success of any out come desired. One, I don't buy into the social victim and two, inner city life does not compel one to lead either a criminal life style or to be more susceptible to misguidance. If we are ever going to make honest social change, read progressive social ideal, it is fundamentally imperative that the individual is not only protected but, held responsible for the choices they make. Individual rights and freedoms, and individual responsibility go hand in hand. Parsing this to compromise and create exceptions only weakens a free society.
at 02:02 on January 8th, 2011
OK, you don't buy into the social victim. Do you have understanding of the mechanism of social transmission and of people influencing one another? I'll make the point clear. There is a phenomenon known as groupthink, in which people in the same place start thinking the same way, whether that way is right or wrong. It happened once in NASA, when everyone knew that Challenger would blow up but nobody spoke up or did anything about it. When people as smart as those at NASA can get that way, what can be expected in a suburb, in a ghetto, or in any other social group full of youth who are neither universally super-brilliant nor fully formed as individuals?
A place that is full of gangsters will have a lot of people influenced to think like gangsters. That is the case even for people who are not naturally criminal. And when these people go into a different setting where people do not think like gangsters but say like soldiers, they start after some time thinking like soldiers rather than like gangsters. The military is one organization that excels at changing people's habits and ways of thinking through full-scale submersion into an environment that demands this change. So I am thinking pragmatically here, as to how these people can be taught to straighten their act and become responsible citizens of which you speak.
at 08:53 on January 8th, 2011
Group think is a fallacy not only in argument but also in reasoning. It is a very poor excuse at most for bad judgment. Group identification from which group think has been extrapolated, is a source of identification. Gangs are the example of the dark side of the human need to belong. However one must first identify, ie. group identification, with the behavior and lifestyle. At the base, if gang wannabes didn't think it was cool they wouldn't behave as such or even seek to belong and would identify with more positive social expressions like Boy Scouts or YMCA or whatever else that 99% of youth in the inner city get up to with out joining a gang or selling drugs or doing drive bys to prove themselves. There are a lot of groups active in the inner city working hard to deter gang affiliation and mentality, and they are trying to get to the children long before the Army could accept them as adults. Personally, I support this in my community and volunteer my time. As an aside. The military isn't an easy life even for those of us who could cope with the demands. I can't see a ganger failing out and not returning to gang life more bitter for the rejection. And believe me. A lot of good people who really want to serve in the military fail out. I think your idea would necessitate a mandatory military service for those who reach 18 like in Israel. It seems to work for them with a crime rate per capita of 174 per 100,000. The US crime rate runs about 4000 per 100,000. There is another question here. Where are the parents?
at 19:08 on January 8th, 2011
Good question. I suppose in most of these cases, the father is in jail and the mother doesn't know how to handle what's going on.
The crime rate is low enough in many countries that don't have the draft and high in a number that do. I oppose the draft; however I favor the German system, where young people can choose either to go to the military for six months or to do social and community service for a year. That way everyone gets to contribute - the military types in the military, the non-military types in social and community service.
I know that military life is difficult and dangerous. However life in the ghetto is even more dangerous. For many of these people it would definitely be a step up.
at 15:36 on January 8th, 2011
ishambat,
This whole issue, as I stated above, has specifically been tried by previous U.S. military recruitment efforts. It didn't work. Gang members, gang-bangers, youth of crime and inner city violence do not adapt to military code, discipline, rule, or justice. They generally will not accept authority, control, group engagement, team work or taking orders. The idea that you can take these type of people who do not accept military way of life and transform them through forced discipline principles and rules is exactly the type of lifestyle they tend to reject.
Two questions that 'ishambat' ask were, "
(1) "Why would there be more people with anti-social personality disorder in the inner city than outside the inner city?"
First that wasn't the issue or question.
The answer involves addressing whether inner city gang-bangers with specific troubled or crimmal past can be used as recruits for military active duty, not whether they were inner city verses suburban gang bangers for military recruitment. That question wouldn't really make any difference anyway. That specific 'anti-social behavior' being more a personality trait of the type of person, than where they are from specifically.
(2) "As for self-control and discipline, isn't that something that the military is supposed to teach?"
We all go to schools, but we all don't adapt to it the same way or learn the same from it. Some adapt better than others to specific structured environmental teaching or control applied methods. Same in the military. If it was as simple as that, we would not have anti-social disfunctional individuals or anti-social groups we have in society.
Family structure, mental reasoning and capacity, emotional stability, physical ability, social and physical environmental influences, all affect 'self control and reasoning' in all of us_from birth really. It isn't as simple as putting people in a 'more structured or controlled environment' to change emotional, physical, and behavioral attitudes.
at 19:05 on January 8th, 2011
Thanks for a thoughtful response.
I've definitely known people from these backgrounds who went to the military and became effective and responsible people. I suppose such a change demands from the person a resolve, so it would work for those who do have the resolve and not work for those who don't. I think that, given the choice of this or going on with the gang lifestyle and winding up dead or in prison, there will be enough people with the resolve.