Definitely Not A Cop said:
one safe place said:
Definitely Not A Cop said:
I think a great compromise would be requiring 18 months of military service out of HS. Everyone goes through the military evaluation, everyone gets trained in firearms. You still have the only people who are actually going to the frontlines as grunts are the people who were already signing up to do that. Every other kid is put into non-combat roles. They learn discipline, leadership qualities and trade skills like logistics, accounting, etc.
Then everyone who passes the mental eval gets out with a license to operate firearms all the way up to automatic weapons.
Just how in the polecat hell are we going to pay for this? Where do you plan to house them all? And pay for constructing the housing? Transporting them? Feeding them? Medical costs? Training costs?
It would change nothing. People would still be mentally ill and if they go off the deep end after the mental evaluation, it wouldn't be known about. People would still want to steal. People would still get into conflicts and shoot others. Drugs and gangs and the violence associated with them would still exist.
Disagree. Requiring all 18-19.5 year olds to join the military will immediately cause a big downtrend in crime, as you have the majority of the largest demographic of offenders off the street already and being taught discipline (sometimes for the first time in these people's lives). Obviously you will have some people continue to break laws and not follow the rules. Now you try those people in a military court, not one with a Soros DA who is going to immediately let them back out onto a street to continue to commit crimes. I would expect 2-3 years of issues, then a big reduction in rule breakers after people get used to the idea and the consequences of not following.
I think you would drastically be able to reduce the prison population over 10 years, and you could then convert unused prisons to military bases as you consolidate.
The reduced policing costs, increased productivity from people learning trade skills instead of being housed in a prison for the remainder of their lives would offset some of the costs. Obviously, increasing the size of the military by 10 is going to cost the taxpayer some money. Would likely be less than any one of the single payments we have made to Ukraine.
You could also incorporate the GI bill into this, so that if you stay in your service branch for 2.5 more years after the 18 months qualifies you for covered college.
All just liberal big government throw money at the problem talking points. You said 18 months of military service. Crimes they commit after 18 months won't be tried in a military court. Reduce the prison population over 10 years and use the prisons as military bases? If you started your program today, where are you going to put all the 18 to 19.5 year olds? I would guess than number is around 10 million. About 1.7 million people are in prison and jail, so if you emptied them all today, no room for 8 million or so people. And you are talking about a 10 year timetable for the prisons "drastically reduce the prison population". In year 2 of your plan, you now have 20 million people to house, where are they going to go? And crime would still exist, you still would need some prison capacity.
Yeah, GI bill. Covering college for 10 million people each year (would start after the fourth year in your plan), that's pocket change. 10 million every year at $10,000 a year is 100 billion, EACH and EVERY year. Not a fan of spending in Ukraine, but our one-year cost for college education alone far exceed what we have given to Ukraine. While not all of the 10 million each year would utilize the GI bill, in time the number would be astronomical as some portion of each year's 10,000,000 coming of age to serve would participate. And we have not even considered what the 10,000,000 people will cost us in terms of housing, food, salaries, health care, transportation, etc. Far more than the cost of the GI bill for college.
Your "plan" which has the appearance of not being well thought out is neither practical nor affordable.