South Korean man convicted for deliberately gaining weight to evade military service
South Korean man convicted for deliberately gaining weight to evade military service
A South Korean man has been sentenced to a suspended prison term for deliberately gaining weight to evade military service.
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The headline leaves out some key details. It looks like he did this to avoid a promotion, specifically. Meaning that he was already enlisted, and gave up a lot of rights that a civilian would otherwise have. The article doesn't make it clear if the same sort of conviction could be applied to a civilian trying to dodge the draft.EDIT: The article has been updated and no longer seems to refer to the person receiving a promotion, and it appears he was always a civilian.
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I normally don’t comment, but this is completely incorrect. What happened here is that the Korean conscription system separates people into four levels of eligibility depending on health and other factors. IIRC, category 1 and 2 are healthy enough for active duty, 3 is borderline, and 4 is not fit for active duty. This person would have been in a active duty category, but gained weight in order to dodge active duty and either get conscription waived or do alternative service such as public service. This person was not already active duty, but got his conscription notice.
Edit: It’s actually worse. He previously took his medical evaluation and was deemed fit for active duty (either category 1 or 2) and was waiting for an enlistment date (apparently it’s actually hard to get an open spot for military service these days). In that time, he allegedly deliberately gained weight so that when the day came and he had to redo his physical, he would be able to dodge active duty.
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I normally don’t comment
I'm glad you did, I appreciate your insight on the subject! It looks like the article may have been updated since I originally read it, as it no longer refers to a promotion like I saw earlier. That's a lot more concerning, to know that he was still a civilian the whole time. I feel like that sets a dangerous precedent that would be very easy to abuse.
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More like a choice between essentially community service and actual military duties.
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Meaning that he was already enlisted, and gave up a lot of rights that a civilian would otherwise have.
South Korea used to jail and abuse people who objected to compulsory military service and nowadays just treats them like shit. This guy tried to eat his way into doing community service instead of being an active duty soldier and he got jailed for it. I would say that tracks as abuse against objectors. I wouldn't say he was avoiding a "promotion."
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I dunno, Fish Sandwich.
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Wow the liberal war hawks are really reaching this time, huh? Now they’ve been reduced to pretending conscription is totally democratic and wars of aggressive expansion are good and fine.
The absurdity comes from being an educated observer of their behavior, forced to act like fools by pretending they’re not the ones starting imperialist conflicts while clearly doing so in reality.
That’s why none of this post’s discussion makes sense, liberals just constantly spew fallacies and derail the argument while adding their cute irrelevant sneers nonstop. It cannot make sense or the liberal is revealed for what they truly are.
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Yeah... The military conscription service AKA fascism. How long before Israel escalates a war in the Middle East and Americans are conscripted to carry out Trump's fascism? I'm guessing the bone spurs argument only works on wealthy people.
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That was literally the point of starship troopers. "Service garentees citizenship." Forcing people into service is a form of fascism because that is the in group you desire.
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Starship Troopers is a kinda subtle book, and the author wasn't a huge sympathizer of compulsory anything, or of subservience.
It separates civil rights and citizen rights. Everyone has civil rights - no such thing as an unregistered alien, no such thing as forbidding abortions or whatever one wants to do. But citizen status (ability to vote in elections, hold political posts and even work for the government in less important positions, like that veteran with prosthetics in the office who accepted the friends' papers in the book) is something requiring commitment, so it's gained by making a sacrifice in the form of federal service.
It's also not only gained by military service, there are a lot of dangerous and important jobs eligible for that.
Unlike with typical fascism, everyone capable of understanding the oath is eligible for federal service, so if they are not fit for anything military or space related, there still are such jobs to be found.
So IMHO one shouldn't judge it by Verhoeven's movie alone.
Evading service is definitely not punishable there. Except there'll be no second chance to serve.
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Is that different from enlisting slaves by offering their freedom?
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Can't believe this is getting downvoted.
No country, for any reason, should ever have the right to disenfranchise an individual and force their enlistment. Authoritarianism of this nature should never be supported.
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Authoritarianism
As someone from a country where I was the last year to do that.... eh. I dunno. The military service, sure, fuck that. But the alternative if you didn't want to do that was 1 year of working as a helper in the medical or caretaking field, and those people are missing. It'd be better if everyone just had to do a year of caregiving. It gives you a lot of perspective and is a really good experience, anyways.
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And the lemmits downvote a perfectly valid standpoint.
And drafting isn't just
racismfacism, (thanks autocorrect), it's straight up slavery.