Such a complete fucking waste of time and money and resources, the more I learn about National Service, the more pissed off I get. National Service is of course: compulsory 2-year military for all Singaporeans males 17 years old and above. National Service is fucking useless. These is absolutely no evidence of any military attack or any threat of a military attack towards Singapore for the past 60 years that warrants wasting money on a mandatory military.
But people retort: oh it's precisely because we had compulsory military which is why there hasn't been a threat against Singapore for 60 years, if we did not have National Service, we would have been ‘Kena Bombed'. This ‘deterrence’ argument is so fucking stupid, I actually thought reasonable people wouldn't even bother entertaining it. You see, if you want to spend tens of billions of dollars a year on a military, you need evidence that countries not only have a financial and political incentive to attack you, but that there’s some reasonable suspicion that a plan of attack is being hatched. There has been ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT. I don’t even want to bother explaining how if neighboring countries like Malaysia and Indonesia attacked us, how the trade routes between us would be destroyed, how the economies in those countries would crumble with reduced investment, job losses, cost of living skyrocketing, and the massive revolt among those countries’ citizens that will swiftly protest and vote out a Government that definitely wants to maintain power … . So what reasonable suspicion is there that any country is going to attack us? IT DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST!!!
Singapore spends 20 billion dollars a year on the military, that is 3% of its GDP, that is more than countries that actually have a threat of attack or are actually at war. European countries who have a reasonable threat of attack and a desire to defend their NATO allies because of the War in Ukraine, they spend 2% of its GDP on the military. France who actually has military deployments and operations, spends 2% of its GDP. Singapore has a 2-year compulsory military, Taiwan who has a genuine threat of invasion from China, has a compulsory military of 6 months. Singapore is spending money on the military as though we are actually at fucking war, when we haven’t had a single threat of military attack in the past 60 years. It is literally fucking insane.
And if it’s really about deterrence and national security, then why don't we make it mandatory for females to serve National Service? Although females are generally less strong than men, there are exceptions, and they can definitely still fill important administrative roles. Why don't we increase National Service from 2 years to 5 years? Why don’t we make the annual training for reservist duty longer? Instead, over the years, probably because of far more people faking mental illnesses to get exempted and the notable vocal hatred towards NS, the Government has reduced the duration of National Service from 2-and-a-half years to 2. Why the reduction? Aren’t you afraid of men being unprepared and us being Kena Bombed?
National Service has absolutely nothing to do with defending Singapore, or deterring enemies from attacking us, or maintaining national security. National Service is basically just an excuse to enslave and brainwash half the Singaporean population for 2 years. To make them follow orders. To make them listen to and recite pro-government messaging so that they’ll more likely be obedient to the Singapore Government and to vote for them. At 17, during a critical age where people think more critically, explore more things outside the norm, and develop more sophisticated opinions on religions and politics, Singaporean males are instead wasting that time in the military, squandering that opportunity for genuine self-development. The PAP would definitely have mandated women serve NS as well if there would be a massive enough backlash big enough that they’d risk losing the next elections.
And this is the most aggravating part: the money we can save that could lift people out of poverty. If we remove National Service (that’s about 20% of the defense budget), and we cut the spending on the equipment and operations cost by 50% (so that saves 30% of the defense budget). We’ll still pay salaries for career soldiers, we’ll keep the cost of cybersecurity the same because we genuinely have had cyber attacks and threats, and we’ll still have enough weapons and operations to create an effective enough military for deterrence.
So instead of spending 3% of our GDP on the military, we cut it in half and spend 1.5% (which is the typical amount countries that don’t have any threat of war spend). So instead of spending 20 billion dollars a year on the military, we spend 10 billion. That extra 10 billion a year, is enough to fund free college (that’s 2 billion a year), free transportation: buses and MRTs (that’s 5 billion a year), and free food for 1 million of the poorest Singaporeans.
So without National Service, and having less planes and weapons that we’ve never used, we can still have a functional enough military for deterrence , while also having free food for every Singaporean who makes less than 4 thousand dollars a month, and free college and free transportation for everyone. Which would you prefer? OF COURSE THE FREE MRTS AND COLLEGE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. We literally have the money to eliminate hunger entirely, but instead we waste that money for 60 years on a military we have never used, with the excuse that there’s a boogeyman that wants to attack us that has never existed. You see my problem is not with having a military to act as a deterrent, and being a porcupine. My problem is that we have a diamond porcupine. Why the fuck does the porcupine have to be diamond?
National Service is dogshit, it is terrible, it is fucking god awful. National Service, more like National Disservice An absolute embarrassment of a law for the supposed ‘first-world’ country that is Singapore. But no matter, soon, tens of thousands of brave Singaporeans will just refuse to serve National Service. They’ll refuse to comply with orders, the detention barracks will be overcrowded, and the public hatred against National Service will be overwhelming. Lawrence Wong and the PAP Dictatorship will either have to change the laws, or be voted out of office. National Service will be removed. It is inevitable
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