The James McClean Sponsored Poppy Thread

[topcat(The most tip top)]

A: You were sent there because you signed up to kill people and get killed in return for a regular pay cheque, no questions asked. British soldiers are contracted employees, not conscripts - get all their post-task benefits launched in the sea. 
 

Future benefits would be part of the deal they signed up for so cutting those would be like Robert Maxwell raiding the pension fund

But that’s irrelevant because the premise of story is bollocks anyway

Veterans funding is actually planned to drop because there are expected to be less veterans

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/775151/20190107_Enclosure_1_Population_Projections_-_UK_Armed_Forces_Veterans_residing_in_Great_Britain_-_2016_to_2028.pdf

[101]

36 minutes ago, virginton said:

The absolute, fucking nick of that uber-gammon article:

A: You were sent there because you signed up to kill people and get killed in return for a regular pay cheque, no questions asked. British soldiers are contracted employees, not conscripts - get all their post-task benefits launched in the sea. 

 

If you are injured at work your employer should be liable to either look after you should you be unable to do that yourself or to ensure you have the tools to go back into society. The chances of being injured at work for most people are slim thankful but due to the nature of their work there is a high chance that people in the forces will be injured either physically or mentally I'm not sure basic care should be "launched in the sea"

Not everyone in the forces is there to kill people and regardless of their assigned job and the politics around the lunacy of sending them there the Government should, in my view, be a model employer and they continue to badly let down veterans 

20 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

Future benefits would be part of the deal they signed up for so cutting those would be like Robert Maxwell raiding the pension fund

But that’s irrelevant because the premise of story is bollocks anyway

Veterans funding is actually planned to drop because there are expected to be less veterans

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/775151/20190107_Enclosure_1_Population_Projections_-_UK_Armed_Forces_Veterans_residing_in_Great_Britain_-_2016_to_2028.pdf

 

There may be a decline in the number of veterans but currently a huge amount of their care is provided by charities, if the charities didn't exist and the government had to provide the care or face thousands of service people and their families lying around then they might be less inclined to storm about the world pretending to be some kind of international police force.

[vikingTON]

25 minutes ago, 101 said:

If you are injured at work your employer should be liable to either look after you should you be unable to do that yourself or to ensure you have the tools to go back into society. The chances of being injured at work for most people are slim thankful but due to the nature of their work there is a high chance that people in the forces will be injured either physically or mentally I'm not sure basic care should be "launched in the sea".

Being injured in combat when your job is to be trained and engage in combat with the specific aim of injuring/killing your opponent is not the same as slipping on a wet floor at work. It's a fundamental risk that you accept when you sign up to serve in the armed forces. 

[the tungston weasel]

Being injured in combat when your job is to be trained and engage in combat with the specific aim of injuring/killing your opponent is not the same as slipping on a wet floor at work. It's a fundamental risk that you accept when you sign up to serve in the armed forces. 

It's a fundamental risk yes. But soldiers take this risk being told they shall be cared for adequately should the worst happen.

[Gaz]

4 minutes ago, the tungston weasel said:

11 hours ago, virginton said:

Being injured in combat when your job is to be trained and engage in combat with the specific aim of injuring/killing your opponent is not the same as slipping on a wet floor at work. It's a fundamental risk that you accept when you sign up to serve in the armed forces. 

It's a fundamental risk yes. But soldiers take this risk being told they shall be cared for adequately should the worst happen.

Do they?

It's not exactly a hidden secret that ex-forces personnel who are forced out due to injury aren't treated particularly well.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

11 hours ago, 101 said:

There may be a decline in the number of veterans but currently a huge amount of their care is provided by charities, if the charities didn't exist and the government had to provide the care or face thousands of service people and their families lying around then they might be less inclined to storm about the world pretending to be some kind of international police force.

So in summary :

Virginton  is arguing that veterans shouldn't receive the deal they signed up for because he has no sympathy for them

You are arguing that they should receive a lot more than they were promised because you have lots of sympathy for them.

 

 

 

(apologies in advance for  oversimplification)

[G51]

The Armed Forces generally recruit 16-18 year olds who have flunked school and have a choice of either joining the Army or spending the rest of their life on the dole/working in the Co-op/selling drugs/a mix of all three.

When you consider that the Army will actually offer career progression, decent pay and a level of respect from their peers and elders in society, then it's no wonder the kids choose the Army over the life of poverty at home.

There are very few 16 year olds that are capable of making a moral decision on whether it's good or bad to join the Army, and the ones that are capable aren't flunking their Standard Grades.

It's not as simple as "You know you're getting paid to kill people when you join the Army, so you shouldn't receive veteran support after". For most of the bairns that sign up, that's not really a factor that they consider. The Army knows exactly the type of person it's targeting - those who know service in the Armed Forces is the last opportunity they're going to get in life to earn a decent wage and a bit of respect.

[101]

49 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

So in summary :

Virginton  is arguing that veterans shouldn't receive the deal they signed up for because he has no sympathy for them

You are arguing that they should receive a lot more than they were promised because you have lots of sympathy for them.

 

 

 

(apologies in advance for  oversimplification)

I have never seen the contract they are given so no idea what they are promised but yes if the state wishes to parade them about ( they do) then they should also look after them.

I don't generally agree with very much that the armed forces do especially recent conflicts but it is hypocritical in the extreme that the UKg use them as a quick photo op and then treat many of them with utter contempt

[vikingTON]

47 minutes ago, G51 said:

 

It's not as simple as "You know you're getting paid to kill people when you join the Army, so you shouldn't receive veteran support after". For most of the bairns that sign up, that's not really a factor that they consider. 

Tough. They're actually legally responsible adults, who don't get the right to pick and choose the conditions that they like about a career and dinghy the ones that they do not.

The social contract that the public has with its professional armed forces in any right-minded democracy is that they will be paid throughout their term of service - whether on active duty in a warzone or nowhere near one - and in return they accept the inherent risks of serving in a violent combat zone from time to time. If they want compensation or extra support after their career is finished, then they should be punted to a zero-hour contract setup while serving in the army to balance that out. They don't get to have it all ways. 

Edited March 25, 2021 by vikingTON

[G51]

12 minutes ago, virginton said:

Tough. They're actually legally responsible adults, who don't get the right to pick and choose the conditions that they like about a career and dinghy the ones that they do not.

The social contract that the public has with its professional armed forces in any right-minded democracy is that they will be paid throughout their term of service - whether on active duty in a warzone or nowhere near one - and in return they accept the inherent risks of serving in a violent combat zone from time to time. If they want compensation or extra support after their career is finished, then they should be punted to a zero-hour contract setup while serving in the army to balance that out. They don't get to have it all ways. 

Being a legally responsible adult doesn't mean you can't be daft, vulnerable and exploited by someone offering you one last chance to get out of Dodge.

If you're going to recruit these kids when they're too young to really understand the choice they're making, then you owe it to them to support them through whatever it is they suffer as a result of that employment - whether that's PTSD, loss of limbs, whatever.

[Torpar]

Yes joining the army puts you at risk of being seriously injured, PTSD or death but what other profession (apart from professional footballer maybe) gives you the opportunity to do cartwheels on the famous Ibrox turf??

[topcat(The most tip top)]

51 minutes ago, Torpar said:

Yes joining the army puts you at risk of being seriously injured, PTSD or death but what other profession (apart from professional footballer maybe) gives you the opportunity to do cartwheels on the famous Ibrox turf??

Groundsman?

[Torpar]

3 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Groundsman?

Possibly, a quick Google search suggests the current Ibrox groundsman joined after working at Killie, I guess at Rugby Park they just send out one of the youth team players with a Hoover 

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, G51 said:

Being a legally responsible adult doesn't mean you can't be daft, vulnerable and exploited by someone offering you one last chance to get out of Dodge.

If you're going to recruit these kids when they're too young to really understand the choice they're making, then you owe it to them to support them through whatever it is they suffer as a result of that employment - whether that's PTSD, loss of limbs, whatever.

No, you really don't. If a 17 year old does not know what the fucking army does before signing up for the goodies on offer then that's a failure of their own volition. It is not incumbent on the rest of society to both give them the cushy terms while in service, and also extra freebies because they didn't know fighting a war might be dangerous.

[bennett]

virginton has switched his ridiculous trolling from teachers to squaddies.

 

 

 

[101]

1 minute ago, bennett said:

virginton has switched his ridiculous trolling from teachers to squaddies.

It was shop assistants not too long ago as well. Genuinely feeling pity if this is his view of the world, it's really quite sad.

[coprolite]

A guy i went to school with joined up in his late twenties because he wanted to "shoot arabs". There was no expectation that they might shoot back, or cheat by hiding bombs under roads. I don't know whether that means he should get a plastic leg on the nhs or not. 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

A guy i went to school with joined up in his late twenties because he wanted to "shoot arabs". 

The Cure have a lot to answer for

[coprolite]

2 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

The Cure have a lot to answer for

Funnily enough, he did find that song unaccountably funny when we were kids. I don't think he appreciated the homage to Camus' study on alienation so much. 

[G51]

3 minutes ago, virginton said:

No, you really don't. If a 17 year old does not know what the fucking army does before signing up for the goodies on offer then that's a failure of their own volition. It is not incumbent on the rest of society to both give them the cushy terms while in service, and also extra freebies because they didn't know fighting a war might be dangerous.

It's possible to know what the Army does and still not quite have it sink in. You don't necessarily think about it all that much. Plus, they don't really lead with "we kill people" when they're recruiting - the chat is more about the cutting edge technology they use, the choice of careers you can have, the skills that you'll learn and how attractive that will make you to future employers. It's very easy to see why that looks like a good deal to someone with an awareness of what their life looks like if they turn it down.

I know this because it was nearly me. I left school when I was very young with pretty much no prospects whatsoever, so I got the pitch from them. My brother got the same thing when he left. It was pure chance that I didn't end up signing up for it, and by the time my brother got the pitch I was old enough to talk him out of it. But it's always very sobering to think about how close we both came to being Army squaddies. It's a reminder to me that the difference between the person I am now and the person turned into a killer by the British state is very, very small.