UVic SS bans military recruitment on campus

[evman150]

The University of Victoria Student Society recently voted to ban the Canadian military from attending, as it has most years, the annual job fair put on by the university's career services department and held in the Student Union Building. The decision was by no means unanimous. A 6-6 deadlock had to be broken by the society chair.

Full article:

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail...ucation/3/3/5/

I'm not sure where I stand on this one. Yes I'm anti-military, but this gets into free speech territory. But then free speech is a slippery slope as well. On one hand I say let the military recruit, but on the other hand where does it stop? What if the Heritage Front wanted to recruit at UVic?

Thoughts?

[corporatejay]

how is it free speech? the university is not required to have every group represented at their career fair.

i personally think it's a stupid position to take, the military is a reasonable career choice, hell they have that door-to-door knife sales group, it's not like that career is any better.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

how is it free speech? the university is not required to have every group represented at their career fair.

i personally think it's a stupid position to take, the military is a reasonable career choice, hell they have that door-to-door knife sales group, it's not like that career is any better.

exactly, the military is a reasonable career choice, but its uvic who cares?

[Azure]

Pretty stupid, IMO.

The military can teach a lot of valuable lessons....lessons that extend beyond killing people.

[CrusaderPi]

If I were to say something about post secondary students looking down their noses at people who serve and protect the nation that allows them to go to free thinking post secondary institutions, would I be out of line?

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

If I were to say something about post secondary students looking down their noses at people who serve and protect the nation that allows them to go to free thinking post secondary institutions, would I be out of line?

nah go for it

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

If I were to say something about post secondary students looking down their noses at people who serve and protect the nation that allows them to go to free thinking post secondary institutions, would I be out of line?

What line do you want to be in? The dumb one? If so, then no, you won't be out of line.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

What line do you want to be in? The dumb one? If so, then no, you won't be out of line.

Good one.

[FlamesAddiction]

I'm not sure if I agree with it, but the U of Vic has every right to do it. If the student society feels that it is morally questionable to promote recruitment into the armed forces, then they should voice that. Let's face it, the military is not a normal career. There is bound to be some contraversy about a "career" that sometimes involves killing other humans (even if necessary sometimes).

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not sure if I agree with it, but the U of Vic has every right to do it. If the student society feels that it is morally questionable to promote recruitment into the armed forces, then they should voice that. Let's face it, the military is not a normal career. There is bound to be some contraversy about a "career" that sometimes involves killing other humans (even if necessary sometimes).

So then the police shouldn't be allowed to recruit? 'cause I would call the 'police' a normal career that sometimes involves killing.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

So then the police shouldn't be allowed to recruit? 'cause I would call the 'police' a normal career that sometimes involves killing.

Are asking me if they should be allowed to? I'm not the University of Victoria Student Society.

IF the police were involved in a contraversial situation and if the the UVic SS took the opinion that they should not allow recruitment on campus, then I'm fine with that. If they tried to do it without reason, then I might wonder why.

On the comparison of cops and soldiers, the big difference is that militaries are also quite often involved in killing of innocent lives on a large scale. In Afghanistan, there have been hundreds killed in "collateral" damage, while with police, it is much more rare. The difference may be subtle, but it should also be intuitive.

[CrusaderPi]

The difference isn't even that subtle. Not only intuative, but obvious. Although, we live in a country where police killing people is reletively uncommon. The diffence isn't so subtle if we were talking about a university in Brazil, or say, China.

[metallicat]

I *wish* military recruiters had come to high school when I was there. And then at post secondary as well. I wish I had been more exposed to the career choice of the military when I was considering what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

On the comparison of cops and soldiers, the big difference is that militaries are also quite often involved in killing of innocent lives on a large scale.

That is a very scary way to explain the difference.

I would be willing to place a wager that per man in uniform, the police forces of North America have been resposible for more 'innocent lives lost' than all the Armed forces of North America have been responsible for in say the last 100 years.

I would also be willing to wager that, given a subjective scale, more "good" had been done by the Armed Forces than by the Police Forces.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by Rathji

That is a very scary way to explain the difference.

I would be willing to place a wager that per man in uniform, the police forces of North America have been resposible for more 'innocent lives lost' than all the Armed forces of North America have been responsible for in say the last 100 years.

I would also be willing to wager that, given a subjective scale, more "good" had been done by the Armed Forces than by the Police Forces.

So you're saying that if you took all the men and women of the NA police forces from the last 100 years, and put them on one side.

Now take all the millions of soldiers who have fought in the wars in the last 100 years who hailed from NA on the other.

Then you went down the row and asked each man (assuming they knew) how many innocent lives they killed during the operation of their duties, that the police would have more?

Or am I missing what you mean by per man in uniform.

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by Rathji

That is a very scary way to explain the difference.

I would be willing to place a wager that per man in uniform, the police forces of North America have been resposible for more 'innocent lives lost' than all the Armed forces of North America have been responsible for in say the last 100 years.

I would also be willing to wager that, given a subjective scale, more "good" had been done by the Armed Forces than by the Police Forces.

I'll take that bet.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Jayems

So you're saying that if you took all the men and women of the NA police forces from the last 100 years, and put them on one side.

Now take all the millions of soldiers who have fought in the wars in the last 100 years who hailed from NA on the other.

Then you went down the row and asked each man (assuming they knew) how many innocent lives they killed during the operation of their duties, that the police would have more?

Or am I missing what you mean by per man in uniform.

More or less, yes. However, I am talking about the average(per person ), so you would have to divide those tallies by the amount of people in each line.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

I'll take that bet.

So how many people have been enlisted in the armed forces in North America in the last 100 years and how many people have been enlisted in the Police Force?

Now consider that anyone who was killed that was actively trying to kill you or associated with , or helping someone who was trying to kill you could not be considered innocent. BY "kill you" I also mean remove your freedoms, or in some other way pursuing interests which could at some later date kill you or remove said freedoms

Of course, anyone who does not fall under one of these categories would e considered innocent.

How many people have 'accidentally' died in police custody? How many people have been intentionally killed by crooked police officers? How many died due to killers not being brought to justice due to bribes or extortion? Keep in mind here i am not refering to only here and now. Now factor that number into an average considering the number of police officers including desk cops and other 'support' type postions.

Now, how many people have died in stray bombs on milk factories? or How many Vietnamese villagers were gunned down by heroine injecting nut jobs? How many stray napalms have landed right in the middle of family dinner just south of the rice fields? How many died to nukes in Japan? Now again, take into acount the huge number of military personel, including all non combat personel that there have been enlisted in the armed forces( all types )

My guess is that the police average, on a per person basis would be higher than the armed forces. Unfortunatly it can never be determined for sure.

The point I am making is that if you think somehow that the police are somehow far more innocent than a solider in terms of how many innocent people they kill, you are probably mistaken.

I could be wrong though, and if anyone has these numbers or even a reasonable, somewhat supported guess. I would be more than happy to change my position.

[CaptainCrunch]

To me its a non issue. Have I lost respect for the SS of UVIC, to be frank I've rarely had a lot of respect for student politician's anyways and this group is no different. To ignore the good work that the Military has done and the efforts of the men and woman to spout out what I think are unproven theories about the Canadian Forces committing war crimes, and using Uranium depleted rounds is ridiculous (The only systems that use uranium depleted rounds in the Canadian forces are the rounds in the Phalanx anti missile systems are on the frigates. The sabot rounds for tanks use Tungsten to harden the rounds) it also shows that they should spend more time studying and less time spouting what they've found on the internet.

Frankly taking away the Forces spot at the job fair to me dosen't matter, the ones who really want to join the forces are going to go down to a recruitment or government center which means its more then likely that we're not going to see flakes making impulse decisions.

Besides looking at the Canadian Forces recruiting processes , they're fairly stringent and insistant on getting good people, and not taking just any nutcase who wants a gun.

At the end of the day, one of the things that military forces in Canada has fought for is the right for individuals to make thier own decisions, whether its here or abroad, so the UVIC SS decision is one that ultimately has to be respected (even though its misguided and stupid)

[flip]

i think this is just a bunch of hippies on the student services squad who don't like the military because they equate it with killing innocent people.

i could see if the banned the military from recruiting people on campus by walking around harrassing people (like in farenheit 9/11 with the marines in the parking lot at that mall) but its a job fair people and the military (last time i checked) counts as a job.

i could see banning tobacco companies or something but the military really?