In fiscal year 2007, nearly one in five Army recruits were brought in under waivers for felonies and misdemeanors.
Enmeshed in two military occupations that have turned into well-publicized quagmires, the Army and Marines are understandably having trouble enlisting new recruits. Their answer: vastly increase the number of convicted felons and other societal miscreants accepted into their ranks.
According to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, from 2006 to 2007 the Army more than doubled its felonious recruits and the Marine Corps increased its share by more than two-thirds. For example, some entrants had convictions for crimes of dishonesty — including burglary, robbery, and grand larceny — crimes of violence — such as aggravated assault, arson, and “terroristic” threats, including bomb threats — and sex crimes, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, molestation, and indecent acts with a child. In addition, the two services dramatically increased their “conduct waivers” for people convicted of misdemeanors. Astonishingly, in fiscal year 2007, nearly one in five Army recruits were brought in under waivers for felonies and misdemeanors.
The never-ending wars have also forced the Army to take larger numbers of recruits who are older and less physically fit, have lower education and aptitude, and have formerly disqualifying medical maladies. Also, recently President Bush reduced the length of combat tours in Iraq from fifteen months to twelve.
Although this latter measure may help somewhat with military recruiting and retention and gives soldiers a much-needed break from the stress of combat, it is detrimental to winning a war against guerrillas. In such counterinsurgency warfare, it is crucially important to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. To do this, personal relations must be maintained with the local leaders and warlords. Rotating people out of Iraq so quickly may boost morale and recruiting, but it destroys such relationships. The same happened with short tours in Vietnam.
One problem is that when the U.S. is not fighting a war against what the American public perceives as a dire threat (for example, the Nazis and Imperial Japanese during World War II) — that is, the war is one of choice, such as Iraq or Vietnam — the nation is unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to win. In World War II, serving more than twelve months overseas was not an issue.
Another problem is that recruiting societal miscreants might especially impair counterinsurgency warfare. Especially violent people, or those who don’t properly control their behavior, might be adequate for all-out combat against a conventional enemy, but would not be good at winning hearts and minds. In fact, when faced with guerrillas who attack and then melt back into the general population, these recruits might be more apt to commit atrocities against the population.
Finally, the military would rather have such miscreants — some of them violent criminals or felons who have committed sex-related crimes (as long as they are heterosexual offenses) — in its ranks than it would gays. The fact that openly gay people are still being kicked out of the military does not create an enticing climate for gays to join, at a time when the armed forces need every qualified person they can get. Similarly, excluding women from serving on submarines (because of the allegedly cramped quarters) and certain combat positions (because they are presumably too frail) deters some athletic and qualified women from enlisting in the ground and naval forces.
The obvious solutions to all of these problems are to avoid unnecessary brushfire wars and to change wacky military personnel policies that undermine the all-volunteer military.
I always knew you were a “Bush lied, people died” sloganeering pseudo-liberal in regards to the quagmires, war crimes, atrocities, genocide, or wars, depending on the article – but I’ve never heard you expand on your normal platitudes long enough to know you towed the leftist line on these other issues as well.
The ironic thing is that our military engagements wouldn’t be as long or burdensome if it weren’t for those like yourself who believe simultaneously that we should fight wars like Protestant missionaries, and also that they should be over within a week or two.
Patrick,
I don’t so much mind liberals moralizing and criticizing, the way Eland does; in fact I relish answering his incessant nay-saying. However, and like you, I do wish he’d cut the pretense he’s a) an independent above petty politicking, and/or b) a non-liberal. Eland dances lightly around the conservative bashing, and for that I credit him a modicum of civility. But, neither does he admit to some fairly anti-conservative opinions. It is a little harder determining just how ‘libertarian’ he is or isn’t, because he never really discusses libertarian principles other than as a means to scold. He is clearly a pacifist, but that does not necessarily disqualify him as either a libertarian or conservative, though it does make the latter less likely. Eland comes to us from the Independent Institute, which does have some fair-&-balanced writers; but Eland doesn’t really fit that description. I suppose he’s one of those who fancy he takes no sides, only principles. Yet standing on principles that really aren’t at risk is hardly taking a stand. Declare yourself, Eland, and stand by your principles, else admit to no principle and no spine.
Now let’s look at what he says, much of which is hogwash (or, as the liberals prefer to say – wrong on so many ‘levels’). Eland’s main thrust is that enlisting men and women with a checkered past is both bad policy and seriously hampering our effort, but his subtext is our effort is, itself, a serious mistake. So, what does it matter how well our military is constituted or conducts itself if it is not directed at anything worthwhile? That would reduce Eland’s concern to: our military personnel aren’t sufficiently PC. Eland anticipates criticism of his argument with the ‘hearts and minds’ nonsense. ‘Hearts and minds’, while a sometimes applicable strategy, is not an end in itself – just one of several context dependent approaches to war.
So, for our occupation policy to be effective, Eland asserts it must:
a) attract sufficient recruits to keep up manpower levels well above an unspecified minimum sufficient to suppress insurgency; yet
b) reject from service anyone with a police-record, high-school misbehavior, drug use, sexual misconduct (proved or alleged), shoplifting, fist-fights, drunken brawls, too old, too young, minor medical condition, inconsistency, incapable of sustained service, lacking high-school diploma, functionally-illiterate, unskilled, work-challenged, diversity-challenged, uncomfortable sleeping and taking showers next to someone of the same sex potentially with the ‘hots’, or any guy incapable of totally suppressing both his sexual and protective urges while bunking next to a normal, healthy and attractive (if somewhat muscular) female
c) must have the unqualified support of a super-majority of voters (must stop in mid-engagement if support erodes)
d) must have the support of the media (as shaped by the intelligencia – i.e., universities and elitist think-clubs like the Independence Institute)
e) not upset the occupied population (aka, hearts & minds)
f) avoid any conflict unless or until it gets so out of control we are forced to slug it out against an enemy capable of annihilating us rather than nipping it in the bud when it can be done easily and with a minimum of suffering
g) cost next to nothing and be quickly done and forgotten so we can return to important matters (like building our retirement portfolios)
Okay, Eland didn’t really say that last bit, but it does strike me he regards the war a distraction from something more important. I just can’t figure what that might be!
(cont.)
(cont.)
In answer to Eland’s objection against ‘jailhouse recruits’, I submit the following article (http://www.army.com/blog/item/3695). By jailhouse recruits I do not mean individuals recruited directly from jail. It is an outmoded term, but the only one we have for describing recruits with a past. This article admits the Army has relaxed its requirements to the extent a tiny few are given waivers. However, the study also shows they are no less carefully screened to eliminate those incapable of military conformity; and, although the washout and disciplinary rates for this group are a little higher than among ‘ordinary’ recruits, the re-enlistment rate, commitment to objectives, self-discipline, and tolerance to military life is significantly higher among those with priors also. Many of these recruits are young people who get off on the wrong foot and find doors (understandably) closed to them. For these, acceptance by the military is a godsend for which many are appropriately grateful and mindful; and, if anything, are less willing to repeat the kind of mistakes that got them shutout in civilian life. They may still be a rough and surly crowd, but they do make good soldiers.
Jailhouse recruits are, generally, no less intelligent than other enlistees in combat; all of whom are taught, in no uncertain terms, if they disobey orders resulting in atrocities, they will be severely punished under UCMJ. Because of this and as a group, they are slightly less likely to “commit atrocities” in combat situations than those without priors. In fact, in all our wars, there has never been anything like a correlation between atrocities and jailhouse recruitment; a notion best suited to Hollywood scripts.
This policy recognizes a lesson that political-correctness has caused us to forget – that some of our most talented warriors (including heroes) are precisely those mavericks who, given to breaking or bending rules, find an environment suited to their temperament in military service. They are the ones who, in peace, sometimes have difficulty adapting, but, nonetheless, represent those few with the grit it takes to fight wars. Does this mean they are murderous lunatics unleashed? No. On their own they get in trouble, but under the discipline and confidence our military instills, they either learn to prize honor or are discharged as unusable. In war and peacekeeping, they find balance. In both war and peace (under supervision) they provide the security without which anarchy reigns. These aren’t psychopaths, as Eland would have it; they are utilizable young men and women. I suppose, instead of putting these people to good purpose, Eland would rather they continue as dead-end misfits getting by on the dole.
Another thing Eland’s analysis total misses (or ignores) is very few who serve in the military are actually put in combat situations. Anyone who has served (and I suspect Eland has not from things he says) can tell you we are quickly sorted for various missions the military needs carried out, weeded of those who cannot or will not adapt, and trained suitable to our talents. Someone with mechanical aptitude will wind up in a motor pool, someone with leadership qualities may be offered OCS, those with poor attitudes and little aptitude will get shunted where they are most useful and harmless, and the aggressive yet disciplined individual will generally see combat. The military even finds places for cowards if they can pull their weight. So, if there is any remaining concern regarding a jailhouse recruit’s suitability for ‘peace-keeping’ duty, he will be utilized, instead, to fill one of these REMF jobs freeing up someone more suitable to war-fighting.
Every one of us starts out young, and every young person makes mistakes. Most of us learn from such mistakes and vow to do better, and some need the kind of discipline only the military can provide. Some of us are born warriors, some cowards, though most are neither. Mr. Eland would have only those least suited to serve as war-fighters, yet I, somehow, doubt he’d have the stomach for it. Well, I am no fighter either (I did serve in the Navy during Vietnam), but I am thankful some are; and, if they have a tarnished past because of it, will take some bad along with the good.
Wait – if ‘REMF jobs’ are available even to the untalented or cowardly, why can’t those jobs be opened to ‘unqualified’ types like homosexuals and women, freeing up more ‘combat-suited’ types? Oh, wait, actually, that’s what women are used for.
I’ve not seen a good reason for not using homosexuals in at least such a capacity. After all, that’s mostly what ‘Negro’ soldiers were used for before WWII… and then the military was forced to accept them in combat roles, in the middle of a war, and well, we got the Tuskegee Airmen. Taking showers next to someone of a different race used to make people ‘uncomfortable’, too.
“Ivan Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting Defense’ Back into U.S. Defense Policy.” . . . and not a day’s experience in the military.
Raymond,
I don’t know if you’ve ever served in the military, I can only relate my own experience in these matters. When I served at the tail end of Vietnam, the military was already well integrated with respect to race. Calls for women-in-the-military were just beginning to get attention. The military strenuously resisted racial integration, so you might think it would have felt the same resistance regarding women; but you’d be wrong. Most of the resistance came from outside the military. There were internal debates and there were incidents, to be sure; and the MSM did its utmost to use those to smear the military as ‘misogynistic’. Yet, if there was misogyny, it was not coming from the top down so much as bottom up and from outside. The orders from the top were ‘get it done’.
Your point is not completely out of line, but you are ignoring one important aspect. You are right that there are a few women who can and desire jobs we normally associate with men and are physically demanding. Heck, I’ve met some women who could throw me to the floor and slit my throat before I knew what’s up. But, it is not true as a general rule, and the exaggeration of it misrepresents. Race and gender issues are not exactly the same as integrating homosexuals, at least not in military life. I’m sorry but showering next to a black man who shares the same ‘hands-off’ attitude I have is not the same as showering next to some guy who thinks I’m cute and may be plotting to ‘loosen me up’. Knowing the guy next to you has a sexual attitude strongly at variance to your own creates a distrust neither can get past and neither can afford.
Race is purely a matter of bias, and, once we got past that, had little race trauma inside the military. In fact, relations inside the military improved noticeably faster and better than they did outside. Women-in-the-military still has some problems, but nothing insurmountable and nothing causing persistent friction and systemic morale issues. Women can demand separate quarters and facilities, and no one is going to object. Women can do many of the same jobs, including some high-risk jobs. Rules and boundaries have had to be set, and that continues to evolve. It has been less of a problem than we thought, yet more than the radical-feminists hyped.
The same cannot be said of homosexuals in the military. Unlike race, neither gender nor homosexuality are strictly matters of bias. These differences are not merely ‘skin deep’, they are differences of kind and of boundaries. Homosexuality is further complicated by the number of variations multiplying the number of boundary issues that have to be worked out if it can be made to work at all. Because of this, people in the military, from 5-star general to raw recruit are justifiably concerned that it will work out. No one in civilian life works as hard or commits as much as do military personnel to making these things work, things imposed on them by others with little understanding of what is involved; and doing all this while trying to stay alive and keeping each other alive (including those put there to make political statements).
Combat is not the only situation in the military where this friction matters. There are times in the air or aboard ship when every member of the crew must play his part or all will die. I experienced a little of that on two occasions; once when our steering went out in rough seas and once fighting a shipboard fire. If anyone does not do his job or impairs or distracts others from doing their job, you die. Our galley discussions turned to what might have happened in these situations if they brought women into the Navy as was then being demanded. We had serious doubts about it. I believe this doubt persists even today, but is no worse than worrying some hopeless newbie won’t measure up. So, even though I was just a crummy REMF, I did not get through my Navy time without learning how important friction is or how it can affect survival.
It is easy for us to blithely prescribe how the military ought to behave, but we are not the ones who then have to survive the fallout. In civilian life, we deal with friction individually and make personal changes that insulate us from friction and make us less obnoxious to others. You don’t have that option in the military, you have to work together and you have to make it work – there are no other options; so the fewer frictions you pile on the better. Now, that sounds pretty simple so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but, until the guy or gal next to you is friction-proofed and battle-tested, your life and the life of your shipmates are, literally, in their hands. You can’t help but think about that on the ground, in the air, or within the tight confines of a ship at sea; knowing that, on any given day, you can be sent into combat or deadly situations – even us REMFs.
That said, I am proud of all our military, especially those in harms way keeping us safe, be they male, female, or whatever. I pray that it does work out and that they ‘all’ come safely home.
Mr. Stapler – Friction can, indeed, affect survival. What I don’t understand is why homosexuality simply must cause such friction. You state that “showering next to a black man who shares the same ‘hands-off’ attitude I have is not the same as showering next to some guy who thinks I’m cute and may be plotting to ‘loosen me up’.”
The thing is, it’s not the same now, but back in the 1940s, when integration was mandated, it sure as heck was. ‘Colored’ troops were argued to be incompetent, undisciplined, and thieving. Just plain untrustworthy. Besides, they were physically repellent. (” It is widely perceived today that the racial integration of the Armed Forces was a fairly simple, straightforward matter, in comparison with the numerous complexities involved in integrating homosexuals. In reality, racial integration during the 1940s and 1950s was a long, convoluted process which inspired many of the strong emotional reactions that the possibility of integrating homosexuals provokes today. Many white Americans (especially Southerners) responded with visceral revulsion to the idea of close physical contact with blacks. Many also perceived racial integration as a profound affront to their sense of social order.” 1993 RAND report on this matter, page 160.
Look, I’m not gay. I don’t understand why most women are attracted to men. But I can’t understand why anyone would care if some guy was ‘checking them out’ like that. It’s like the automatic assumption is that they will be uncontrolled sexual predators. Seriously, a whole lot of what’s called ‘homophobia’ sure as hell isn’t ‘homophobia’, but that qualifies if anything does.
Of course, there’s a wrong way to make advances, and not accepting a polite refusal is a problem no matter who’s hitting on whom, but I don’t see any evidence that that’s more of a problem with gays. (I’m not looking for anecdotes – the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’. Studies, please.)
Racist idiots ‘got over it’ in the 1940′s and 1950′s, during a war. I think homophobic idiots can ‘get over it’ now – and reports like the one I linked to above agree with me. If someone could point me to objective reasons why gays themselves would be incapable of performing their duties, I’d be all for keeping them away from situations where incompetence is a life-threatening problem. But if the reason to keep them out is because someone else can’t do their job if gays are around – then that someone else is the incompetent one.
I think our military is, overall, much more sensible and level-headed than that. Certainly the two Marines I know care a lot more about how well their comrades can shoot than who they want to spend their off-hours with.
Mr. Ingles:
You haven’t been around gays much nor spent any time in the military, have you? Well I have. You might start by reading “The Truth About the Homosexual Rights Movement” by Ronald G. Lee, an ex-gay, available here http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3650 . Quote: “Ralph McInerny once offered a brilliant definition of the gay rights movement: self-deception as a group effort. Nevertheless, deception of the general public is also vital to the success of the cause.”
Their deception began in the late ‘60s when they told everyone that all that gays wanted was to be left alone. Yeah, right. That’s why we don’t have them demanding special civil rights; that’s why we don’t have them demanding gay “marriage”; that’s why we don’t have them forcing acceptance of homosexuality by school children too young to understand; that’s why we don’t have them living next to you and banging on your door at 3 am; that’s why we don’t have organizations like NAMBLA teaching its members how to sexually molest boys and murder them to avoid getting caught.
Being an atheist, you won’t agree with anything I say, especially this one last quote from the article, but here it is: “… if you support what is now described in euphemistic terms as ‘the blessing of same-sex unions,’ in practice you are supporting the abolition of the entire Christian sexual ethic, and its substitution with an unrestricted, laissez faire, free sexual market. The reason that the homosexual rights movement has managed to pick up such a large contingent of heterosexual fellow-travelers is simple: Because once that taboo is abrogated, no taboos are left.”
Do you want your kid to live in a world like that?
I went to college in the 80′s and 90′s, sedonaman – yeah, I encountered plenty of homosexuals. I can honestly say that it was the heterosexuals, particularly the frat boys, who caused the most trouble. There was noise at 3am from the bar around the corner from our house when I was growing up – but that wasn’t a gay bar.
But hey, that doesn’t prove anything. As I said, the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’. Even the article you link to is a string of anecdotes. It does seem plausible that monogamy would be harder for homosexuals than heterosexuals – at least, of the male variety. Human males are, on average, more sexually aggressive, more visually stimulated, and more sexually opportunistic than females. It’s also easier for males to transmit STD than females. That article didn’t address lesbians, it’s worth noting. There are less than ten cases of documented female-to-female AIDS transmission, for example, and I’d expect lesbian relationships to be more monogamous. (Well, technically, they’d have to be – exclusive male relationships would be ‘monandrous’.)
It’s not clear that abrogation of the “Christian sexual ethic” would lead to total ‘laissez faire’ chaos. Certainly there are plenty of other non-Christian cultures that still maintain some sexual order, though often of a rather different form than we’d expect. The article you pointed to dismisses the notion of of “no one getting hurt and both parties being treated with respect” out of hand, but I don’t see a real justification for that.
I do think sex is quite a bit more than just recreation in humans, and deserves quite a bit more respect than many people give it. On the other hand, I also think grownups should be free to make their own mistakes – freedom is the right to be wrong.
Mr. Ingles:
“freedom is the right to be wrong”
No one (I repeat, no one) has the right to seek error. Everyone (I repeat, everyone) has an obligation to seek truth.
Freedom is doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.
“…there are plenty of other non-Christian cultures that still maintain some sexual order…”
This is true, but if you destroy that particular order, the whole culture comes down.
Sedonaman – “No one (I repeat, no one) has the right to seek error. Everyone (I repeat, everyone) has an obligation to seek truth.”
I didn’t say that people have the right to ‘seek’ error. I said that they have the right to believe, and even argue for, things that are wrong.
Are you by any chance an old-school Catholic? It sounds like you’d agree with Popes Pius IX and Gregory XVI, who called it “insanity” to believe that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” I mean, sure, you could tolerate heretics and adherents of other religions if it would be too much trouble to exterminate them, but that was just a lesser evil, y’know.
This, of course, leads to cases like that of Edgardo Mortara.
“I said that they have the right to believe, and even argue for, things that are wrong.”
Sounds like seeking error to me. Are you by any chance a member of NAMBLA? The ACLU, perhaps?
Sedonaman – Ah, I understand. In your eyes, being asked if you’re Catholic is as offensive as being asked if you’re a member of NAMBLA. I did not mean to insult you.
Yes, people have a right to propound even deeply offensive opinions, such as heliocentrism, religious liberty, the illegitimacy of slavery, suffrage for women, intermarriage between races, and other such frightfully wrong ideas. Because sometimes – just sometimes – they turn out to be right.
The odds of NAMBLA being right about anything they state are effectively zero. But, yeah, they have the right to lobby for laws to be changed. They’re horrifying enough, you don’t have to exaggerate their lunacy. So far as anyone has demonstrated, they do try to advise people on how to molest children, but no ‘murder manual’ has turned up. (Oh, and BTW – the ‘set of gays’ and ‘set of people who would join NAMBLA’ are not identical.)
The cure for wrong speech is right speech, pointing out why they are wrong. As Thomas Jefferson said, “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” No one has the right to ‘seek error’ – but that doesn’t mean sedonaman gets to decide what’s error. You get to vote and persuade, that’s it.
Of course, this is rather far afield from the point we were discussing, whether gays could be in the military. Even the anecdotal article you pointed to admitted that, however tangled their personal lives, gays could be quite professional and competent in their jobs.
Mr. Ingles:
The part that was offensive was the “old school”, but never mind that.
I can’t believe you make a moral equivalence between “heliocentrism, religious liberty, the illegitimacy of slavery, suffrage for women, intermarriage between races” and homosexual behavior.
“Because sometimes – just sometimes – they turn out to be right.”
And from one or two cases, our default position is to assume they are all right, without proof, no matter how outlandish? And those who challenge have to prove that innovations are wrong? I thought the burden of proof was on the innovator. [BTW, the story of Galileo is just anti-Catholic propaganda. Copernicus proposed the heliocentric theory and was not persecuted. So what was the difference between him and Galileo? While they were correct, they had no way of proving it scientifically. Galileo received permission to teach his theory and wasn’t in trouble until he demanded the Church change its interpretation of scripture based on his unprovable theory. IOW, he got into their rice bowl.] Since you didn’t read Feser’s article, I quote: “Where phenomena remote from everyday human experience are concerned – the large-scale structure of space/time, the microscopic realm of molecules, atoms, and so forth – it is perhaps not surprising that human beings should for long periods of time have gotten things wrong. But where everyday matters are concerned – where opinions touch on our basic understanding of human nature and the facts about ordinary social interaction – it is very likely that they would not, in general, get things wrong. [Emphasis added]
“But, yeah, they [NAMBLA] have the right to lobby for laws to be changed.”
No they don’t. No more than the KKK has a right to lobby for its racist beliefs. NAMBLA is a criminal enterprise that should be hounded out of existence by the FBI, just like the KKK. And why aren’t they? Because the ultimate crime in this society is not sexual molestation and/or murder of a child, but intolerance. And when tolerance becomes the ultimate good, we must ultimately tolerate the presence of evil, because good “discriminates” against evil, and evil is “excluded” by the good and is to be blessed with victim status.
“No one has the right to ‘seek error’ – but that doesn’t mean sedonaman gets to decide what’s error. … You get to vote and persuade, that’s it.”
I never even implied that I alone should get to decide. I whole-heartedly support the democratic process. But part of the problem is the process has been subverted – the “sedonamen” of the world don’t get to vote; one judge decides how the rest of us are to live and think. And if sedonaman doesn’t get to decide what’s error, what right does someone else have to make demands on my conscience? [From your previous post, I take it you support a person’s right to his conscience.] However, we do have a single generation that thinks it knows what’s best for us – and it knows it better than the 800 previous generations and seeks to remake all of society in its own imange.
We’ve been told that a student can’t utter the name “Jesus” at a school function because some non-Christian might feel Un-“CoM-fOr-Ta-BlE” or “Ex-ClU-dEd” when he is just one face in a crowd of thousands. But when a homosexual unabashedly flaunts sodomy in my face in my own house in front of my own kids, well, I’m just supposed to accept it; and if I don’t, well, that’s my problem. Using the same standard, I say that if a non-Christian is so offended at hearing the name of Jesus, that’s the his problem.
The way I see it, the government is supporting error when the few circumvent the legislation and mine the activist courts. Since you are familiar with papal statements, perhaps you recall the idea of Subsidiarity by Pius XI: “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time, a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help (subsidium) to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.” [Emphasis added]
So by what authority do judges destroy and absorb the other branches of government? In the immortal words of Justice Scalia to Justice Breyer, discussing Lawrence v. Texas, when he stated that he didn’t believe in the “living constitution” idea but, granted that if one does, then who decides the current “standards of decency of American society”, the “cream at the top” or the people through their elected representatives?
PS.
Thomas Jefferson was right, but he presupposed that the people know the truth. He also said, “A man who cannot read is more intelligent than the one who reads newspapers, for a person who knows nothing is smarter than one who has been filled with lies and misrepresentations.” Which quote do you think came first?
Raymond,
If I may re-interject myself at this point, the comparisons you make to WWII integration of the military to present day integration of gays into the military is partly true, but is also a bit of truth disguising a larger falsehood. Sedonaman has already covered some of that ground and there is enough merit in what he says he ought not to be dismissed. At the same time, I do not tar all gays along with radical gays trying to force fit society into their self-image. There are gays with the good sense to recognize they have all the rights and protections due to them and of which the law is capable, and that pushing things farther is making things worse for them, worse for us, harming children, and turning society into a self-loathing, paranoid mess. Unfortunately, it is not yet the general rule among gays, withfar too many perfectly willing to push the radical agenda believing they must to ‘protect themselves’ from straights.
Although I grew up at the tail end of segregation, that does not mean I did not get the full experience. When I was eight, we moved from mostly black Washington, D.C. to virtually all white suburban Maryland. I vividly remember segregated washrooms and lunch counters, department stores whites shopped at versus Mom&Pops for blacks, blacks standing while whites sat on a trolley, dirty looks and racist remarks, &c. That was downtown, mostly liberal D.C. My parents were young liberals fresh from the Depression and a World War, who taught us to respect color and helped black friends through remaining barriers. When I went to school and let it be known I befriended blacks, I was spat on and beat up as a ‘nigger lover’. The time I tried to fit in with white kids by playing the racist, my father turned it around by making me explain to my black friends why I could no longer tolerate them (which, of course, did the trick). I put up with a lot of racist cr@p right through high school, but toward the end of that period I learned racism is not the sole preserve of whites. My last year in high school, I innocently waltzed into the school auditorium where we normally went to study, but which had been taken over by an unannounced ‘whites not welcome’ protest. I was greeted at the door by the black fist of a guy I’d thought a friend and who I thought knew where I stood. Stupid of me to think that rated any consideration. I was guilty of the crime of ‘white’, making me fair game. A year and a half later, I was in boot-camp and although the racial tension was less, it was still highly charged. In fact, the atmosphere was about as electrified as it gets because that was the crisis. This was just 5 years after Watts, two years after the MLK assassination, the D.C. and Baltimore riots, and just one year after the York PA riot. While I was in the service we had the Camden Riot. So let’s get this straight that the period you are discussing in the abstract is something I actually lived through and know something about. At least in terms of how it felt to a young guy in the military (and in society) trying to do the right things in tight spots.
Now, let’s go back to what I was saying about showering next to gays. Would you expect women in the military to be forced to shower next to men? I doubt it. But suggest heterosexuals receive the same consideration, by refusing gay men to share shower facilities with heterosexual men, and radical gays will cry foul, demand apologies from anyone even remotely connected, tarnish anyone who suggests they go too far as a bigot and homophobe, and demand dishonorable discharges for all ‘offenders’. Please tell me. Why is not okay to expose women to the ogling and unwanted advances of men, yet okay to expose heterosexual men to the ogling and unwanted advances of gays? Why is it homophobia to not want to endure that exposure? Isn’t that a double standard?
Sedonaman – I did not say, and have not said, that “our default position is to assume they are all right, without proof, no matter how outlandish”. However, you seem to keep reading that, regardless of what I write.
I’m not arguing that minority opinions are always right. I’m not even arguing that they are often right. I stated – explicitly – that “just sometimes… they turn out to be right.”
What I am saying is that people have the freedom to voice opinions that are uncommon, and perhaps that many or even most find deeply offensive. There are two rights that they don’t have, though. The first, to act contrary to the law. And the second, to be free from criticism and contrary speech. NAMBLA can say what they like… but the moment they act on their sick notions, I’ve got no problem with execution. And I and everyone else has the right to point out why and how they are Wrong-with-a-capital-W.
It’s not even that hard. Just letting morons like NAMBLA and the KKK speak is a huge blow to them. Every time they do they prove what complete schmucks they are.
I don’t recall you ever directing me to Feser’s article – I did read the one by Lee that you pointed out above. In any case, he’s got a point, but it’s not quite as sharp as he seems to think. Our “basic understanding of human nature and the facts about ordinary social interaction” have proven to be wrong quite often in the past. (I’ve already pointed out slavery, racism, and the status of women.)
I actually agree with you about many of the overreactions that have taken place in schools. I don’t have a problem with students saying prayers in situations where they would be allowed to voice their opinions about other matters. I have a problem with teachers and school administrators leading prayers at school functions, or making special concessions for prayer time that would not be available to, say, a political club, but that’s a different matter.
And I can’t find anyone on this site, and definitely know there’s no example of me, anwhere, saying that “when a homosexual unabashedly flaunts sodomy in my face in [your] own house in front of [your] own kids,” you’re “just supposed to accept it”. Once again, if you’re going to argue with me, at least argue with what I actually write instead of what you seem to wish I had written.
Let’s make this a little more concrete. Give me an example of an ‘activist’ ruling, and let’s discuss that.
[BTW, the non-persecution of Copernicus is not proof of anything, seeing as he refrained from publishing until he was on his deathbed. The common fable about Galileo is indeed exaggerated, and even wrong on key points. That doesn't mean the Church comported itself well there. And, secondly, I didn't mean 'old school' in a perjorative sense - there are people who find John Paul's teaching to be in direct conflict with that of Pius IX, and on that basis consider John Paul (and Benedict) to be 'Antipopes'.]
Mr. Stapler – Ogling can happen to anybody at any time. Unwanted advances are something else. I appreciate that you’re expressing a genuine, potential concern. What I haven’t seen is data indicating that it is or would be a serious problem. I think the oft-bandied-about statistics that “10% of people are gay” are flawed at best, but even so there must be gays showering with straights all over the world every day, and yet I don’t see data indicating a problem with widespread unwelcome advances.
If the potential problem becomes an actual problem – and for all I know, it could – then it would be time to see what should be done about it. I don’t find fretting about hypotheticals convincing, but data would probably convert me. I’m not even aware of any data showing an increase in sexual assault or even pregnancy in dorms with coed bathrooms. I don’t particularly like the idea, but on the other hand I can’t back that up with data.
Mr. Ingles:
“I did not say, and have not said, that ‘our default position is to assume they are all right, without proof, no matter how outlandish’.”
I didn’t say you did, although I can see how you’d get that impression. My comment was intended to point out that statements like, “just sometimes… they turn out to be right” have led us to the point where our default position now is to assume the rogue is always right, and established authority is always wrong and is therefore to be defied. As I pointed out, constant reference to the false impression of the case of Galileo has helped this immensely.
“What I am saying is that people have the freedom to voice opinions that are uncommon, and perhaps that many or even most find deeply offensive.”
A male employer expresses his opinion to a female employee that he thinks she should sleep with him, and says if she rejects him, she will be fired. He defended himself on free speech grounds. Similarly, one robber proposes to another that they rob a bank and discuss how it could be accomplished. They get caught before they can actually act and defend themselves on free speech grounds. What say ye?
“I don’t recall you ever directing me to Feser’s article…”
It was the end of comment #61 in another article, http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/04/24/the-pope-said-what .
OK. An example of activism: Grutter v. Bollinger. In the court’s 5-4 ruling, Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion held that the United States Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. … A lawyer who filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of members and former members of the Pennsylvania legislature, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia said that O’Connor’s majority decision in Grutter v. Bollinger was a “ringing affirmation of the goal of an inclusive society.”
This presupposes two of the Constitution’s goals are “diversity” and “inclusiveness”. Where does it mention either? It also pre-supposes there are “compelling educational benefits” from a diverse student body. What are they, where is the evidence of any benefits, and why are they compelling? Why is the court’s job to make sure society is inclusive? This sort of activism is reading things into the constitution that are clearly not there. Constitutional law Professor Lino A. Graglia writes in “THE ‘AFFIRMATIVE ACTION’ FRAUD” http://law.wustl.edu/journal/54/Graglia.pdf , “As the remedy rationale for racial preferences has become more obviously untenable, its proponents have increasingly relied on the argument that it provides a needed educational ‘diversity.’ Selection of students by race, however, provides ‘diversity’ in nothing but race. The typical black applicant to an institution of higher education comes from a middle or upper middle class background not readily distinguishable [intellectually] from that of the typical white applicant. If diversity of views or experience were the objective, one would expect to see a preference for foreign students or members of minority religions, which is not the case. … The many arguments once offered for racially preferential admission to institutions of higher education … have more recently come down to a single one: ‘We can’t have,’ (i.e., it is not politically feasible to have), ‘an all white institution.’” Translation: The court saw a political reason for endorsing affirmative action and crafted its reasoning to reach the politically “correct” conclusion.
Mr. Ingles,
Please, please. “Ogling can happen to anybody at any time.”
That’s your argument for why naked men and women have no right to be concerned about the person ogling them while bathing?
A homosexual advance on a heterosexual in that shower is OK, too? As long as the person making the pass accepts a “polite refusal?”
I gather embrarrassed and humiliated bathers count for nothing, in your mind? How about if they have some data?
Fortunately the military has a system for dealing with sexual harassment, and fortunately you are not a military case worker.
Are you really that insensitive, or is your sensitivity just pending data?
Mr. Adams – “A homosexual advance on a heterosexual in that shower is OK, too? As long as the person making the pass accepts a ‘polite refusal?’”
No, that’s not what I’m saying. A pass in the shower is not okay – the problem is, I don’t see data showing that such passes are likely. As I said, what indirect data we have about such situations – co-ed bathrooms – doesn’t show an increased risk of ‘shower passes’. (That’s counter even to my intuition, but there it is. Reality is not obligated to fit our intuitions.)
There’s still room for argument, of course: co-ed bathrooms have individual stalls, something not common in military barracks. But it doesn’t cost a heck of a lot in time or money to have individual stalls. If plumbing really is that expensive, just set up a few barracks that way and have experimental ‘integrated’ forces. We ‘experimented’ with all-black and integrated forces before, no?
In the field, of course, things are different. On the other hand, I started this by proposing that we consider homosexuals for ‘rear-echelon MF’ jobs.
sedonaman – Let’s take the speech cases, first.
(Actual or hypothetical case? Just asking, I’ll treat it as real.)
Boorish, stupid, pathetic, cruel… but legal, so long as his company doesn’t have an established sexual-harassment policy (violation of contract), and it’s an “at-will” state that says people can’t be fired without (employment-related) cause. (I think it was Virgil who said that not every wrong action could be made illegal under the temporal law.)
You need more than just talk to prove conspiracy to commit a crime. I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, most of the time you need an overt act, or at least an explicit agreement to commit the crime. You need a “general intent”, and proving that requires more than just talking about how a particular crime could be committed. In the case you’ve describe, it looks like intent could be proven – hence, free speech doesn’t apply.
Raymond,
“Ogling can happen to anybody at any time” – I’d love to hear you try that line on a large group of angry feminists! You are studiously avoiding answering the question asked. It is a direct question requiring only a simple answer: Are you okay with forcing women to shower with heterosexual men? Yes or no? And, if ‘no’, how do you reconcile that with forcing the same degrading and vulnerable situation on heterosexual men?
Yes, ogling and unwanted advances sometimes ‘happen’ and, while that may be tolerable to a limited extent in highly-public, fully-clothed setting (even necessary to perpetuating the species), is not okay forcing it to the extent or onto anyone uncomfortable with showering next to someone else almost certainly aroused by mutual nakedness. This is not a ‘potential concern’; it is a very real and valid objection and something already happening regularly due to a society-wide obsession with political correctness and an inability to stand up to PC bullying. It is not a matter of this ‘becoming a “serious problem”’. It is already a serious problem and has been for decades. Nor do I care one whit about the ‘statistics on it. It is wrong if it happens once.
You say “… there must be gays showering with straights all over the world every day, and yet I don’t see data indicating a problem with widespread unwelcome advances.” So, until you do see it happening, until it happens to you personally and is sufficiently degrading, or until someone in the MSM slips up and reports there is a secret government study proving its existence, you are going to refuse to believe anyone telling you this happens. Is that about right? If there is no study on this, it is because nobody (except, maybe, a few out-of-touch, ultra-religious homophobes like me) wants such a countervailing study done – as you well know. The government won’t do this study because the gay-lobby would have their heads. The media and the teaching establishment is on-board with the gay agenda, and actively promoting it. Church groups and conservatives are the only ones even suggesting there ‘may’ be a problem; and our opinions are pretty much ignored until things get so bad they can no longer be swept under a rug. Our military is in institutional denial. This 1993 DOD-RAND study (http://rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR323/index.html) denies the potential for significant problems after first cataloging a whole raft of known problems (worry about violence: 80-90%, specific citations of anti-gay violence, stealth gays, complaints against gay improper advances, gay-activism, loss of rank and/or pay, spread of HIV, &c). This study, like all such studies focuses almost exclusively on discrimination against gays and says nothing about the violence and animosity they themselves engender through unrelenting and obnoxious self-promotion and hype. It doesn’t even attempt to explain the causes of anti-gay violence; which I suspect are more often triggered by activism than out right discrimination.
There have been countless studies regarding anti-gay violence (invariably by gay activists), yet almost none on violence by gays or fomented by gays. To read these reports you would gather gays are the sweetest people on earth totally incapable of aggression. If incapable of aggression it begs the question – why are they in the military? We know from DOJ crime statistics civilian gay couples are at least as abusive as straight couples. Yet the public perception, as portrayed in the MSM, is gays are far less given to violence than straights, are the victims of frequent ‘hate-crimes’ or, if they are undeniably the aggressor, their orientation is left out or obscured. Why would the MSM provide cover for civilian gays but not for military gays? Answer: they do for both.
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When I was 12, a semi-drunk man approached me in the pre-dawn darkness while I was rolling newspapers for delivery. He made an attempt on me while pretending to help me roll my papers. He relented when I protested, but only after I’d made enough noise to wake people in nearby houses. As he slithered away, the guy lamely protested I was mistaken and there’d been no attempt to fondle me. I went home feeling humiliated and confused as if I were somehow responsible for what he’d done. I also told myself it was no big deal because no real harm had come to me. So, I said nothing to my parents when I should have been screaming my head off.
When I was a young sailor (out of uniform) on the town in San Francisco, I was approached by gays who had to be told more than once to shove-off in no uncertain terms. At first, it seemed comical so I treated it as a novelty (sailor’s rule: when in Rome, put up with obnoxious Romans). Pretty soon it was less amusing and bordering on dangerous (not least because gay-men and straight-men are more equally matched than men and women and, therefore, ignored until heads are broken). Their behavior was more obnoxious than was the rule among sailors picking up women, even by the loose standards of 1971 San Francisco. Any sailor, who behaved with women as gays did with us, got thrown in jail to cool off. Gays, as far as I could tell did not, and outrageously swore out complaints against sailors who’d fended them off. Police generally sided with the gays as city residents and against us as outsiders and troublemakers. There were guys in the service we knew to be gays, though I never encountered one aboard ship. For our part and by common consent we gave them wide berth. For their part, there were instances of gays hitting on some young newbie before he could learn the ropes. These approaches ended in bloody fights with one or both (or more) in the hospital; soon followed by disciplinary action against all. Gays typically gave the excuse it was the only way they could find out which straights were really closet-gays in need of encouragement. I doubt that is either true or valid, because predatory gays (like predatory straights) are given to saying whatever it takes to get what they want and because the fact you suffer a ‘handicap’ does not entitle you to abuse others. I can’t say that was the usual result or whether these predators and prey mostly shared a common interest; I can only say the behavior was out-of-line, outrageous, and highly aggressive. That was at a time when gays were supposedly untolerated in the military. I can only imagine how much more ‘intense’ things must be since “kiss – don’t tell”.
By your standard, these behaviors are hunky-dory as long as it is gays pursuing heterosexuals, but not if it is men pursuing women; respectful or otherwise. I don’t need statistics to tell me things happen, and neither do you. They happen and are running amok. I’m sorry, but if you insist on maintaining this ‘unawareness’ of things happening all around you, it can only be you are pretending to be straight for the purpose of this debate or are scared to death you’ll be tagged a homophobe. Either way, you are flat out refusing to admit to the clear double standard.
I can’t speak for the other services, but life aboard ship is confining and the smaller the ship, the greater the confinement. There is no such thing as privacy and no keeping it a secret you are attracted to or repelled by a shipmate; and neither idea is one you want broadcast around your ship without a darned good reason. The idea we can throw women or gays in among normal, healthy men and not reap consequences is absurd. There are jobs and environments within the military where there is room for that kind of ‘diversity’, but small ships are definitely not among them.
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To give you an idea, my ship was a mere 180-ft long by 56-ft wide. That’s about twice the size of a regulation basketball court. We had a bridge deck above and one full deck below the main deck. Most of the ship was engines, work spaces and holds for gear. Living quarters represented less than 10% of available space. Officers and chiefs were forward, crew aft. The smell of diesel, red-lead paint and the ocean is everywhere and part of every waking moment. Personal hygiene is at a premium and the sailor who doesn’t bath is apt to get a sea bath. We had one shower for officers and chiefs, and one (one stall, three showerheads) for crew. Crew ate together in a galley with six steel tables bolted to the deck no more than 30-ft by 20-ft. Entertainment, training sessions, and all-hands-meetings were also held in the galley. My ship had a complement of 80 officers, chiefs and men and an equal number of sleeping berths. Our berths consisted of a thin pad on a flat, hard steel bunk that also served as personal locker (all clothing, toiletries, gear, and possessions must fit in each man’s bunk-locker or go overboard. Crew berths were stacked 4 high, and if you turned over in your sleep you were apt to bump the guy above. You could not sit up in your bunk (in fact, you had to slide in and out), so we had a couple of short tables and chairs where we could read, study for ratings, play cards, &c. You could also sit in the galley for these things. Letters and pictures from home are passed around, and the guy who holds out is ‘unappreciated’. You get to know your closest mates’ families almost as your own. We not only slept one atop another, we breathed each others sweat and knew it was our watch by another’s snoring. Every man has to respect the other’s space, but also read his mood and know he’s got his act together. It doesn’t get much more personal, and it is definitely a balancing act. So, if you were imagining this is like living in a college dorm, forget that.
I would like to hear from both straights and gays currently in the military on your take. What I have said above does not apply to all gays and I would not venture to guess to what extent it applies. I recognize some may be offended, but what I say is given as a witness as opposed to unfounded guesses. I relate these things to debunk the myth ‘they do not happen’, or that, if they do, ‘it is not often enough to concern us’. They do happen and often enough both straights and gays need to be concerned by the fallout.
Feminists have elevated “ogling” and “leering” to the level of sexual harassment http://www.wendymcelroy.com/articles/shi.html . That was the case where I used to work.
Mr. Stapler – as sedonaman has pointed out, there are ‘feminists’ – particularly at colleges – who treat any remotely unwelcome attention, sexual or otherwise, as sexual assault. It’s your contention that they are ignoring and suppressing the increase in sexual assault in co-ed bathrooms because they’re afraid it will hurt the ‘gay agenda’?
I’m sorry, but that’s just conspiracy-theory nonsense. You’re right, I don’t need statistics to tell me things happen. But we both need them if we want to know how often they happen and whether the risk overrides other concerns. “It is wrong if it happens once.” True – and I’ve been saying that. But, to take another example, Columbine happened and we didn’t ban guns… just black trench coats. (I’m not suggesting that banning guns actually is a logical response to Columbine. My point is that it’s not.)
Go back and read your post, except substitute ‘Negro’ for ‘gay’. It sounds a whole lot like a segregationist in the 1960′s. E.g., “It doesn’t even attempt to explain the causes of anti-Negro violence; which I suspect are more often triggered by activism than out right discrimination.” I do not think you are racist, and absent data, for all I know you’re right about the consequences of gays in the military. But if you’re right, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with that data. I don’t think the ‘gay lobby’ is more powerful than, say, the ‘tobacco lobby’ was.
And, for the third time, I suggested homosexuals for REMF jobs, not field deployment – at least until we do have some data for how well it would work out. Quite possibly it would be a disaster on a small ship… but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Mr. Ingles,
If you need data pertaining to possible complications between naked heterosexuals and homosexuals sharing intimate quarters (showers) in order to change your postion, then I assume you also need data if the proposal is that girls 7 to 10 years old be made to shower with adult males. After all, data is God and king.
You also would require data that there would be a problem with male homosexuals showering together and gay men and lesbians showering together? In fact, you would need data for all manner of showering combinations before you could see any harm at all? If there are showering combinations that do no require data in your mind and can be judged with common sense alone, please let us know what they are.
By your logic, any of these studies that reveal a low likelyhood of “passes” being made would reveal that our concerns about potential problems are unwarranted. Some ogling, of course, is to be expected,and as it is not the focus of the study, no matter. As you state, it is simply a matter of whether the naked people can keep their hands to themselves.
Thus, the little girls, as uncomfortable as they may be, and men who may be even more uncomfortable, are simply being silly and need to get over any uncomfortable feelings. Why? Because the study would likely show that the vast majority of adult males are not sexually interested in little girls and are very respectful toward them. It might even show that they went out of their way to help the nervous girls be comfortable.
If there were men attracted to the girls, like well-behaved homosexuals showering with men, they didn’t reveal it – thus the data shows no problem of advances being made. Likewise no little girls exhibited amorous behavior toward the men.
So, the data shows no problem exists and all. Just as when clothed, the vast majority of men and little girls get along without incident. All that remains are irrational concerns that mostly can be traced to faulty Christian morality and the shame of nudity it fosters.
Point is, the lack of “data” or even the presence of data is not an excuse for pushing foolish ideology which runs counter to common sense and the feelings of people. Indeed, I’ve noticed common sense often becomes collateral damage in your thinly veiled assault on Christian/religious morality. (It also is rare you can you address any subject these days without brining up at least one pope).
In your comment #7 you can’t see why heterosexuals would mind being eyed amorously by the same sex. If it does bother them, they are homophobic “idiots” who need to get over it the same way racist “idiots did.”
The little girls and men showering together need to get over it? Adult women showering with men need to get over it? Sexual attraction is not an issue in your book as long as everyone is well behaved and does not make advances?
What you ignore is that while you disrespect and argue for the abandonment of religious morality, you also disrespect people. Feelings of embarrassment, uneasiness, not to mention the concerns of military leadership, which has to worry about harassment suits and legal challenges and the cost of it all to taxpayers, are to be ignored as you march us into the new future sans religion.
What is most offensive is your comparisons between the human and civil rights movement of blacks and the goals of gays.
It is demeaning to blacks when you compare the struggle to be accepted as human beings with the struggle to accept allowing someone sexually attracted to you to be naked with you in close quarters.
There may be a speech in which some gay activist proclaimed, like Martin Luther King, that he has a “dream” – a dream of being able to shower in the nude with heterosexual men, but I would hesitate to compare it to King’s dream and his cause.
Your suggestion that whites at one time thought it unaccpetable for a black man to shower with them doesn’t answer the question of a heterosexual black man who is uncomfortable showering with a homosexual black man. Indeed, it doesn’t answer the question of the homosexual black man who is uncomfortable showering with heterosexual black men.
If we are to accept your argument for mutual nudity despite sexual attraction provided there is no physical contact or advances, then we are accepting a principle that has to be applied to all manner of mixed nudity, otherwise we end up with a separate but equal situation, not to mention equal protection arguments.
I may boldly walk nude into the women’s shower on the grounds that I keep my hands to myself, just as homosexuals do. In fact, I might even take your example and protest when they try to arrest me that no one has any “data” to prove that me being in the shower with the women would lead to anything harmful – no data that I would even ogle.
This debate isn’t about race, and trying to compare the two trivializes everything blacks have been through.
This isn’t even about sexual attraction exclusively; it is about respect for peoples’ feelings, which you apparently equate with “stupidity.”
As I stated, the question could just as easily be about homosexual men showering with lesbians. The issue of respecting people’s feelings would remain even though your issues would not. In that scenario not even the amorous ogling between the two sexes would be going on, much less advances between them. It passes your test for showering with flying colors.
P.S. – Excuse me for assuming there would be no sexual attraction between gay men and lesbian women. I have no data to support that, but I will see if I can find some before you get the chance to ask for it.
Nick Adams:
What about the recent case where a woman was suing to use the men’s shower because she claimed she was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1942878/posts ? We are told there are at least five sexes http://www.mtsu.edu/~phollowa/5sexes.html . 2^5=32. How can the military handle all 32 possible combinations so that everyone is treated equally?
sedonaman,
I hear you. But Mr. Ingles would caution that the freak show common sense tells us would result is nothing to worry about unless there is data to prove it.
Transvestites attracted to males put in the boys’ shower. Transvestites attracted to females in the girls’ shower. No wait, let the transvestites choose where they are more comfortable, as their feelings are all that count. The rest of us, in ouur “stupidity,” are supposed to be able to deal with it as long as they don’t make unwanted advances.
Mr. Adams – It’s really surprising the apparent depth of misunderstanding (or unwillingness to understand?) that seems to be going on here.
Minors don’t get to choose those kinds of things, their parents (or – apparently I need to be unbelievably precise and pedantic here, or any slight ambiguity will be pounced on – their legal guardians) decide those kinds of things. I’m not aware of anyone proposing universal unisex bathrooms for adults and minors – I certainly haven’t. I would imagine that a privately-owned gym that offered that would not get many customers. I certainly wouldn’t be a customer. Privately-owned establishments can set whatever rules they like. Publicly-owned establishments have different criteria attached, needing to serve the entire public; but on that score, I’m not aware of anyone excluded from, say, going to court or Congress because the bathrooms aren’t unisex.
On the other hand, we’re talking – at least, I’m talking – about legal adults wishing to join the military with other legal adults. I’m afraid I’m going need a more detailed and explicit chain of reasoning for why ‘equal protection’ issues would necessarily arise in the civilian population. (If you’re arguing that the military should admit “girls 7 to 10 years old”, then you’d probably better write up a separate article to make your case, and we can discuss that proposal. I warn you ahead of time – it’s going to need to be an awfully good case.)
I’m not arguing that there would not or could not be problems with having gays in the military. I’m pointing out that what appears to be the main reason for denying otherwise qualified people from performing valuable services to their country – services we could really use about now – doesn’t seem to have any evidence to back it up. People just assume that it’s obvious that significant, serious problems would arise that would, without question, outweigh the advantages of having more (otherwise) qualified people available. (You know, people in the military do a lot more than just take showers…) And I’ve pointed out that the closest analogous case I’m aware of – co-ed bathrooms in college dorms – doesn’t show any evidence of such problems.
(Say… would you ban homosexuals from using public showers at all? Or do you already implicitly accept the risk that some homosexual will see you whenever you go to a public shower, but you’ll only actively worry about it if a problem actually turns up?)
You’re right, the situation with blacks in the military was different in key respects. Many people were arguing that they weren’t intelligent or disciplined enough to be useful, militarily, in addition to anticipating problems of morale that would obtain with integrating the armed forces. (The first concern turned out to be unfounded, the second quite overblown.) But I haven’t seen anyone here arguing that homosexuals couldn’t perform their assigned duties; the only argument is that their presence would inevitably affect the morale of others.
The military already requires its members to do things and undergo situations that legally cannot be required of civilians. My niece’s Marine husband has to stand in a room and be subjected to tear gas and other toxins until he ‘gets over it’ and builds enough resistance to perform his job even when exposed to them. He’s been trained to eat things that are instinctively revolting, if necessary to survive. His schedule is entirely at the whim of his officers, much to his wife’s dismay. This isn’t because his superiors want to cause him discomfort – it’s because he signed on to do what is necessary to safeguard our country and his superiors think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
We already know the military is facing a personnel crunch. We can quantify some of that. We have a proposal that may ease that shortage somewhat: ‘allow qualified homosexuals to occupy support positions’. Can we quantify the disadvantages and see if they outweigh the advantages? Would limiting their presence to only facilities that can support separate showers mitigate the morale problem? If so, would that be so limiting that allowing gays into support positions would not materially impact the personnel shortage?
Mr. Ingles:
“…the main reason for denying otherwise qualified people from performing valuable services to their country … doesn’t seem to have any evidence to back it up.”
You know, when there was a draft, liberals like you were screaming to get out of military service. They said the draft was unconstitutional because it amounted to involuntary servitude. There were even stories of draftees going so far as to make homosexual passes at their examining doctor just to get disqualified. Now they are screaming to be let in. “The issue is not the issue; the revolution is the issue.” So, this has to be part of the revolution to overturn the whole establishment. But I’ll argue the issue anyway.
Since military service is not a right, the burden of proof is on the innovator, not the ones who choose the established ways. I might add that the suffering is always done by the innovatEE, never the social innovatOR. Believe it or not, we have data to show it. I saw it myself. We were told that “diversity” is our “strength” and to “embrace” it at my place of employment. (Please note that there has NEVER been ANY data presented to prove that assertion. One would think that such a massive undertaking to rework all of society might be backed up by some data, no? But one would be wrong. There has likewise been NO data to show any minority or feminine “perspectives” to science or engineering.) In almost every case (yes, there were rare exceptions), the “diverse” person was hired on to make the numbers (your data, again) look good – all for the sake of, “I (the proponent) don’t discriminate, and by golly, YOU are going to prove it – every day and in every way, dammit.”
These affirmative action mascots were put in a corner and given something to do that no one cared if it got done or not. They were essentially an overhead cost like the electricity. I saw one actually become wealthy mining his race card. He was from South Vietnam, and no one could understand a word he said. If he sensed he was the victim of some discrimination or other, which was often, he called his father who had been high up in the South Vietnamese government and was friends with, you guessed it, a high-up US government official, who then called our upper management.
But back to my point. The Constitution does not make a general requirement for equality. Under our system, individual rights emanate from the “Creator” [sorry about that], and government is established to “protect” those rights. The 14th Amendment was passed to make sure the rights of former slaves were protected just as much as anyone else’s, not to ensure that the social odd-ball could inflict himself on whomever he pleases, or that there be equal outcomes in life, which is impossible for humans to ensure. Only God can ensure equal outcomes: we are all horizontal, room temperature, and naked.
Mr. Ingles,
Have it your way. The parent or guardian, like you, found no “data” to support that their child is in real danger of being handled or advanced on by adult males. So they send their 8-year-old daughter into the shower with a dozen men. Let’s make it a dozen homosexual men, just to eliminate the outside chance that among them might be the odd heterosexual pedophiliac. Hell, lets make the kid’s guardian a homosexual man who sends the little girl in naked with a group of homosexual men. Make it whatever you want.
Tap dancing isn’t going to help your argument.
If you can, please provide data to substantiate your claim that people who don’t want to shower with people who are attracted to the same (their) sex are “stupid” and that you are justified in comparing them to racists. Remember, the plural of anecdotal is not …
Anxiously awaiting data, Nick Adams
sedonaman – Even if I were a ‘liberal’, how would your little discourse on ‘screaming’ and ‘revolution’ have anything to do with me? Can you show where I advocate (or ever advocated) such positions? And even if I had, how would that make this particular proposal wrong? People can be right for the wrong reasons – that’s why ad hominem and ad logicam are fallacies.
Now, you bring up affirmative action, and complain that unqualified people sometimes get jobs that way. But I missed where you explained what this has to do with the proposal to allow homosexuals into the military in support roles. Are you stating that all homosexuals are incapable of performing such duties effectively? I didn’t propose a quota system – no target percentage of homosexuals or anything like that. Nor have I asked for ‘equal outcomes’ – I’ve repeatedly used the phrase ‘qualified homosexuals’. Again, I hope you can reply to what I actually write instead of what you seem to wish I had written.
Look, if you have evidence that they couldn’t do the job, you could shut this down quickly. If you can show that, I’ll become your ally in opposing allowing them into the military. But I haven’t seen anyone actually do that, ever. Instead, all anyone has claimed is that their presence would make it impossible for others to do their jobs.
And it’s that claim that I’m questioning. Where’s the support for that, besides people’s opinions? People only have opinions when they don’t have facts. When you have the facts, you don’t need an opinion. People used to have very strong opinions about slavery and women’s suffrage, too, for example.
I’ve pointed to indirect evidence that the concerns people have voiced are overblown – note: not completely invalid in all circumstances, just overblown. We hand guns to people in the military, in spite of the fact that people will shoot themselves and others by accident. The risk is outweighed by the benefit of our soldiers, in Patton’s words, “making the other poor bastard die for his country.”
Where is the evidence that soldiers can’t make it through the day knowing that someone might eye them in the shower? Many make it through every day knowing that they may be shot or blown up or set on fire. More than that, I have, very explicitly, stated that we could start by having homosexuals in support positions, away from front lines, in facilities where showers could have individual stalls to minimize this kind of stuff. I guess I have a higher opinion of what our troops can handle than most people here. Or maybe there’s a problem with me, not thinking that having some guy glance at my junk is worse than being hit by an RPG.
The effectiveness of our military is at risk from the personnel crunch. (Does anyone dispute that?) I’m asking, would the effectiveness of our military be improved or degraded by allowing homosexuals to take support positions, and how do we know, either way?
What is the fear here? That gays will join the military for sex, and not out of a desire to serve their country? According to sedonaman’s article, there are far easier ways for gays to get sex than to go through Basic. I’m just not following.
Mr. Adams – as I said, all public and private facilities I’m aware of (except, apparently, in California) have rules disallowing children over the age of five from entering the bathrooms of the opposite gender. (That, for example, is why my wife can’t take our boys to the public pool; most aren’t old enough to be in the men’s room by themselves.) So a parent doing that would be in violation of those rules, and subject to ejection.
Now, again – what the heck does that have to do with adults in the military?
I didn’t say that (ostensible) grown-ups “who don’t want to shower with people who are attracted to the same… sex are stupid”. What I am saying is that if that reluctance leads to violence in the absence of provocation or upsets them so much they can’t perform their jobs, they have a problem. That level of unreasoning fear is “stupid”.
Mr. Ingles:
Stop asking me and others here to prove “why not”. You are the innovator. It’s up to you to prove “why”. You apparently missed that part of my point. When you have your data to prove “why”, we will look at it. (And don’t use the race analogy again as proof; race and a mental disorder are not the same thing.)
Sedonaman – Actually, the ‘innovators’ here, for eight years or more, have been places like Britain and Israel. (Those are links, BTW. You might want to read up on them.)
I’ve pointed out the need for more personnel in our military. I’ve pointed out that homosexuals can perform at least many of those duties. And now I’ve pointed out that other Western nations have done the same thing for years without precipitating a crisis.
Yeah, I think at this point asking “Why not?” is quite appropriate.
Mr. Ingles,
I did not ask you to research current laws. That such laws exist simply suggests that most people think like I do rather than like you.
You are the one who narrowed the point to put all the emphasis on whether there is physical contact or unwanted advances. Do you think the California law came about because of common sense notions about morality and reality like those some of us in the forum have been espousing, or that there was a real problem of men groping or making advances on little girls?
You also are the one dismissing the feelings of people who are embarrassed or ashamed to be nude around someone who is attracted to their sex. As if your declaration that their feelings don’t matter were not enough, you go on to call them idiots who need to get over it.
Would you slap them General Patton style, too?
Your recommendation as a consultant to the U.S. then is to ignore the “stupid” “idiots;” Ignore the embarrased and uncomfortable people in the military because we are in desperate need of homosexual warriors?
Would you agree then that if the demand for soldiers drops when we are not at war, we can afford to respect the feelings of the heterosexual troops?
Throughout this war,for example, the Air Force has been embarking on its Force Reduction program to reduce the size of the force. Is it more free to respect the feelings of its servicemembers, since there is no troop emergency?
As sedonaman suggests, you have to provide us data to suggest that your idea will improve the military, make it a stronger fighting force, improve morale and net a positive result.
It doesn’t sound like your argument much depends on need for troops. That is unless comparing people who voice concerns about the policy of forcing them into uncomfortable positions to idiot racists is just your wartime rhetoric and something you do for the good of the country – your sacrifice for the war effort.
In that sense your case sounds a bit like the case for illegal immigrants (we need them to do the lettuce picking jobs we won’t do) so bend the law and look the other way and disrespect the wishes of 85 percent of the country.
Funny, anyone who has a problem with illegal immigrants also is branded an idiot racist. The label truly is an all-purpose weapon for progressive causes.
Mr. Ingles:
Those people have a theory they want to prove, so naturally their conclusions will support it.
So, I ask again, “Why”.
Nick Adams:
“The label [racist] truly is an all-purpose weapon for progressive causes.”
Damn, I love it.
Sedonaman – Let’s put this another way. You’re asking me to ‘prove it’. Fine: specify what would constitute proof in your eyes. If that’s ‘nothing in the world could ever convince me’, say so. If not, specify what you’d like me to provide.
Mr. Ingles:
All I’m asking is that you meet your own criterion for proof. You don’t believe in God because His existence can’t be proved scientifically to you with hard data. I don’t believe in any of the progressive attempts to remake human nature because they can’t be proved scientifically to me with hard data.
“Skepticism doesn’t mean doubting everything, all the time. It means asking how we know what we know, and to how many decimal places.” – Your comment # 63 http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/04/24/the-pope-said-what/#comments
Mr. Ingles,
Thinkers and writers who respond with one-liners, may be running short on time, but they most certainly are not loving “it.”
I realize you got yourself in over your head, but calling America’s servicemembers who are either embarrassed or revolted by the idea of being put on nude display for people sexually attracted to their genitalia “homophobic idiots” who need to get over it has gotten you the challenges you deserve.
I am still waiting for the data to back up your claim that these people are not just embarassed, or uphold their moral code. Evidence of “stupidity,” please.
We have been focused on heterosexual men being eyed, but when I asked some servicemembers today their thoughts on the question, one of them raised a good point.
A “yes sir, no sir,” North Carloina gentleman, he said he doesn’t go around exposing himself to women, and he’s not any more comfortable exposing himself to men who feel the same way about male genitalia as women do.
His comment caught me off guard and I thought about it through the afternoon, processing the idea that his reluctance was more about respect for the homosexual person than his own embarrassment.
I can tell you one thing, as I thought about it, I never once thought I should have called him a stupid homophobe who needed to get over it. I’ll leave that sort of thing to you, Mr. Ingles.
It’s hard to believe such a heated discussion could emanate from such a crappy article.
The fact of the matter is that this conversation is irrelevant – there is absolutely nothing stopping gays from entering the military right now, even as we speak, in the tobacco-chewin’, Jew-punchin’, Negro-lynchin’, gay-bashin’ US of KKK A. As long as you don’t find it necessary to broadcast your sexuality to anyone (and anyone who is secure in their sexuality certainly shouldn’t have to – I don’t need to wear a T-shirt or a slogan bracelet, get a bumper sticker, or march in a parade to affirm to the world that I’m sexually attracted exclusively to women), nobody has to be the wiser if you’re gay and in the military. Nobody has to know if you’re straight, bisexual, or a necrophiliac either, if you don’t want them to. So if you’re a gay man (and I use this example purely for the sake of illustration – this conversation shouldn’t be exclusionary; lesbians are gay people too, you patriarchal bastards!) desperate to serve your country, you can go right on down to your local recruitment office and sign up, just so long as you don’t try to fondle the recruiter, or show up making out with your boyfriend. This is why, I suspect, (note: I suspect – I don’t have any hard facts, like links to a 100% conclusive study administered by the lobby group who favors my position, or anything like that) the reality of homosexuals being discriminated out of the military en masse is mostly a theoretical fabrication of the “gay rights” movement. If you’re qualified, and you really want to serve in the military, and you’re gay, nothing can stop you except your own desire to proselytize for your “cause” (as if your sexual preference were a product to be marketed). If you want to be flamboyantly, “out of the closet”, bullseye between your back pockets gay, maybe try Blackwater or something – they can’t discriminate based on sexuality in accordance with our current labor laws.
Mr. Mulligan
I think the issue here turned to the question of why there should be friction betweeng gays and straights, particularly in certain situations, such as showering together as was brought up early in the debate.
In other words, the only reason for the “discriminatory” don’t ask, don’t tell policy, is “idiot homophobes” and the military leaders who support them.
The suggestion is that showering and sleeping with gays is only a problem because people akin to racists have a problem with it. They need to get over it and everyone needs to ignore their concerns, says Mr. Ingles.
I can accept an argument that in times of war sacrifices have to be made, but as a general policy I believe the military is handing it about as well as possible.
The issue of putting people sexually attracted to the people they fight with is one of the reasons there was resistance to women in the fighting force. Now the drive is to allow openly gay people to serve, which of course, could lead to more gay couples having affairs in the military. It also would lead to flamboyant gays serving in the military. The policy as it stands does not.
The thought regarding women serving alongside men was that it could lead to problems if men and women develop relationships. The emotions could interfere with the job, their thinking and safety. It also was thought it could lead to morale problems, poor judgment and additional stress, particularly if men were to see women killed or captured.
It is quite true that in most scenarios, this has not become too much of a problem, but it does happen and it only takes one problem to cause a ripple effect that can impact the entire force, the United States and even the world.
Some may think males and females working together in a military war zone is a great and progressive idea, but the military knew exactly what could happen as a result.
How can anyone agrgue this after the reality of what happened with Specialist Lynndie England and Abu Ghraib. She did things that were wrong and she knew were wrong because she was in love with and having an affair with the soldier who urged her to pose with naked prisoners stacked in a pyramid, with dog leashes and mastrubating and in other situations that rocked the Arab (and Western) world when the photos were circulated.
In an interview, England said, “but I followed Graner (her boyfriend). I did everything he wanted me to do. I didn’t want to lose him.”
Thus the great and progressive policy that put males and females together at Abu Ghraib led to the conditions that permitted a relationship, that led to something that, as many warned, could impact morale. Boy did it.
Photos that will live in infamy forever, a permanent stain on the military and the United States, wouldn’t exist if love hadn’t made her do something stupid. But who doesn’t know the power of what we’ll do for love (or sex)? So why not introduce other sexual/romance complications into the war zone?
Asked about the picture of her posing with Graner in front of a pyramid of naked men, England said, “At the time I thought, I love this man [Graner], I trust this man.”
She didn’t base her actions on the military code of conduct. No, she threw that out the window and did what she did for love of a man. It was just the sort of disciplinary breakdown and romance affected judgment problem the military warned about. In fact, it is textbook.
It is often overlooked how profound the effect on morale a single incident can be. Pictures of a woman abusing and humiliating Arab men (an unthinkable thing that has enraged fundamentalist Muslims) now exist becasue a woman was there, because a woman was in fear of losing her man.
We all know a single soldier’s act of great heroism can lift the morale of an entire nation. Likewise, a single act of disgrace can harm the morale of every servicemember, a nation and even enrage the world. The military attempts to limit the possible problems that can occur when sex and love become components of fighting units, yet people like Mr. Ingles keep will argue to setting us up for a fall, telling us it’s not a problem and that we need to get over it.
Well, we got over it, but will we ever get over the picture of Lynndie England? Will the Arab world ever get over them?
Had the military stuck to its guns, there would have been no Lynndie England there to be photographed. Would there have been photographs without her? Quite possibly, but as we now know, a good deal of what was going on was using women to humiliate Arabs as a way of breaking them down through humiliation, so the policy of placing women in service there and the female component of this abuse, can’t be dismissed.
Assurances from people like Mr. Ingles don’t mean a thing. What happened with England could just as easily of happened with a flamboyant homosexual, whose masculine boyfriend asked him to help humiliate some naked Arab men.
Not possible, no way? Look the England pictures up on the Web and ask yourself if prior to the reality, if you ever thought such a thing could have happened.
It isn’t about Mr. Ingles probabilities and lack or presence of data; It is about setting up the conditions for a single, just one, disaster that could rock the world, and asking why not avoid those conditions? The England photos make the wisdom of that kind of thinking clear.
A headline showing up about a gay love triangle in the Marines, incidents of gay interaction between Arabs and Americans, AIDS cases and other issues are all real possibilities if gays get their wish about serving out of the closet. It has to happen, because these things happen now between men and women. Relationships and sex cause all sorts of unpredictable weirdness.
In a military that already spends far too much of its time dealing with the personal problems of its force, sensitivity and diversity issues, it can get out of hand quickly if we keep complicating the force by introducing new dynamics. Why must the military be the test bed for the brave new, progressive society? They have a job to do and simply do not need to be a guinea pig for people like Mr. Ingles.
Why, why, why, must we expose ourself to the risk of serious morale problems and even greater international flaps? Why, why, why open the door which we know leads to various and more complicated sexual combinations and complications (gays Ok, so what about transvestites, transgendered, trans whatever and males trapped in female bodies? It is a nightmare scenario for the military, which has been trying to hold the line at don’t ask, don’t tell for the sake of order and morale.
Some progressives who are taking the slow approach (always wise) would have us believe we have to move toward the direction of chaos, usining the excuse we can’t afford to turn away gays in time of war, which I assume one day will mean gays who show up to boot camp wearing a feather boa.
As I stated, the argument is much like the argument that we can’t afford to do without illegal immigrants.
I have but one thing to say: bullshit.
Mr. Ingles will pounce and say he doesn’t propose letting things get out of hand, but what guys like him don’t say is they really can’t recommend letting them get out of hand too quickly lest us conservative types throw an effective fit.
But when the argument about openly gay people serving is over and done, the same argument will be made for transvestites. Instead of citing racists of WWII, proponents will cite the homophobes of 2009.
By definition, to be progressive, one turly has to progress from one thing to the next.
Didn’t anybody notice that, at least twice, I stipulated that we didn’t have to ignore people with shower anxiety and we could set up facilities with separate stalls or even separate showers? I think that’d be an unnecessary expense – it hasn’t been a problem for Britain or Israel – but hey, maybe the U.S. is unique in that respect. Of course, reading comprehension’s been an issue throughout this discussion.
Let’s assume you’re right, and the right not be naked in the company of anyone who’s attracted to your gender – though not necessarily you – under any circumstances is one of the unenumerated rights in the Constitution.
Can anyone answer me this – are shower exposures the only concern here? If there are other concerns, it certainly – from the attention paid here – seems to be the primary concern. If there were a way to deal with that, would your objections to homosexuals serving in the U.S. military be withdrawn? Or is this a diversion and we should be focusing on something else?
Like, for example, “gays who show up to boot camp wearing a feather boa”? Heterosexual recruits show up wearing all kinds of things, I gather, but they’re all wearing uniforms later. Mr. Adams, I asked this before – do you think homosexuals are not capable of performing the duties of a soldier?
At least sedonaman’s finally admitted that nothing is going to convince him, so we can save some time there. (The situation is not complementary as he claims, however: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.christnet/msg/8065fb254576d557 – note the date.)
BTW – Mr. Adams, I wasn’t aware that England was in all the pictures from Abu Ghraib. I suppose that also means we shouldn’t have guard dogs there, either.
Of course, we can’t trust anything England says in her defense, just like we can’t trust Britain or Israel to tell the truth about homosexuals in their ranks. After all, they have interests to protect.
Raymond
You said: “It’s your contention that they are ignoring and suppressing the increase in sexual assault in co-ed bathrooms because they’re afraid it will hurt the ‘gay agenda’? ¶ I’m sorry, but that’s just conspiracy-theory nonsense.”
No, I never said that. I have little idea what currently gets suppressed on college campuses, because I have not set foot on one in 3 decades, never lived in college dorms (though I saw enough to know it was stupid making them co-ed), and have no desire to return to a setting in which lunatics run the asylum, people in charge bow and scrape to the inmates, and the few actually trying to accomplish something stay clear of dorms. It is easy to complain these institutions of ‘learning’ are such a mess because of adults failing to do our jobs, but it was campus radicals, using terrorist style tactics, who forced administrators out of dorm management and student life. Today, administrators function little more than as landlords, whereas dorm governance is entirely in the hands of students (or, rather, in the hands of student-radicals practicing for the day they grab real power). Since the 70s, colleges have embraced every passing radical fad (including the gay agenda) so serious students must put up with endless nonsense. So, if you want to complain my objection to integrating gays into the military some how relates to a dire campus situation, then by all means let’s not have a repeat of the mess caused by campus radicals more intent on experimental social agendas than the best interests of students.
I don’t have to go back and re-read what I wrote nor insert gay for Negro. I have already explained how these are not the same. Race friction mainly abates with inclusion. Sexual misbehaviors and radical agendas do not abate with inclusion, they escalate. You can make up all kinds of substitutions, but that does not make them equivalent; only similar. Let’s turn your arguments around instead of mine. Instead of gay for Negro let’s substitute rapists, murderers, and arsonists. Now surely even you will agree these are classes of people sufficiently unfit and disrupting they do not really belong; so much so the average GI Joe and Jane can be forgiven not wanting them in their ranks. Remember again that, unlike civilian life (including your dorm comparison), GIs can’t simply up and leave if they don’t like living one bunk or dorm away from a Charles Manson aspirant. They will not only be forced to live with them, but also to act as though it doesn’t bother them. That makes it wrong on two counts. Not only have they been bullied into sleeping alongside people who might fantasize killing them while asleep, they have been deprived of any right to complain (i.e., free-speech violation). Now, I admit this exaggerates the situation, but not by all that much and not that much over what you exaggerate (i.e., I would think murderers at least as unsettling to gays as gays are to straights. Shall we accuse gays, then, of homicide-phobia? If it is valid to extrapolate the one, it is just as valid extrapolating the other.
The other table I wish to overturn is this. In what way does this serve the interest of military, government, or civilian population? Is our national survival and interests more at risk by including or excluding gays? Have gays any unique contribution to make to our war-fighting or defense capacities, and is that sufficient to warrant a fundamental risk to unit cohesion? We have a military to accomplish exactly two things: protect civilians from hostile attack and to protect our national interests. To those ends, we want the best and most effective military we can devise. When we sacrifice those two objectives to satisfy some other object (however meritorious), we put lives and interests at risk. Therefore, we must weigh their pluses outweigh negatives.
In the case of race integration, there is no question the pluses out weighed risks. Black men are certainly no less capable of feats of strength, aggression, endurance, commitment and valor than whites; all attributes desirable in combat soldiers. Nor are blacks any less intelligent or talented as regards skills. The one negative was that of acceptance; and, as we learned, this was far less than feared. Women-in-the-military are another matter and, although negativity and friction remain high, gender integration has been mainly positive. Women-in-the-military has been okay, but that is a highly ‘qualified’ okay (not my judgment, the military’s evaluation). How do I know this? The military puts few women into combat and has, instead, relied on them to free up male combat effectives (to the irritation of feminists). Now, we propose adding a far greater and more complex friction to an already strained mix. Does this sound to anyone beside me like piling it on to see at what point our military breaks?
cont.)
(cont.)
Already there is a good deal of friction in the services (race & gender) and adding another layer certainly increases friction. When I said black-white relations in the military are good, I never implied they are perfect. Gender relations are even more strained for the simple reason men and women are not ‘equal’ in every respect. Gender integration has had at least one significantly negative impact. It has forced the bar lowered by drawing the public eye to harsh training methods no longer condoned in a gender neutral military. That means our soldiers go into battle less prepared to deal with harsh realities. Physical toughness is similarly eroded and, where it isn’t, men justifiably complain of a double standard (more friction).
Black-Americans represented a grossly under-utilized fighting capability as well as sending a conspicuous message blacks were neither prized nor trusted to fight our wars. Mistrust of blacks was irrational because its sole basis was color. Mistrust of gays is based on a behavior; one that gays have no intention of repressing and represents a palpable threat to straights. Blacks were more threatened by a Nazi victory than whites, yet blacks were almost entirely excluded from answering that threat. Women represented some of the same issues, but not all; and certainly could not complain of being at greater risk for having been left out of the military (women will suffer no more or less from the outcome of an enemy victory, whereas blacks could rightfully complain they would). Gays may legitimately complain they were at risk from Nazis and, today, from Muslims terrorists because both Nazis and Islam target gays for elimination. However, the threat of a Nazi victory hasn’t been a problem in decades and an Islamic takeover is more likely through colonization than combat – making the gays best bet debunking pro-Islamic propaganda. Women-in-the-military is almost entirely political (aka, societal), making it a better comparison to gays-in-the-military, and, if that were all there were to it, I’d have no further objection. However, this analogy also breaks down because gays represent a mistrust of motives that women do not (from the viewpoint of straight-men).
Are gays capable of serving in jobs that avoid mistrust and friction? No, the shipboard case I mentioned is merely one situational example and an extreme one at that, but it is hardly the only situation where gay behaviors disrupt and strain. It was meant to illustrate the kind of issues that arise. If it were a case of a single, well defined situation, we could isolate that and open up the rest. However, it is because it isn’t isolatable and remains ubiquitous our government has, so far, refused it any opening despite legislators desperate to make face saving concessions. Living conditions on bases still involve sharing facilities and close quarters. When I was in the service, we were bunked together in large halls. Today, I understand, it is more dorm-like with a handful of men or women to each room. While this may seem likely to reduce friction, it may actually amplify it because abuse happens more the less it is public. This friction exists even in civilian life (even if we are in society-wide denial of it). However, you cannot apply the same solution to the military as you do civilians because it is unavoidably coerced.
Living situations in the military are fluid, with people sometimes reassigned on a moment’s notice. It has to be that way and the military does not want to have to worry about throwing gays in with straights; who then object to the point of broken heads or ‘friendly-fire’. You may find yourself thrown into a combat unit already in the field as a replacement or a remote duty-station where discipline is lax. Today you are in a situation where there are no gays in your barracks, tomorrow finds you sleeping in transient-quarters next to a bunch of guys you’re clueless about. If you are mistakenly assigned to female-quarters and you’re male, you can bet you will be bounced. In a straights-only military you can be pretty sure the black guy is a dude like you and a woman is a woman, but in a gay-integrated military it is anybody’s guess.
Do gays want to serve their country as others do? I have no reason to think otherwise. Am I concerned gays will be so embittered by exclusion they turn against country and/or government. That is always a possibility, but not one I nor our government has ultimate responsibility to prevent. We do not maintain our military for the purpose of integrating society nor as social experiment. I am sorry this comes down to a question of friction, but controlling friction is critical to an effective military on which our nation depends for its security. Would you rather have an effective fighting force, or one too busy fighting itself to fight our enemies?
Nick Adams:
“They need to get over it and everyone needs to ignore their concerns, says Mr. Ingles.”
By this, he is asking us to believe what he believes, yet we are not allowed to tell him to “get over” his unbelief in God.
Some in the past have also made the argument that people work with gays in civilian life, so why can’t they work with them in the military? That’s not possible even if the work setting is one from which a person may leave at the end of the day, just like a civilian job, because there is the issue of fairness in rotation in and out of less desirable assignments. It’s not considered fair never to have to shoulder an undesirable assignment. The added problem with gays in the military is that there are other military situations that present problems similar to those created by women in those same situations. I know because I witnessed firsthand what happened with women [they were lesbians to boot!] aboard Navy ships. [What follows could apply to the land battlefield as well.] When you are at sea for months on end, you can’t leave at the end of the day, and when a woman starts hanging around one of the men (usually and officer), the other men start to ask themselves, “Why don’t I get to have one of those?” It’s the same with gays. Once two gays link up, the straights will start asking why they don’t get to enjoy sex while gays do. That’s why both are bad for morale. However, people like Mr. Ingles dismiss it with a “That’s their problem, and they [those without] need to ‘get over it’.” Perhaps it’s because people like Mr. Ingles have never heard of a thing called defiant compliance.
There is also the problem that women and gays create that no one (I repeat, NO ONE) will acknowledge: they use sex to get ahead. Once a woman (or gay) starts a relationship with the boss, the first things to go are the undesirable parts of her job; she has him foist them off onto some poor, quiet Schmuckattelli in a corner somewhere who is just trying to do his job. I’m intimately familiar with this one because I was once that Schmuckattelli. There is nothing Schmuckattelli can do about it because it is considered only “sex politics,” and there is no law against it, according to my EEO officer.
There is also another problem that only women create that no one (I repeat, NO ONE) in authority will speak: they get pregnant. Once a woman turns up pregnant, her captain has no choice but to helo her home (with full pay, of course) and replace her, again, with some poor Schmuckattelli, usually from a well-earned shore billet after serving his turn at sea. So he did his turn and now has to do hers also.
All these problems stem from the Leftist notion that everyone can and should be made “equal” wherever God has failed [in their eyes]. It can be summed up that in practice, all are equal, but some are just more equal than others. Someone like Mr. Ingles can deny the existence of God, but he cannot deny the existence of Satan, because if I were Satan, Leftism is exactly the kind of thing I would invent to destroy man.
“Why must the military be the test bed for the brave new, progressive society?”
Because the Clintons loathed and despised the military, and this was their way of hurting it. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The generals are obligated to salute and say, “Yes, sir.” And if the military can be toppled, the rest of society will be a pushover.
Mr. Ingles,
You noted that, “Mr.Adams, I wan’t aware that England was in all the pictures from Abu Ghraib.”
I don’t wish to plumb the depths of what you are not aware of, Mr. Ingles, but I will try to help you understand better, despite that I thought it was clear from my post.
I did not present the photographs of England as the only photographs, though they are the most well known (prisoner on dog collar and naked pyramid). That is because she was a woman, which is what makes her case relevant to this discussion.
England is a woman, as you know, serving where she was due to DoD policy being changed despite objections that relationships in war zones could cause problems, as I am also sure you know.
I noted that the significance of her being a woman serving in a combat zone and embroiled in a romantic relationship with a fellow soldier who held a lover’sway, could not be dismissed easily, but I see you have managed.
As for dogs serving in the military, along with the other things you may not be aware of, male dogs are used almost exclusively. That is because they do not menstruate, which casuses down time as the female becomes preoccupied by her condition.
Further, a dog in heat can prevent male dogs from doing their job, interfering with their training and their sense of smell, which is critical for detecting explosives.
As for gay dogs, I can’t say for sure. I do know from experience that male dogs that try to mount other males often are on the butt end of an aggresive attack from the mounted dog, which apparently has enough sense to know when something unnatural is happening.
I believe the military attempted to deal with this problem by telling the heterosexual dogs to get over it, but dogs were discovered to be very unsympathetic to political correctness and progressive ideas.