COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, December 19, 2010

It's Gay Day for the USA - Go Army, Go Go Navy, and Whoooo Air Force



December 19, 2010

End of DADT: The Final Blow Against Cultural Conservatism

Michael Filozof American Thinker


The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military is over. The lame-duck Senate passed legislation ending the policy today by the overwhelming margin of 65-31; all that awaits is President Obama's signature, which is a certainty. The legislation couldn't have passed without Republicans, including the Tea Party insurgent Scott Brown and Mark Kirk, who won Obama's old Illinois seat in November. It fell to the doddering old war hero and loser of 2008, John McCain, to argue against the policy (and McCain's position was undermined by his wife's and his daughter's public opposition to DADT).

The end of DADT will be hailed as a groundbreaking achievement, like the racial desegregation of the military in 1948. But race is an involuntary characteristic that becomes irrelevant so long as the minority service member conforms to the military's behavioral and performance norms. Proclaiming one's sexual orientation and acting upon it is voluntary, not involuntary. Thus, homosexuals will be given not equality, but preferential treatment, based on chosen behavior. Why, then, draw the line at homosexuality? Why should the military discriminate against service members who announce proclivities for transsexuality, polygamy, bestiality or pedophilia?

What will be the effect of the end of DADT? The short-term effects will probably be minimal. The military won't be overrun by homosexuals anytime soon. It's unlikely that very many gays, who constitute a tiny fraction of the population, want to serve in the military anyway. But the cultural shift in the military will be dramatic. The military will be forced to deal with issues like anti-gay discrimination (real or imagined), how to deal with transsexuals, gay marriage, and benefits for gay partners. There will be gay affirmative-action quotas, gay cliques and subcultures, and you can be sure that in the future, there'll be some gay equivalent of the "Tailhook" scandal. A military that is in the process of losing it's second decade-long war in Asia to ragtag insurgents needs none of this. But the military, with its "can-do" ethos, will deal with it.

The consequences for cultural conservatism are much more acute, though. Repeal of DADT means that homosexuality will officially no longer constitute "conduct unbecoming" of a professional soldier. This amounts to a de facto sanction of homosexuality as normal and acceptable.

With the repeal of DADT, cultural conservatives will no longer control any institutions in American society. The military, the last bastion of cultural conservatism to which Americans rallied en masse after 9/11, has now been conscripted by the Left. The military is the final institution to fall in what Roger Kimball described as the "Long March" of cultural Leftism through America's institutions that began in the Sixties. The academy, the churches, the courts and the government have long since fallen.

In the 30 years since the election of Reagan, cultural conservatives have failed to overturn Roe v. Wade, suppress pornography, stop gay marriage, or make a serious dent in the use of illegal drugs. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich noted that Clinton's high public approval rating in the wake of the Lewinsky sex scandal meant that a "Moral Majority" no longer existed in the U.S.

Polls indicating overwhelming public support for ending DADT reaffirm that Weyrich's observation was surely correct.

20 comments:

  1. I would not join today's US military on a bet and would strongly advise others not to as well.

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  2. I am not anti-gay, and have known others in the air force who were gay, but in today's politically correct environment this will become a farce as it has with the over-expansion of woman, many of them single with children.

    There is only one reason to have a military and that is to have the best qualified and best prepared, ready, willing and able to do the maximum amount of damage to an enemy.

    For millenium and with minor exceptions that has been young men, some of them gay. There homosexuality was not an issue but it was also not a highlight.

    You just know this decision is going to become a cause célèbre with distractions, political correctness and a diverted focus from what should be the real mission.

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  3. Go to college, get a degree, the Obama Administration and Democrats equate it with military service anyway, so don't be a chump and don't join the corps.

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  4. Thank you for your service at the university.

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  5. When military recruiters can't make their goals, they will demand the ruling class get real about defense or initiate universal service, the draft, men only, gay or straight as the numbers fall. Altogether a better outcome than what is today and what will happen tomorrow.

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  6. I seem to have survived my first Noel mugging. Wasn't much of a mugging at these thing go I quess, first one for me. Couple white yuts pushed me over kick me in the ribs and face and took the wallet.

    They got zero, don't carry cash.

    It's the tough economic time I quess.

    More likely they needed some meth.


    Thank you for your service at the university.

    heh -- the U of Idaho for instance used to be very pro military, very big ROTC programs. We used to have military marching bands and such, haven't seen oone of those in years.

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  7. This was from a commenter over at Human Events:

    It would seem that if the law is repealed, then the original law would be in affect, which was to make it illegal for a homosexual to serve. At least that should be the case until / if Congress passes another law specifically stating that homosexuals can enlist.

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  8. Let them enlist, everyone else stop.

    Let's have an army of single overweight woman with at least one child, preferably two and gay young men, married of course so that we have many dependents and have an enlisted wives club made up of mostly men.

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  9. Let's really crank up unit cohesion. As they climb the ladder, we can add a whole new image to "the Joint Chiefs of Staff".

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  10. Our military, our doctors, firefighters, police, scientists, janitors all should be selected based on skill, merit, value added to a situation, honesty, work ethic & being #1

    Looters verses Producers aint just about Tonka trucks...

    No matter what the job, do the best you can and innovate and improve as you go.

    Otherwise?

    Welcome to USSR, 1980....

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  11. Pastors in Uniform will be charged with hate speech for reading the Bible out loud.

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. That Eagles - Giants game was as good as you will ever get for a comeback win.

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  14. “Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed.
    Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams.
    If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think,
    ‘It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.’”

    ~Babe Ruth

    Anecdotes about his smoking abound, but one randy tale is especially characteristic. One night on the road, Ruth smuggled a woman into the room; his teammate Ernie Shore tried to sleep, but the moans, groans and squeaking springs were impossible to ignore.

    Finally, with the sun nearly up, Shore dozed off.
    When he awoke, he recalls that Ruth was sleeping peacefully and the woman was gone. Shore noticed four or five cigar butts next to the bed. When he inquired later, the Babe smiled, saying,

    “oh, that! I like a cigar every time I’m finished.”

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  15. This is a photo of the victim

    ...course, we will not be shown the real deal - like these

    Rachel Corrie

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  16. Christian exodus as Iraq army fails them

    If only those thieving Jews would stop stealing land from the peaceful PA…Oh, wrong country (again)…But everyone knows the Jews are at fault anyway - just ask General Petraeus.

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  17. Deuce, you cannot be serious, or at least a reasonable person will have trouble taking your objections seriously.

    Which is the greater injustice, the damage to a political movement, identified as "cultural conservatism" or the barring of men and women from serving their country?

    I wavered on this issue for too long, IMO. I do not understand the reflexive woe felt by those who share your opinion. Do you think it is merely an unfortunate sense of political defeat? If so, I think it is undeserved. For as shrewd and moral as we aim to be, we neglected a deep injustice affecting our fellow citizens.

    Do you think our awful, nasty, crass media has affected your own opinions of your fellow servicemen and women?

    And if there is any political movement hoping to bank on the image of a very Christian military, why on earth would your sympathies lie with them? What "culture" do they protect? I fear they are protecting something and calling it culture, but I do not know what it is. Do you?

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  18. One last, more direct point. Disclaimer: I've read this blog since its inception and mean this with all politeness.

    When gay men and women hear of injustices done to Americans, when they learn of war made upon them with impunity and malice, when they see the faces of acid-scarred women and the terrified, watery eyes of children whose parents have perished to terrorism, to our own mistakes, to the calculated plans of our enemies, what is your response to them? And if you feel it just to deny them the right to serve the only, if ambiguous and controversial, force for good in the world, how can you possibly feel right about such a call?

    Nearly every person I know whose served has sexual morays that I do not share. I could not care less what sexuality and perversions my fellow citizens find fun, so long as it avoids obvious red lines. I am not sure why we take exception to homosexuals. Are they really so different that our military not only should do without but also must bar by force of law their participation?

    I know the politics of DADT play well in certain areas. But so too do all kinds of divide-and-conquer games that you known are a perennial strategy for Washington, DC. How on earth is it healthy for to allow meanspirited reactionaries a say in what is "proper" service, reducing the complexities of patriotism to a ridiculous sexual binary?

    And its not only political strategy that suffers. Intellectually, can't we all affirm that sexuality is complicated. Do we really need to take a bible camp brochure and impose it on the Pentagon?

    My dissonances drove my sympathies to the positions you see above. Are you saying you see no contradictions in your own feelings?

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  19. I do not want to see anyone barred from service if they are qualified and needed for the purposes of the business of the US military.

    I also do not want to see homosexual men do for the US military what they did for the Catholic Church.

    Men are different than woman. Homosexual men are different than straight men. Military men are different than civilian men.

    A voluntary military should be open to all who want to serve and to all who are qualified by the organization. You join an organization like the USA Military because you want them and they want you.

    Don't make the specious argument that it is a civil right, the same as race. That is nonsense and a false comparison. Races are different because of people's origin and evolution. They differ on minor physical attributes. Black men, white men and red men are all men. There is little difference between their character, instincts and behavior.

    Small group dynamics is important to military cohesion and effectiveness. If you do not understand the difference between a buddy wanting to save your ass and a buddy who wants your ass, I can't help you understand.

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