DADT Repealed

Deck Knight

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http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/12/dont_ask_dont_t.html

Just because I wanted to beat people to the punch who were going to invoke my name on the inevitable thread anyway.

My only commentary on this is that it was done the right way: through the legisltature and not through the courts. The three branches of government in America are co-equal; the Judicial Branch is not a superbranch that supercedes the other two, and military policy implementation is strictly under the authority of the Executive Branch.

DADT was at best an imperfect policy originally designed by the Clinton Administration as an a compromise on the military's then policy of complete rejection of homosexuals in the ranks, a policy borne mostly because of the closed spaces most miltary members lived in and the potential for unneccesary distraction there ensuing.

I am glad that the proper channels have been followed and that a better policy will now be crafted to address the matter. My only real concern now is that it's going to be turned into another social engineering project where being openly gay is a commendable quality for advancement as "reparations," as left-wing Senators and Congressmen demand quotas for openly gay servicemembers in the upper ranks. All of the barracks issues will be sorted out over time and are generally minor concerns.
 
I'm so happy it passed. A person's choice of sexuality shouldn't matter when they are willing to die for their country.
 
I'm very glad it passed, but DADT could have been repealed much earlier. Obama could have just repealed it with an executive order, similarly to how Harry Truman racially integrated the military by executive order.
 
I'm glad it passed, of course. It had to happen some time and I'm glad we're taking a step in the right direction. I am curious how many gay people are in the military and have been for some time, hiding in the closet. I absolutely understand Deck Knight's point, it seems like after previously discriminated minourity groups achieve equality, they are extremely, "sensitive", for lack of a better word, to criticism or even a slight glimmer of discrimination. For example, making fun of black people or women is obviously an extremely touchy subject in today's social pyramid, moreso than say white men, and I don't ever want to hear the phrase from one of our soldiers, "Oh, it's because I'm gay!" Still, though, don't want to turn this into a downer, definitely a huge step on the ongoing movement for gay rights.
 
My only real concern now is that it's going to be turned into another social engineering project where being openly gay is a commendable quality for advancement as "reparations," as left-wing Senators and Congressmen demand quotas for openly gay servicemembers in the upper ranks. All of the barracks issues will be sorted out over time and are generally minor concerns.
I don't think you really have any reason to be predicting this. Are you upset that fully functioning human beings are able to defend your right to call their equilization a windfall?
 

cim

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I'm happy that DADT was repealed so that openly gay soldiers can serve.

What I'm mixed about is what effect it might have on military culture. With DADT's strict implementation, the topic of homosexuality was basically removed. It was not to be discussed and was never thought about; everyone took that seriously in all ranks of the military. What if, counter intuitively, the repeal of DADT results in actual discrimination from soldier to soldier as the hot-button issue becomes "on the table"?
 
I'm very glad it passed, but DADT could have been repealed much earlier. Obama could have just repealed it with an executive order, similarly to how Harry Truman racially integrated the military by executive order.
Actually, no. The problem here was the legislative ban on gays in the military, to which no equivalent existed prohibiting racial integration. My understanding is that President Obama could use an executive order to suspend any discharges of service members, but he can't just overturn that law by fiat. Without Congressional or judicial repeal the United States Code would remain disciminatory, gays and lesbians would end up in limbo if a future President decided to start enforcing the ban again and the whole situation would be tenuous and unsatisfactory. Honestly, the only reason the idea of an executive order had to be mentioned was that the procedural quirks of the Senate allowed the minority Republican caucus to block repeal until a couple of them decided to join the Democratic caucus sans Joe Manchin and do the right thing.
 
My only commentary on this is that it was done the right way: through the legisltature and not through the courts. The three branches of government in America are co-equal; the Judicial Branch is not a superbranch that supercedes the other two, and military policy implementation is strictly under the authority of the Executive Branch.
Yes! This x100. I am also glad this passed as I thought it was a bad, suppressing policy and hopefully it will bring about equality and not the "special rights" concern you had at the end of your post.
 

Deck Knight

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I don't think you really have any reason to be predicting this. Are you upset that fully functioning human beings are able to defend your right to call their equilization a windfall?
I have reason to predict affirmative action regarding gay service members may lead to negative results on the basis that similar social sensitivity to not offending Muslims is what enabled Nidal Malik Hassan to murder 14 people at Fort Hood. Nidal Malik Hassan fulfilled an unwritten quota the military brass needed to "celebrate diversity" and in order to do so they ignored all of the warning signs.

Naturally I don't suspect anything like that to happen with openly gay commanding officers. What I do fear though is that the military will slacken its rigor in finding candidates if no suitably politically correct candidate appears in what would ordinarily be the top tier.

Moreover what of those service members who are not "openly" (whatever that means, and I imagine the military must now define that) gay but are either closeted or questioning at the moment? They might be superior leaders to those service members who are open, but because they have not made the unit aware of this they will be passed over because their unknown or presumed sexuality does not fit the profile for advancement.

In short, if sexual orientation becomes a portal for advancement because of an unstated but de facto internal policy that calls for it, military effectiveness could be hampered. After all, there is no way to prove an opportunist is not gay, is there?
 
I think that your prediction of affirmative action is both biased and extreme. How about we just sit and see what happens? If overcorrections are made, lobby your local non gay governor and see where that gets you. You claim you like the process taken, so play by the rules yourself.

Universities in Canada still recruit up to 65-70% female preferrentially to seem like they aren't biased...which is a delicious irony. Culture is what it is, a festering stinkhole of mistake and overcorrection.
 
You know maybe Affirmative Action wouldn't happen if you totally didn't fuck over a group of people at one point........
 

Firestorm

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You know maybe Affirmative Action wouldn't happen if you totally didn't fuck over a group of people at one point........
Doesn't stop it from being idiotic in most cases. It's not like the case of say Aboriginal peoples in Canada where we completely fucked up their education on purpose and are now trying to get it back on track which would be impossible to do otherwise. Gay people in the military don't need quotas to be promoted.

Also doesn't justify pre-emptively crying about it and the "homosexual agenda" or whatever the OP likes to call it.
 
You know maybe Affirmative Action wouldn't happen if you totally didn't fuck over a group of people at one point........
Affirmative Action is basically reverse racism.
Also doesn't justify pre-emptively crying about it and the "homosexual agenda" or whatever the GOP likes to call it.
xD

Affirmative action is pretty much the perfect example of 'treating the symptoms, not the disease'.
This.

I am pretty sure that Obama could have just passed an Executive Order to overturn this, because I asked my Government teacher from back in high school about that and he said that was the case. Regardless, its probably for the best, doesn't affect me really much seeing as how I don't plan on joining the military, I'm not gay, and I'm apathetic to anything that doesn't affect me directly.

I am however excited to see Synre in fatigues. :doom:
 
Doesn't stop it from being idiotic in most cases. It's not like the case of say Aboriginal peoples in Canada where we completely fucked up their education on purpose and are now trying to get it back on track which would be impossible to do otherwise. Gay people in the military don't need quotas to be promoted.

Also doesn't justify pre-emptively crying about it and the "homosexual agenda" or whatever the OP likes to call it.
Affirmative action is pretty much the perfect example of 'treating the symptoms, not the disease'.
Affirmative Action is basically reverse racism.
I'm aware of all of this. And Firestorm, I meant Affirmative Action in general, not just in this case. If you don't want it to happen stop being a fucking bigot and accept that people look different from you and believe in different things. You have people who call themselves advanced yet still perpetuate petty discrimination.
 
Ughh..... I don't understand the reasoning behind this. This shouldn't have even been a huge issue. But instead it got pushed through as fast as it could without any actual look at the implications. This is going to be a huge waste of time and money as so many policies have to be rewritten, barracks housing will likely be screwed up, and initial entry training will be interesting. The military's ability to fight wars should have been the only thing that mattered when looking at this issue.
 

Firestorm

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Ughh..... I don't understand the reasoning behind this. This shouldn't have even been a huge issue. But instead it got pushed through as fast as it could without any actual look at the implications. This is going to be a huge waste of time and money as so many policies have to be rewritten, barracks housing will likely be screwed up, and initial entry training will be interesting. The military's ability to fight wars should have been the only thing that mattered when looking at this issue.
The fuck? This was anything but fast. And I thought the study they carried out did exactly that - look at the implications?
 
Good thing this was repealed. I'm just worried that this won't go over too well with the military, seeing as it tends to be far more conservative than the rest of America.
 

Deck Knight

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The "homosexual agenda" exists insofar as gays have organized themselves as a political force on the basis they have common policy goals valuable to them solely because those goals are beneficial to them categorically. To deny such a movement exists because calling it by its name might offend people is assinine.

But the of repealling DADT isn't really a "homosexual agenda" item given that very few activists or proponents of the movement have a speck of interest in serving in the military. They might trot a few people out here and there to show feigned outrage but they'd rather be influencing schoolchildren, not soldiers.

An important point brought up by one of the sites I regularly visit (Hillbuzz, some gay Hillary-turned McCain-supporter conservatives living in Chicago's gay neighborhood "Boystown") is that DADT was bad because it enabled blackmail and extortion. DADT was never a great policy and my only concerns about it have always been the fallout of overreach to "correct injustices" or whatever euphemism they use for weakening the United States out of spite.

I am pleased no one has yet brought out other militaries because quite frankly there is no comparison. Israel has compulsory enlistment in the military and so naturally includes all elements of the population. Every other military however might as well be a social club compared to the heavy lifting the United States does around the world. Does anyone really care if the fighting ability of the Royal Air Force or the Australian Army is compromised? Not really, but if the United States Army and the United States Marines start having problems with unit morale or cohesion because of bad policies made in Washington the entire world is affected, whether directly or indirectly. That's why it's important to get the process right, to be flexible, to weed out inefficiency, blackmail, and extortion, and to maximize the ability of the United States Armed Forces to function.

Arguably the repeal of DADT will help on at least a few of those fronts, but again since the military is very exacting and needs to be to perform across the world like it does, it is be very important to not let "being open" be the kind of quality that affects a promotion either positively or negatively. Past is prologue and political correctness in the military has already lead to events like the Fort Hood shooting. It is not a question of if it will be tried, but when and how quickly it will be spotted and stomped (if at all).
 

cim

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The "homosexual agenda" exists insofar as gays have organized themselves as a political force on the basis they have common policy goals valuable to them solely because those goals are beneficial to them categorically. To deny such a movement exists because calling it by its name might offend people is assinine.
So the homosexual agenda is being able to do the same things as everyone else?

If that's an "agenda" (which is disingenous because it implies ulterior motive), why is it ever looked at as a bad thing, either in terms of content that they have one at all?
 

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