Obama and the Gay Military...

[xXMoshtradamusXx]

You should join a hardcore right-wing forum and pass the answers back and forth between here and there, pretending they are all coming from you (like the chess game trick where you play two grand masters at once and your first opponent's move against you becomes your move against your second opponent and vice versa, giving you the appearance of chess skillz when you have none).

Linda

And one can only master through imitation and improvement.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Won't gays demand more fashionable uniforms? Think of the expense!

 

[Jackalgirl]

It seems to me like they would lose a lot more people than they would gain

This would be wonderful. The Navy is already trying to reduce its manpower by policies such as "Perform to Serve", which requires you to move to a different rating, or get out, if your rating is overmanned and your evaluations don't make you rise to the top. If you are a young, freshly-in-the-Navy person and don't understand how evals work and thusly haven't been keeping a close eye on all the numbers & crap that goes into an eval, it's quite possible (as is happening to someone in my unit) for an absolutely excellent person to be essentially turned down from reenlisting.

If allowing gays to serve would cause an enormous outflow of people, that would be nice. Sure, we'd probably lose a lot of good people, but if their homophobia is stronger than their call to service, then good riddance. There are plenty more good people in the country. I'm happy to serve with gay people as long as they do their damn job and do it well. What you're saying, in essence, is that this would be a total win-win for the military all around.

or they would gain a lot of inner military violence if the people already in the military weren't willing to leave.

Highly doubtful. That stuff tends to get squashed fast. Hazing is totally verboten and skippers are becoming less and less likely to want their careers to be ruined due to a hazing incident within their command. Plus, again, this stuff is so mediapathic -- the bottom line is, "the media will find out about it and have a field day," so the military response tends to be pretty strong (insofar as I've seen. Of course, I don't speak for the military and my experience is limited to about five commands).

 

[Jackalgirl]

This link might be interesting to those arguing about military demographics. I say "might" because I'm still reading it and have to leave the keyboard to feed the Next Generation her breakfast.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

One of my classmates in initial training was a Second Class Petty Officer who was obviously gay. No one cared.

Just curious - Why was a Second Class Petty Officer, in initial training ?

 

[shuize]

I'm usually right of center, but I wouldn't care if Obama repealed "DADT."

Instead of promising to do it, however, why doesn't he just do it? Or, if it can't be done by executive order, why doesn't he get a sympathetic Congressman to introduce the bill as suggest above? Democrats control both Houses. What's the hold up? Is he waiting until they don't control both Houses?

 

[shemp]

As long as we're here, it's about time that we also dropped the prohibitions against cannibalism in the Royal Navy! The following is a public service announcement on this subject:

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I'm usually right of center, but I wouldn't care if Obama repealed "DADT."

Instead of promising to do it, however, why doesn't he just do it? Or, if it can't be done by executive order, why doesn't he get a sympathetic Congressman to introduce the bill as suggest above? Democrats control both Houses. What's the hold up? Is he waiting until they don't control both Houses?

I suspect he is waiting until his second term.

 

[Garrette]

Er,... the legislation has a loophole in it that allows an executive order to overturn it. The secretary of defense has the authority to determine that separation from service under DADT is not in the best interests of the service.

No. That authority is not a stand-alone; it is one of 5 "and" statements, not "or" statements.

If the secretary of defense determines that such separation is NEVER in the best interests of the service, a determination that could be made by executive order, DADT is essentially dead.

See above.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

I imagine Obama doesn't want to repeal DADT until his health care goes through.

 

[linusrichard]

Er,... the legislation has a loophole in it that allows an executive order to overturn it. The secretary of defense has the authority to determine that separation from service under DADT is not in the best interests of the service.

If the secretary of defense determines that such separation is NEVER in the best interests of the service, a determination that could be made by executive order, DADT is essentially dead.

Even assuming you're right, this wouldn't overturn DADT, just circumvent it. And it wouldn't make DADT "dead" - just "asleep" until the next Republican (or sufficiently conservative Democratic) administration. Repeal would be more permanent, requiring legislative action to revive it.

 

[Alt+F4]

I imagine Obama doesn't want to repeal DADT until his health care goes through.

I imagine Obama doesn't want to repeal DADT because the invisible man in the sky that tells him what to do doesn't like gay people.

Let's face it folks, Obama doesn't give two hoots (or even one hoot) about gay issues. He makes Dick Cheney look like a liberal!

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Bitter much?

 

[Alt+F4]

Bitter much?

Very actually. Thanks for asking.

 

[fls]

I imagine Obama doesn't want to repeal DADT because the invisible man in the sky that tells him what to do doesn't like gay people.

Let's face it folks, Obama doesn't give two hoots (or even one hoot) about gay issues. He makes Dick Cheney look like a liberal!

Since moving to the US, I have come to the realization that I haven't the foggiest idea what Americans mean when they use terms like "liberal", "conservative", "socialist", "fascist", etc. It looks like they intend them to refer some specific set of characteristics, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what they are supposed to be. It has been very confusing for me.

Linda

 

[Alt+F4]

Since moving to the US, I have come to the realization that I haven't the foggiest idea what Americans mean when they use terms like "liberal", "conservative", "socialist", "fascist", etc. It looks like they intend them to refer some specific set of characteristics, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what they are supposed to be. It has been very confusing for me.

Linda

That how I feel when thinking about education in Britian. How can a public school be private and how can a private school be public? It boggles my mind.

 

[Stout]

Since moving to the US, I have come to the realization that I haven't the foggiest idea what Americans mean when they use terms like "liberal", "conservative", "socialist", "fascist", etc. It looks like they intend them to refer some specific set of characteristics, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what they are supposed to be. It has been very confusing for me.

Linda

Oh, that's easy. liberal means "the left", conservative means "the right" and anything else is a pejorative used to discredit the other.

This is unlike here ( BC, Canada ) where our liberals are actually conservatives and our democrats are trying to be socialists.

 

[Garrette]

Since moving to the US, I have come to the realization that I haven't the foggiest idea what Americans mean when they use terms like "liberal", "conservative", "socialist", "fascist", etc. It looks like they intend them to refer some specific set of characteristics, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what they are supposed to be. It has been very confusing for me.

Linda

Oh yeah! Well......well...... YOU'D BE SPEAKING GERMAN IF IT WEREN'T FOR US! TWICE! PLUS NEW ORLEANS!

A tad more seriously, though in no way scientifically or completely:

Conservative = Strident member of the Republican Party who espouses a "less-government-is-good-government" approach when it comes to guns, schools, and welfare but not when it comes to abortion or religion (even in schools).

Liberal = Strident member of the Democratic Party who espouses a "government-is-benevolent-capable-and-appropriate-in-the-redress-of-all-wrongs-both-real-and-perceived" approach but not when it comes to anything that benefits large entities outside of Hollywood.

Socialist = The label we apply to something that seems like it means the government is going to control businesses but we don't really understand it so we say it louder on talk shows Sunday morning.

Fascist = The label we apply to something we want to call Nazi but know we can't.

 

[Garrette]

There are a lot of poor white people, too.

Does the Army Demographics website break down their demographic as far as family income or geographic region? (I'd guess not).

A likely hypothesis is that for the last several years, a disproportionate part of the recruits volunteering for likely duty in Iraq are socially conservative white kids from small towns and conservative communities. This will make the military more conservative than it normally would be--which creates problems beyond DADT. Religious intolerance and susceptibility to Right Wing Conspiracy theories.

So your position is based on data you do not have.

 

[Terry]

Oh, that's easy. liberal means "the left", conservative means "the right"

where "the left" means the right wing party and "the right" means the other right-wing party.