THE BASIN MILITARY SERVICE SOLUTION: "DON'T ASK, TELL ONCE"
For those of you who have followed my boards that preceded UMRBlog, I'm sure you will recognize this screed.
"Gays, gasp, in the military. What to do about them?"
How about nothing much? Ask anybody with enlisted service. We all knew who the gays were in our units and we didn't much care. It just never was a big deal.
If you consider this a problem, you have to define the mischief. The only possible mischief unique to gays only applies to CLOSET gays. If they have secure military information, they can blackmailed into providing it to the forces of evil. Openly gay people provide no more threat to security or morale than openly heteros. Yes there is the possibility of sex up the chain of command, sexual exploitation and reverse sexual exploitation (where the one who doesn't put out fails to get the job or promotion), the very same threat with all human beings of all persuasions.
And please, please don't wail on the "cultural problems" in a paramilitary organization. Gays have served heroically since at least the Roman Empire and still do. It's a made-up issue.
So the Basin Solution is simply this: If you want to serve in the United States Military, you have to tell us once, before you're sworn in, your sexual preference. No closet. Beyond that, your country welcomes your service.
See, that wasn't so difficult, was it?
posted by UMRBlog @ 07:41
16 comments
16 Comments:
I don't even think closeted gay people pose any more of a blackmail risk. Even if they have a nice high-level security clearance, everyone has their weakness or a secret that can be exploited to bend them to someone else's will. But heck, they do a personal inventory on everything else during aptitude tests, why not throw in another question.
Obama, like Gitmo, will be able to promise this again at next year's SOTU. It ain't happening.
0949,
I am conceding every plausible argument to the anti's. The only one that can actually be made with a straight face is the "closet/blackmail" argument. I might agree with you but we both have to concede the "closet/blackmail" argument is not fatuous.
TYFCB
Tony, you're right on with this. But will O have the guts to proceed with what he promised last night? I wonder. So far, he's pretty much let the wackjobs and other assorted crazies, left and right, manipulate the agenda. I also wonder: Is he too intelligent to be a good president?
Uncle Joe,
Just had this discussion in slightly different clothes. Is the classically trained lawyer--the ability to take both sides of an argument and to resolve conflicts using civil means--ill suited for the Chief Executive Officer of such a multifaceted corporation.
Maybe its just intellect that's a block or maybe it's being enslaved by the syllogistic.
TYFCB
Well, that sure explains everything. Obama is just too smart to be a good president!! I don't know where you are getting your drugs but man, that must be some good shit!
0742,
Perhaps there will come a day when you can grasp the difference between an issue for discussion and a contention or conclusion.
Then again, maybe not.
TYFCB
"Classically trained" or not, I sure don't see "too intelligent" as his problem. No executive experience is clearly a big problem.
Staying "in the closet" does not seem good for the individual or the military. But it seems they have a practical solution already functioning well.
The big issue seems more political than practical. Maybe Obama just wants to throw the far left another bone, combined with another chance to slap down the military.
If Obama was "too intelligent", he'd be displaying his college papers and grades instead of hiding everything. I put his IQ at 108, qualified for rabble rousing and Chicago style politics.
I don't think you can be too smart to be President. I suppose you would know the guy personally, but as an outside observer, the fact he earned a Rhodes Scholarship indicates the Bill Clinton is a rather smart guy, and I think he was a fairly effective executive. I also think Ronald Reagan was a lot smarter than the conventional wisdom gives him credit for. On the non-political side, Warren Buffet comes to mind as a really smart guy who gets the job done, although he has his less famous viceroy to help shoulder the load.
I like how a guy who went to Columbia and was President of Harvard Law Review is of average intelligence if you disagree with his politics. Granted, that doesn't mean he's going to be awesome at being an executive, or that every idea he has is a good one, but saying he's not smarter than the average bear is a little silly.
Also if you want to dismiss his HLR then you still have to accept that he graduated in the top 10% of his class at Harvard Law and was a lecturer at U of Chicago law school. If that dude was your drinking buddy you'd be saying how wicked smart he was, not that he was a "rabble rouser" in Chicago. By the way, what does that mean exactly? I didn't know registering people to vote was being a "rabble rouser."
Helen Keller was obviously brilliant but she wouldn't have made a very good fighter pilot.
Van Gogh was clearly a genius but I wouldn't have wanted him in the Chairmanship of IBM.
Ernesto Guevera was a physician of estimable talents but I don't think I'd have wanted him as my primary care physician.
"Being Smart" is a borderline useless concept. The payoff in "Specialized Knowledge" has always been the greatest. Joe's suggestion and the subset of it I discussed are worthy of discussion, no matter who the "Smart" president is. The same discussion took place about Woodrow Wilson. It's not like a novel concept.
"I LIKE how a guy who went to Columbia and was President of Harvard Law Review is of average intelligence if you disagree with his politics. ...
Like it or not, that was not my basis. I believe he was advanced because of HIS politics and his race, not his ability.
There are a hundred points of observation to show he is not a genius, though I agree that is a rather tenuous label. (and btw, 108 is above "average", which would be 100.)
Genetics plays a major role in intelligence. His half bro lives in a hut and has had trouble with the law. His mother left him behind with Grandma.
"...dismiss his HLR then you still have to accept that he graduated in the top 10% of his class at Harvard Law and was a lecturer at U of Chicago law school."
Again ... grade inflation and favored political and racial status have much to do with grades. Where are his papers in HLR? Hahavahd bragged of their first black (token?) president of HLR ... isn't that special?
It is not his classical training causing disruption, it is that he ran on lies that he was toward the center, against lobbyists, and for transparency, and for reaching across the aisle. He has been the opposite of campaigner Obama. We now face Obama the far left Progressive.
So here's a black guy saying O's "stuck on studious." Interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/opinion/30blow.html
Here is a guy (that claims to be a Democrat) with some logical reasons to put Obama at maybe 116.
http://fwd4.me/DdE
But blaming "the lies on FOX", while offering no specifics, sounds like an Obama tactic.
Obama's scores are diligently hidden. His policy is ...
"Don't ask, Don't tell ... EVER"
So here's a black guy saying O's "stuck on studious."
Yeah right ... the guy links to FOX being most trusted, but assumes it is because people are stupid. But all the other networks know how to play the soundbite game, and they are much less trusted (and have been,as I see it).
Obama got elected by pretending to be more centrist. Now he wants to pretend the problem with his far left agenda is that people are stupid, and the minority party misrepresents his path to government takeover of health care.
Give me a friggin break ... or not ... but I ain't buyin' that Obama is anything less than a pusher of progressive ideology, and he can lie pathologically.
He is well suited for campaigning on lies, not governing as a believer in authority of the constitution. His SOTU badgering of the minority party and even SCOTUS indicates he is ill suited to actually BE presidential.
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