Submarines are hazardous to fetal development. No problem! There’s NOTHING that we Americans can’t do once we set our minds to it.

James P. writes:

Now the Navy faces the prospect of redesigning its submarines to accommodate women.

Submarines may be “hazardous to fetal development”—but pregnant women have no business being there in the first place!

From the Washington Times:

On the surface, the Navy’s leadership has sounded exuberant in speaking publicly about its recent decision to begin deploying female sailors in the cramped confines of combat submarines by next year.

But behind the scenes, the prospect of coed submarines is presenting medical and ship-construction challenges.

A specialist on undersea medicine is warning Congress that the air inside a submarine can be hazardous to fetal development.

“Atmosphere controls are different between ships and a submarine’s sealed environment,” retired Rear Adm. Hugh Scott, a former undersea medical officer, told The Washington Times. “There are all types of organic traces that off-gas into the air that have to be removed by mechanical means. You just can’t open a window and let them out.”

LA replies:

The story is not clear, but the point seems to be that at present these gases are not removed from a sub and that if women of child bearing age are brought onto subs then mechanical means to remove those gases would have to be introduced.

Heck, why not just change the entire protocol of subs and have them surface every three hours to clean out their air? When the inability of female firefighters to carry victims out of a fire was mentioned as an objection to having female fire fighters, Gloria Steinem told a TV program, in all seriousness, that the female firefighters could drag the victims along the floor instead of carrying them.

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James P. continues:

In addition to the gases issue, this quote appears to indicate that somehow the sleeping quarters will have to be redesigned: “The Navy must figure out how to carve out special women’s berthing space in what are already the tightest living and working places in the fleet.”

Right now, on submarines, I believe about 80 enlisted guys share one shower. Will the women share that shower, too? Or will they need a new shower? Who knows!

LA replies:

Mr. P., you still don’t get it. We Americans can do anything.

Or rather, we can do anything that advances equality.

Evan H. writes:

I found the choice of the word “berthing” to be quite humorous—after all, if pregnant women are going to be on submarines, they may also need to add a _birthing_ space to the subs!

LA replies:

That’s the same thought that occurred to me when I read James’s e-mail. I thought for a split second they were talking about having women give birth on subs.

But why not? We are the can-do nation. We must accept no limits on what we can accomplish. We can do anything.

Anything, that is, to make blacks equal with whites, women equal with men, the less capable equal to the capable, the unproductive equal to the productive, the jihadist equal to the loyal citizen.

In connection with which, here again is the culminating scene in Atlas Shrugged, in which Rand’s industrialist hero, who has been playing along with the collectivist government rulers, realizes there is no limit to the irrational demands they will make on him in the name of equality. (I discuss it further here.)

Rearden had felt another click in his mind, the sharper click of the second tumbril, connecting the circuits of the lock. He learned forward. “What are you counting on?” he asked; his tone had changed, it was low, it had the steady, pressing, droning sound of a drill.

“It’s only a matter of gaining time!” cried Mouch.

“There isn’t any time to gain.”

“All we need is a chance!” cried Lawson.

“There are no chances left.”

“It’s only until we recover!” cried Holloway.

“There is no way to recover.”

“Wait until our policies begin to work!” cried Dr. Ferris.

“There is no way to make the irrational work.” There was no answer. “What can save you now?”

“Oh, you’ll do something!” cried James Taggart.

Then—even though it was only a sentence he had heard all his life—he felt a deafening crash within him, as of a steel door dropping open at the touch of the final tumbril, the one small number completing the sum and releasing the intricate lock, the answer uniting all the pieces, the questions and the unsolved wounds of his life….

He had cursed these looters for their stubborn blindness? It was he who had made it possible. From the first extortion he had accepted, from the first directive he had obeyed, he had given them cause to believe that reality was a thing to be cheated, that one could demand the irrational and someone somehow would provide it. If he had accepted the Equalization of Opportunity Bill, if he had accepted Directive 10-289, if had accepted the law that those who could not equal his ability had the right to dispose of it, that those who had not earned were to profit, but he who had was to lose, that those who could not think were to command, but he who could was to obey them—then were they illogical in believing that they existed in an irrational universe? He had made it for them, he had provided it. Were they illogical in believing that theirs was only to wish, to wish with no concern for the possible, and that his was to fulfill their wishes, by means they did not have to know or name? They, the impotent mystics, struggling to escape the responsibility of reason, had known that he, the rationalist, had undertaken to serve their whims. They had known that he had given them a blank check on reality—his was not to ask why?—theirs was not to ask how?—let them demand that he give them a share of his wealth, then all that he owns, then more than he owns—impossible?—no, he’ll do something!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 05, 2010 02:04 PM | Send