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A ruinous event in the history of the United States
Yesterday, following the Senate’s vote for cloture on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, allowing the measure to go to the floor for a vote, the Senate proceeded to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, by a vote of 65 to 31. The homosexualists and liberals are ecstatic. The DREAM (Act) may have died, but the liberal dream of breaking down all traditional institutions and values through the application of the principle of non-discrimination is still going strong.
A main argument used by the opponents of the repeal, such as Sen. McCain, is that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military will harm the unit cohesion which is the very basis of the military ethos and of military effectiveness. Liberals of course dismiss this argument. But how could it not be correct? As was said on that reactionary TV show Seinfeld, homosexuals are “the other team.” How can you have members of two different teams serving in the same military units and expect to maintain unit cohesion?
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Ken Hechtman wriets:
You’re reading too much into the catchphrase (and it’s not original with Seinfeld either). “She plays for the other team”—much more commonly used than “he plays … “—just means “You’re wasting your time coming on to her, buddy. She’s a lesbian.” It doesn’t mean “Homosexuals are our existential enemies and always will be.”
The Seinfeld catchphrase that really does capture my generation’s attitude in contrast to yours or the one younger than me is “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” To which the proper response is “Of course not! Why would there be anything wrong with that?”
Jerry: Oh no! Now she’s heard everything! What are we gonna do?!?
George: Now she thinks we’re gay, not that there’s anything wrong with it …
Jerry: No, no, of course not! People’s personal sexual preferences are
nobody’s business but their own!
LA replies:
As I remember, the idea on the Seinfeld episode I’m thinking of was that there were two different teams, working at cross purposes to each other, and there was the desire that people be on “our” team, not the other team. It’s not that the two teams are existential enemies, but that they inhabit different worlds and are incompatible with each other. Once someone joins the other team, he stops being in our world.
I don’t remember the idea being just that you couldn’t date a lesbian because she was on the other team.
Andrew Lundsford writes:
Is it significant that you never mention who is leading the repeal of DADT? Joseph Lieberman … He appears in every picture, audio clip and video segment leading the charge (here, here, and here).
He has worked tirelessly for this legislation.
Or am I being anti-Semitic here?
LA replies:
You’re a flagrant anti-Semite. You ask insinuatingly, “Is it significant” that I never mention Lieberman, implying (1) that I knew that Lieberman was leading the charge on the homosexualization of the military (which, in fact, I didn’t know), and, (2) that I was deliberately concealing Lieberman’s role, because Lieberman is a Jew, and I go out of my way to defend Jews who are doing bad things.
In reality, I haven’t followed the inside politics of the repeal at all, who’s pushing it, and so on.
You’re also an anti-Semite because, at the moment of this disaster for our country, a disaster that has been pushed by the entire left for the last twenty years, all you can think is that “the Jews did it … and that Jew Auster is covering up that the Jews did it.” So you’re not only an anti-Semite, you’re stupid. But that’s a redundant statement, since anti-Semitism lowers a person’s IQ by at least one standard deviation.
Kathlene M. writes:
You correctly point out that “the liberal dream of breaking down all traditional institutions and values through the application of the principle of non-discrimination is still going strong”
I believe you’ve said this many times before but it bears repeating: liberals claim to believe in non-discrimination but actually practice discrimination against the traditional-values-based white population. So perhaps this principle is more properly named the “liberal principle of new-discrimination.”
You are correct that the ultimate aim of the DADT repeal is to “break down all traditional institutions and values.” The well-financed homosexual activists have said that DADT repeal is their first goal of radically changing America. One of their next goals is to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I’ve been reading quotes in the DADT repeal stories like the following. Notice the left-leaning bias used via the phrase “government-sanctioned discrimination.” They’re already trying to paint anyone opposed to their proposed changes as bigoted. This was their strategy in California with the anti-Prop 8 campaign.
“Passage of the [repeal] measure may also spur broader debate about issues like gay marriage rights. Kate Kendell, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said debate over the military policy “ignited a national conversation not just about the ability of lesbians and gay men to be good soldiers, but about the underpinnings of all sorts of government-sanctioned discrimination,” she said.”
Brandon F. writes: There is one Andrew Lundsford in the world walking around with a big chunk missing from his ***! Nice work.
Nile McCoy writes:
Kathlene M. wrote:
You are correct that the ultimate aim of the DADT repeal is to “break down all traditional institutions and values.” The well-financed homosexual activists have said that DADT repeal is their first goal of radically changing America. One of their next goals is to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
I fear the next step for the homosexual agenda after a repeal of DOMA is to reach inside religious institutions—churches and synagogues (but not mosques!) to force the recognition of homosexual marriage at the alter. While doing that seems to run against liberals’ supposed principle of separation of church and state, yet by use of the unprincipled exception, it stands to reason the goal of destroying traditional institutions will force the government into breaching religious institutions to mandate compliance with the liberal vision. Failure to recognize homosexual marriage will likely result in the removal of tax exempt statuses, and possibly eminent domain to seize land and other assets.
Kathlene M. writes:
Within one hour of sending you my comment, I saw this blaring headline at yahoo:
Repeal may have ripple effect on gay rights
“The end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” will likely spark challenges to other key policies. Survivor benefits”
And within the article was this:
Yet the repeal is far more than just a single policy shift. The overturning of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is likely to create a ripple effect in addressing other gay-rights issues, as many states continue to debate issues including same-sex marriage and the right of gay partners to share benefits the same way legally married couples do. With gay service members serving openly, it will become difficult for policy makers to justify, say, withholding visitation rights or survivor benefits to the same-sex spouse of a wounded or fallen soldier.
Dan K. writes:
DADT is a terrible policy. Its repeal is even worse as you are well aware. However, the American Military is in terrible shape because of other misguided policies that have not been reformed since nearly its beginning: selection and promotion of officers.
If you have the time, obtain a copy and read the following book: The Path To Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs. Donald Vandergriff. Amazon has the source for many discounted copies here.
The book explains why America’s senior officers are Yes Men and lack spine in the main. It also explains why we probably are doomed to lose more and more wars as American military selection policies do not select for Excellence, Knowledge, Character and Competence in officers. No, politics rules all. An officer must please above all else the officer in charge to get a good fitness report which is the KEY to promotion as no objective standards exist to judge the merit of an officer. Remember, one mistake, one error dooms a military career so NEVER take a chance and never Rock The Boat.
You will not be sorry if you read the book. I was an officer during the late 1960s and early 1970s (Navy Commission) and saw first hand how the system works. Vandergriff is spot on in his analysis.
Tovi A. writes:
I found this anonymous comment on OneSTDV’s blog. It seems like something that ought to be on your blog, so I thought I’d bring it to your attention.
Anonymous said …
I used to support what was once called Gay Liberation, but it’s become clear to me that “normalization” is their game in a way I had not foreseen.
One of my major concerns now is that gay marriage is really the road to saying to a judge or to adoption agencies—“Hey, as a married couple we have as much right to adopt that child as the heterosexual applicants. We are not the couple of last resort anymore.” The familial unit of a child with a mother and a father will not be given preference; in fact, such a preference will be deemed discriminatory.
I’ve a close friend who works in adoption. It has already happened.
I work in the field of elementary ed, and the push by the gay lobby for insertion of all kinds of things into books for little kids is really their attempt to push much more than simple acceptance. They don’t just wish to end the marginalization of exclusive homosexuality. They wish to use the public schools to teach that sex with members of the same gender and sex with members of the opposite gender should be part of a human’s experimentation with one’s sexual needs. The end game is to promote the notion that all sexual unions are to be explored and enjoyed … and they realize that boy-on-boy stuff is more likely to be experienced because there is no danger of pregnancy.
Their hope is this: work religiously to remove the stigma of homosexual activity and you will eventually see new behaviors develop among young males, behaviors that might even continue after the straight male engages in heterosexual activity. They realize that this would not happen quickly, but they see history and hold out hope. They are not out to convert kids to exclusive homosexual desires (as they realize the biological nature of this). They are hoping that bisexual behaviors will emerge when it is no longer pc to put down gay behaviors.
I think it’s fair to say that all kinds of stigmas have been removed from our society. Decades ago, we realized that we treated harshly the young unmarried girl who got pregnant. Now, our public policies and pc attitudes actually encourage this behavior. We see the result our society’s removal of stigma.
In an effort to un-do discrimination based on race, we’ve created a mess in public policy and we’ve promoted inaccurate social science. We see the results.
I never foresaw this years ago. I thought gays simply wanted to be treated with dignity, but many in the gay lobby have other ideas and as usual, there will be unintended consequences of society’s attempts to be fair.
If judges weren’t so liberal, I wouldn’t fear this kind of thing, but we know that all it takes is one judge to change anything these days. (I am thinking of adoption here and textbook adoptions by school districts).
After all, something *was* going on in Greek society that isn’t explained by what we now know or think we know about homosexuality. Cultural norms can change.
The “ick” factor among straights can, little by little, be modified by decades of social policies and media promotion. When it comes to sex, one never knows what behaviors can be modified.
Ken Hechtman writes:
Something else, and this will explain a lot about how liberals think about homosexuality compared to how conservatives, especially religious conservatives, do. A liberal might say that someone “plays for the other team” but he would never in a million years say they “joined the other team.” “Join” implies choice and liberals do not believe homosexuality is a choice. Religious conservatives have to believe it’s a choice if they’re going to believe it’s a sin. [LA replies: I’m almost positive that in the Seinfeld episode I’m thinking of, Jerry spoke of people “joining” the other team.]
I remember something you wrote a few months ago that really got under my skin. You were supporting high-school bullying on the theory that if it could convince gay kids to become straight, it was good for them in the long term. Do you see how that argument requires the assumption that homosexuality is a choice, for all people, at all times? If the assumption is not always true or even if it might not always be true, the argument is indefensible. If the assumption is never true—and this is what liberals believe—then the argument is monstrous. It’s up there with medieval superstitions like “If she weighs as much as a duck then she’s made of wood and therefore a witch. Burn her!”
LA replies:
I didn’t simply “endorse the bullying of homosexuals.” I said I saw the possibility that in some circumstances open social disapproval of ridiculous attitudes and behaviors in young people, such as 14 year olds going around declaring that they are “gay,” could helpfully discourage them from harboring such attitudes and indulging in such behaviors. I also said that the complete absence of such social disapproval, an absence made mandatory by the rule of liberalism, allows people to do many bad and damaging things that they should not do.
Ken Hechtman writes:
I found the episode:
Here’s the exchange:
Jerry: You think you can get him to just change teams? He’s not going to suddenly switch sides. Forget about it.
Elaine: Why? Is it irrevocable?
Jerry: Because when you join that team it’s not a whim. He likes his team. He’s set with that team.
Elaine: We’ve got a good team.
Jerry: Yeah, we do. We do have a good team.
Elaine: Why can’t he play for us?
Jerry: They’re only comfortable with their equipment.
So we’re both partly right. He does say the word “join” but it’s clear from the context he doesn’t mean homosexuality is a free-choice decision. He means exactly the opposite.
LA replies:
You were the one who introduced the question whether it is a free-choice decision. I didn’t say anything about that. I just said that according to the Seinfeld episode, homosexuals and heterosexuals are two different and incompatible teams, and therefore combining these two teams in the same military units will destroy unit cohesion. I even remembered correctly, from a TV program I saw over ten years ago, that it used the phrase “join the other team.” So I’m not partly right, I’m completely right.
B. Smith writes:
I’m not quite sure of all the legislative mumbo-jumbo here, but if DADT is an act of Congress which stopped the military from actively discharging homosexuals from the military, then wouldn’t repeal of DADT merely put the military back to pre-DADT conditions? In which case the military is free to prevent homosexuals from entering the service, as well as discharging them when evidence emerges?
A summary of the bill includes this portion:
“that DOD has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to exercise the discretion provided by such repeal, and that implementation of such policies and regulations is consistent with the standards of military readiness and effectiveness, unit cohesion, and military recruiting and retention.”
If those conditions are not met, is repeal of DADT meaningless? In other words, if DOD prepares necessary policies and those same policies affect the military readiness of our armed services, does the military resort to pre-DADT regulations?
LA replies:
I’ve wondered about that too. Doesn’t repeal of DADT simply return the military to where it was prior to 1993? Since it doesn’t, there must be more involved in the 1993 change than DADT itself.
Kathlene M. writes:
You’re right that in the Seinfeld episode called The Beard, Jerry refers to Elaine’s friend as having “joined that team.” When Elaine asks Jerry why her friend can’t play for their team, Jerry replies.
Here’s the excerpt.
Jerry: Not conversion. You’re thinking conversion?
Elaine: Well it did occur to me.
Jerry: You think you can get him to just change teams? He’s not going to suddenly switch sides. Forget about it.
Elaine: Why? Is it irrevocable?
Jerry: Because when you join that team it’s not a whim. He likes his team. He’s set with that team.
Elaine: We’ve got a good team.
Jerry: Yeah, we do. We do have a good team.
Elaine: Why can’t he play for us?
Jerry: They’re only comfortable with their equipment.
LA replies:
Except for two additional lines at the beginning, the script excerpt Kathlene supplies is the same as the excerpt Ken Hechtman quoted. But it’s such a well-written piece of dialogue, and so pertinent to our subject, and so perfectly anti-liberal (though Mr. Hechtman doesn’t quite acknowledge the last point), that it was worth repeating it.
Mark Jaws writes:
Being a decorated U.S. Army retiree and the father of an openly homosexual young man, I have mixed feelings about DADT. I know there are many young gays who simply would like to join the military—not to engage in a crusade to weaken our armed forces—but to serve their country or benefit their lives. I, myself, have repeatedly made Max P’s argument about allowing bigots and racists to serve openly—however, there is a slight difference. Given the injurious nature of racism and bigotry in this country from all quarters, one can reasonably argue that an unhealthy percentage of bigots and racists do physically wish to injure those of other races, or to at least deny them rights and their pursuit of happiness. I don’t think one could make a similar claim with homosexuals wishing to serve openly in our military. There is no element of physical harm they wish to impose. They are not about denying other people their rights, other than some of them recklessly accusing others of “homophobia.”
Having said that, I must admit that I would welcome the weakening of the US military. Think about this, friends. Is the U.S. military being used anywhere in ACTUALLY DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM? No. It is already being grounded down by series of endless deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan in fruitless nationbuilding attempts. Is the military deployed on our border, where it is needed most? No. And as the budding secessionists many of us are, who may find themselves on the business end of U.S. military power, I would like for division to exist among the rank and file which can be easily exploited and manipulated. I may sound Machiavellian, but I guarantee you that I am not alone in sharing such sentiments among my peers who served in the military.
LA to Mark Jaws:
Did you write this? It seems very out of character:
Given the injurious nature of racism and bigotry in this country from all quarters, one can reasonably argue that an unhealthy percentage of bigots and racists do physically wish to injure those of other races, or to at least deny them rights and their pursuit of happiness.
Mark Jaws replies:
I did write it—a completely original thought. On one level there are white rights advocates, such as I am, who are dead set against third world immigration, affirmative action, and the anti-white spread-the wealth-around crowd. Then there are white people who actually wish to do people of color harm, and visa versa. I just want non-whites living where they belong and going where their talents will take them—which is as far away from me as possible. But that does not mean I wish to do them harm.
LA replies:
I don’t know, Mark. It look like a red herring to me.
For those who don’t know what a red herring is, here’s the definition: “A diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue.”
James N.writes (sent 12-19, posted 12-21):
Why does it matter if homosexual acts, or the novelty of “sexual identity,” is freely chosen or not?
Many acts that have a compulsive aspect are legally sanctioned. It’s unclear whether alcoholics, drug addicts, or sociopaths are “born that way.” It appears that, in some sense, they are.
But the fact of their nature is meaningless to social regulation of their behavior.
With regard to “openly gay” men in the military, the only relevant issue is, is their presence good or bad for the military? How they happened to become mentally aligned with the delusions which command their behaviors is unimportant.
The question of how SOCIETY has come to believe that “sexual orientation” is similar to eye color is interesting, and of some importance.
But at the level of individuals, its unimportant why they believe what they believe, or why they do what they do.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 19, 2010 10:23 AM | Send
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