House of Eratosthenes

Dude…just do your job. If you ever did get some kind of thrill over telling those big bad homophobes to “get over it,” that time has passed…DADT is repealed…all the arguing and yelling was supposed to have been about the opportunity to serve your country. So serve. I mean, that is the next step where all your energies should be going right now, if the intentions expressed were honest and sincere.

This is the trouble with revolutions. A lot of people in this day & age, can’t seem to stop having them. Is it a problem having openly-gay people serving in the military? It’s pretty obvious by now that some people are always going to have one answer to that question and other people will always have a different one…they won’t change their minds…but now in addition to being a contentious issue, it’s a useless one. It’s been decided. Decided by fiat — you can’t tell people what opinions they’re supposed to be having. So useless or not, it will remain contentious.

However: Is it a problem having these perpetual-revolution types serving in the military? That, I would hope, would not be an open question among thinking persons for very long; I would hope it isn’t contentious at all. It’s a no-brainer. It’s just like having someone serving with a hard chemical dependency, in the sense that reality becomes disconnected from their behavior. Whether remarking about their own homosexuality or somebody else’s, they protest for years with “get over it”; the military gets over it; it’s time to roll out a newspaper and…they splash “get over it” on the front page when the “it” has already been gotten-over? How much longer is this going to be kept up?

Cassy said it very well:

It is one thing to repeal DADT and to let gays to serve openly. It is quite another to flaunt it, to shove it down our throats like this. Why is it, I wonder, that we need to know who is gay and who isn’t? Why do our faces have to be rubbed in it? I really don’t need to know who in my husband’s unit is straight or gay, but for some reason, I guess we simply HAVE to know. We not only must know, but we are apparently required to approve of it.

And I’m curious: why are we the ones being told to get over it? It seems to me that the exact opposite needs to happen. [emphasis mine]

Bulls-eye. We are really depending on a national defense that can keep its mind on its job; arguably the single most important job anybody in the country has. One of the key arguments for repealing DADT, repeated ad nauseum, was that it was exactly this brand of basic professionalism that would not be put in jeopardy. Well, this is evidence of said jeopardy — not because of homosexuals openly serving in the military, but because of that disconnected, feel-good druggie-high of “I told them to get over it again” chemical rush going through someone’s bloodstream.

Some people are sore winners. If national defense isn’t relying on such people, it’s simply sad. If it is, then it’s something more than just sad.

Just my personal opinion, speaking as a guy who did 22 years in the USAF: the repeal of DADT was a seriously wrong-headed move, partially because of the flaunting and “in yer face” crap we see here. Stay tuned for more of the same, like when gay couples demand base housing, quarters allowances and health benefits for their “partners,” and fistfights at the O-club when Harry kisses Tom on the dance floor at the New Year’s Eve Ball. There’s a distinct possibility things will get ugly, no matter HOW much training is prescribed and given.

I’m not a homophobe and I don’t give a big rat’s ass who sleeps with who or when. That’s a private matter and should remain private. My issue is DADT worked pretty danged well and ya don’t fix what ain’t broke.

My $0.02.
- bpenni | 09/14/2011 @ 12:36

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This is a ProblemWednesday, September 14th, 2011

This is a Problem
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011