Saturday, November 04, 2006
Gay rights, professors, and shouldering the burdens of war
Christopher Hitchens wrote an interesting column today on the class resentment that John Kerry stirred up with his revealing "joke" last week. He sees in this a question, and the chance to learn something:
Is there anything to be learned, or gained, from this essentially frivolous side-issue? I think that possibly there may be.
On Wednesday evening, on Hugh Hewitt's high-octane radio show, I accepted his challenge and gave out my private email. I had said that my emails from soldiers in Iraq were generally relaxed about the Kerry flap: He wanted me to hear different.
I have since had the chance to read about 500 or 600 messages. Almost all of them politely phrased (I exempt one from "the Riordan family" who evidently have not forgiven the long history of British depredation in Ireland) and almost all of them appending the list of college degrees as well as of medals and citations held, these letters show a very deep and interesting rift in which Mr. Kerry plays only a secondary part. Many of my respondents agreed that his words may not have meant or intended quite what they first seemed to mean, but they also felt that the klutziness was Freudian, so to speak, in that the senator's patrician contempt for grunts and dogfaces was bound to come out sooner or later.
One thing I already knew is confirmed--there is a very great deal of class resentment in these United States. Another thing I wasn't so sure of is also confirmed--James Webb in Virginia is right to stress the huge rage felt by those of Scots-Irish provenance who feel that they have born the heat and burden of the day in America's wars, and been rewarded with disdain.
Even my most relaxed soldier-correspondent from Iraq itself (a highly educated friend of faultlessly Irish extraction) confessed to a feeling of irritation at the few chances he had to meet Ivy League types in uniform. There is a sense in which everybody has an uneasy share in the guilty truth of this: Even "antiwar" types sometimes taunt me--an ink-stained scribe of some 57 summers--for not volunteering to carry a pack and rifle myself. Our armed forces do not want a draft, and we are rightly and gratefully stunned by the quality of our volunteers, but is this the best we can do, when we are fighting for our lives and for civilization?
Hitchens then proposes a compromise, which would surely amount to progress on all fronts:
I propose a compromise. Sen. Kerry and his party should publicly demand that the U.S. military be allowed to recruit openly on elite campuses. And the supposed reason for the ban on ROTC--the continuing refusal of the armed services to admit known homosexuals--should be dispelled at a stroke by a presidential order rescinding the Clintonian nonsense of "don't ask/don't tell." It is already outrageous that the CIA, for example, has been firing Arabic and Persian translators because of their supposed private sexual lives. That policy certainly could have come from bin Laden himself.
Hitchens' grand compromise is all well and good, and as a socially aware Ivy Leaguer of a certain youth I must confess that I do not understand why the military persists in opposition to openly gay soldiers, sailors and airmen. Even if unit cohesion and other considerations of organizational culture once favored banning gays, the circumstances of the current war seem to support changing that policy. No, not because we are hard-up for recruits, but for two other reasons which seem to me obvious. First, our soldiers in Iraq are already fighting a "post heroic" sensitive war. They are no longer allowed to drink, consort with prostitutes, permit life-threatening hazing rituals, harrass women, or even hate people that they only think are their enemy. If we can teach our soldiers all of these things, certainly we can get them to tolerate and even fight for gay Americans who also want to serve their country. Second, is it possible to imagine a war in which gays have a greater stake than this one? Our enemies in the jihad believe that it is right, just, and their bounden duty to execute gays. Too few American gays seem to appreciate the threat. Those who do should be allowed to bear arms against it.
Still, this idea that our best universities have banned ROTC and do not welcome military recruiters because of discrimination against gays is absurd. It may be today's post hoc justification, but our elite universities pushed out ROTC and banned recruitment more than thirty years ago, long before anybody, including campus leftists, had their consciousness raised sufficiently to give a rat's ass about the rights of gays. They did it out of sheer dislike of the military, borne of the Vietnam war. They also had a more cynical reason. See, the war had to be immoral in order to morph the cowardice of the draft dodgers into courageous civil disobedience, a transformation necessary to secure a pardon even from Jimmy Carter. A mere disagreement over whether Vietnam was good policy would not have been enough to justify either the dodging of the draft or the perfidious pardoning of the dodge (which, by the way, is mistakenly ignored as a core reason why Americans are suspicious of the Democrats on national security). Everybody knows this, especially our soldiers. The academic left, which forms the brain trust of the Democratic Party (check out any Democratic president's cabinet, and see how many professors there are), just hates the military and everything it stands for. If the United States Marines turned thousands of gay men and women into sharpshooting killing machines, nobody would deplore it more than the Harvard faculty.
There is another dodged question, though, and that is why our elected leaders do not do more to recruit soldiers during war time. Our leaders, whether or not they support a particular deployment, should make it a point when they visit high schools and colleges to encourage young men and women to join the military. President Bush has done some of this, but not nearly enough. If you are the President of the United States or a Senator or Congressman of either party and claim to "support the troops," then you should be leading people to join up. After all, there is no more effective way to support the troops that we already have then arranging for their timely replacement.
So why don't our leaders do more to encourage young people to join the military? On the left there is genuine disdain for soldiering, plus the persistent requirement to posture about the immorality of war. Democratic politicians have to be careful, or they will anger their base. It is harder to understand why politicians of the right are not more willing to encourage young people to join the military, but I think it comes down to this: They too have lost the moral authority and therefore the ability to ask for sacrifice. The fiscal indiscipline of the Republicans is the best evidence of this.
The result is that the long American tradition of voluntary military service concentrates in a relatively small number of families -- disproportionately Scots-Irish -- who bear the burden of our "small wars" (and, yes, Iraq and Afghanistan are small wars by any historical measure). The burden spreads only in big wars that require large draftee armies, among them the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the hot wars of the Cold War, particularly Vietnam. Perhaps it is time to change. Perhaps it is time for leaders of both parties to say clearly that military service is an outstanding calling and ambition for America's young people. As Hitchens concludes,
This is going to be a long war, and not just in Iraq, and we have learned something this week about the perceived inequality with which it is shared and experienced. It would be good if a sideshow spat in a rather mediocre election season could have the effect of making two self-evident wrongs into a right.
30 Comments:
By 
Pyrthroes, at
Sun Nov 05, 12:14:00 AM:
On turning eighteen in 1958 (!), I joined the Princeton AFROTC and graduated Cadet Colonel with a Regular Commission (1962 BA cum laude, History). Classmates went on to five-figure jobs on Wall Street, as Foreign Service Officers, etc.-- over $100,000 today. I served overseas in the Aleutian Islands and West Germany, netting $50 per month ($1.67 per day). Eyesight disqualified me from flying, and in 1965 the Service refused me duty in post-Tonkin Vietnam (clearance over-elevated). Rather than pilot desks for seventeen more years, I reluctantly resigned.
For all their virtues, contemporaries then appeared to lack dimension. Elderly now, I think it had to do with Honor. And to my mind, "class" is the same-- not economic, as most seem to think, but gentlemanly, trustworthy and virtuous in matters private and public. As do we all, I know gas-station attendants with more class than many a mercenary jackanapes in his MacMansion. Nor is this a populist delusion. Compared to decent, generous, hardworking Americans, the John Kerrys of this world are wretched guttersnipes guzzling sickly flasks of ideological Night Train.
My twenty-fifth Anniversary looms large. We've three fine kids, two Eagle Scouts and a beloved daughter nearing her Biochemistry Degree at University of Vermont. We're not at all well-off in Kerry's sense, but fabulously rich in all that matters. My son at Purdue has joined the Army ROTC there, and E-mails images of the "Save us from Iraq!" banner recently disseminated. "So smart, and yet not rich," say I. "Dad," sez he, "You ain't done all that badly-- you had me." When I started to puddle, he went on, "You never did try giving me advice, and so I took it."
There it is: Advice be hanged, live honorably and true. As Julien of Norwich sang, "All will be well again, we know."
By 
, at
Sun Nov 05, 02:07:00 AM:
"Hitchens' grand compromise is all well and good, and as a socially aware Ivy Leaguer of a certain youth I must confess that I do not understand why the military persists in opposition to openly gay soldiers, sailors and airmen."
They don't have a choice in persisting anything. They're ordered to. "Don't Ask/Don't tell" was a Clinton and Congressional order and they're following it. They are not allowed to change it. The DOD could unfurl a big banner that says "We love gays!" and they still can't change the policy. Only the federal government can.
They HAVE to get rid of openly gay servicemen because their civilian masters ORDER them too. They don't get a choice (and there's a very good reason why they don't get a choice). If President/Congress orders that the Army allow the service of openly gay servicemen tomorrow it'll be active DOD policy by COB Monday.
I really hate the whole "DOD hates teh gays!!!1" thing that gets passed around the 'net. They're just doing what they're told, which is technically a good thing even if it leads to nonsense like this.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 02:30:00 AM:
Tigerhawk, Would you be comfortable sending your daughter into a military the REQUIRED men and women shower together?
Allowing Gays in the military would be contrary to their entire raison d'etre - good order and discipline. Eros destroys Philos.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 06:09:00 AM:
Last Anonymous,
I was a soldier up until last year; and I have no problem if a gay soldier (or a Martian for that matter) is in the same shower. If I cannot deal with someone who may (or may not) look at my wee-wee in the shower; how am I suppose to deal with fanatical jihadist in the battlefield. We are American warriors; not your grandmother's antique china.
By kentuckyliz, at
Sun Nov 05, 08:37:00 AM:
I believe that ROTC and military recruiters are required to be permitted on campuses that receive federal funds. Those funds include research grants and Title IV financial aid funds to students (which are usually paid directly to colleges for expenses).
Interesting analysis of the Carter pardon and its silent impact lo these many years later.
Pyrthroes wrote:
"mercenary jackanapes in his MacMansion"
"wretched guttersnipes guzzling sickly flasks of ideological Night Train"
I just love your turns of phrase! How colorful and vivid.
By cakreiz, at
Sun Nov 05, 08:57:00 AM:
Their rhetoric to the contrary, many conservatives still value net worth over most other things as the measure of personal success.
By submandave, at
Sun Nov 05, 09:19:00 AM:
"[T]he supposed reason should be dispelled at a stroke by a presidential order rescinding the Clintonian nonsense of 'don't ask/don't tell.'" Except that the DADT policy was enacted as way around the prohibition againat any gays joining the services. You see, the dirty little secret that I always have to keep reminding folks about is that the prohibition againat gays in the military is a law. A little thing called the Constitution vested in the legislative branche the authority and responsibility for regulating the armed forces. If Congress wanted gays in the military it could happen tomorrow and the services would say "Aye, Aye" (or whatever the Army and Air Force says) and make it happen.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 09:22:00 AM:
Interesting comments. As much as I respect Jim Webb, I think the Scots-Irish thing is a bit overwrought. If anything, military service is a Southern thing, not necessarily a Scots-Irish thing. Though many Southerners - especially in Appalachia - are of Scots-Irish descent and came to America after the Clearances of the 18th century, a vast preponderance of Confederate soldiers were of English descent, not Scots-Irish.
The real question, then, is why is the South so much more "militaristic" than other regions. John Hope Franklin, in his book The Militant South, traces the roots to slavery and the need for ordinary white Southerners to stand on guard against a possible slave insurrection. Militias existed everywhere in America, but they were strongest when the threat was greatest. In the West, it meant fear of Indian attacks. In the South, it meant fear of another Haiti. Southern culture privileged honor more than the industrializing North (any society based on personal power and not impersonal market forces requires honor to enforce social order), and military service - including in the slave patrols (organized militarily though not technically military) - dominated Southern life more than in the North. This is antebellum America, of course, so we should use caution in carrying this forward to the modern South.
But despite the willingness of so many non-slaveholding white Southerners to volunteer and die for the Confederacy, their descendants in large proportion decided to enlist and die for the country their ancestors tried to dismantle. The tradition of military service and honor continues in the South as before. And though the roots of this militance may lay in the slaveholders' regime, the descendants of slaves themselves have joined up as strongly as the descendants of their masters. Black Southerners are Southerners, as many Northerners tend to forget. Their religiosity, military service, cuisine and accent resemble white Southerners more than they do Northerners.
As for your larger point about conservatives not asking for sacrifice, you are hitting on one of the most obvious weaknesses of today's conservative movement. Today's right wing pundit class developed its sentiments not in church or the military, but in College Republican clubs at elite universities. They never knew sacrifice in their own lives, why should they think to demand it of others? I'm no fan of the chickenhawk argument because it denigrates civilian control over the military, but there is something to say for the fact that so many of the leading pundits and politicians in today's Republican Party had no military service to speak of. Are these folks really that much more "patriotic" than the anti-war Democrats like John Kerry? Kerry said some idiotic and elitist and dishonorable things in 1971, and probably still harbors those thoughts today. He also weasled his way out of war by applying for Purple Hearts - a violation in itself of the military code of honor. But he did get shot at by enemies of the United States. That may not make him remotely acceptable on national security grounds, but it's striking how few members of the modern Republican pundit and political class have gone even that far in putting their own lives on the line for their country.
And then there's economics. The donor base of the modern GOP is corporate America. It's been that way since McKinley at least. Since wars cost money - especially long wars - pressure develops to raise the funds necessary to fight those wars. Politicians need to shift priorities to meet those burdens. Have Republicans done that? They've lowered taxes, a core GOP principle. But they've found no way to fund an ongoing war that consumes over $75 billion a year (at least) without going into debt. This is trust fund conservatism at its worst. Daddy takes care of everything, the rabble pay taxes, and the other rabble fight our wars (even though the modern military as the best educated in history). But don't dare admit any of this...
By LTC John, at
Sun Nov 05, 11:11:00 AM:
"Their rhetoric to the contrary, many conservatives still value net worth over most other things as the measure of personal success.
By cakreiz"
Which is why they are completely outnumbered in the military by those of the Left, true?
What errant nonsense - and misses the point of what Tigerhawk just put forth in an excellent post.
By cakreiz, at
Sun Nov 05, 11:51:00 AM:
Like most generalizations, Major, my comment was clumsy, and, after reading it, I disagree with it myself. A fairer statement, perhaps, is that military service breaks out more along class lines- and the wealthier the family, the less likely the children will serve. Perhaps it's because the military offers opportunities to ambitious people: the GI bill helped entice enlistment by folks like me (Vietnam era vet only). The folks I know currently in the military, an increasing rarity, are not from upper middle class backgrounds, and usually have some family tradition of service. I also have Frank Shaeffer's AWOL, which focuses on the Ivy League's lack of military participation. Again, this probably has more to do with class than conservatism (Schaeffer quotes an LA doctor who says, "I've raised my sons to be sensitive to others, and to be critical thinkers, so I don't think they'd be well suited for the military." That about hits it.)
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 01:02:00 PM:
You know, I have gotten really tired of the old "evil corporations fund Republicans BS so I did some research. I went to opensecrets.org and found the list of corporate donors. Downloading the top 30 donors disproves that Republicans are the big bad corporate toadies.
In my list of 30, the Democrats get 26 million more than republicans. However, to focus on corporations pull out "Emily's List" (Rich Democrats-Hollywood) and "Act Blue" a democratic website and Democrats and Repbulcians are just about even -- 22 mil for Democrats, 20 for Republicans.
Granted 16 million of the Democratic donations come from the coerced donations obtained via "Big Labor" not "Big Business".
Speaking as one who was threatened with a working over by a mobbed up union steward my first week on a job, pardon me if I don't think of "Big Labor" as standing up for the little guy, but as the "Sopranos".
Oh, the sainted Democrats, they don't take corporate money. They just take mobbed up union money.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 01:07:00 PM:
In my list of 30, the Democrats get 26 million more than republicans.
Sorry, this should have been "26 million, 6 million more than the Republicans"
The mobbed up - self interested - destructive union comments stand...
By buddy larsen, at
Sun Nov 05, 01:30:00 PM:
The corporate old-money from the 20th century's financial & industrial core in the northeast and upper midwest, is far more Democrat than Republican. I don't where the "GOP=Big Biz" myths come from (well, yes I do, the myths come from the MSM propaganda machine), but the drivers of the GOP are now--provably, quantifiably--the middle-class small-biz entrepreneurial types.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 05:06:00 PM:
Peg: You lose all credibility when you imply that us Democrats somehow want everyone to be dead and enslaved to Islam and that we all hate America. We just have different ideas about the role of government, e.g., that it belongs outside of the bedroom. And we take a dimmer view than some of the use of torture as an intelligence-gathering tool. So no, CA and NY aren't turning Repblican any time soon, at least not until they become a little more progressive about social issues, and a little less belligerent about immigration and in foreign policy.
By Consul-At-Arms, at
Sun Nov 05, 05:41:00 PM:
I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/11/re-gay-rights-professors-and.html
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 09:23:00 PM:
PLEASE STOP IT WITH THE GAYS IN THE MILITARY, already!
I just finished up 9 years active duy in the Navy. Anyone, who does not oppose gays in the military:
1. Has never been in the military, (the one that deploys and fights wars).
2. Or is gay himself
I had to deal with this issue several times on active duty. The problem arises when deployed.
Who wants to room/bunk with a Gay guy or girl? NO ONE. No one. Really, no one! Where are you going to put him/her when you are deployed, there is rarely private billeting. Homosexuality makes the average guy feel sick and he will want to beat up or kill the gay guy.
It is the most ridiculus discussion that civilians engage in.
Deployments are hard on personnel, try forcing personnel to share a bunk/space with a gay guy for 6+ months. It is cruel and unusual punishment. The straight guy is just a few drinks away from beating the gay guy up.
By Andrewdb, at
Sun Nov 05, 10:29:00 PM:
While I agre with most of the preious comments and this post, I would only point out that in the 10 years I have been working to overturn the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Ban the military has now moved to the position that "It is the law"
The Pentagon no longer uses any other rationale, and Congress is waiting for the Pentagon to say it should be changed. Right now it is a Catch 24. This policy will change soon.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 10:52:00 PM:
Phrizz11 mentions "the use of torture as an intelligence-gathering tool."
Gee, I'm sorry, Phrizz, at what point did US intel interrogators start using torture?
Surely you aren't referring to sleep deprivation, cold/uncomfortable rooms, or waterboarding, as these are all experienced by all servicemen/women who undergo SERE training.
I'll start taking lefties (I'm an independant myself) more seriously when they stop making such ignorantly fatuous remarks.
By , at
Sun Nov 05, 11:31:00 PM:
Minh-Duc: You never addressed the main thrust of my Question - should military Men and Women be forced to shower together. It would increase efficiency, and the commanders could simply order the troops to maintain their professionalism at all times. No problem. Ridiculous? Absolutely! But no more ridiculous than allowing gays in the military. Its condesending to Homosexuals to treat their desires as any less powerful than those of Heterosexuals.
I have no doubt that the Gay lobby, their allies, and junior military members will eventually succeed in lifting Don't ask, Don't Tell. I am also 100% it will be a failure. Integrating gays in military will be 1000x more difficult than allowing women in combat roles. There will congressional hearings every other week on either 1) A Bacchanalia Boat in the Pacific 2) A Gay Orgy in a Korean Barracks 3) A solider(s) getting the crap beat out of him Iraq.
You'd be legislating Officers to preform the impossible. You can't just pass a law that renounces gravity - or human nature. But once again - our social betters at Princeton or Yale know whats best for us in the military.
By Purple Avenger, at
Mon Nov 06, 12:14:00 AM:
Allowing Gays in the military
Hate to break it to you, but there's gays in the military right now...and they're probably showering together.
By Eric, at
Mon Nov 06, 12:14:00 AM:
Advocates for ROTC:
http://advocatesforrotc.org/
Advocates for Columbia ROTC:
http://advocatesforrotc.org/columbia
By , at
Mon Nov 06, 11:19:00 AM:
Anon: the fact that we train our military personnel to resist certain torture techniques does not in any way make it acceptable to use those same techniques during our own interrogations. There are some arguments to be made (none of which I believe) in favor of coercive interrogation, but that isn't one of them.
By , at
Mon Nov 06, 12:58:00 PM:
We are American warriors; not your grandmother's antique china.
Bears repeating. I do not understand the frame of reference by which a man is strong enough to live through a constant risk of death but is also weak enough that he freaks out at the mere possibility of a gay guy seeing his wee-wee in the shower. There's also that little thing about the arguments existing about the entry of admitted gays into the military being the same arguments against blacks and women. When the order came in each of those latter cases, our troops were able to "man up" and deal, and I have faith that they are capable of doing the same here.
As for the campus recruiting angle, I think it's a bit of a red herring. Recruiting offices are not found, like our Vice President, in undisclosed locations. Ivy League kids, like all college kids, could find a recruiting office if the military appealed to them. Access is not the issue, even if bemoaning (yet again) the campus lefties makes our poor, embattled Princetonian feel better.
By , at
Mon Nov 06, 01:07:00 PM:
With respect to the President encouraging enlistment, his best bet would be to start at home. Jenna and Barbara are the perfect age for joining up.
By , at
Mon Nov 06, 02:31:00 PM:
Bears repeating. I do not understand the frame of reference by which a woman is strong enough to live through a constant risk of death but is also weak enough that she freaks out at the mere possibility of a man seeing her boobies in the shower
By , at
Mon Nov 06, 06:55:00 PM:
Anonymous,
You must never have been to combat. It is not like college dorm where there are seperate showers. There is only one shower if one is lucky enough to have a shower.
We deployed to Iraq in 2004 and there were a few females in my unit. We shared everything, including living quarter. And if you think I am going outside in the middle of a sandstorm while a female was changing, you are out of your mind. Do you also think I would refuse to strip naked because the miliatary doctor is a female? Professionalism was always maintained; because we are professionals.
As I said before; we are not fragile little princesses that need protecting. We are the most lethal warriors in existence. All I care is if a soldier is any good at killing the enemy. If he/she is, he/she can be a hermaphrodite and I would not care.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 07, 12:16:00 AM:
I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned this.
(almost) No one cares if there are gays in the military. Really.
And get this; it is not against the law.
What is against the law is homosexual activity while in the military. There's even a clause (somewhere... I forget exactly) that says something to the effect of, 'If it only happened once and you were drunk, we won't throw you out.'
The prohibition against homosexual acts is not some faith based bigoted crusade; it's to maintain order and discipline. It exists for the precise exact reason that the genders are separated. It cuts down on drama, high school politicking, and distractions in general.
It's really that simple.
If you want to decriminalize homosexual activity, your logic can be extended to mandating unisex showers, lockers, and barracks, and allowing women into combat roles. Given the current state of our society, those are terrible ideas.
I'm sorry that it offends you progressive types who want to remake the world into a utopian paradise, but things don't always work the way you want them to.
By , at
Fri Nov 10, 12:52:00 PM:
I'm late to this party, but.....why would homosexual activity be more dramatic, and lead to more high school politics or distractions than heterosexual activity? Or is het. sex also banned within the military? (I honestly don't know -- though even if it is, obviously it seems to happen a lot).
jk
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Nov 10, 11:53:00 PM:
You miss the point. Men and women are separated because they have a tendency to mate, and those myriad issues are thenceforth born.
Gay men and women would be housed in the SAME areas, thereby leading to those same problems. The only way to avoid it is to ban the activity altogether.
As to sexual relations between men and women, they are restricted according to rank (officer, NCO, junior enlisted) and chain of command, with small variations from place to place.
By , at
Sat Nov 11, 12:26:00 AM:
By that reasoning then, wouldn't it be OK for gay soldiers to have sex as long as it was with a soldier he/she wasn't housed with?
Not that this is really the most pressing issue in the world right now.
jk
