Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Imperfect as it is, the 1993 Clinton Administration compromise, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), struck a delicate balance between allowing gays to serve and the maintenance of good order and discipline in the military.


However, time marches on, and so does the left. The central, brilliant insight that competent revolutionaries share is that success lies in attacking the cultural pillars of society. Chief among those is the martial spirit of the armed forces. Polls consistently show that of all American institutions, the military remains the most revered. So while many Americans favor repeal of DADT on “fairness” grounds, the hard left knows that attacking the warrior ethic is a critical step in creating an orthodoxy of moral nihilism in the U.S.


To favor repeal of DADT as a civil rights issue misses the point that the military operates on a different, higher moral plane. Service in the armed forces is a privilege, not a right, and characterized by an adherence to a severe moral code. Servicemen forfeit many constitutional protections when they join and are accountable to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). For example, adultery, and sodomy, are crimes under the UCMJ. This strict discipline is imperative, especially in the ground forces, in maintaining the cohesion and the morale vital for units in combat. Those who favor repeal as a retention issue should note that far more servicemen are discharged for felonies, weight/fitness issues, bad debts and domestic abuse than are discharged for homosexuality.


With DADT repealed, the feminization of the armed forces can continue unabated. Like many progressive initiatives, these came to the military from outside and clashed with the prevailing warrior culture. Congress already instituted a virtual “Nanny State” on the armed forces and flag officers at every level meekly complied.


At every echelon commanders must staff equal opportunity, sexual harassment, and safety officer billets that have little to do with combat readiness, sap morale, time and resources. Servicemen are constantly lectured on everything from finances, sexual assault, suicide prevention, hygiene and motorcycle safety. Schools and promotion boards require floors and ceilings so the “right” number of women and minorities get promoted.


Women serve on ships and, starting in 2011, on submarines, where they require separate space and attention to meet their needs, all in the name of gender equality. But Increasing fraternization means more pregnancies. In an already over deployed force, others must pick up the slack while servicewomen are on maternity leave. This increases combat readiness how?


The parallel blind worship of “diversity” likewise leads to muddled thinking. All the Army Chief of Staff, General Casey, could muster after the Fort Hood massacre was that he hoped diversity would not suffer as a result. The following Army report on the “incident” failed to mention Islam and Jihad as motivation for the attack. This despite the fact that Major Hassan yelled out “Allah Akbar” several time as he gunned down unarmed soldiers. Indeed, there is nothing so predictably disastrous as liberalism meeting reality.


Progressivism flourishes in the media, democratic party and academia (aren’t they all the same thing) where the prime directive is that one continually demonstrates the fineness of one’s moral weave, to paraphrase Paul Fussell. The daily grind of millions of people solving problems and making things work, scarcely registers. That reminded me of a story about Jimmy Carter at Camp David. On Christmas morning, Carter supposedly went outside to get some firewood. Without a word to the secret service agent standing there in the cold, he returned to the cabin. It’s funny how the greatest humanitarians are often the biggest hippocrits.


Any social engineering, like allowing gays to openly serve in the military, need only be good intentioned. Forget for a moment that among the ground forces, where the bulk of the warrior ethic lives, most oppose repeal of DADT. Today at Fort Leavenworth, Gen. Casey had another epiphany, this time about DADT. He supports eventual repeal, but not while the nation is at war. Apparently implementation would put too great a stress on commanders who must implement the new policy and the ground troops who must live with it. One question: if repeal is good for the army, and armed forces in general, why wait to implement it?


Great nations fall to insiders long before barbarians reach the gates. That we’re having this discussion means the left is achieving its goal of moral relativism. And the first casualty of moral relativism is the capacity for outrage. Private Bradley Manning intentionally outed hundred of thousands of classified documents in a perfect storm of disgruntled gayness, hatred of country and immaturity. And yet, I’ve heard no calls to hang this idiot for the traitor that he is.


Get used to him, he’s the future.