But I Thought Social Conservatism was Irrelevant?
My, my, would you look at this: More Social Engineering In The Military
I presume the Navy and its sailors will make this work but my question is why is this an issue? Are there not enough sailors volunteering for sub duty? Is the quality not high enough? I’m guessing silly things like what’s good for the force aren’t driving this change but rather a desire for that most important of all military assets… diversity. […]
Are there dedicated woman who could serve on subs? Sure. Is it unfair that those women are denied the opportunity to serve because of larger issues? I guess. Thing is, unless I missed a memo, life isn’t fair. We don’t have a Navy and multi-billion dollar ships to ensure fairness of opportunity for men or women. The only purpose of a warship is to be ready to go in harm’s way. There aren’t a lot of extra bodies on ships, especially subs (which deploy for months at a time). Where are these extra crew members coming from in such a highly specialized talent pool when what everyone knows is going to happen, actually happens?
And then there are living space issues and consideration and on and on and on. […]
My biggest concern is that as our combat commitment in Iraq winds down, fighting in Afghanistan ramps up, naval shipbuilding is in shambles, the JSF program continues to slide and we enter the 10th year of trying to replace 40+ year old aerial refueling tankers, all we seem to talk about is social issues. The public only can pay attention to so many issues at once, gays in the military and women on subs shouldn’t be getting all the attention.
But I thought the social conservatives were wrong to be focused on defending against the social transformation of this country by social liberals and the GLBT agenda? I thought we were supposed to bag our concerns about abortion and the GLBT agenda, because those were meaningless compared to fiscal issues. Social issues were just stupid and irrelevant issues that have no bearing on the overall big picture with the nation.
Now all of a sudden, the GLBT and social liberal agenda is a concern? Well, imagine that.
As I said previously, social issues are the core and foundation of our society, culture and nation. We can overcome fiscal issues (as we have many, many times throughout our nation’s history), but we can NOT overcome the destruction of our social core and foundation.
The public only can pay attention to so many issues at once, gays in the military and women on subs shouldn’t be getting all the attention.
Hmm, it’s almost like it’s on purpose or something.
Posted by: Iskandar at February 23, 2010 07:57 PM
Exactly! The radicals in charge know that we can’t — or rather we are not willing to — stop everything they try to do, so they throw a whole bunch of radical shit out there and count on us to say “shit, we can’t (are not willing to) stop all this, let’s just give them X, Y & Z and focus on stopping A, B & C”. And voila!, they end up getting most of their radical shit through.
This is ON.PURPOSE. This is their PLAN. This is BY.DESIGN. Wake.the.f—.up.
Like I’ve always said, it’s all about sowing chaos in our nation. That is the intention behind every single policy The Precedent pursues. How much more proof do people need? Women on subs? WTF?
Posted by: progressoverpeace at February 23, 2010 08:22 PM
Bingo.
This is a terrible idea. As a former submariner (four years, seven strategic deterrent patrols) onboard an SSBN, I know that this will be a problem logistically. We had women onboard for two days a couple of times. During that time, our crew was inconvenienced in major ways. We had one watchstanders’ head near the control room (secured for female use) and had two heads in the missile compartment (one secured during the morning for female use). Also mentioned earlier was the fact that women who get pregnant are not deployable; that is absolutely true. Also, there are heavy items onboard submarines that women can have difficulty carrying by themselves (OBAs, submersible pumps, heavy-duty hoses). A submarine is a fighting vessel, not a social experimentation lab. This just makes me angry.
Posted by: Eric at February 23, 2010 08:34 PM
I completely agree. That said, one could say the exact same thing for the military as a whole, not just submarines. The US military is a fighting force, not a social experimentation lab. Yet, people are okay with repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? Well, all those who were all in favor of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should also be all in favor of women on submarines then. Because the same social issues apply in both cases. If you are in favor of one, you should be in favor of the other.
Excellent rant:
Commence rant! Commence rant! Rant at will!
1. Do we really need diversity, Admiral Mullen? I mean, this word, I do not think it has the value attached to it that you think it does. Is it possible that we sacrifice operational readiness and combat effectiveness in the pursuit of this nebulous ideal?
2. Submariners whose wisdom teeth have not come in hot straight and normal get them pulled. I know, because while mine were not in yet, and my panoramic dental x-ray clearly showed they were not causing any problems, I still ended up having all four them yanked out. Why? No dentists on subs. No room to accommodate one if we wanted to. Any health problems resulting from a bad wisdom tooth could compromise the mission of the sub just to medevac me. Better to pull them now than send me to sea and hope for the best.
My point? Women have unique health problems, pregnancy being one of the most obvious, and submarines don’t have doctors on board (we have a Corpsmen), nor can we just call for a helo to come and take someone to another ship/shore station when we are off on a mission or deterrence patrol (Stealth is our only defense, and we are only stealthy if we are submerged).
Of course he has to bring up the pregnancy trope! It isn’t like 12% of female crew members are getting pregnant or anything in any given year… (This is a number that has been tossed around based on average pregnancies for all enlisted Navy females ship and shore based. Actual numbers for ship based females are unknown to the public – the Navy is extremely reluctant to talk about this subject for some reason…) Now 12% of all female crew members may not sound like a lot, and in absolute numbers, they are not. What we must consider is that every warm body that doesn’t go on a six month WestPAC or a strategic deterrence patrol is a warm body whose place must be taken by someone. Often that someone is not available, and so said pregnant warm body’s job must be covered for by the rest of her division. Want to know what that’s like? Go to work for six hours. Go home for six hours. Go back to work for six hours. Go home for six hours. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Every day. FOR SIX MONTHS. If you are flight deck crew on a carrier, it’s already eighteen on and six off, seven days a week, so instead you’ll just have to work even harder…
On a submarine, the typical crew is between 120 and 150, depending on class and manning levels for that boat. With 20% of the crew female, a 12% attrition rate comes out to 3 women going home or staying home on the low end, or 4 women on the high end. The boat can survive this kind of attrition. But it comes at a cost. For every woman left behind, that is a man who cannot go to specialized training courses he needs to do his job and advance his career. That is a man who cannot take leave to visit his family because the boat can only spare so many of its crew at any given time. That is a serious fucking morale and retention problem. Why do they have to leave?
Other than that’s the official regs, and putting aside the wisdom of allowing pregnant women to participate in lethal combat, radiation limits for pregnant women are very very low. 50 millirem for the duration of the pregnancy. A female who stands a watch near the reactor, or who serves as an ELT drawing off primary coolant (water from the reactor) for analysis, or who sleeps or stands watch in proximity to nuclear weapons could conceivably run afoul of these limits. This means she must either be removed from the boat, or shunted to a watch away from these areas. If there isn’t another female who can replace her, a man must do it.
This may well cause morale problems, especially if the pregnancy precludes her from going to sea – there just isn’t a lot of excess crew standing around to take up her slack, and let me tell you, just in case you didn’t already figure it out, six hours on six hours off for weeks on end gets old real fucking quick.
3. For many of the divisions on a submarine, the job entails brute force. Yep, that sexist pig is playing the “girls are wimpy” card. Pig. Meanwhile, back in the real world, pipes and valves and air compressors and other machinery are heavy.
Let me repeat that, with added emphasis. PIPES, VALVES, AIR COMPRESSORS, HEAT EXCHANGERS, TORPEDOES, CAPTOR MINES, CRUISE MISSILES, BOXES OF TDU WEIGHTS, CYLINDERS OF FREON, PIPING RISICS, SEAWATER PUMPS, AND OTHER SUBMARINE PARAPHERNALIA ARE FUCKING HEAVY. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MASSIVE THESE THINGS ARE UNTIL YOU’VE TRIED LIFTING/MOVING THEM UP TWENTY FOOT VERTICAL LADDERS AND THROUGH WATERTIGHT DOORS THE SIZE OF A MIDRANGE TELEVISION SET. WITHOUT HURTING YOURSELF, THE EQUIPMENT, OR THE SUBMARINE, WHILE DOING IT.
Posted by: J. Wilde at February 23, 2010 08:35 PM
Completely agreed with these two comments:
wow…
a society in decline…
to argue this point while facing the (obvious) cold hard facts of combat effectiveness versus gender interaction, equality of sexes and other social engineering pap is yet one more sign of a society in decline… when did we lose so much respect for each other (vis-a-vis men vs. women)? The block-headed, cold hearted, caveman facts of life are simple; given equal size and training a male will always win a physical contest against a female. Males have a built in mechanical advantage… physics is never wrong.
I hereby issue a challenge to my more “enlightened” and “intelligent” brothers and sisters;
Name one society (not fictitious, rumored or unsubstantiated) that had a statistically significant percentage of their regular combat forces who were female… and survived for any significant period of time.True respect is in showing deference when deference is due or warranted. There’s a reason why we (men / women / homo sapiens) are at the top of the food chain and it’s not because of political correctness.
(walking away, shaking head in disgust…)
Posted by: JAM2 at February 23, 2010 11:13 PM
———————————————–
395 Preach it; what you’re saying is dead on target — women are by and large not as physically capable as men and should therefore not be placed into positions in the military where there is a heavy physical component (I’d add that you can “whip” male recruits into shape quicker as well, so women up for a draft makes no sense, unless you want to up the casualty rate and lower combat effectiveness). There is no shame in admitting your limitations and having the sense to not go where you simply can’t do the job, so I don’t know why this is such a big issue.
And yeah, I think that women should be able to at least make the minimum requirements in pt that the men do — if you want to be a member of the team, you should at least be able to play according to the rest of the team’s standards; maybe not be the fastest or the strongest, but at least make the minimum requirements for the rest of the team. It was bs that they put different standards according to gender imho.
Posted by: unknown jane at February 23, 2010 11:32 PM
This is also well-stated:
It’s a hard thing to answer but in my not completely ignorant opinion — no, it is not insulting to know one’s limitations. Have I met women who could serve right alongside men in any area? Yes; there was a sargeant who could out man just about any man on the face of the planet…but those sorts of women are not the norm imho. Most women cannot handle the intense physically hardship of combat — it isn’t a case of being able to do it for one day or three days, try week after week (and you better factor in a lot of sleep deprivation which from my experience women do not handle as well as men). Very few women can hack it — and if one woman gets to do it, then it opens it up for everyone else (and you can’t really ascertain who will be one of the few that can really hack it until you do it — even the crucible doesn’t really stand in for actual combat duties — so you’re not going to know until you’re out in the field and that is too fucking late). I would have loved to have been a combat marine; my daughters would love to have gotten the shot at being Rangers — but we loved/love our country enough and loved our Corps/Army enough to know that putting us there would have reduced combat effectiveness; sometimes you have to shelve your own personal wants and accept what’s for the greater good, and winning wars for the U.S. is the greater good.
As for technical jobs — yeah, females can handle them, but sea duty, especially submarine duty is really not the place for co-ed. Just because there are rules against the hanky panky doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, and especially in the close quarters of a ship or sub, well, it isn’t conducive to people keeping their minds totally on the job at hand. Which leads us right back to the pregnancy *and prostitution and std thing — how is that conducive to military effectiveness? It’s crazy; we shouldn’t have to set aside money and man hours to deal with that bull crap — either the women already in start getting some more discipline or, hell, I don’t know. Pisses me off.
Posted by: unknown jane at February 23, 2010 10:18 PM
This comment speaks for itself:
And here is why I’m retiring. Its the only honorable thing to do. None of this; the DADT, the women in combat, or any other nifty thing that these folks come up with is the answer to the unasked question; how can we make the military more effective? There is no “right” to serve. Whether or not you are in the service or not has little to do with whether you “want” to be there. The only thing that matters is if you can do the things the services think are relevant to the MOS/AFSC you’re applying for.
Until we started the social engineering. When I went through MEPS, I had to lift a certain amount over my head. The women didn’t. Funny thing, the F-4 didn’t care whether you were a man/woman, the tire that needed changing, or the J-79 still weighed the same. If you were a female, that just meant that whats normally a one person job became two; which cuts your organization in half. And yes, in the 22 years I’ve been in, I’ve seen MOST women (not all) use their sex to their advantage; not getting in trouble for low performance (pilot training x2) lying and stealing (in OTS, we had two women in our flight; one, a good person, washed back for low test scores, bucked up, and eventually did OK. The other was caught stealing, lying about it, and trying to pin the blame on a subordinate. We were told the cadre was not allowed to boot her, as it would look like the flight was biased. The “field” would weed them out. So she went on to her job as a nuke missile launch officer: sleep well) and even getting promoted. Try to figure out statistically what percentage of females SHOULD be execs, or executive secretaries. And then look at how many are. You dont think women are specially treated? Check on the promotion dates of the Vice CC of AFMC. The “woman” general left, and all of the sudden, another one shows up. Check out the last two promotion dates, MG in June 09, LtG in Dec 09. That damn glass ceiling.
Couple that with the fact that sexual assault is now a “lingering glance” and that many women do indeed get pregnant before operations (anecdotally, one of my first flight instructors had two kids in an operational unit in the 5 years that I was there. That means she didn’t fly for more than half the time I was there. Then she transferred to the reserves.) But the sorties, and the missions didn’t abate. That means that others picked up her slack.
Tell you what. I’ll meet all you advocates of the “rights” coalition halfway. If women are necessary to the functioning of the military, then clearly, the law that says that only males must register for the draft is obsolete. When ALL women are denied federal grants, college loans and subject to jail for NOT registering with selective service, and given as much choice in MOS as every other person (including the no-choice combat option) then by all means.
I’ve been in since 1987. I’ve been a crew chief, nuke weapons officer and pilot. I’m told I’m on the fast track.
But I cant do it. Our leaders care more about their careers than the truth. 52% elected a man who hates the military. A few years before that, another who “loathed” the military was handed the reins for 8 years. I’ve been involved in operations since desert storm, desert fox, OIF, and OEF. I’ve left my family over and over. I’ve been shot at a few times, and mortar’d and rocketed a few more. Im sure not as much as the internet hard cases, but enough. I have a wonderful daughter and son, and have been married to the same girl for 22 years.
Im no longer going to offer myself to unappreciative flock. No longer going to be put at risk by a populace who would call me a sexist for insisting on one standard (no, in the USAF woman don’t have to do the same physical fitness test as I do).
No, I’m not bitter at women; or gays; or anyone.
I’m sad. It will break my heart to turn in my wings, and my maintenance badge.
But its the honorable thing to do.
Posted by: MIkeB at February 23, 2010 11:43 PM
Socially Liberal Republicans are Destroying the GOP from Within
After reading through recent blog posts and comment sections from right-of-center blogs regarding CPAC 2010 (HERE, HERE & HERE), it seems like the Democrat Party’s perfect scenario is occurring. Instead of focusing on fiscal matters and working to simply get the GOP back to its winning platform circa 2004, it seems the GOP is allowing social liberals work to completely transform the Party… and weak-kneed conservatives are getting duped into letting them do it.
I wrote the following on Twitter and then expanded upon it when it posted to my Facebook status:
It’s interesting to hear “moderate” GOPers whine about social issues, then turn around & prop up pro-same-sex marriage as “winning issue”
On the one hand these people say “the GOP needs to stop focusing so much on social issues like abortion and man-woman marriage; they are divisive and irrelevant”… yet on the other hand they say “we need to make the GOP tent bigger and be open to redefining marriage and ‘pro-choice’ people”.
So, basically, what these people want to do is make the GOP a socially liberal, fiscally conservative party. In other words, they want to get rid of the current platform of the GOP (pro-Life, pro-man/woman marriage, strong national defense, fiscally conservative) and have the new party be the ideal Democrat Party (ie, what the Democrat Party would be today were it not hijacked by capitalism-hating Marxists: pro-abortion, pro-redefining marriage, strong national defense, fiscally conservative).
Why they are doing this, I have no idea. There was nothing wrong with the GOP circa 2004. The GOP platform was about fiscal conservatism, pro-life, pro- keeping marriage as man/woman union, strong national defense. That was a winning platform. The reason for the losses in 2006 and 2008 was because the GOP strayed from fiscal conservatism.
Thus, to get back to winning, all the GOP has to do is get back to fiscal conservatism. There is absolutely NO reason to stop being pro-life & pro-keeping marriage as man/woman union. Not only is the GOP correct on those issues, they are also winning issues on election day. They only reason to push pro-choice and same-sex marriage on the GOP is in order to destroy it from within.
So the GOP should be wary of anyone pushing abortion and same-sex marriage within the GOP.
I also think the social liberal movement within the GOP is not only working to destroy the GOP, but is also causing a greater desire for a third Party to form.
If we use the analogy of the three legs of the Party platform being (1) Fiscal conservatism (low spending, low taxes, less government) (2) social conservatism (pro-life, anti-AGW hoax and pro-marriage as a man/woman union) & (3) strong on national defense (pro-military and anti-Amnesty), it is easy to see that the reason the GOP fell in 2006 and 2008 was due to a lack of adherence to Leg 1 of the Platform. Thus, it would follow that the way to get the GOP back in favor would be to get back to fiscal conservatism, while keeping everything else that isn’t broken.
Instead, we have people advocating to not only fix Leg 1, but to eliminate Leg 2 (ie, become pro-choice and in favor of redefining marriage). I absolutely do not see the logic to that ‘strategery’.
Unless, of course, the goal is to split the GOP from within, driving away social conservatives and forcing them to vote third Party… which ends up helping Democrats.
We have Muslims working within the United States Military to sabotage us. Does the GOP have liberal Democrats working within it to sabotage it as well?
RELATED: Fiscal Conservatism vs Social Conservatism
From the discussion on my Facebook page:
yeah, but not being social lib enough the Indies went left, now they preach we not right. confusing.
I think we need to stay within our agenda no matter, we lost 92 because of agenda too strict but came back in 94, think same now. folks didnt want conservatism untill they tasted liberalism again
Look at 79-80, same then too-confusing cycle
Well, 1992 we lost because we went liberal, when Bush 41 went back on his promise to not raise taxes. Perot was attractive to many Americans who were fed up with both Parties and wanted fiscal conservatism. They were angry with Bush 41 for betraying them and went 3rd Party. The GOP got the message and campaigned for the House in 1994 with a strong fiscal conservative message.
That’s where were are here in 2010. In 2006 & 2008, the American public was pissed off about the lack of fiscal conservatism of the GOP and either stayed home or voted for “change” and “hope”. Stupid, sure, but the GOP has only themselves to blame for not sticking to their fiscal conservative roots.
So, to get a repeat of 1994, all the GOP has to do is get back to fiscal conservative principles and they are a lock to take back the House and possibly the Senate.
BUT, if they decide to saw off one of the other 3 legs of the platform and go socially liberal, it will be an utter disaster. And the base of the party will have had it with all the moves Left of the GOP and go form a Reagan-like 3rd Party to get the 3 legs of the platform they want.
And, yes, that just helps Democrats, since it splits the majority center-right electorate between the GOP and 3rd Party. But that is the doing of the GOP. If the GOP continues to reject social conservatism, it will destroy itself from within. And it will be their own fault.
Despite the efforts of the pro-homosexual agenda crowd to accuse us otherwise, the following (below) is the general opinion of probably 90% of Conservatives and Republicans (as well as mine). Being against the redefinition of marriage as well as against special “rights” for homosexuals is no more “anti-gay” than being against ‘Affirmative Action’ is “racist”. Anyone who says otherwise is simply smearing in order to push their agenda.
Gays don’t want to accept their orientation as a not uncommon developmental disorder, because it’s personally hurtful(although perhaps shouldn’t be, but that’s another story) and is a result of no fault of their own, and still carries a stigma.
And many heterosexuals don’t want to be compelled to provide special accommodation for what they consider a disorder, and rebel at being coerced into accepting homosexuality as another version of normal.
If someone had a compulsive disorder, like frequent hand-washing, would we install sinks at all work stations in case a hand-washer was to be employed there? On the other hand, should we persecute that person to the ends of the earth?
Advocating civil rights for gays as a special class of person requires a presumption of a genetic cause to homosexuality that many are unwilling to accept, and is unproven. Thus, gay-conservative at CPAC is grating in a way that conservative who happens to be gay isn’t.
My own guess is that if we could reach a conclusion that homosexuality isn’t normal, but isn’t evil either, or a conscious choice, then the sting would come out of the whole issue. I for one don’t want it portrayed in schools or the common culture as normal, and as an equal alternative to heterosexuality, and I don’t want state sanctioned gay marriage, and I don’t want the society as a whole pressed on this issue further than it’s apparently willing to go. That being said, hatred of people with same-sex attraction who aren’t trying to push a social agenda on others is hateful and wrong.
JiangxiDad on February 20, 2010 at 11:51 AM
Hey Lefty A$$holes, Your Day of Reckoning is Quickly Approaching
I agree wholeheartedly:
Speaking of Insurrection… I certainly am not advocating it as I’m too lazy and complacent and accustomed to the comforts of my life as I’ve gotten older… but there is something refreshing and ironically healthy in talking about it. And there’s only one reason I say that and the reason is to potentially give pause to the fascist, intolerant tactics of the Left that I’ve observed for most of my life.
The Left has deliberately shut down and pretty much destroyed civil discourse in this country. And they have done this with the aid and support of the media as well as the overall culture. And when you shut down civil discourse, when you shut down the possibility of the other side getting a fair hearing or ability to make their arguments you are playing with fire.
Because the other side doesn’t just go away. Any more than a parent will just go away when a 5 year old is having a tantrum. Even a pateint parent will tolerate only so much and then smack the shit out of the little bastard.
And in similar fashion, conservatives won’t just shut up and go quietly into the night. They are seething. They are boiling. And a reckoning is coming. The Left needs to understand this.
And getting back to my being lazy and complacent – while that is true and I dread unpleasantness, I dread more the loss of my country to a bunch of totalitarian, collectivist control freaks. And I remember the oath I took long ago to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Like anyone I have limits and they are getting pushed pretty fucking hard.
Posted by: LGoPs at February 17, 2010 06:59 PM