Is Gays in the Military Really about Gay Marriage?

My opposition to gay marriage is a definitional one.  To Western Christendom, marriage has traditionally meant one man and one woman.  I support partnerships that deny gays none of the rights of married people save the name of the relationship.

The constitutional rights argument is specious
The military discriminates against women, old people, the handicapped, drug users and convicted criminals.  You surrender many rights when you put on a uniform, including the right to free speech, free assembly, and freedom from search and seizure.  You go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do.  You shut your pie hole when they tell you to, and you submit to random drug tests and room inspections on demand.

Repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell will not be the end, but the beginning.  I wonder if it isn't a Trojan horse for smuggling gay marriage inside the walls of Mainstream America.   

Is Repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell Really About Gay Marriage?

Allow gays to serve openly, and the disparity in treatment between a traditional family and a gay partnership will be glaring.

Military members receive additional monetary, food, housing, moving and medical benefits to support spouses and dependents.  Boyfriends and girlfriends don't count.

This is significant since military people move frequently with the government picking up the tab.  A single person with a significant other receives reduced benefits and must pay out of pocket the cost of moving and housing and caring for the partner. 

This can be a major factor when stationed at a remote location.If the significant other is even allowed there, she can't be housed, or seen at the clinic, or even go shopping in the military community. The military is a self-contained world, and military life is much harder when "family members" are shut out of the system.

Allowing gays to serve openly is only step one

The obvious disparity in benefits and treatment of significant others will spur a whole new debate on fairness and marriage and civil unions.  The US Military led the way on civil rights for people of color, and the homosexual lobby is hoping for a gay repeat.

Think this through all the way to the logical end, and Christianity, or any religion that teaches that homosexuality is wrong would now be in a very precarious position, with concepts like hate speech and discrimination hurled at it.

I support equal rights for all, to include the right of people to hold, teach and espouse traditional religious beliefs that do not conflict with our constitution.

Update:  I've posted quite a few articles on this subject.  I am a libertarian who believes in equality for all, and I am also a Christian who believes marriage is a life-long commitment between one man and one woman.  So it appears that I'm kinda stuck in that mushy middle I so often criticize.

Concerning gays in the military, I agree with combat veteran Uncle Jimbo:

“If I am lying by the road bleeding, I don’t care if the medic coming to save me is gay. I just hope he is one of those buff gay guys who are always in the gym so he can throw me over his shoulder and get me out of there.”

Here are links to my previous posts:

DADT should be decided by military necessity and effectiveness, not political correctness
Judge Walker's Rape of Reason
Gay Rights, States Rights
New Hampshire - An Ominous Harbinger

Liberal Self-Loathing

Liberals don't view Islam as a threat to our culture.  Indeed, I think most on the left hate our culture anyway and never stop to ponder that it could be replaced with something worse.









Here's a typical dhimmi-lib comment...

On both sides of the Atlantic, a rising tide of xenophobic hostility toward immigrants is threatening to swamp the foundation of liberal democracy.(James Carroll - Xenophobia)

No, you pinko dhimmi dingbat, militant Islam is threatening to swamp the foundation of liberal democracy, one honor killing at a time.  Just ask a cartoonist or filmmaker.  Only a liberal idiot would consider it xenophobic to deny entry into civilized society those who want to destroy it.

DL Adams at Big Peace calls it what it is...  Liberal self-loathing.  Not only of themselves, but of their culture as well.

Can there be a greater societal self-loathing than that encouraged by the multicultural notion that our democratic, open societies are corrupt failures because some who come to our shores do not like what they see and will not assimilate?

Their snooty liberal disdain for everything Western endangers us all.  Their warm embrace of everything antithetical to our Western values make liberals too dangerous to ever again assume any position of power or responsibility.

The facade of multiculturalism crumbles when a group will not assimilate into a host culture. Ongoing Islamic terrorism and growing Muslim agitation against European host laws, cultures, and systems in favor of the cruel, hatred and violence of Islamic Sharia law are the stones that have finally shattered the empty glass house of multiculturalism.   (DL Adams- Multiculturalism)

Fannie and Freddie Must Die!

The news media is bringing us more ignorant hand-wringing over Republican threats to sell off Fannie and Freddie...

What they fail to realize is that government intervention in the mortgage market doesn't lower costs, it just "spreads them around."

“Without government backing, private lenders likely would charge higher interest rates and demand more stringent lending standards.” (Wall Street Journal)

So what’s the problem with that? We would also then have less defaults due to people buying houses they can’t afford.  Government intervention masks the free market signals and creates distortions in the market, resulting in trillion dollar housing bubbles.

Freddie and Fannie are scams that transfer money from the treasury to private banks

“Standard & Poor's estimated in a report issued Thursday that the cost of rescuing the mortgage giants could reach $280 billion and an additional $400 billion would be needed to capitalize any entities that replace them.”

“Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers $134 billion since the government took them over through conservatorship two years ago.” (Wall Street Journal)

They’ve actually cost us more than that. That figure is just over and above what these crony crapitalists normally cost us in a given fiscal year.  Government has no business in the mortgage market.  And don't give us that "interstate commerce" or "general welfare" crap, you progressives!  Your perverse "regulations" have allowed banks and mortgage companies to make irresponsible loans and stick the taxpayer with the consequences. 

Spreadin' it around

“The firms were created to buy mortgages from banks, freeing them to make more loans. Fannie and Freddie guarantee the loans and sell them to investors as securities, a process that has lowered borrowing costs and made 30-year loans more widely available.”  (Wall Street Journal)

Pure ignorance.  Freddie and Fannie did not lower borrowing costs, they merely shifted them to the federal government, who in turn “spread them around,” forcing taxpayers to shoulder the burden.

Why is the federal government “freeing” private banks and mortgage companies, but not grocery stores or bicycle makers?

Big Government advocates justify it by lifting up home ownership for all as a lofty goal. Why?  There's nothing wrong with renting, I did it most of my adult life.

Government bumbling caused this crash. Time for the bureaucratic poobahs to stop meddling in the private lives of the citizenry and instead start cleaning up the fiscal and regulatory mess they have created.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day in the US, and Remembrance Day in Canada, where we pause on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate the WW I Armistice.  The day has grown into a tribute to all veterans of all wars. 


This is a beautiful musical tribute to veterans by Canadian musician Terry Kelly. It is unabashedly patriotic, whether you're Canadian or American, and don't be surprised if it brings a tear or two. I know I can't help it, especially when that line of veterans appears out of the past. 

My Simple Solution

Everybody's talking about what the GOP should do.  They only control one half of one branch, so we're fixin' to see just how much scrap they have in 'em.

If I had a magic wand, here's what I would do. 

1) Much smaller military footprint overseas.  Beef up foreign intelligence, specifically HUMINT.  Our spies need to get in bed with all kinds of stinking third world bad guys and pay those dirty rats and a moles to ferret out terrorist plots.  That's how the  recent plot was foiled.  And they need to do it without fear of some America-hating congressman blowing the whistle on them because they talked to a drug dealer.  If you wanna know what the bad guys are up to you've gotta rub elbows with 'em.

2) Stop domestic spying on innocent citizens, including the nude porn scanners and genital groping at our nation's airports.  No X-Ray vans, no drones (except on the border).  Profiling works:  do it.  That includes deciding who to let in to our great nation and what activities they can engage in while visiting.

3) Freedom of Religion.  Convince the religious right (with whom I generally agree) that they don't need the force of the federal government to push their agenda.  It's not even constitutional in many cases.  The federal government's only duty to Christians (or Muslims or atheists) is to protect their equal rights in the public square.  If God is so great (and I firmly believe He is) He can survive in the marketplace of free ideas without official sanction from Uncle Sam.

4) Bring back the 10th Amendment.  Dial back federal government involvement to the pre-Wilson days.  Let the states and local communities take care of education, the poor and society in general.  We are not a one-size-fits-all nation, but that is what the federal politburo continues to peddle. 
Janet Daley, conservative columnist at Britain's Daily Telegraph adds some key points...

If ordinary citizens are to be expected to take back more control and moral responsibility, then some pretty basic things will have to be on the table.

First, they must be allowed to keep significantly more of what they earn. The lowering of taxes cannot be a vague intention or a pious hope. It is a sine qua non of a more self-reliant, independent, morally resourceful private life.

Second, indigenous populations must not be forced to compete with unlimited low-wage imported labour. If working people are to fend for themselves and support their own families without help, they cannot be under-bid for employment by migrants who, as often as not, have no dependants and no permanent obligations in the host country. The uncontrolled movement of peoples around the globe is problematic for welfare states... (Telegraph - Janet Daley)

I would add to that...

A strong, stable dollar that isn't manipulated by politicians for political gain.  This would provide citizens a reliable store of value, reducing our dependency upon the state

A government that favors no industry over another and that makes simple laws that apply to all, and a government that punishes those who break the laws.

Remove the taxpayer-funded Wall Street safety net.  The dangerous gambling will stop immediately.

What would you do?

We are a Tea Party Nation

Most Americans agree with the tea party agenda, they just don't realize it. 

Frank Luntz wrote an informative article in WaPo last Sunday.  The GOP leadership would do well to study it.  Democrats who stubbornly cling to the idea that we the great unwashed are too stupid and ungrateful to appreciate all they've done for us to us should read it as well, but they probably wouldn't get anything out of it...

Americans' agenda is simple. In broad terms, they want the government to spur job growth, but not by subsidizing more government jobs with taxpayer dollars. They want Washington to balance the budget and reverse the growing influence of government on daily life. They want the government to encourage success, allow failure, punish those who break the law - and then get out of the way.  (WaPo - Frank Luntz)

Based upon his extensive polling, he has identified five issues that each enjoy a minimum of 60% public support.  He also points out that these are tea party issues, so it looks like its not such a fringe movement after all...

(1) Balance the budget as quickly as possible through meaningful spending reductions, a hard spending cap and a constitutional amendment so that it never gets unbalanced again.

(2) Eliminate all earmarks until the budget is balanced, then require a two-thirds vote by Congress for future earmark legislation. 

(3) Keep taxes down by requiring supermajorities for increases, and eventually enact tax reform with a simple, low, fair rate that drastically reduces the length of the IRS code.  

(4) Create a blue-ribbon task force that engages in a complete, line-by-line forensic audit of federal agencies and programs to end waste and reduce red tape and bureaucracy.

(5) And require Congress to provide specific constitutional authorization for every bill it passes so that the government stays within the boundaries imagined by the founders.

Progressives will never go along with this.  Take away government, you take away their power to control us, their reason for being, their ability to get elected by handing out taxpayer-funded goodies.  This is why they obstinately refuse to see the facts:  To do so would destroy their world.


Let's Roll, America!

No More All-White Presidential Tickets

Identity Politics elevates gender, color and culture above competence.  It is an insult to all Americans, especially minorities


Politico ran a perfunctory post-election puff piece on the new stars of the GOP.  Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio, John Kasich (who's really an old star reborn).  Pretty standard stuff, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Politico saying anything positive about conservatives.  I'm also glad to see the GOP getting props for fielding some awesome minority candidates.  Then I saw a quote I just could not believe...

  This is what caught my eye:

“The bottom line is that after 2008, you can never go back to an all-white ticket,” said Susan MacManus, political science professor at the University of South Florida. (Politico)

This is so wrong on so many levels.  

First, it is white guilt paying obeisance to liberal political correctness.  No more all-white tickets because pointy-headed liberal social engineers say so?  What if they are two awesomely qualified white lesbians who are extremely liberal?  I bet they'd make an exception...  It amazes me that the most unthinking propaganda parrots can be found roosting in the ivory towers of academe.

Have you heard the one about the Muslim, the one-legged lesbian, and the Black Hispanic walking into the DNC Headquarters...

This is bald-faced tokenism, a rank condescension to "people of color."  To think that the only way you can get a group of people to vote for you is to run "one of them," is a horrid thought.  Break down our demographics into its hundreds of sub-groups, and you quickly see the absurdity of this.
  

Treating people as a collective interest group instead of as individuals is revolting.  All Blacks and all Hispanics are not liberal, and *gasp!*  they all don't think the same!  Worst of all is how liberals lump disparate groups together under the "minority" or "people of color" banner.  Their latest adventure in racial and cultural profiling has them treating Blacks and Hispanics as though they were cooking products sitting on a shelf at the supermarket in the "Ethnic Foods" aisle.

"After the Obama debacle, you can never go back to a black candidate." 

That is my conclusion, based upon the professor's logic.  Let's see how that flies...

This is what's wrong with liberalism, it has strayed so far from Dr, King's sincere message regarding content of character over color of skin.