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Republicans in disarray!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

No one could have predicted…

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

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Win win

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In the previous post, John wrote:

If Dick Cheney really cared about homosexuals, they would have done something during the last eight years to stop the discharge of qualified persons while we fought two wars.

I would argue (following Kathleen Parker of all people) that the case for lifting DADT is as much about the effectiveness of our military as it is about rights for gay people. Firing qualified Arab linguists because of their sexual orientation simply makes no sense as a military decision. And it’s no coincidence these firings happen so often among linguists — for whatever reason, a high proportion of people who go into the sort of linguistics that involves learning to speak other languages (as opposed to the more theoretical stuff) are gay men. Ask any linguist and they’ll tell you this.

I don’t want to veer into “what if we needed a crack team of fashion designer special forces” but it’s simply a fact that hiring from as broad a pool of talent as possible is advantageous for any organization. This is part of why so many large companies have voluntary affirmative action policies in effect. And all the talk about “unit cohesion” isn’t so different from some of the rhetoric that was used to argue against integrating sports teams in the 50s and 60s. How many people would argue that we’d be better off with an all-white Olympic basketball team now?

Any policy that replaces evaluation of job performance with arbitrary rules about sexual orientation gets in the way of an efficient operation.

Update. A perspective from a former defense linguist:

It wasn’t a secret (that there were lots of gay linguists)
12:47 PM Literally the only people who are hysterical about this are Republican politicians and they all know they are beaten
12:49 PM The people who I saw get busted and tossed out were either dumb or playing a game
12:50 PM A) People who got caught in the barracks during surprise “health and welfare” inspections, and
B) People who marched up waving a rainbow flag yelling “Im gay, kick me out!”
12:51 PM Now, people who aren’t supposed to be shacking up in a barracks room shouldn’t be kicked out, but they must be punnished
12:52 PM But DADT was used for too long as a way to weasel out of the military by some people
A repeal will close that loophole
12:53 PM I hate to sound like a Republican, but the proper response is to repeal DADT and enforce the regulations against fraternization, sexual harrassment, sexual assault, etc

Reader Interactions

19Comments

  6. 6.

    Joshua Holland

    How many people would argue that we’d better off with an all-white Olympic basketball team now?

    I don’t know how many they number, but these people would surely approve the idea.

  7. 7.

    JK

    OT

    Great article by Jane Mayer on the whacked out protest against Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court

    On Dec. 5th, several hundred people gathered in Foley Square, in lower Manhattan, and withstood a drenching rainstorm for two hours in order to send a message to Attorney General Eric Holder. A JumboTron, set up by the protesters, played clips of Holder’s recent testimony before Congress, in which he explained his decision to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed… Members of the crowd shouted at the screen: “Holder’s gotta go!”; “Arrogant bastard!”; “Communist!”… Andrew McCarthy, the former Chief Assistant U.S. Atty who led the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, also gave a speech, declaring that Holder didn’t “understand what rule of law has always been in wartime.” He said, “It’s military commissions. It’s not to wrap our enemies in our Bill of Rights.” “Traitor!” someone shouted. Edith Lutnick, who works for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, told the crowd, “My brother, Gary, lost his life that day.” The 9/11 victims, she said, “were murdered by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we do not want him and his fellow-terrorists tried in that building. . . . We need to tell Eric Holder that we will be victims no more.”
    “Lynch Holder!” an onlooker cried.

    h/t http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/15/100215fa_fact_mayer

  8. 8.

    Joshua Holland

    How many people would argue that we’d better off with an all-white Olympic basketball team now?

    I don’t know how many they number, but these people would surely approve the idea.

  9. 9.

    Dimmic Rat

    The only reason we have an integrated team to begin with is because even Repubs would rather give some nigs rights than risk losing to some eastern european hellhole like Lithuania.

  10. 10.

    Jay C

    Any policy that replaces evaluation of job performance with arbitrary rules about sexual orientation gets in the way of an efficient operation

    Quite right, except that it is very unlikely that concerens about “job performance”, the “arbitrar[iness]” of rules, or “efficient operation” are significant factors in motivating opponents of DADT repeal.

    It’s all about Teh Ghey – and how our society deals with it; and whether or not the age-old prejudices which the services’ DADT policy have only partly papered over will (or can) be shelved by legislation. Whether out of misplaced macho, sexual insecurity, religious fanaticism, long-term social conventions or whatever, there is a nontrivial segment of the population (probably somewhat larger in the military than in the civilian sphere) which still views homosexuality per se as a Fundamental Wrong (if not a Fundamental Evil). While maybe not as numerous as they used to be, this minority will fight (and probably bitterly) against any and all attempts to remove the last vestiges of legal stigmatization of homosexuals – losing battle or not.

    For the anti-Repeal crowd (as with the anti-SSM bunch), the legal or operational niceties of policy changes are irrelevant: it is perceived as a moral issue; and thus immune to arguments about operational efficiency or manpower allocation or whatever. And the one thing today’s Right is good at is selective outrage on “moral” grounds.

  12. 12.

    Tazistan Jen

    @Jay C:

    It’s all about Teh Ghey – and how our society deals with it; and whether or not the age-old prejudices which the services’ DADT policy have only partly papered over will (or can) be shelved by legislation.

    I would argue that it can be, and will be, and that is why the opposition is so intense. Sure there is still racism, but integrating the services made a huge, huge impact on it. And for that matter, integrating sports teams did too. Integrating open gays will likely do the same.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Jay C:
    Quite right, except that it is very unlikely that concerens about “job performance”, the “arbitrar[iness]” of rules, or “efficient operation” are significant factors in motivating opponents of DADT repeal.

    I am reminded of a scene in the West Wing where the black admiral comes into a meeting about DADT with the take away that integrating the service was a big deal but the service got over it and it will be the same with gays. But I see this as less of an issue as at the time of integration there were not blacks serving with whites. There have been gays in the military for ever. I served along side gays 40 years ago. Some I knew were gay and I’m sure there were some I did not know of. The change will be that overt, official bigotry will not be tolerated. That time and energy will not be wasted on a BS issue. That those who want to be out can be. The military for the most part has gotten over racial integration and it will get over this as well. Enough people in the military understand the mission is the important part, not the BS.

  14. 14.

    Betsy

    I hate to sound like a Republican, but the proper response is to repeal DADT and enforce the regulations against fraternization, sexual harrassment, sexual assault, etc

    On the contrary. Republicans are singularly opposed to enforcing sexual harassment and sexual assault rules/regs/laws.

  15. 15.

    mattH

    I hate to sound like a Republican, but the proper response is to repeal DADT and enforce the regulations against fraternization, sexual harrassment, sexual assault, etc

    Nothing more than a nitpick, but this is just as Democratic, if not more so, than Republican. Sad how people think personal responsibility is a Republican trait.

    And what Betsy said.

  16. 16.

    HyperIon

    How many people would argue that we’d (sic) better off with an all-white Olympic basketball team now?

    Not me. I’m going to argue that we’d be better off with an all-black Olympic basketball team.

    the talk about “unit cohesion” …

    Whenever I hear it, I think: Women go decades of their lives being sexually harassed by men–probably the same fuckers who are freaked out by the mere possibility of getting hit on by a gay man. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. What a bunch of military weenies.

  17. 17.

    former_friend

    “I hate to sound like a Republican, but the proper response is to repeal DADT and enforce the regulations against fraternization, sexual harrassment, sexual assault, etc”

    I have to add to the chorus: in what way does this sound like a Republican?

  18. 18.

    M. Bouffant

    Didn’t know this:

    And it’s no coincidence these firings happen so often among linguists—for whatever reason, a high proportion of people who go into the sort of linguistics that involves learning to speak other languages (as opposed to the more theoretical stuff) are gay men. Ask any linguist and they’ll tell you this.

    My assumption (And I still think it’s as valid.) is that gay people born & raised in Islamic cultures are the most likely not to buy into the whole religion & its various cultures, & are likelier to decide that helping the Great Satan stop this crap is a good thing.

    This, obviously, applies to native Arabic, Farsi, Pushtun, Urdu or whatever speakers, not to Americans whose first language was English & who’ve learned any of the languages.

  19. 19.

    Boney Baloney

    Incidentally, it’s not like DoD drag-selected those Arab linguists and pressed Delete so as to free up their pop cap for more grunts and tanks. Where do you think mercenaries come from? Do giant birds lay eggs that hatch out as mercenaries?

    Also, yes, the world is full of gay polyglots, and even gay patriotic polyglots. I know of one case where an individual counted the stars on the U.S. flag, then counted the States in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico but including the State of Israel), and then, let’s say, walked into a secured area smoking a giant bomber joint and waving at people. Pot is good. You can wave your cock at your superior and it’s he-said-she-said, but kind bud has a way of making dozens of witnesses who can only testify one way. (I call it clever.)

    Boom, fired. Boom, buried in job offers. Boom, rehired by an evil corporation that considers dismissal without reference, under the circumstances, a damn good reference in its own right. It’s actually the case that neocons don’t run the world and can’t blackball anyone outside the Ivy League and the Eastern Seaboard. And absent conscription, don’t free humans get to decide what they’ll be ground into hamburger for?

    I suspect but can’t prove that the same thing happened more than once. The military blames gays for anything pilot error can’t excuse, in any case. Remember the A-10 that went rogue with a load of weapons and suffered a very rough landing? Gay pilot error, double word score. Remember the Navy turret that exploded because a definite homo definitely did something unspecified with giant bags of propellant while surrounded by totally non-homo shipmates? Gays sabotage and subvert everything; even Republicans know that.

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