Didn't see this elsewhere, so sorry if it's duplicative, but today the Pentagon announced the completion of its 9 month study, and reported that abolishing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and allowing homsexuals to serve openly, would present "a low risk to the military’s effectiveness, even at a time of war, and that 70 percent of service members believe [it] would be either positive, mixed or of no consequence at all." Will this be blamed on our new Commander and Chief? Or can we all just admit that it took them 9 months (more like 9 decades, actually) to see the obvious? Yes there might me some minor problems, but the military can deal with those just like they deal with every other minor problem stemming from various walks of society coming together to form a warrior unit. So one soldier holds and strokes his rifle a little more lovingly than the next - deal with it.
Does a bear **** in the woods? Does a republican like toe-tapping in the bathroom? I think this is great for the war on muslim terrorists. I bet they think the only thing worse than being killed by an infidel is being killed by a gay infidel. They wind up with 40 big hairy bears in "paradise" for that, don't they (the other kind of bears)
I am not a toe tapper, I've never been in the service, and I don't shit in the woods, so my voice counts little, but I say let 'em serve, especially the gay Arabic translators.
your voice counts the same as any other american. You own a 1/310,815,000 share in our military. Some would argue that military folks may be the subject matter experts, but never forget that they serve us, and do as we the entire country tell them to do.
Not really - or at least I would not say that crowdsourcing a decision primarily to all members of the military is warranted. There are other SME's, namely, anyone involved in institutional change. I'd consider the opinion of experts in institutional change as far more expert and meaningful than that of an evangelical grunt. I have general disdain for corporate consultants, but when the company I work for hired consultant "change-experts" who worked on "regime change" in South Africa - I recognized that these folks knew way more than me. They helped transition one of the worst examples of rascism and resentment into a functional and full democracy, and destroyed the worst evils of institutional segregation. I considered them as better SME's than any employee of the company. So while the US military as a whole has valuable input, and many could be considered SME's - our military institutions are not a democracy. A leader of a racially integrated platoon has more to offer than a dozen redneck grunts, and the heads in the pentagon have even more to offer as well. Just because I am heartened by the 70% support of the entire military doesn't mean that I think we should consider only their perspectives
It is not 70% support of the entire military, it is 70% of the respondents and the response rate was 25%. Big difference.
OK, but #1 - that does not invalidate my point of SME's #2 - I'll leave it up to statistical polling experts to weigh in on what a 25% response rate means (25% is far more than election pre & exit-polling if I'm not wrong) I am aware that there are lots of ways the results can be biased in some way a) desk-job folks probably have a higher response rate compared to grunts getting shot at in AF/Iraq. That may work both ways - perhaps the grunts getting shot may feel differently overall but never had the time to respond, but also they might have much higher priorities than a management survey - ie, "does this stupid survey about my personal feelings about gays make any difference in me getting shot?" - which in a way - could be very meaningful b) surveyees may perceive possible future retribution for a "wrong" answer, even if the survey is "confidential" c) survey respondees may be highly self-motivated to vote for or against (ie, gays are OK, or gays will destroy us all) In summary, there's probably a lot of confounding variables that could bias the results in one way or another. But that is for impartial statisticians to analyze and weigh the results. None of us are really statistical SME's on this, no are we? But I agree with other posters - McResentment is highly likely to yell "GET OFF MY LAWN you gay-loving whippersnappers!"
Since when does the military or the civilian military leadership conduct a poll of the soldiers before making a decision or implementing/changing a policy? Seriously, has such a thing ever happened?
Not sure, but in this case, it was a politically smart move. The previous Dem preznit who thought it was a good idea to integrate gays got hammered and failed, in no small part because of the loud outcry from republicans and the tacit disapproval of change from the pentagon This survey (with outcome essentially predetermined) & the support of the pentagon already behind the likely outcome, is political gold. Now any opponent of integration can't hide behind cherry-picked reactionary voices from the military, because 70% of our national heros are totally OK with killing DADT in a good way. It provides political cover for the change (a wussy move perhaps), but it also establishes a firm foundation for permanent change - even a hardcore republican will have a hard time arguing against the voice of our heros who are killing terrorists and keeping us safe...
Can't wait till we allow the people who want to marry their dogs in the military. John McCain will need to study that one for a loooong time
As a card-carrying member of "The Rent is Too Damn High" Party, I have to ask, what about people who want to marry shoes? And do sandals and hiking boots both count? What about hockey skates?
Screw that - do laundry once and you might never see your sock again. I wouldn't have a relationship with such an untrustworthy garment.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_...jA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNtY2NhaW5jYWxsc3M- McCain calls study on gays in military flawed
Unless he is going to give us some wild anecdotes I am not concerned about McCain's belief on this issue.