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The Spectacle Blog
John R. Guardiano begins his latest retort in our DADT debate by regaling us with an anecdote which took place at a gathering he attended with the late Irving Kristol. During this gathering, Kristol revealed that his wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, had forbidden him from writing about homosexuality and ‘gay rights.’
Judging by the quality of Guardiano’s arguments it is a shame he did not take up Himmelfarb’s wise counsel. Guardiano would have benefited from such counsel because he insists on making statements which are either contradictory or that he simply cannot substantiate.
Earlier in this debate, Guardiano asked if I had ever been to high school and I recounted my experience illustrating the changing attitudes towards homosexuality at the high school I attended.
Apparently, it isn’t what Guardiano wanted to hear.
I mentioned coed public high schools simply to reference the sexual and group dynamics between men and women which a coed military now has to deal with.
Students’ attitudes toward homosexuality are neither here nor there. Goldstein keeps trying to bring the issue back to how people “feel” about homosexuality; but “feelings” are, as I’ve explained repeatedly, completely irrelevant.
The point is that just as sexual dynamics create problems for public coed high schools, so, too, do they create problems for the U.S. military. And the introduction of open homosexuality within the ranks will only exacerbate this problem.
Guardiano says “feelings” are irrelevant. So how exactly does one engage in a discussion about group dynamics without discussing the attitudes exhibited within the group?
But then Guardiano changes his tune:
(H)e discounts and ignores completely how sexual dynamics can wreak havoc within small-scale military units. Indeed, Goldstein seems to think that soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are robotic, Vulcan-like creatures who are devoid of emotion and sexual passion.
So in the space of a few hundred words, Guardiano goes from chiding me about how people’s “feelings” towards homosexuality are completely irrelevant to the discussion to chiding me for ignoring the “feelings” of military personnel who will now suddenly be burdened with openly gay colleagues amongst their ranks. There is simply no logical consistency to his argument.
Guardiano also has the need to utter statements that cannot be substantiated by fact. In response to my demand for “hard empirical evidence” that would demonstrate the harm of including openly gay military personnel he writes:
The sort of evidence that I think is relevant involves how homosexuality affects human behavior and group dynamics, especially within small-scale military units. Goldstein ignores this evidence because it is inconvenient and unhelpful to his cause.
And exactly what evidence have I ignored? Has Guardiano offered evidence that conclusively demonstrates the presence of openly gay military personnel harms group dynamics in the jurisdictions where this policy has been implemented? Of course not. That would involve the kind of due diligence Guardiano is unprepared and unwilling to expend. The only “evidence” Guardiano can offer is that of his opinion or more aptly his “feelings.”
Guardiano “feels” the repeal of DADT will result in “the softening and undermining of the military’s warrior culture.” It is his opinion and nothing more.
Guardiano “feels” the repeal of DADT will result in “the denial of religious liberty for our military chaplains.” Hmmm, I thought we were all God’s children. Oh well, it is his opinion and nothing more.
Guardiano “feels” the repeal of DADT “will result in homosexual hazing and harassment incidents.” Should such incidents occur the fault lies with those who would perpetuate such acts, not the gay and lesbian military personnel to whom such acts would be directed. However, I am willing to bet the vast majority of our military personnel will exhibit far more professional behavior. It is a shame Guardiano has such low expectations of our men and women in uniform. But again, it is his opinion and nothing more.
Guardiano also falls into the trap of caricaturizing gays and lesbians and impugning their motivations:
An individual lesbian and homosexual might be a perfectly fine soldier, sailor, airman and Marine;and yet through his or her sexual dalliances within the unit, undermine the unit’s morale and performance.
Thus Guardiano “feels” that gay and lesbian military personnel are incapable of refraining from sexual behavior. Guardiano “feels” they lack the requisite discpline to keep their urges in check. I’ll say it once more. It is Guardiano’s opinion and nothing more.
In the unlikely event Guardiano offers any “hard empirical evidence” to support his views I would be more than pleased to discuss their merits. Until then there is little more I can add unless, of course, he chooses to come back for more.
With that in mind, let me conclude with the following. I realize that my views regarding the repeal of DADT are very much in the minority amongst my fellow conservatives. If other conservatives disagree my views on this subject then so be it. I am not here to win a popularity contest. If conservatives take the time to read the whole body of my work here at TAS I think they will find themselves in general agreement with me more often than not. But if I find myself in disagreement with the vast majority of conservatives on a specific matter I will not hesitate to let my views to be known whatever the feedback. Debate, discussion and disagreement aren’t bad things. Merry Christmas.
View all comments (33) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/23/re-the-problem-with-debating-d
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Quartermaster| 12.23.10 @ 11:24AM
While Guardiano's article is muddled in places, on the whole is on the button. There is reason to believe you have never served. You are glib and utterly without understanding of the dynamics of personal relationships in small units. While I was in there was serious revulsion at the homosexual lifestyle.
This goes far beyond the revulsion at the immorality of the lifestyle. Homosexuality is a serious mental illness that causes a person to view their own sex as a normal person would view the opposite sex. It is rare that homosexuality is the only issue that troubles such people. If you doubt this, just attend any of festivals of perversion we know as "Gay Pride Parades."
I'm sorry that you think you are a conservative. There are certain issues where that one issue renders them unsuitable for the label of conservative. If placed in scare quotes, it would apply to you, but your support of the homosexual agenda in this area tells all, far and wide, that are a faux conservative. The repeal of DADT bids fair to destroy the military and send it down the same path the Euro-trash Militaries have gone.
Bill| 12.23.10 @ 11:26AM
It's is hard to believe that heterosexuals actually hold these types of 'feelings' in their hearts regarding all the gay people heterosexuals alone created.
Not so much hard to believe they hold this position, however, as it is hard to believe that they present these 'feelings,' which are really nothing more than garden-variety bigotry, as morality.
For it is the opposite of morality.
Where did so many of them lose their way?
darcy| 12.23.10 @ 11:50AM
Very well stated, Quartermaster; no true conservative would seek to undermine the traditional values upon which our nation was founded, rooted as they were in Judeo-Christian ethics, the very well-spring of Western civilization. No. A conservative would instinctively recoil at such so-called progress.
Mr. Goldstein is not a conservative. A libertarian, maybe, but not a conservative.
He fails to understand that by adopting the sympathies of the left, he is in fact hastening the demise of Western civilization, and all those wonderful freedoms upon which he was nurtured, those freedoms that are reflected in our founding documents.
I really do wish that Mr. Goldstein would take a break from his continual writing against Mr. Guardiano and instead, wander on over to http://escapetyranny.com and get himself a free copy of Ben Hart's Faith and Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty -- it comes delivered straight to your computer, e-book-style. Therein he will find what it is exactly that we are conserving and why.
Best regards, darcy
Tim Williams| 12.23.10 @ 11:51AM
I think Goldstein loses sight of the fact that the burden of proof was...well, should have been...on those in favor of repeal. He may be, as he says "willing to bet" he's right, but the stakes aren't a later retraction on the pages of the Spectator Blog, the stakes are the national security of the United States.
What seems lost in this entire debate is that the reason - and only reason - to make such a radical change is that there is a consensus that it will improve military readiness; or, at a minimum, not worsen readiness.
That there is a debate about this is reason enough to table the whole idea. I mean, really - is there anybody who thinks this is a small thing? So small it can legitimately be done by a lame duck Congress?
Robert Martin| 12.23.10 @ 12:46PM
Ted, you are right on the money on one of the main practical points...there was no proof that this would be good for the military or the united states, at most it would make a very small percentage feel better about their lifestyle choices which create a whole slew of issues once those lifestyle choices are accomodated by the military.
Ted| 12.23.10 @ 1:01PM
I have said this so many times I should just copy and paste....
If this had been done the right way (hold hearings, collect evidence, do real studies - not that ridiculous piece of nonsense DOD put out - set out the pros and cons, and really debated the issue) I could support repeal. There was a case to be made for and against DADT. They didn't do that. Two days of debate? Really?
From my experience as an infantry officer, there are a LOT of issues that were either disregarded or treated in passing. In fact, the majority of people put out under DADT, by DOD's own reckoning 85%, were put out because they made an issue of their sexuality. I actually had one guy tell me he "just didn't want to play Army anymore."
DADT gave everyone a pretty workable compromise. What do we have now? God knows, because they are just now starting to discuss all the issues that are involved in implementing repeal.
Bruce Berger| 12.23.10 @ 3:10PM
The entire way that Congress seemingly analyzed this issue would have earned D- grades in an introductory logic class. It really makes one wonder about the entire body of work in Congress, when it failed so miserably in this case to think clearly.
L. Ross| 12.23.10 @ 11:55AM
I've been in for decades, and I must say anyone who is suprised by any of this hasn't been paying any attention for years. We will muddle along. It's what we do in the military.
Occam's Tool| 12.23.10 @ 11:55AM
I think Mr. Tim Williams wrote the finest comment on this issue I have read. Fair-minded and thorough. I have not seen his name before on these pages. Lovely debut!
David W| 12.23.10 @ 12:00PM
God enough already!!!!
Those with lesser moral values have won this battle and are now preparing for the next battle against the Boy Scouts and to make pedophilia/pederasty/incest okay). Instead of the blog flames back and forth on what can't be changed (unless the spineless republicans can do something next year) let us worry about those who have this alternative lifestyle now shoved down their throats (pun intended).
The soldiers, marines, airmen, seaman (sorry, no pun intended) and chaplains will need to be sure their rights are as protected as the homosexuals (free speech, freedom to associate with whom they wish to associate, freedom NOT to march in homosexual pride parades, freedom NOT to endorse this behavior, freedom to believe in their set of values based upon their morality, to worship their God).
I feel that the rot will continue to spread. We already see that all values are relative, than pretty much anything goes (unless it is conservative or religious values). Who knows where it will go next.
dac| 12.23.10 @ 1:45PM
Our military, God bless them all, exists to protect us from people like this:
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....l-marshall
And the Muslim murderers, rapists and torturers profiled in that article will not rest until Christianity and all vestiges of it are dead, or they themselves are killed. The tactics (if not the means) of the militant queer lobby are exactly the same. Wherever there is any non-worship of the gay lifestyle, it must be converted not only to tolerance (that's long ago settled, or else you'd be stoned to death in public, which is what the Muslims will do to you), not only to endorsement, but to active worship. And since even endorsement of the vile, septic gay lifestyle is completely and thoroughly un-Christian, the queers are (wittingly or not) doing a good bit of the Muslims' work for them. It's a purge, pure and simple, of any Christian values from our military. And most--no, the overwhelming majority--of military personnel won't stand for it, they will not simply roll over and turn asses-up and accept whatever shaft the queers "feel" like running into them. They will either quit or effect their own purges privately. In either case, much of what most military men below the ass-kissing 4star level say will happen will result in a weaker US military and making the US an easier target for its enemies--which, bringing things full circle, are (in large part) murderous, raping, torturing Muslims, including those other evil regimes who support the former for their own domestic or (in Iran's case) geopolitical ends.
So, nice work, Goldstein, Reid, RINOs, and ass-kissing suckup 4star "leaders." I'm so glad you all "feel" better now that the US military has to spend its time and resources coddling queers rather than killing our enemies. I for one don't "feel" any safer. What I "feel" is utter contempt and disgust for you, your revolting lifestyle, and most of all your complete, relentless unwillingness to simply leave this great country and its culture, military culture included, ALONE just as you've been left alone. It's sick and wrong that so many military personnel overseas, away from their families over Christmas, have to read and listen to the filth you spew and the corrosive social engineering you're about to perpetrate upon all of them, as they bleed for all of us. Merry Christmas to them, but not to you.
Ted| 12.23.10 @ 1:44PM
"Debate, discussion and disagreement aren't bad things. "
If only we had had significant debate and discussion on this issue prior to DADT being repealed we'd probably have little disagreement now.
bobmontgomery| 12.23.10 @ 2:42PM
In one of his rebuttals to Guardiano, Goldstein citesthat Guardiano feels homosexuals may lack the required discipline to keep their urges in check. Excuse me, but why then do they want to be openly gay? Do the members of the alliance also want those so inclined to be openly transgendered? Openly bisexual? Openly Democrat? Openly pouty?
Mr. Goldstein, you will continue for as long as you are allowed to continue, but you will not have the last word on this.
bobmontgomery| 12.23.10 @ 2:45PM
Clarifying, my issue is with Goldstein. If they are capable of self-discipline, why is this discussion necessary?
Bigg| 12.23.10 @ 3:47PM
How sad that Mr Goldstein's insightful article was met with such ignorance, prejudice and open bigotry. Thankfully the country is leaving people like quartermaster and his chorus of henchmen behind and moving toward true equality. It just can't happen fast enough.
darcy| 12.23.10 @ 7:37PM
Bigg: Is that short for bigot? Prejudice?
You libs and leftists toss those terms around as if you're pure blood, innocent, without rancor or hate against traditional values, Christianity AND Christians.
Well guess what? You're the bigot, Bigg. Not us. We're the ones holding to normative behavior, behavior that has been the hallmark of Western civilization since centuries before "progressives" entered the scene to deliver the new oracles. And for our efforts we're assaulted verbally with labels that more accurately fit yourselves. You want to see a bigot? Look in the mirror.
And I wouldn't be so quick to crow.
PattyMor| 12.23.10 @ 4:11PM
What's next? They will probably remove the tax exemption of any church that preaches against homosexuality.
godofredus | 12.23.10 @ 7:11PM
I was amazed by Mr. Goldstein's reasonableness and not the least astounded by the fire, stake and noose with which he was attacked. Having known many retired military who are gay (including a Korean war Marine, purple heart vet) I do not see what the fuss is about. Moreover I know that the real problem is is not the combat guys but the highly trained support men and women: medical staff, computer experts, linguists, and so forth that we are loosing because of bigots among their supervisors.
God help us all. I am a retired minister and the Jesus I know is accepting not rejecting....
darcy| 12.23.10 @ 7:54PM
The Jesus you know does not exist. He is a figment of your liberal theology. And, btw, thank you very much for your contributions to the degradation of our culture at large. If it had not been for the church turning its back on the truth of Scripture, denying the divinity of Christ, mythologizing the resurrection (continuing to use those terms but adopting different meanings for them), gutting the Bible of its Gospel content, and replacing it with the social gospel/social justice message, we wouldn't be at this sorry juncture now.
"For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and few there be that find it." Matthew 7:13-14.
Not rejecting? You think Jesus opens wide his arms to unrepentant sinners? Really?
Forgiveness comes to those who seek it, not to those who reject it, much less to those who deny Jesus is the Christ.
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:33PM
Most people want to stop at Matt 7:12 - "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets." I once had an exchange with a local newspaper editor who quoted the golden rule to advocate inclusion of all, much like godofredus does above. I pointed out that he was cutting out parts of his "interview" that didn't suit his purpose. His response, "But that [vv. 13-14] doesn't make any sense" or words to that effect.
The problem with starting to cut parts out of scripture is that you don't know when to stop. It sure didn't do anything for Thomas Jefferson's spiritual or moral life, and it won't for anyone today.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Doc| 12.24.10 @ 12:07AM
Well said Sir.. someone who get it..
Merry Xmas from the Somali Basin...
Doc:
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:19PM
There's a lot of talk about here about who has the more intelligent argument. I think mere intelligence is overrated in parsing this issue. We ought to be keeping our eyes on the moral issues first and foremost.
Consider the Wiemar Republic of Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s, in which open homosexuality was fairly widespread. The Germans of that era were perhaps the most intelligent, most learned, most technologically advanced people in the world. Yet they dutifully and uncritically accepted, supported and implemented the greatest concentrated collection of moral horrors the world had ever seen. As C.S. Lewis has noted, secular people in Western culture who trumpet their intelligence but neglect the moral part of life are like men without chests. That is, the intelligence in their head appears large compared only to the size of their own hearts, which are dried up and shriveled. When a person like President Obama can intentionally and repeatedly pave the way for partial birth abortion, which is the sucking out of the brains and the crushing of the skull of a live human being who feels pain, while exhibiting as much emotion as we normally reserve for putting ketchup on our fries, he reveals himself as a man without a chest.
Here are four moral reasons against the gay agenda and the DADT repeal:
First, homsexuality is against nature. The human digestive tract exhibits a sophisticated design to remove waste from the body, not to serve as a receptacle for a reproductive organ. To tear it repeatedly with the entry of foreign objects, and to expose the male reproductive organ to fecal coliform bacteria, is a moral insult to nature and nature's God and a disregard of health. If you reject God, then even from an evolutionary Darwinist viewpoint, it is at least a disadvantageous and self-limiting behavior, since it precludes reproduction.
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:20PM
cont'd...
Second, there is nothing natural or honorable about the emotions of homosexuality, although homosexuals may rise to honorable deeds in spite of it. Homosexuality is all about sex, sex, sex. And male homosexuality is all about physical attractiveness. It is all about the self. Watch a video of a gay pride parade if you have any doubts about that. But in all that pleasure, where is the honor? To be blunt, what is honorable about a man putting his p=nis into another man's r=ctum? About him putting his fist into another man's r=ctum? About him licking another man's @nus? About having 0rgies with many men at one time? Those are all the natural course of unrestrained homosexuality, as San Francisco's bath houses have convincingly proven. Where is nobility? Beauty? Truth? Self-sacrifice? You won't find it, because the unfettered homosexual lifestyle is the moral antithesis of all of these.
Third, as J. Budziszewski has convincingly written in his seminal essay, "The Revenge of Conscience," immorality produces a renegade conscience, like a cancer that turns a good cell into a factory for a deathly virus. The (im)moral engines of the gay rights movement are their own violated consciences. Rather than acknowledge the wrong of what they have done, they attempt to remove any sign of moral disapproval, to suppress the truth at all cost. It is an attempted extermination of moral opposition, a brutal "cleansing" of moral objection. Just as Abraham Lincoln wrote that all the states would eventually be either slave or free, but not both, this is an attempt to force positive approval of homosexuality in every nook and cranny of the culture. It will never stop, because the conscience is still propelling them to do something about the awful guilt they feel. Why else are drugs and alcohol so widespread among gays?
Fourth, it is based on a false anthropological concept. The U.S. Constitution inhabits a moral world in which humanity is fallen and whose evil impulses must be restrained. Socialism, on the other hand, assumes that humans are basically good and they lack only a good external environment. They are perfectible, if only smart people would direct the drive to perfection. The justification for thrusting gays into the military is built on this moral philosophy. With the right direction, the right indoctrination, the right policies--all carried out by enlightened intellectuals like those in Congress and the gay rights movement, of course--the American soldier is morally malleable, putty in the hand, clay on the potter's wheel. The fact that such movements have always ended in horror and tragedy (more than 100,000,000 murders worldwide and counting) deters them not a bit. "The perfect military society is within our grasp. We just need to use a little force to get it moving...."
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:20PM
cont'd ....
Now for for some practical reasons against DADT repeal:
First, this change will collapse the sine qua non of successful combat units. War is a grim and terrible business, but sometimes it is necessary in the broken world we inhabit. The one thing that holds men together in combat is something called small unit cohesion--that men put their very lives in the hands of others, as comrades with whom they share a sort of intimacy that in some ways transcends even marriage partners. But it is specifically not sexual. It is a camaraderie that is reflected by utter trust, and utter self-sacrifice if needed. Introducing an exclusionary dynamic--romantic love coupled with ardent sexual desire--destroys this small unit cohesion.
Second, this will destroy recruiting in the Armed Forces. There are not enough gays to fill the forces, and the traditionally moral families that supply a bulk of the forces, especially the officers, will be repelled by this top-down, beltway lusted, Barney Frank designed culture change. They will not join, and they will leave early. Nearly half of the marines in the DADT "study" indicated they would leave earlier than they had planned if this were implemented. Twelve percent of the survey respondents across all the DoD branches said they were likely to leave early. That's a quarter million highly trained people.
Third, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases will rise precipitously in the ranks. Gay sex is all about embracing risk, and gay men are abandoning "safe sex" and condoms in droves. It's as if they have a death wish. Since HIV is now a politically correct disease and is no longer an acceptable reason for immediate discharge from the military, these people will stay on convalescent duty until retirement, further dragging down the force. When blood of an HIV-positive man is spattered on his platoon, or they put their hands into his gut to put his intestines back in place, there will be more infections. There is a reason that even one gay sexual encounter disqualifies blood donation for life--it has been scientifically shown to have a high correlation with risk of passing blood and bodily fluid-borne pathogens.
To me, this looks like a material change in the terms of an enlistment contract, in which the Government is defaulting. Worth a lawsuit, I shouldn't wonder.
darcy| 12.23.10 @ 8:22PM
Excellent contribution, Dean from Ohio.
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:27PM
Thanks.!
Dean from Ohio| 12.23.10 @ 8:23PM
That Aaron Goldstein has had 3 posts on how people are dissing him personally says something about his focus--it seems to be on himself. That's what's wrong with this whole issue. People are willing to do all kinds of experiments on the military in a time of war to suit their own desires and quell their own consciences. Self-centeredness writ large.
"Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life."
Old Soldier| 12.23.10 @ 8:52PM
Goldstein keeps prating about "feelings," as though feelings were the only thing that matters. But that's typical of liberals--everything they do is about "feelings," utterly divorced from reason, experience, or knowledge. DADT was a workable compromise that allowed homosexuals to serve honorably while the rest of the military community was spared the worst excesses of their "lifestyle." Now the "feelings" of the minority are to be elevated above the needs of the greater whole. If that results in less effectiveness, well, that's just the price of "progress."
Honza Prchal| 12.29.10 @ 1:33PM
My own experience with the issue, which made me less enthusiastic about this particular form of integration during the Bush '41-Clinton transition was in my old mens' fencing team - where the only guys who still talked to our lone gay teammate were a Buddhist and a bunch of fairly hardline Christians (a decided minority of the team). None of the progressives who "felt comfortable with" homosexuality and were outraged by DADT as a sell-out did anything beyond harass and shun the guy. He quit the team, despite the urgings of us knuckle-dragging reactionaries because there was too much pressure and he felt (correctly) that he was interfering with team cohesion - team cohesion at a major research university made up of guys older than the average recruit and who didn't have to live with each other in close contact.
Attitudes considered in the abstract are not necessarily good predictors of behavior - especially in the high stress environment of a deployed combat unit. It's not the idea of liasons in the foxholes that's the problem, but that of pulling favors because of "relationships" that can interfere with cohesion and the chain of command, and the particular added dimension of fun these relationships add when gay ones are added to the mix. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned applies to men too, though often differently, and it certainly applies in same sex relationships. Such things can poison entire communities, and military units are small communities that cannot afford such discord.