i) There's a debate brewing about whether women should be required to register for the draft. I think some conservatives are taking an understandable, but morally untenable position on this issue.
I oppose women in combat. For that matter, I oppose the coed military.
But I also oppose letting identity politicians get away with conferring both equal rights and special rights or super rights on their protected classes.
ii) Presumably, most conservatives don't believe in banning women from the military in toto. We don't object to women as doctors, nurses, tech support, or military intelligence (to cite a few examples) At least I don't.
iii) The line is often drawn in reference to "combat". But that's ambiguous. I think "women in combat" is often used as a synonym for women in Spec Ops. The elite fighting units.
In one sense, that's a clear-cut demarcation. But most soldiers are potential combatants. Most draftees in WWII and Vietnam weren't Spec Ops.
To take another comparison, if a woman is a sailor whose destroyer is embroiled in a naval battle, isn't everyone on board, including the cooks, combatants in that situation?
iv) It's difficult to untangle female combatants from the coed military. To be consistent, you have to challenge the coed military. Otherwise, it is arbitrary, both in principle and practice, to draw the line with "women in combat".
v) Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Marine veteran, has introduced a bill requiring women, just like men, to register for the draft. That's not because he actually supports the policy. Rather, it's a wedge tactic.
Are Democrat lawmakers, and Democrat voters, really seriously about equal rights for women? This is an attempt to call their bluff.
Women are a key voting block in the Democrat coalition. But will they balk at draft registration? Will this split a key voting block?
Female Democrats may love the idea of equality, but if they actually have skin in the game, will they blink? Will they backpedal? It's designed to create a dilemma for feministic identity politics. Make them admit that men and women are physically and psychologically different in ways that make women unsuitable for certain occupations, and vice versa.
Predictably, some conservatives have recoiled at this tactic. However, there's a problem with that reaction. Conservatives often complain that Republic politicians fight with one hand tied behind their back. Democrat politicians can say whatever they like, while Republicans walk on egg shells.
But when Republicans like Hunter fight with both hands, some conservatives say, "No! No! You must retie one hand behind your back!"
I agree with Hunter's approach. Liberals make headway in part because they don't have skin in the game. The ruling class makes the underclass bear the brunt of liberal policies. The ruling class doesn't suffer the consequences of its own oppressive policies.
We need to make Democrat politicians and their constituents pay a political price for their initiatives. Are Democrat politicians prepared to alienate a key voting block?
vi) But there's more at issue than tactics. There's a point of principle.
It is unjust for women to have equal access to all the plume positions in the military while men take all the risks. It is unjust for women to assume command positions while men assume all the risks. Where female officers can order men into battle, but avoid action themselves. Conservative mustn't dishonor our men in uniform by defending that kind of egregious double standard. That betrays our men.
Likewise, it's a euphemistic lie to call someone a soldier who isn't even potentially a combatant. If women are exempt from combat units, then they should be excluded from any soldierly position. If they aren't combatants even in principle, then they aren't real soldiers.
vii) In addition, there's a difference between head knowledge and know-how. You can graduate first in your class from Annapolis or West Point, but that's no substitute for hands-on experience. Not only is experience on the battlefield an important supplement and complement to a formal military education, but it has a winnowing effect. The only way of finding out who's a natural leader, who has the adaptive talent and native tactical sense, is to put the aspirant in a situation that will test their mettle.
You can't seriously have women generals and admirals who have no combat experience. Their competence has never been put to the test where it counts.
The choice is either to allow women in combat or disallow women as officers. Do one or the other.
viii) Furthermore, shared risk is essential to respect. Solders respect commanders who don't order a subordinate to do anything the commander won't do.
ix) Finally, this isn't just my armchair analysis. See how some real soldiers weigh in:
Sorry rainmaker, but here is where i disagree with you. IF women want to serve in combat arms, and get true equality, then they damn well should also have to sign up with the Select Service, just like guys do.
http://forums.militarytimes.com/showthread.php/9562-Bush-Rubio-Christie-Women-should-be-eligible-for-Selective-Service
I believe the question was (paraphrased) "Since they can fill combat roles, should they be required to register for the draft?" It only makes sense that the answer to this question be yes. Now, if the question was "Do you think women should be in combat roles?" then I might expect some differing answers, but that wasn't the question. If they said that women should be in combat roles but NOT have to register for selective service, then they would be idiots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is discrimination. And that's not always a bad thing.So discrimination is ok if the women are the one benefiting? That sounds like how you are saying it.
Now you know how I feel when I see men screaming at the top of their lungs about how they feel women should have to register for the selective service too.While i feel the same way when i see people scream that we 'need to treat women equal, but not equal'. I have and always will say, IF they want equality, then that should also include RESPONSIBILITY. Part of that responsibility is the signing up for selective service. Part of the 'equality' that goes with that is being in combat arms. If they don't want combat arms, then they don't need to worry about selective service.
BUT since they Do seem to want to be in the combat arms orgs, then they bloody well should be required to sign up.
Put yourself in this situation: you have a daughter in her mid 20's. She's married, and has two children. All of a sudden, your daughter's number comes up. She's drafted, handed a rifle, and is sent into combat half way across the world... all while your son in law is living large in the comfort of that three bedroom house in the suburbs. While your daughter is doing the fighting.I see that as no different from 'your son is married and has 2 kids, and your son has to go off and fight a war which he may not come back from'. Or are you saying men's lives are not as important as women's lives?
Really, do things HAVE to be equal? Whatever happened to feeling that, as men, we have responsibilities... namely, the ones that we're more physically and emotionally equipped to handle, so that women won't have to?I've said this many times, and I'll say it again: too many men are hiding behind feminism, because they feel that feminism frees them from their responsibilities as men. Feminism has men handing their balls over to women.
So what 'responsibilities' are exclusively men?
http://forums.militarytimes.com/showthread.php/9562-Bush-Rubio-Christie-Women-should-be-eligible-for-Selective-Service?p=362100#post362100
Yeah, great, Steve, if one of my traditionalist daughters is drafted I'll be sure to call you up and congratulate you on the hard-line stance of "making feminists have skin in the game." What a _great_ strategy--sacrificing everybody's daughters to rubbing the feminists' noses in their own principles.
ReplyDeleteNot.
i) That's a purely emotional rant.
Deleteii) In addition, it's a blatantly dishonest response. My argument wasn't confined to rubbing the noses of feminists in their own principles.
Beyond the tactical aspect, I pointed out that there are issues regarding the just treatment of male soldiers, the indispensable value of combat experience for future officers, and the role of respect.
It's ironic to see you instantly order your position the menu of identity politics. Because you're a women, wife, and mother (of daughters), that's the only viewpoint that counts. To hell with men. To hell with sons. To hell with justice. To hell with men in uniform.
Steve, *no one* in this country is more opposed than I am to the co-ed military. No one. Not you or anyone else.
DeleteBut please, excuse me? You're telling me it's "just" to draft traditional women? Let's suppose I'm a man and have no daughters at all. I'm _still_ going to tell you that's unjust. There is nothing remotely just about it. Using the phrase "my daughters" merely makes it vivid, but the fundamental point is what it is.
It's wrong to draft women into the military, period. The co-ed military is wrong. This just expands that and hardens its insane principles all the further. Drafting women to be warriors is perverse and wicked. It doesn't become non-perverse and non-wicked just because we already have other stupid policies in place in the military (like making women generals and all the rest). Two stupid, wicked policies don't make one just policy. It just expands the stupidity and perverseness.
And it's bad for men, too. Because men, as you well know, are forced to lie in the military to hide the truth about women's readiness. They are placed at greater risk because of more and more co-ed situations. They are forced to kow-tow to women generals with chips on their shoulders, etc. There is nothing _helpful_ or _just_ towards men in putting _more women_ in the military and integrating them _still more_. So it's pretty dumb to say that opposing drafting women is saying, "To hell with men." Opposing drafting women is just trying to stop America from taking _another_ insane step in the insane direction of the co-ed military.
As for the indispensable value of combat experience for future officers, I agree with you, but since we are also agreed that female officers are a bad idea, taking the stupid pretense that women make good combat officers to its reductio ad absurdam of giving them combat experience doesn't _help_ anything.
We can see this by a further reductio: If we had ten-year-old soldiers and were pretending that they could be generals, that wouldn't make it a good and just idea to put ten-year-olds into ground combat because of the "indispensable value of combat experience for future officers." It would be less crazy and less harmful just to keep on playing "let's pretend" that 10-year-olds can be good generals while _not_ putting them into combat to get killed, to trigger other soldiers' instincts to protect them, etc. The "let's pretend" is stupid, but it's not as stupid as being "logical" and "fair" and putting the 10-year-olds in combat.
Mutatis mutandis, the same point is true for women in combat.
When our country is heading down a wrong road, it is destructively insane, especially for someone who _knows_ that it is a wrong road, to come along and insist that people *keep going further* down that wrong road. It isn't principled. It isn't fair. It's just completely wrong-headed.
Lydia,
DeleteMy grandma used to tell me a story about a frog in a pot of water. If the heat of the water is slowly turned up the frog may sit voluntarily in the pot while it is boiled alive. If the heat were turned up quickly it would realize the danger it is in and leap out.
I think some people are arguing that the United States has been slowing strolling down a wrong and destructive for a long time. It has done this in a sort of somnambulist way because the change is so incremental. No fault divorce, for instance, is just one step that prepared the culture for gay marriage (there were other small steps, of course) which has now been a small step towards the transgender battles we are now "fighting" (as if we can't shake the fog of sleep). If we can kick the people down the road a bit they may realize that the path is dangerous and get off the path entirely. Better to get burnt than boiled alive.
As pure strategy, that is not a wise strategy. First, it is not good to enact objectively wrong policies merely in the hopes of shocking people. For example, America has a problem (I think) with racial politics, but it would be wrong for me to advocate a policy in which, say, the murder of a black man officially carries a higher penalty than the murder of a white man, simply in the hopes that this will shock people into "getting off the path" of racial identity politics. That's bad governance. The legislator is responsible for trying to pass laws that are not objectively wrong laws. That, presumably, is why even Hunter and Zinke have said that they would *vote against* their own proposed law! They aren't really proposing it. They just want a "conversation."
DeleteNow, their strategy (as they state it) is not as bad as _actually_ advocating such a law in hopes of shocking people, but it's still objectionable as it is a bluff, a kind of grand-standing, and not saying what you mean. It also has the danger of backfiring, as some legislators might actually vote for it and pass it, to Hunter's and Zinke's chagrin. If they want to start a conversation, they should propose a law that actually does what they really want--e.g., taking women out of combat, for example.
In any event, all of this is aside from all the talk about "justice," which is just wrong-headed and confused from any complementarian. A real complementarian knows full-well that it is not actually unjust to send men, but not women, into combat. A wise complementarian knows that there is no requirement in the moral law for the military to ruin itself *still further* in order to be consistent with the foolish policies already passed. A real complementarian knows that putting women into fuller integration into combat positions would be bad for military preparedness and bad for both men and women and thus that there is no requirement in "justice" to do this. Hence, a real complementarian should _never_ say that someone like me is saying "To hell with justice," "To hell with men" or "To hell with men in uniform." Indeed, a reasonable complementarian would know that drafting women and putting them in combat is the real way of saying "to hell with men in uniform" and is objectively _unjust_, being based upon a denial of reality and human nature, both male and female.
Hence I will go so far as to say that Steve's last response to my comment shows yet another thing that is wrong with the "poison pill" strategy: Trying to defend it causes people who know better to get tangled up and to start talking like feminists even though they know better. It causes them to attack people who are, like them, opposed to the co-ed military and who understand the differences between men and women and, bizarrely, to attack such people as hating men and advocating injustice.
Any strategy that causes that much confusion should be condemned on that ground alone.
I repeat: Even if I were an unmarried man with no daughters, I would still be able to see that women in the military is different from men in the military and that a fortiori women in combat is different from men in combat and women being drafted is different from men being drafted. The hypothetical "me as a man with no daughters" still isn't therefore some kind of blind feminist who thinks men and women are identical or should be treated identically. This doesn't mean that men's "lives are less valuable than women's" but that men are _designed_ (by God, I happen to think, but I suppose one could say "are by nature," if one wanted not to mention God) to be fighters, warriors, and protectors in a way that women aren't. Therefore they have a different set of duties from the duties that women have.
ReplyDeleteY'know, that's part of what one recognizes when one _isn't_ a feminist. And it would be bizarre to say that _not being a feminist_ equals "appealing to identity politics."
More: There is nothing of "identity politics" in pointing out that forcing all women between ages 18-26 to register for the draft requires not only _feminists_ to have "skin in the game" but also non-feminist women, women who are utterly opposed to the co-ed military, women who have no desire to have the dubious "advantages" of the possibility of a military career with promotion.
ReplyDeleteHence, the appearance of doing something that is only fair by "making feminists have skin in the game" is misleading, as many who have never asked for this in any way and are in fact opposed to it will also have their "skin in the game."
It is entirely possible to point this out without reference to one's own loved ones. Such a reference only makes the point more vivid. It was not meant to distract attention from the fundamental challenge to the main post's idea of trying to make progress in this area by forcing women to have "skin in the game."
"Steve, *no one* in this country is more opposed than I am to the co-ed military. No one. Not you or anyone else."
ReplyDeleteThen that's where you should concentrate your fire. Moreover, proposed legislation requiring women, along with men, to register for the draft, draws attention to that very issue.
"But please, excuse me? You're telling me it's 'just' to draft traditional women?"
Are you being willfully dishonest? Do you simply find it polemically useful to misrepresent what someone said? Or does your passion disarm your critical detachment?
I didn't mention whether or not it is just to draft traditional women. Don't recast the issue, then impute that to me as if that's what I said. Merely because you feel passionately about an issue doesn't give you license to be unethical in how your argue with people.
As I framed the issue, it is unjust to men, unjust to male soldiers, to have women in the military who rise through the ranks to positions of command, including top positions as generals and admirals, and in that capacity order men into combat while they themselves remain exempt from combat.
Are you avoiding that particular issue because the unjust treatment of men isn't one of your priorities?
"Drafting women to be warriors is perverse and wicked. It doesn't become non-perverse and non-wicked just because we already have other stupid policies in place in the military (like making women generals and all the rest). Two stupid, wicked policies don't make one just policy."
The immediate question at issue isn't drafting women, or even requiring women to register for the draft, but proposed legislation that will force the issue.
"And it's bad for men, too. Because men, as you well know, are forced to lie in the military to hide the truth about women's readiness"
Lydia, you're attacking symptoms rather than causes. The underlying problem is the coed military. The question is how to expose that problem. Sometimes bad policies have to fall of their own dead weight before people acknowledge that the policy is a failure. Incidentally, God often employed that tactic with Israel.
"So it's pretty dumb to say that opposing drafting women is saying, 'To hell with men.'"
And it's pretty unscrupulous of you to dodge my actual arguments, attack something I didn't say, feigning to rebut what supposedly I wrote, while flinging epithets behind you to cover your tracks.
Cont. "As for the indispensable value of combat experience for future officers, I agree with you, but since we are also agreed that female officers are a bad idea, taking the stupid pretense that women make good combat officers to its reductio ad absurdam of giving them combat experience doesn't _help_ anything."
DeleteTo the contrary, taking a bad policy to a ridiculous extreme is one way of discrediting the policy.
"It isn't principled. It isn't fair. It's just completely wrong-headed."
What is unprincipled and unjust is your contemptuous disregard for the situation of male soldiers who take all the risks while female officers, from the safety of CENTCOM, order men into battle. We need to bring the issue to a head one way or another.
"More: There is nothing of 'identity politics' in pointing out that forcing all women between ages 18-26 to register for the draft requires not only _feminists_ to have 'skin in the game' but also non-feminist women, women who are utterly opposed to the co-ed military, women who have no desire to have the dubious 'advantages' of the possibility of a military career with promotion."
You explicitly framed your response as opposition to the prospect of your daughters liability to be drafted. Your role as a mother of daughters selected for your position. That's classic identity politics.
And it's trivially easy to construct a parallel argument. Joe Carter sometimes mentions how conservative support the armed forces until a military recruiter comes around, at which point they get a chilly reception from mothers who don't want their sons to sign up.
As for nonfeministic women, unless you view women has passive little waifs who can only stand by helplessly as they are overtaken by events, it's up to women to get involved in the political process and oppose the coed military.
"In any event, all of this is aside from all the talk about 'justice,' which is just wrong-headed and confused from any complementarian. A real complementarian knows full-well that it is not actually unjust to send men, but not women, into combat."
Aside from your typical resort to patronizing rhetoric, which isn't justified by the quality of your response, this is you doing your bait-n-switch, where you act as if I suggested it's unjust to send men, but not women, into combat.
But you're more than smart enough to know that wasn't my actual argument. Instead, you attack a travesty of my original argument.
My actual argument, as you know full well, is that it's unjust to subject male soldiers to the mortal risk of combat while female commanders, who order them into battle, never set foot on the battlefield.
You try terribly hard to deflect attention away from that particular, systematic injustice, by discussing other problems.
"Y'know, that's part of what one recognizes when one _isn't_ a feminist. And it would be bizarre to say that _not being a feminist_ equals 'appealing to identity politics.'"
That's yet another example of you fighting dirty. You recontextualize the original statement, then pretend that you're responding to something that was never said or implied. I have very limited tolerance for your antics.
Honestly, Steve, I don't know precisely what you are now proposing as far as "bringing the issue to a head one way or another" and "taking a bad policy to a ridiculous extreme." At places you seem to be saying that you _want_ women to be ordered into combat and into the draft in order to "bring the issue to a head" and rectify what you see as the injustice of women being able to order men into combat but not having to go themselves. At other times you seem to be saying only that you want to draw attention to the badness of the co-ed military and try to change it by making (as it were, facetiously, like Hunter and Zinke are doing) the suggestion that women be forced into combat and the draft in order to create a conversation about the messed-up-ness of the co-ed military.
ReplyDeleteAs for the injustice that you keep mentioning concerning women in high positions in the military who are not forced into combat, I see that as part and parcel of the _general_ pathology of the co-ed military, as you do. Calling it an injustice as you do, I think, distorts both the issue and the best solution, because it gives the impression that it would be *better for men* to order women into combat, whereas in fact it would be *worse for men*. I have so much respect and sympathy for men in the co-ed military that I am of the opinion that the best thing we can do for them is not encumber them with women, who are generally less qualified, in *more* places. In general, the military has *never* operated (and shouldn't operate) according to abstract ideas of "fairness" in who is assigned which roles. The principle is supposed to be that people are assigned roles according to where they can be most useful. Ordering women into combat further *undermines* military readiness and further *warps* the idea of putting people where they actual belong according to their abilities. Saying that it is required because otherwise it is unfair to men who can be ordered into combat by women who, themselves, do not have to go into combat just confuses the issue with more identity politics (in this case, male accusations of group unfairness) rather than bringing us back to the biological facts on the ground which should be driving deployment and promotion. It's certainly true that those facts on the ground *should also* prevent women from being promoted to the extent that they are and given authority over men to the extent that they are, but it is *not* a good idea to take that bad policy, make a claim of "unfairness" based on it, and make much worse bad policy for actual military deployment. And it would be supremely ironic to do so in the name of "caring about men" when men will definitely suffer harm as a result of putting women into full ground combat.
"Honestly, Steve, I don't know precisely what you are now proposing as far as 'bringing the issue to a head one way or another' and 'taking a bad policy to a ridiculous extreme.'"
DeleteThat's another one of your rhetorical ploys you use from time to time, pretending that "honestly," you just don't know what someone's position you disagree with really amounts to.
"At places you seem to be saying that you _want_ women to be ordered into combat and into the draft in order to 'bring the issue to a head' and rectify what you see as the injustice of women being able to order men into combat but not having to go themselves."
A jaundiced interpretation that's only possible given your knee-jerk hostility to the post.
"Calling it an injustice as you do, I think, distorts both the issue…"
To the contrary, it's a truthful description. You resist acknowledging the issue in those terms because it makes it more difficult for you to compartmentalize the issues.
"because it gives the impression that it would be *better for men* to order women into combat…"
No, that's you laboring to discredit a serious moral issue by deliberately foisting a false interpretation on the argument.
"The principle is supposed to be that people are assigned roles according to where they can be most useful."
Which knowingly oversimplifies the issue. That's not the only principle. There's the principle of a commander who knows how to direct a battle because he has actual battlefield experience. There's the principle of a commander who doesn't order his subordinates to do anything he's not prepared to do. There's the principle of equal duties for equal rights. There's the principle of having a commander that subordinates respect–which affects unit moral and performance.
As far as roles go, the role of a soldier is to do whatever is required of soldiers. If women in the military are exempt, then they aren't real soldiers, in which case they should not have access to all the same positions as men who undertake the actual hazards. It's a dangerous job. If you're not up to that, don't be a soldier in the first place.
"Ordering women into combat further *undermines* military readiness…"
One of your polemical tactics is to deflect attention away from one issue by substituting a different issue. As a result, your attempted rebuttals are studiedly lop-sided.
"Saying that it is required because otherwise it is unfair to men who can be ordered into combat by women who, themselves, do not have to go into combat…"
I didn't say it was "unfair". I said it was "unjust".
"…just confuses the issue with more identity politics (in this case, male accusations of group unfairness)"
Now you're attempting to execute a cute tu quoque maneuver, where criticizing double standards is equivalent to "identity politics." Do you apply that same approach to people who oppose female genital mutilation? Is that just "identity politics"?
"That's another one of your rhetorical ploys you use from time to time, pretending that "honestly," you just don't know what someone's position you disagree with really amounts to."
DeleteNo, I do not play tricks, and I do not lie. It _appears_ to me that you are saying that you _propose_ that women be sent into combat and be drafted whenever men are, because this would rectify the injustice you describe of women commanders sending men into combat but not having to go themselves. However, you also endorsed Hunter's bill, while Hunter himself has made it clear that he does _not_ really propose what is in the bill but rather is introducing the bill only facetiously and will vote against it himself. He is openly doing so as a kind of known political gimmick in order to induce discussion--a poison pill ploy. I don't agree with that tactic of his, but at least I know what he is not actually proposing. Your own discussion has been much less clear, especially given your passionate invocation of injustice concerning women commanders and combat. So what, precisely, are you actually proposing? Do you in fact think it would be _better_, because more just, than our current situation, for women to be drafted and forced into combat? You do not say clearly.
" There's the principle of a commander who knows how to direct a battle because he has actual battlefield experience. There's the principle of a commander who doesn't order his subordinates to do anything he's not prepared to do. There's the principle of equal duties for equal rights. There's the principle of having a commander that subordinates respect–which affects unit moral and performance.
As far as roles go, the role of a soldier is to do whatever is required of soldiers. If women in the military are exempt, then they aren't real soldiers, in which case they should not have access to all the same positions as men who undertake the actual hazards. It's a dangerous job. If you're not up to that, don't be a soldier in the first place."
As you know, I agree with all of this and hate the co-ed military with a burning passion. Why rant about it to me as if I disagree with it?
But it cannot be _rectified_ by putting women into combat situations. That just makes matters worse. It would be like getting a mathematical equation wrong in designing a bridge and then insisting that we have to be consistent and go ahead and design the bridge with the wrong equation, even though it will fall down and kill people five years from now! Sometimes you can't go _on_; you can only go _back_. And if those in charge refuse to go back, it's _less bad_ for them to be inconsistent than for them to keep going on doing more and more crazy things in the name of consistency.
This is you oversimplifying the issue. The issue has many moving parts. Parts that are distinct. Whether they are separable depends on how voters respond.
DeleteFor instance, a bill to mandate universal draft registration is a step removed from actual universal draft registration, which is, in turn, another step removed from an actual draft. A bill is not a law. Moreover, draft registration doesn't even make a draft probable. And there are opportunities at each stage of the process for voters to push back.
If the bill fails to pass due to public opposition, if the bill passes, but is voted due to public opposition, if the law is repealed due to public opposition, that isn't merely a repudiation of universal draft registration, but a repudiation of the very presupposition underlying a coed military. It means voter are admitting that men and women have some natural physical and psychological differences that disqualify women from combat. That's a huge concession. That's a huge setback for feminism. And not just in theory, but as a force in public policy.
As far as women who are not just passive and should engage in the political process and oppose the co-ed military, I can speak here not particularly as a woman but as a long-time watcher of this very issue, and I can say that the political process has made (here as in so many other social issue) only the most indirect and unsatisfying difference to it. Republican after Republican President, sometimes in other ways very good Presidents, has failed to *roll back* the further integration of women into the armed forces by their predecessors. At most, the political process has served to slow the advance of the disastrous integration of women into the military. Certainly, it's good for women as well as men to be involved in the political process. But it makes little sense to bring this up in the context of our discussion. No one (woman or man) should be caused harm by an unjust law. Drafting women is unjust because it is against nature. Drafting women who are *opposed* to women in the military is doubly unjust, because it cannot even be said that they are getting the fruits of their own preferred policies. The draft is coercive, and even the requirement to register is backed by the force of law and punishment. It is pointless to reply to those points by saying that women are not helpless who can only stand by helplessly while overtaken by events. Actually, not just women but men are _forced_ to register for the draft and, if drafted, are _forced_ to be conscripted. There certainly is a measure of helplessness there, regardless of what political involvement they have or haven't undertaken previously. And it's wrong to draft women. Your odd comment about women "not just being helpless waifs" appears to be a case of just looking for something to say so as not to acknowledge the relevance of my point concerning non-feminist women being forced to register for the draft or even be drafted.
ReplyDelete"As far as women who are not just passive and should engage in the political process and oppose the co-ed military, I can speak here not particularly as a woman but as a long-time watcher of this very issue, and I can say that the political process has made (here as in so many other social issue) only the most indirect and unsatisfying difference to it."
DeleteThat's because many voters need to have a personal stake in the issue to motivate them to mobilize for or against a particular issue or candidate.
"No one (woman or man) should be caused harm by an unjust law."
It doesn't become law all by itself. It only becomes law by the acquiescence of the electorate.
"Drafting women is unjust because it is against nature."
How would that make it "unjust" rather than simply wrong?
"The draft is coercive, and even the requirement to register is backed by the force of law and punishment."
An objection that applies with equal force to male conscripts.
"There certainly is a measure of helplessness there, regardless of what political involvement they have or haven't undertaken previously."
If voters do nothing to head it off.
"Your odd comment about women "not just being helpless waifs" appears to be a case of just looking for something to say so as not to acknowledge the relevance of my point concerning non-feminist women being forced to register for the draft or even be drafted."
You act as if women don't have any say in the political process. To the contrary, women are probably the largest voting block of all. And this is a flashpoint issue on which many women all across the political spectrum can unite.
Moreover, opposing universal draft registration would force people to confront the irrationality of the coed military.
"How would that make it "unjust" rather than simply wrong?"
DeleteBecause it is an unjust law that punishes people for not acting contrary to their natures.
"It doesn't become law all by itself. It only becomes law by the acquiescence of the electorate."
"If voters do nothing to head it off."
"
You act as if women don't have any say in the political process. To the contrary, women are probably the largest voting block of all. And this is a flashpoint issue on which many women all across the political spectrum can unite."
As you well know, military policy is influenced only indirectly by the electorate. Representatives in Congress have some decision-making power. Unelected officers and others in the DoD have some, and so forth. No direct referendums are being presented to the voters on women in the draft. Certainly I think we _should_ oppose the co-ed military _and_ women in combat _and_ women's being drafted to the greatest extent that we can.
However, in no way does that mean that individual women who do not support those policies are anything other than victims of the policies if they get swept up in them. "The acquiescence of the voters" never means, as you know, the individual acquiescence of each and every voter! Not by a long shot. Policies are enacted all the time that you and I _strongly_ oppose, and we are not to be held responsible for them. Moreover, if we are harmed by them, then we deserve support rather than blame.
Compare: Suppose that some young couple opens a bakery in a town that has had a gay rights ordinance on the books since before these people were born. They then get fined out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual "wedding." It would be supremely weird, even creepy, to start talking about how that ordinance couldn't have passed without "the acquiescence of the voters" and these people are voters, so they aren't just "helpless waifs." What?? It's a policy they have always opposed, have been given no personal power or authority as individuals to overturn, and are now being directly and gravely harmed by. They deserve only sympathy and support, not some kind of convoluted, grumpy rhetoric about how they "aren't just helpless waifs." To do that would be to engage in an extremely determined and even rather creepy kind of victim-blaming. And if, moreover, such convoluted rhetoric were combined with, say, painting them as members of a group (e.g., evangelical Christians), complaining that the group *qua* group hadn't "done enough" to oppose gay rights, and then using that as an excuse for dismissing the couple's own claim to support and sympathy for their plight...well...that would be even worse. Victim-blaming justified on the basis of pure group membership as opposed to individual actions and deserts.
"Moreover, opposing universal draft registration would force people to confront the irrationality of the coed military."
I certainly support _opposing_ universal draft registration. That's what I want everybody to do. We should oppose having women register for the draft. I wouldn't mind repealing the draft altogether, though, as I've discussed over at W4, by itself I don't think it would fully address the concern that women would be hastily drafted later along with men if the draft were reinstated.
"Because it is an unjust law that punishes people for not acting contrary to their natures."
DeleteAt best, that would only work as an objection to universal conscription. It wouldn't work as an objection to women who volunteer for combat units. So that goes to the complexities of the debate.
Again, analogies can help to show why it is not profitable to get outraged about the unfairness of putting men but not women in combat while women can have high-level military careers and can order men into combat, if that claim of unfairness is being used to justify "taking the policy to its ridiculous extreme." Sometimes there is only one direction to go to rectify foolishness and any other direction is strictly insane and will only harm those for whose sake one is allegedly trying to rectify an injustice. My analogy concerning 10-year-olds makes this point. Here is another: Suppose that the military were aggressively recruiting paraplegics and giving them command over the able-bodied, promoting them to posts of general, and they were then ordering able-bodied men to go into combat. Outside of some strange sci-fi novel where other conditions obtained that don't obtain in the real world, this would be a pathological way to run a military organization. But getting all outraged about this as an injustice and *therefore* saying that the paraplegics should be ordered into ground combat as preparation for being officers would be *crazy*. One might say it purely facetiously, sarcastically, as part of a reductio argument, making it clear that one was not actually proposing it. But one should *never* seriously propose it, even in an attempt to "bring things to a head" or whatever. If it were enacted, it would of course harm _everybody_, the able-bodied as well as the paraplegics. Saying that this has to be done in "fairness" to the able-bodied would not make sense. The last thing the able-bodied soldiers need is a paraplegic commander on the ground with them whom they have to carry around in the middle of battle! Don't do them any dubious favors by putting the paraplegics in battle because otherwise it would be "unfair" to the able-bodied who can be ordered into battle.
ReplyDeleteInsanity is insanity. It's simply _wrong_ to propose to push through insanity, even if one's larger goal is to make some kind of a point and convince people to roll back some other insanity.
This is yet another one of your rhetorical ploys. You recast my actual argument as if it's a case of getting "outraged" by the "unfairness" of the situation. That way, you can pretend this is really just an emotional reaction. You concoct a polemically useful narrative in which you impute certain feelings to me, recast the issue in terms of "fairness" rather than "justice," then proceed to attack your own parody.
DeleteThe word "outraged" was not meant to derail the argument. I have no stock in trying to portray you as merely emotional, but I do think that your idea of injustice here is clouding your judgement. I note that you have repeatedly not directly addressed the point that I have made so often now that I'm getting tired of typing it out. That is also the point that was made by this example. And that is this: Where it would seriously harm military performance, it is not a moral requirement for commanders to deploy people in a certain way. Hence, it cannot be a requirement of justice. Hence, it is wrong-headed to state that women _should_ be sent into combat even under the present circumstances. Yes, it's a bad situation for them to be able to get "plume" positions without being sent into combat. We should ideally have a wider reform (but unfortunately that is improbable). But that doesn't mean that it is *morally required* to send them into combat, since doing so would be militarily an *extremely bad idea*, even worse militarily than the current situation, and those in charge in the military aren't required to make things much worse militarily in the name of consistency and justice. That is the point my example of the paraplegics was meant to make, and it is the point I have made over and over again.
Delete"Where it would seriously harm military performance, it is not a moral requirement for commanders to deploy people in a certain way. Hence, it cannot be a requirement of justice. Hence, it is wrong-headed to state that women _should_ be sent into combat even under the present circumstances."
DeleteThe way you frame the issue deliberately skews the real issue. This isn't just a question of "sending" women into combat. At most, that's only one of several scenarios.
There's also the issue of women who volunteer for combat units. Likewise, there's the addition issue of female commanders.
It is unjust for female officers to order men into battle if the officers are exempt from the same hazards.
And, unsurprisingly, you once again evade the issue of conditionality. The question at issue is not whether it's an "requirement of justice" absolutely, but whether it's a requirement of justice given a situation where you already have women who pursue military careers.
You appear to be saying, quite explicitly in this latest comment, that in our situation, it *is* a requirement of justice in so absolute a sense that to exempt them from combat in this situation is *wrong*.
DeleteSometime we do not have the option to rectify an injustice. If it would harm military performance to lift the combat exemption, then it is not wrong to fail to do so. The current situation of injustice that you highlight may have to be left in place if the only option given to some person to change it is to lift the female combat exemption. What is odd to me is that you do not address the issue of the further harm done by integrating women into combat units. You just keep saying over and over and over again that the current situation is unjust and _assuming_ that, if the only option given for changing that is lifting the combat exemption, then that is incumbent upon those in charge to do.
But sometimes one is saddled with command over an unjust situation but given no wise, moral options that will make it better. That does happen. In that case, it's better to leave the situation as it is than to worsen it in the name of increased justice.
i) The status quo (coed military) generates a moral dilemma. Given a moral dilemma, there may be no unproblematic options. Given a moral dilemma, there may be no one clearly preferable way to resolve the dilemma. That's what makes it a moral dilemma in the first place. Each resolution has unenviable tradeoffs.
DeleteYou can treat the coed military as irreformable in practice, accept the fact that this engenders systematic injustice, and simply try to mitigate the evils of an unjust system.
Or you can challenge the coed military by demanding consistency, in the hopes that the electorate will rebel when the experiment becomes manifestly untenable or alienates too many voters.
ii) And, no, I don't "just keep saying over and over and over again that the current situation is unjust."
Beyond the question of justice I've mentioned the problem of incompetent commanders. What makes them incompetent is their lack of combat experience.
I've also mentioned the problem of commanders whom soldiers can't respect, because the commanders put their men at risk while exempting themselves from the same risks.
But as is your wont, you chronically misrepresent my actual argument by oversimplifying the argument, as if there's only one principle in play.
"What is odd to me is that you do not address the issue of the further harm done by integrating women into combat units."
DeleteBecause that's yet another one of your simplistic objections. Sometimes the way to make a situation better is to make it worse. That may sound contradictory until we tease it out a bit: sometimes the only way to make a situation better in the long-term is to make it worse (or let it worsen) in the short-term.
Voters are crisis-driven. Many voters have to be face-to-face with a crisis before they act.
The alternative is to let it stay bad for years or decades, maybe becoming incrementally even worse over time.
For instance, you had stupid voters who elected a lesbian mayor of Houston. It's only when the political establishment tried to impose a transgender ordinance on the citizens that they rebelled. It had to get worse before it got better.
Or take Obamacare. As passed, the bill contained timebombs. So HHS unilaterally rewrote deadlines and made partisan, ad hoc exceptions to delay the politically onerous consequences.
But it would be preferable to let Obamacare self-destruct. Unfortunately, the only way for some voters to figure out how bad something is is for them to personally experience how bad it is. They have to get their fingers burned.
Suppose some die-hard libertarian opposes the draft completely, and suppose that he points out that the draft will affect _him_ even though he opposes it. (Let's say he's a libertarian but not a pacifist.) It would be maximally weird and totally not to the point for me to respond by saying, "You aren't just a helpless waif. You should be involved in political action to try to get the draft repealed." Maybe he is involved in such political action and maybe he isn't. But whether he is or isn't, if the libertarian _right_ that the draft is _wrong_, then it's _wrong_ regardless. He doesn't have to earn the right to say that it's wrong by bringing me some kind of tally of how many hours he has spent in political action to try to end the draft! It's just a pointless sneer to say, "You aren't a helpless waif."
ReplyDeleteI'd add that your objection fail to make allowance for conditionalities. It may be wrong for something to be the case in the first place. If, however, that is the case, then it's not necessarily wrong to play it out, given the status quo.
ReplyDeleteWomen shouldn't be soldiers. Women shouldn't be military commanders.
If, however, women already are officers, then they should either be required to do what soldiers are properly called upon to do, or cease to be officers (soldiers, commanders).
Keep in mind that at present we have a volunteer military. Women choose to become officers. Although it's wrong for women to be in that position, yet given that situation, it is not wrong to make them perform accordingly. That's a job with corresponding responsibilities.
Take male reservists. We had guys who signed up before 9/11. When they were called up for activity duty, some of them refused. Some became deserters. They signed up for free education, supplementary income, &c.
It was wrong for them to volunteer if they had no intention of fighting. Once, however, they join the military, it isn't wrong to make them do their job.
"If, however, women already are officers, then they should either be required to do what soldiers are properly called upon to do, or cease to be officers (soldiers, commanders)."
DeleteThey should, yes. But if that isn't how things are set up, it can make it _much worse_ to make them actually go out into combat, because they wouldn't be good enough at it and thus would put everyone at greater risk.
"Keep in mind that at present we have a volunteer military. Women choose to become officers. Although it's wrong for women to be in that position, yet given that situation, it is not wrong to make them perform accordingly. That's a job with corresponding responsibilities."
Well, first of all, the context of this debate is the draft, not just the all-volunteer force. What happens in the AVF influences what happens to people who haven't volunteered (because of supreme court precedents). This needs to be kept in mind in setting policy.
But even within the AVF, it's supremely unwise to make people do things that they can't do well. If women can't do well enough at combat, then it's bad for *everyone* to make them do that just because that would be consistent with their rank.
"It was wrong for them to volunteer if they had no intention of fighting. Once, however, they join the military, it isn't wrong to make them do their job."
But in that scenario, the only problem is one of will. If they *can* do their job, then I agree with you. If for some reason the army recruited disproportionately wimpy men as reservists, and they would make poor combatants, then it would be foolish just to try to be consistent and put them into combat to "make them do their job." (I know that isn't how the reserve worked. I'm just imagining the situation more parallel to that of women.)
"Well, first of all, the context of this debate is the draft, not just the all-volunteer force. What happens in the AVF influences what happens to people who haven't volunteered (because of supreme court precedents). This needs to be kept in mind in setting policy."
DeleteThis is you oversimplifying the issue. (i) You've indicated, as a matter of principle, that it's wrong for women to be soldiers (combatants). Fine. (ii) From this you've inferred that it's wrong to require women in the military to be combatants. But that doesn't follow. At the very least, you need to provide a connecting argument form (i) to (ii).
Take a comparison. These two statements are not inconsistent:
i) It is wrong for women to be firefighters.
ii) If women are firefighters, then requiring them to meet the same physical ability tests as men used to before coed fire departments isn't wrong.
More generally, i some women demand equal opportunities (across the board), then they should be expected to assume the same responsibilities.
Yes, I'm using examples where women volunteer for certain jobs. But since we're discussing a point of principle, I only need to provide some clear-cut exceptions to show that this isn't wrong in principle. Somewhere the argument went awry. Maybe the principle is overly broad. Or may be the principle is sound, but the inference is invalid when we're actually considering a conditional proposition where certain preliminaries have already been taken for granted.
The actual parallel in the firefighter case would be _sending women into burning buildings under the very same circumstances as men_. That would be the parallel to "combat." Now, suppose that you have women in your firefighting team who are _not_ Amazon-like, were admitted under the revised, special standards for women in firefighting, and aren't going to be able to support their teammates as well, use axes when required to hack into burning rooms, carry people out of burning buildings as well as men, and so forth. In that case the commander should try his best (though he may be fired or forced to resign if he does this) to keep women out of situations where those physical limitations will endanger themselves, their firefighting teammates, and the people they are trying to rescue. This would mean not sending them into a burning building in a situation where he would send a man. It means not deploying them as firefighters in the "front lines," because you know they aren't strong enough to do the job well. There are lives at stake.
DeleteIt would be tremendously imprudent and wrong to say, "They have to go in there and try to drag those people out, because that's the job they signed up for, and they're getting paid just like a man."
*Ideally*, the whole co-ed firefighter thing would be dismantled. But it's been rammed into place by courts, etc., for decades (courts have even required disparate height requirements in such roles!). Even if/though sensible reform is not going to happen, then, it is better to mitigate its bad effects on everybody by not _pretending_ that the women can do all the things the men can do and sending them into situations where such a pretense has the probability of causing injury and death.
Those are the kinds of principles I am working with, and they obviously apply to actually putting women in combat even in the all-volunteer force.
To make the firefighter example cleaner and more similar to the situation in the military, let us suppose that there is a person who is in charge of how the firefighters are assigned but who is not allowed to keep women out of the positions in which they are receiving pay, etc., as though they were equally competent to men.
DeleteThis is actually quite similar to the situation of the DoD. No one has forced the Obama DoD to "open" all combat positions to women. Lower-level commanders may be forced by DoD higher-ups to put women in combat, but there was a level at which it was an "unforced error." Revamping the entire military and taking women out of command positions would have been a much bigger deal, much harder, and there was no small group of people who would have been able to just declare that to be the case (at least, not without having their orders immediately reversed). But, with the current situation of women's careers in place, they didn't have to "open" ground combat to them.
Now, suppose that the firefighting commander can't change the wages of the women in his unit, can't change the structure, can't even taken them out of a situation where they are directing operations and sending men into burning buildings. He doesn't have that authority. But he _can_ refuse actually to send women into all the same physical situations that men are sent into, and he can even keep in place an explicit policy that they will not be. That is, let's say, up to him.
Then I maintain that he is under _no_ obligation to send the women into the same physical situations and in fact, given what he knows about the physical and psychological differences between men and women, he is obligated _not_ to do so.
This must mean that it is not an absolute requirement of justice for him to do so, despite the fact that it is a highly undesirable situation for the women to be getting paid and given positions of authority while unable to enter into all the physical risks and physical experience of the men. Its undesirability may even be described as "unjust," but it is not an injustice of the sort that must be remedied by going _forward_ if one is not permitted to go _back_, i.e., by putting them into the same physical situations as the men. If he cannot change the overall situation, he is nonetheless fully justified and indeed exercising his role correctly in preventing it from being made worse on the ground by sending the weaker women into the burning buildings.
"The actual parallel in the firefighter case would be _sending women into burning buildings under the very same circumstances as men_."
DeleteNaturally you're laboring to dodge the comparison. But the comparison needn't be analogous at every point, only at the relevant point. The question at issue, as you yourself framed it, is the claim that if it's wrong for X to do something, then it's wrong for X to be required to do something. I provided a counterexample, which you don't challenged directly, thereby conceding that your original argument fails.
"This would mean not sending them into a burning building in a situation where he would send a man. It means not deploying them as firefighters in the 'front lines,' because you know they aren't strong enough to do the job well. There are lives at stake."
You continue to duck the issue of conditional obligations. It may be wrong for someone to do a particular job. If, however, he takes the job, then it's incumbent on him to either do the job he signed up for or else lose his job.
The real choice is not between letting him keep the job, but allowing him to shirk basic job requirements; rather, the choice is between requiring him to do what the job demands or else lose his job.
If a Muslim applies for a job as a municipal bus driver, but refuses to allow kafirs to ride on the bus, it was wrong for him to be a municipal bus driver in the first place. However, having become a bus driver, he incurs a conditional liability to do his job.
The proper choice is not to let him keep his job while refusing to service kafirs, but to either require that he not discriminate against paying customers or else be fired. It is wrong to give Muslim bus drivers an exemption just because they are offended by certain kinds of passengers.
"*Ideally*, the whole co-ed firefighter thing would be dismantled."
And one way of challenging the coed military is to force a consistent policy, to provoke a popular backlash.
" the choice is between requiring him to do what the job demands or else lose his job."
DeleteThis is not the only real choice. It depends crucially on what the job is and on whether you _should_ being trying to induce that person to do those particular actions. If you happen to know that the person is not capable of doing them well and that lives are at stake and more harm will be done, not only to him but to others, if he attempts it, then you should not try to press him to make the attempt. That would be reckless and wrong.
In that situation, if you are not _allowed_ to fire him for being incapable of doing the further duties, you may just be saddled with the unjust, messy situation. But since you are not given the option of reforming the whole thing, it would be _worse_ to try to get him actually to go out and do what he cannot do well, where that will do more harm.
Combat isn't something to play around with. It would be less bad for women to be allowed to "shirk" combat than for them to be put into it. Less bad for *everybody*, men included. Sure, they then shouldn't be commanders either, but those in charge aren't being given the option to change that part of it. And pushing the women to go into combat will only expand the harm done.
The concept of conditional duties that you are employing cannot do the work you are trying to make it do. See my example of the paraplegics, above. The DoD has the responsibility to think in terms of military readiness, of the safety of all troops, and the like. Assigning women to ground combat is bad for all of this. Even the concept of conditional duties cannot require them to make that assignment, and unfortunately in the current situation they are not being given the option of wider reform.
"Combat isn't something to play around with."
DeleteSystemic injustice isn't something to play around with.
Incompetent commanders with no combat experience isn't something to play around with.
"Incompetent commanders with no combat experience isn't something to play around with." I can tell you right now that giving them combat experience for which they are ill-qualified is not going to make them competent. It may, however, make them and the men around them dead.
Delete"I can tell you right now that giving them combat experience for which they are ill-qualified is not going to make them competent. It may, however, make them and the men around them dead."
Delete1. Lydia, you're not trying very hard. There are three scenarios:
i) Not having female commanders
ii) Having female commanders with combat experience.
iii) Having female commanders without combat experience
(i) is best. That, however, is not the status quo. Due to the coed military, we have female commanders. Given the status quo, it's a choice between (ii) and (iii).
You think a commander at CENTCOM or the Pentagon whose knowledge of combat is limited to computer simulated war games isn't going to get men killed when she orders them into battle?
Moreover, not only does combat experience give a commander essential hands-on know-how, but it also helps to weed out graduates who have no actual talent combat from natural leaders. Indeed, that's what field commissions are based on.
2. An alternative is to challenge the status quo (coed army). However, you haven't offered any practical proposal along those lines. Instead, you've been implacably hostile to raising the internal pressure on that sorry arrangement until it explodes.
I'm certainly implacably opposed to putting women in combat, because I think it will be a disastrous policy, with far more bad consequences than good (if any good).
DeleteI'm rather surprised that you seem to think some good-outcome version of your ii is a plausible scenario--successfully combat-trained, strong *female* commanders. I won't say it's a logical impossibility, because almost nothing is, but I think it unlikely, and combined with all the crashing and burning and collateral damage (as it were) if there were a few such successes it wouldn't be worth it. And I mean to the men, by the way.
I also see a tension between your idea that putting women in combat would "raise the internal pressure on the sorry arrangement until it explodes" and your apparent prediction that doing so will give us successful female commanders with combat experience. After all, if putting women in combat would *work out well*, in practical terms, it wouldn't raise the pressure on the situation! On the one hand you (like me) seem to anticipate that it would lead to very bad outcomes. That's how it's supposed to raise the pressure on the sorry situation until it explodes.
I'm not willing to pay that price, including in men's lives. You, it seems, are. In the hopes that it will bring reform in the long term. That hope is not only implausible but worth it, to my mind, and it would be irresponsible for anyone in charge to be a party to the plan.
Of course, as it stands, the intent of the DoD is to put women in combat and--you and I both know it--cover up their failures, as their failures and the human cost of the co-ed military have been covered up again and again in other areas. The people who are _actually_ proposing this aren't going to blink and are all prepared to keep it propped up indefinitely at whatever cost. They are gearing up for that right now.
Although "unjust" and "unfair" often function as synonyms in popular parlance, they involve different, if overlapping, concepts. For instance:
ReplyDeletei) It's unfair that a football team loses the game because a referee made a bad call. However, that's not unjust. This is a game with manmade rules. The whole thing is a social convention. There's no intrinsic right or wrong at stake.
ii) It's unfair that Susie gets new clothes every year while her kid sister is stuck with hand-me-downs. But that's not unjust. That's not a moral issue.
iii) It's unfair that Johnny gets the corner piece of cake with more icing while Lisa gets a side piece of cake with less icing. But that's hardly an injustice.
iv) Although what's unjust may also be unfair, it doesn't follow that what's unfair is also unjust.
"Unfairness" is ambiguous because it connotes both inequality and injustice. Sometimes those are interconnected, and sometimes those are separable, depending on the situation.
"...forcing all women between ages 18-26 to register for the draft requires not only _feminists_ to have "skin in the game" but also non-feminist women, women who are utterly opposed to the co-ed military."
ReplyDeletei) That's not a philosophically serious objection. Humans are social creatures. Many laws hurt the innocent. If a breadwinner is an embezzler, and he loses his job because he broke the law, that may do great financial harm to his wife and young kids. Does that mean we should decriminalize embezzlement?
What about folks who say we ought to ban private gun ownership because civilian access to guns results in the loss of innocent life?
You're invoking a principle that's much too broad. You need to figure out how to draw your argument far more narrowly for that to work.
ii) In addition, women are not a defenseless little minority group. I believe women are the largest voting block. Perhaps an outright majority. They have tremendous actual political clout and even greater potential clout. Women all across the political spectrum can band together to fight the coed military if they feel threatened by legal consistency.
" In addition, women are not a defenseless little minority group. I believe women are the largest voting block. Perhaps an outright majority. They have tremendous actual political clout and even greater potential clout. Women all across the political spectrum can band together to fight the coed military if they feel threatened by legal consistency."
DeleteI really wish I knew better where you are going with this and how it applies to what I originally brought up--individual, non-feminist women who do not want to be drafted and have never supported the co-ed military. I hesitate to think (really, I do) that you are somehow saying that they deserve what they get because there was some grand scheme of "banding together" with other women that they didn't implement that *would have worked* to prevent them from being drafted, so obviously they weren't trying hard enough. That would go so far out of the way to be sure, by golly, to blame the women for whatever happens to them, that it would start to look downright perverse.
You are extremely sweeping in all your talk about how direct and forthright it is for "the voters" to stop all of this. I have already pointed out that it is by no means so simple. Not because women per se are poor and weak (and I wish you'd stop bringing up such silly phrases) but because voters per se have much less to say about this matter than we would like to think. Indeed, the majority of the *best* Republican candidates offered to us over the past *decades* have been unwilling to *roll back* the co-ed military. The most they have done is to hold the line and not push it forward as much as the Democrats. So the ratchet effect has ground ever-onward. Even in the current race, if Marco Rubio were the nominee, he's already said he favors the female draft! What, then? Would women somehow be to blame for that? Including non-feminist women? Voters can only do so much, and there is *no blame whatsoever* to be placed upon non-feminist women for what is happening here. It just looks, and begins to look more and more disturbingly, like you are trying to find some way to say that there is.
"That's not a philosophically serious objection. Humans are social creatures. Many laws hurt the innocent. If a breadwinner is an embezzler, and he loses his job because he broke the law, that may do great financial harm to his wife and young kids. Does that mean we should decriminalize embezzlement?"
DeleteBut we are both agreed (I thought we were) that drafting women is a *bad* policy in and of itself, whereas criminalizing embezzlement isn't. Your idea, as near as I can understand it, seems to be simply that pushing this bad policy may make the feminists think twice, or at least make them suffer the effects of their other bad policies by pushing their other bad policies to their logical extreme.
I am pointing out that pushing a _bad_ policy on that basis is _especially_ bad when it also harms the innocent. This isn't a matter of the state's justly and directly punishing the guilty. It's a matter of harming everybody, putting through a policy that is harmful and wrong in itself, and _also_ (while you're at it) harming the innocent. It's a lose-lose.
"But we are both agreed (I thought we were) that drafting women is a *bad* policy in and of itself, whereas criminalizing embezzlement isn't."
DeleteNow you're switching horses. Rather than objecting on the grounds that universal draft registration harms the innocent by potentially conscripting women who oppose the coed military, you're objecting on the grounds that drafting women is bad policy while criminalizing embezzlement is not. That, however, is a backdoor concession that your original objection was overly broad. Ride one horse at a time.
"Your idea, as near as I can understand it, seems to be simply that pushing this bad policy may make the feminists think twice, or at least make them suffer the effects of their other bad policies by pushing their other bad policies to their logical extreme."
i) No, Lydia, not to make "feminists" think twice, but to make voters think twice. Lots of voters aren't bothered by the coed military because it doesn't directly affect them. The issue doesn't seem relevant to them.
ii) And as I've pointed out on multiple occasions, it's not just a tactical issue, but an ethical issue. If we're going to have a coed military, we ought to be consistent. Male soldiers shouldn't be stuck with all the dirty dangerous work while female soldiers get to shirk the hazards they delegate to men.
"I really wish I knew better where you are going with this and how it applies to what I originally brought up--individual, non-feminist women who do not want to be drafted and have never supported the co-ed military."
DeleteAs far as that goes, there are lots of men who oppose conscripting...men. So you need to fine-tune your argument.
"That would go so far out of the way to be sure, by golly, to blame the women for whatever happens to them, that it would start to look downright perverse."
This is Lydia laboring to concoct a narrative that stereotypes people who have principled disagreements with her position in order to preemptively discredit them. Watch her insinuate that this is really about "bitter" resentful misogynists from dark corners of the manosphere and men's rights movement. Couldn't possibly be an argument based on principle. No, must really have some nefarious motivation.
"Indeed, the majority of the *best* Republican candidates offered to us over the past *decades* have been unwilling to *roll back* the co-ed military."
And why is that, Lydia? Because only a tiny fraction of the electorate has ever served in the military. So many or most voters are unaware of the problems. And even if you tell them, that's just academic. It doesn't touch their lives.
The prospect of universal draft registration is one way of shaking them out of their complacency.
"Would women somehow be to blame for that?"
Not women in particular, but voters in general who shirk their civil duties.
"It just looks, and begins to look more and more disturbingly, like you are trying to find some way to say that there is."
Yes, it looks that way to your poisonous mind, that is straining to concoct a defamatory narrative which will absolve you from having to be an ethical disputant.
"Now you're switching horses."
DeleteNo, both the wrongness of the action and its consequences play a part. I've never said that government should never do anything that might indirectly harm the innocent! For some reason you've tried to attribute such a principle to me on the grounds of _one_ of my objections to a bill that would require women to register for the draft. But that is not my position and never has been.
My point in bringing up the harm to the innocent occurred in the context of an overall dialectic: In your main post you said, for example, "Female Democrats may love the idea of equality, but if they actually have skin in the game, will they blink? Will they backpedal? It's designed to create a dilemma for feministic identity politics."
I was pointing out, as a counterweight to this, that if such a law passed (which Hunter himself would try to prevent, by the way), those who are not female Democrats would also have "skin in the game" and would be harmed by it. This was a counterweight to one point. It was not my entire argument.
Obviously, there are cases where the government _should_ do something (like putting a criminal in jail) that will indirectly cause harm to the innocent, but, since this is not such a situation, and since your argument for putting forward the bill is in part a strategic one, then concerns about harming the innocent become more relevant in response to that point.
" I've never said that government should never do anything that might indirectly harm the innocent! For some reason you've tried to attribute such a principle to me on the grounds of _one_ of my objections to a bill that would require women to register for the draft. But that is not my position and never has been."
DeleteInstead, you failed to consider obvious counterexamples, because that would complicate your argument and make it harder for you to make your case.
"This just expands that and hardens its insane principles all the further. Drafting women to be warriors is perverse and wicked. It doesn't become non-perverse and non-wicked just because we already have other stupid policies in place in the military (like making women generals and all the rest). Two stupid, wicked policies don't make one just policy. It just expands the stupidity and perverseness."
ReplyDeleteYou're not trying very hard to anticipate obvious counterexamples. For instance, homosexual activists bait Christian bakers and photographers to get them into trouble with the law.
One countermeasure is for Christian activists to bait homosexual bakers and photographers. Consistently apply the same law to all relevant parties, as a pressure point.
Mind you, there are some homosexuals who say they disagree with the brass-knuckle tactics deployed by homosexual activists. Does that mean we shouldn't hold homosexuals to the same standard just because some "innocent" homosexuals might be caught in the dragnet?
If so, that shows how extreme your position is.
To take another comparison, a silver lining of the transgender movement is how it's inane policies are creating a backlash. Although laws and ordinances mandating that men who self-identify as women can use women's bathrooms and locker rooms, or vice versa, are bad in themselves, they are having the beneficial side-effect of provoking otherwise politically apathetic citizens or mechanically liberal voters to push back. That's a promising development, and sometimes that's the only thing that works.
Moreover, the result is not simply to repeal inane transgender laws and ordinances, but to repudiate the underlying theory. One way to make progress in the culture wars is for conservatives to exact damaging concessions from the enemy.
"One countermeasure is for Christian activists to bait homosexual bakers and photographers. Consistently apply the same law to all relevant parties, as a pressure point."
DeleteI'm not sure exactly what this baiting would look like, but if doing it would either be intrinsically wrong or would do immediate and direct harm to innocent people, for example, then it would be a wrong thing to do.
It's not clear to me that it's crazy and wicked to ask a homosexual photographer to celebrate a Christian wedding. Perhaps if you are an absolute libertarian you might think so, but I'm not.
My principle concerned stupid, wicked policies. (Explicitly, right in the quotation you give.) It *is* stupid and wicked to put women in combat. It is not at least obviously stupid and wicked to ask a homosexual to bake a wedding cake for a traditional wedding. Some other forms of "baiting" might be, but you didn't give an example, so I can only give an opinion on what comes immediately to my own mind in that context.
As for the transgender policies, if that ends up being a silver lining, then some good has come out of evil, but it would still be *wrong* to *advocate* such policies in the hopes of some good coming out of them in that roundabout way.
"I'm not sure exactly what this baiting would look like…"
DeleteThat's soooo disingenuous.
"It's not clear to me that it's crazy and wicked to ask a homosexual photographer to celebrate a Christian wedding."
Now you're just playacting.
There's an elementary distinction between what a businessman should do and what he should be forced to do; conversely, an elementary distinction between what he shouldn't do and what he shouldn't be free to do.
You know perfectly well that this is about whether businesses should be allowed to refuse service–for whatever reason.
And that, in turn, becomes a question of whether we have a consistent public policy–or does it just discriminate against Christian businesses?
I really wish (I say mildly) that you would stop attributing disingenuousness to me. I guess you just don't know me as well as I would have thought you did, but I am not ever disingenuous. I would rather you would call me dense or something.
DeleteI can think of instances of baiting that would be childish and wrong. For example, if I knew of a homosexual running a bakery and somehow the law allowed me to force him (it doesn't, but suppose it did) to bake a cake with the message, "Homosexuality is an abomination." Now suppose that I knew that he was appalled by the treatment of the Kleins and had no desire to enforce a totalitarian homosexual agenda. Then, knowing that, I would just be a jerk if I tried to make him bake the "Homosexuality is an abomination" cake and threatened to sue him otherwise.
Though I must say that even being a jerk to a baker has fewer bad consequences than sending women into combat.
Lydia, this isn't your first time around the track. Surely you're aware of critics who have, in fact, proposed parallel actions. If Christian businesses are compelled to service homosexual weddings, then let's make homosexual businesses service events which they find offensive. Consistently enforcing a policy can be a way to repeal the policy, when the policy begins to antagonize too many voters or special interest groups.
DeleteSo for you to feign incomprehension of the scenarios is unconvincing.
There are various possible scenarios that could fall under the category of "baiting homosexual businesses." I've given you my opinion on a couple of them (both of them come up with by me). As my responses have shown, sometimes doing so _would_ be wrong, though I would be inclined to say not as disastrous, and not as wrong, as placing women in combat. I would have preferred that you would have specified exactly what you had in mind, because the rightness or wrongness of the actions will vary with the scenarios, so it would be preferable to have known from the beginning which ones _you_ were advocating. In any event, such "baiting" could be carried out (by people trying to create test cases) on an individual basis, so that just adds to the multiple disanalogies between the situations. For example, one could choose only to "bait" homosexual providers who, one had reason to believe, were activists and hence more deserving of such baiting.
DeleteBut I have to say that I'm really intensely weary, and actually quite saddened, by your persistent, aggressive, personally insulting manner in pretty much every comment here. If you look back, or if anyone looks back with a fair eye, I think such an observer will see that beyond the initial sarcasm and anger in my very first comment, I have not met your personal attacks in like kind. I have debated and presented my reasons, repeatedly, but I have not attacked your integrity.
Moreover, you have known me for quite some time on the Internet and have had, I think, ample opportunity to know that I am not a disingenuous person, that I fight hard in Internet debates, but fair. I have a temper, but I try to control it. In fact, it is generally my honesty that gets me in trouble through lack of tact. That is, of course, a fault, but it is not the fault, or the set of faults (deliberate misrepresentation, disingenuousness, etc.) that you keep persistently attributing to me in this thread. And that's highly unfortunate. I think we could have debated these matters much more profitably without the constant, repeated sneering and personal attacks. Moreover, there's a kind of recklessness toward Internet friendships manifested in that sort of repeated, relentless, personal attack, that refusal to climb down and calm down and stop taking personal pot-shots, and that is also really sad.
I've said my say repeatedly here, and I think I've made some really good arguments, and I don't think you have refuted them. Some of them you do not appear to me to have grappled with. But I can't _make_ you do so, and it's getting darned depressing coming back again and again just to pick up more insults, more of this "you're feigning x" and "this is more of your disingenuousness" and "this is another of your cute little rhetorical tricks" and on and on. There's really no profit in doing so. My arguments are here for others to read if interested. I wish it could have gone differently.
"But I have to say that I'm really intensely weary, and actually quite saddened, by your persistent, aggressive, personally insulting manner in pretty much every comment here."
DeleteAnd I find your lawyerly modus operandi wearisome. This is your problem Lydia: you're an advocate first and a philosopher second. Good philosophers don't wait for a critic to raise a counterexample to their position. Rather, good philosophers ask themselves if there are obvious counterexamples to their position, then qualify their position to take that into account. Good philosophers anticipate objections.
You, however, behave like a lawyer rather than a philosopher. You constantly oversimplify. You constantly fail to consider counterexamples. You wait for me to force concessions from you that you should have made allowance for in your original formulations.
For instance, you originally denied that there was any injustice in exempting female officers from combat. It took a lot of time for me to finally extract a grudging concession from you on that score. And that's been your pattern all along.
If you wish to have a constructive exchange, be a philosopher first and an advocate second, not the other way around. You're a published philosopher. I shouldn't have to spend so much time drawing basic conceptual distinctions for you. That's something you should be doing from the get-go.
Instead, like a lawyer, you're utterly one-sided. You doggedly argue for your side without doing what good philosopher are supposed to do: consider an issue from different angles, then build proper qualifications into their position.
For instance, a way you might have framed the debate is to acknowledge the systemic injustice female officers who are exempt from combat, but make this a question of how, in case of conflict, to prioritize competing claims to be treated justly. Present some criteria for how to rank them.
Finally, you need to drop the innocent routine. On this very thread you were laying the groundwork to fabricate a malicious narrative about how my position could only be motivated by ill-will. And you made that move explicit on Facebook, although that wasn't in exclusive reference to me:
"Being blinded by bitterness…stupid, stupid, stupid…perverse half-borrowing of the idiocy in the name of 'men's rights.' It's creepy…Good sign you're dealing with someone with a misogyny problem…"
Compare that to what you said on this thread:
"I hesitate to think (really, I do) that you are somehow saying that they deserve what they get because there was some grand scheme of 'banding together' with other women that they didn't implement that *would have worked* to prevent them from being drafted, so obviously they weren't trying hard enough. That would go so far out of the way to be sure, by golly, to blame the women for whatever happens to them, that it would start to look downright perverse…It just looks, and begins to look more and more disturbingly, like you are trying to find some way to say that there is."
So spare me the "butter wouldn't melt in your mouth" defense.
a) Since my Facebook feed is not only not public, but aggressively private, with high privacy settings and a comparatively quite small number of FB friends, it's not interpersonally kosher to quote it in a public setting. Perhaps no one has ever told you this, but that's the case.
Deleteb) I stand what I said above, to you, in this feed, explicitly. Your repeated, sneering, and downright odd statements that women aren't "helpless waifs" (when I never implied or said that they were) are profoundly disturbing, as was your repeated, convoluted, and weird attempt to get around acknowledging that non-feminist women harmed by a draft scenario would, in fact, just be victims of it, period, and not to blame for it at all. If it bothers you that I am bothered by that, I say frankly, too bad. It's bothersome, and should be, and you should hear what you sound like and how disturbing that is. If I gave you a heads-up relatively nicely, you should be grateful for my restraint, not fossicking around in my Facebook feed to dredge up comments where I *might* have had you in mind when I made them (though mentioning you to no one) and then getting outraged that I would ever dare even *possibly* to think any ill of you. Worry more about whether the shoe fits than about whether I might ever *think* it fits.
d) My reluctance to use a phrase like "It is unjust to exempt female officers from combat duty" arose throughout from the fact that such a sentence, to my ear, communicates the idea that "Something must be done" about it or that it must be rectified at all costs, which I emphatically do not agree with. Moreover, I do not agree with a _general_ principle that it would always be _intrinsically_ unjust to have a commander who was exempt from combat duty. One can make up strange, exceptional scenarios in which some blind guy is an incredible strategist or whatever and in which it turns out, surprisingly enough, that he makes a brilliant general. Obviously no one builds a military system around such exceptions, though, and the situation with women in the military is in general a pathological result of the entire mess of the co-ed military. I am, however, highly reluctant to use the same terminology that you use to describe it because of the absolutist connotations that seems to me to have concerning the imperative of doing _something_ to change it, when I grant no such imperative given the actual circumstances.
You say women would be victims. I deny that women are "helpless waifs." You find that "profoundly disturbing".
DeleteSo it's "profoundly disturbing" for me to deny that women are "helpless waifs". Does that mean it would not be disturbing for me to affirm that women are helpless waifs?
You explicitly cast women in the role of victims. Doesn't that mean you think they'd be helpless to prevent a universal draft? So how is your own position different than calling women helpless waifs? In substance, you affirm the very thing I deny.
You find it "profoundly disturbing" that I view women as strong actors in the political process. You think I should view women as weak?
BTW, I grew up around three very strong women. How I sound to you was never my standard of comparison.
"...as was your repeated, convoluted, and weird attempt to get around acknowledging that non-feminist women harmed by a draft scenario would, in fact, just be victims of it, period, and not to blame for it at all."
DeleteWhat you're pleased to brand "convoluted" is a case of me drawing relevant analytical distinctions. I'm doing what you ought to do. You go straight to conscripting women. But there are several possible outcomes, each of which invites political intervention by the electorate:
i) A bill mandating a universal draft is proposed in Congress.
That might well not pass if Democrats (and Republicans) anticipate a public backlash. If so, that would be a conservative coup in the culture wars. It would be a repudiation of the unisex ideology that underlies the coed military.
ii) Democrats in Congress might consider voting for the bill until their angry constituents burn up the phones.
iii) The bill might pass, but be vetoed by the president, for the same reasons.
iv) The bill might become law, at which point somnambulant voters might finally wake up and say, "What the hell?"
v) There might be no public backlash until draft-age American women are officially and individually notified that they must register for the draft. At that point all hell breaks loose.
vi) Women become draft dodgers, which becomes a political cause célèbre. The law is repealed. And the effect is to discredit the rationale underlying the coed military.
At every stage there's an opportunity for the electorate, including the female voting block, to kill it.
And if, in a worse-case scenario, the electorate refuses to exercise its prerogative, then the tactic failed because the electorate is too corrupt. Does that mean we should do nothing to challenge the status quo (coed military)?
Lydia, your reaction is simply paranoid. I said: "As for nonfeministic women, unless you view women has passive little waifs who can only stand by helplessly as they are overtaken by events, it's up to women to get involved in the political process and oppose the coed military."
DeleteThat should be a perfectly unobjectionable statement to anyone who thinks women are capable rational agents.
Out of that statement you weave a whole conspiratorial theory about how that begins to look "more and more disturbing" and "downright perverse."
To deny that women are "helpless, passive little waifs" is "profoundly disturbing" and "downright perverse."
Apparently, I'm supposed to affirm that women really are "helpless, passive little waifs".
If I've read the OP and thread correctly here's steve's stated position, in summary and in his own words:
ReplyDelete"The choice is either to allow women in combat or disallow women as officers. Do one or the other.
viii) Furthermore, shared risk is essential to respect. Solders respect commanders who don't order a subordinate to do anything the commander won't do."
Lydia responds by stating, and I'm paraphrasing here: Both the idea of women in combat, and the reality of women in the co-ed military are stupid and equally wrong-headed.
And then a fight broke out.
Well, yes, I interpreted that statement "Do one or the other" as meaningful and literal. I take it to mean that, as long as the current position in the military obtains (e.g., in which women are promoted to high office, can order men into battle, etc.), Steve thinks it would be *better* for them to be sent into combat than for them not to be, because anything else would be unjust.
DeleteMoreover, in the main post, he quotes with apparent (but not explicit) approval soldiers who go farther and say that, if women are in combat, then all women should be forced to register for the draft.
So: If high promotion in the all-volunteer force, then (by requirement of justice) combat. If combat, then even non-volunteers should be registered for the draft.
Steve has _expressly_ argued for the former of these and has quoted with apparent approval the second. I _think_ he may reject the second, but I cannot tell. He for some reason thinks my difficulty telling is disingenuous, but it is not. He has said things that pull both ways. For example, he seems to have a strong interest in _consistency_ even with bad policy and has insisted that consistency must be maintained for the sake of justice even if it means sending women into combat. This would pull in the direction of the conclusion that, if the co-ed military is _not_ thoroughly reformed, he would _support_ the draft for women (and even the draft into combat) as anything else would be unjust.
But that is unclear.
What is clear is that he says that in the all-volunteer force, women should be put into combat for the sake of justice, unless there is a wider reform so that they cannot get "plume" positions and send men into combat. He realizes that this has _legal_ ramifications for non-volunteer women and the draft, but apparently that is less important to him than what he considers the requirements of justice.
I say that is morally wrong, reckless, and misguided. For a variety of reasons, most of all because in fact women will do _poorly_ in combat and hence putting them into combat in the name of justice is harming not only them but the men around them and military preparedness generally. Inconsistency is less bad than being consistent with a crazy policy and doing more harm thereby. (See my example of paraplegics.)
Oddly I actually LOL'd at the paraplegics analogy. Thankfully I was alone in a hotel room traveling on business when I did, so I was spared the potentially awkward and embarrassing need to explain my sudden outburst to a curious neighbor.
DeleteFor what it is worth, and for the record, I do apologize for the sarcasm of my first comment on this thread. It would have been much better had I waited to post and written a non-sarcastic comment making the point I wanted to make.
ReplyDeleteI for one thought your first comment was right on. And contra Steve's low blow response, I'm a man: a dad of two girls and a boy. Your comment was 100% right.
DeleteAnd the male soldiers I quote at the bottom of my post don't share your opinion.
DeleteNice to see Nick model confirmation bias.
DeleteI haven't read through this entire debate in the combox. However, I've read large swathes. From what I have read I can only see a couple of viable options, given women already serve in the military today:
ReplyDelete1. Continue to make pinprick attacks against liberals while liberals continue to tinker with the military in ways which are favorable to them. This may include eventually allowing a universal draft of women. In the end, however, women will serve in the military, but in roles or capacities which ultimately undermine the US military's function or performance. At best, this maintains the status quo. More likely liberals will continue to win inch by inch. Worst case scenario is the US military itself is completely undermined by liberal tinkering and experimentation. As such, this is quite possibly an existential threat against our military and thus our national defense and security.
2. Force the issue so that liberal tinkering and experimentation with our armed forces becomes so odious to the public that liberals can't continue. In this respect, I'm entirely agreed with Steve's position.
Or is there a third viable option? If so, I'm all ears.
This is just a stepping stone to trans generals and admirals ordering combat troops *male, female, or other depending on gender-identity* into battle.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious problem is the benighted idea of male/female traditional gender roles, so the obvious solution is to speed ahead with the full implementation and enforcement of gender neutrality.