The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

#GOPDebate Feedback: Women In Combat Is A Progressive Position

Posted on | February 7, 2016 | 105 Comments

by Smitty

The GOP debate in New Hampshire was relatively well done, once everyone got onto the stage. The one curve ball is the topic of this blog post. Sorry, Governor Christie, there is no “natural right” to serve in the military, and the overall swellness of any individual aspiration to serve is not a basis for policy or military strategy.

The proper basis for any actual veteran (that is, non-careerist, brown-lipstick-wearing senior brass tools in the Pentagon) is this: combat power of the military unit.

Had we shred #1 of intellectual honesty, we’d do a cost/benefit analysis of our decades of experience with co-ed units, and locate the sweet spot of “co-edfication” and combat effectiveness, and be willing to admit that we may very well have sacrificed the ability to win a war on the altar of Political Correctness.

Which, by the way, is not to take anything away from any of the really excellent ladies with whom I (genuinely) enjoyed serving. They rock. The point is simply that their overall rockingness is not the proper question, and, sadly, nothing short of abject ruin will trigger an honest appraisal.

War is The Evil That Men Do. I shall go to my grave unpersuaded that War Is More Awesome When Women Are Part Of The Team.

Category: Chris Christie, Republicans

Comments

105 Responses to “#GOPDebate Feedback: Women In Combat Is A Progressive Position”

  1. Neal Bracken
    February 12th, 2016 @ 7:26 am

    Quartermaster. You’re begging the question. What source can you cite that shows leftists(?) wanting to have women killed so we would withdraw from combat?

  2. Neal Bracken
    February 12th, 2016 @ 8:48 am

    Joe Joe. You have been able to at least discuss intelligently female reproduction absent male. However, you have a not made a case for how the survival of the fittest would apply to a modern society. Charles Darwin was talking in a scientific sense about how species adapted and evolved through time. He did not posit how societies would be operate using the survival of the fittest as the gold standard . Hitler tried to push the concept of a super race with disastrous results. There was a movie called “Logan’s Run” that pushed for a society of the survival of the fittest. That had disastrous results as well. The problem lies in who would choose those who would survive. Before you criticise my lack of logic you might remember that logic is only as good as the premise that proceeds it. What I have tried to do is show how your survival of the fittest position would be inapplicable to a technologically advanced society such as ours.

  3. Joe Joe
    February 12th, 2016 @ 12:45 pm

    Neal,

    Either you don’t read or you don’t understand what you read. The first is a problem of respect, the second of reading comprehension. I am not sure which it is.

    In my last post, you were given an extended discourse on female reproduction absent the male. You were given real examples in nature. It is your loss of you chose to ignore that discussion or not read it at all.

    Upon reading the rest of your current post, I can see that you have no real grasp on the concept of evolution or the “survival of the fittest” at all. Evolution is a natural process; humans have no choice in it. Nor do animals or plants. Basically, evolution is mutation, interacting with an environment. Cells in animals, plants, and humans mutate all the time, and some of these mutations are crucial to survival in a particular environment. Some are not. When a particular mutation fits a certain environment better than a previous trait, the organisms having that mutation will survive better in that environment. Those without the mutation will eventually diminish in number because they are not as fit for survival in that environment. That is what “survival of the fittest” means: it is not a value judgment or some idea of what humans believe is better. It is a natural process that occurs when a species can no longer survive in its environment and dies out, leaving others who are better suited to the natural environment to carry on.

    The natural process of evolution has nothing to do with the examples you proffered.

    Hitler’s idea of a super race was not evolution or even survival of the fittest. Hitler acted out a mental fantasy about destroying people he thought were unworthy of life. A quarter of a century before Hitler, the Turks tried to wipe out the Armenians. It is not unusual that people in power often try to get rid of those they don’t like or see as rivals. Hitler was somewhat different in that he was inspired by American eugenics and chose the people he killed with eugenics in mind. However, this is completely unrelated to “survival of the fittest” in nature, which is a process without human agency but an outgrowth of the relationship between the traits of an organism and the environment in which it has to survive.

    Your movie example is along the same lines: it is not about evolution in nature, but humans in control choosing to save some people and kill others. Hitler and Logan’s Run represent the principles of eugenics, a faulty and immoral human idea erroneously based on Darwin’s observations of natural selection in nature. Eugenics is a human fantasy that claims to have a “scientific ” basis but is really about human hubris, narcissism and destructive evil. What you have been doing in your post is equating evolution (natural selection, “survival of the fittest”) with eugenics, a human creation. My suggestion is that you read up on evolution before discussing it further with anyone, including me.

  4. Quartermaster
    February 12th, 2016 @ 3:11 pm

    I’ve begged nothing. I don’t know if what you are asking for is on the net and don’t care. Leftists were saying it back in the 70s. That you aren’t familiar with what the enemies of the country have said is not my fault.

  5. Neal Bracken
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:59 am

    Quartermaster. Surely you have a source to back up your claim. What leftists are you talking about? What evidence that those leftists (How do you know I may not be one?) are enemies of the state? Are you talking about treason? Please be specific..