Don’t Ask, Don’t Tweet
The dumbest tweet of the day comes from ABC’s Jake Tapper, commenting on Ron Paul being one of five Republicans who voted to lift the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military:
“Anyone having trouble reconciling Rep. Ron Paul’s vote to repeal DADT with that scene in Borat?”
Tapper means “Bruno,” the film in which Sacha Baron-Cohen’s gay caricature lures Paul into a hotel bedroom and drops his trousers in front of the him, eliciting an entirely warranted reaction of shock and alarm. (“That guy is queerer than the blazes, he took his clothes off, let’s get going.”) To anyone else that would seem like a restrained response to an ugly situation; but in Tapper’s head, it evidently betokens some animus against homosexuals in general. I won’t speculate on what someone caught in circumstances like that must have to do pass Tapper’s tolerance test.
Say what you will about Borat, but you must recognize that it was the most aptly named movie of all time, since the main character was both a bore and a boor. Most of us would have probably punched the guy, and for good reason, too. What he does is an assault on human dignity, and it’s uncreative.
Back when he was Ali G, and his schtick was poking fun at intellectuals, and it was great. If you work in the world of ideas for a living, you ought to be able to take a little ribbing for it, and Cohen was awesome at getting Buchanan, Chomsky, et al, going.
To go from that to Borat is just embarrassing.
That was a bad vote. There is no imperative to apply libertarian ideology to the military, an inherently very unlibertarian institution. The military discriminates in all kind of ways for the purpose of creating the most effective fighting force. It discriminates based on IQ (entrance tests), height, health, gender (certain fields), etc. There is no reason why it shouldn’t discriminate against homosexuals if they are felt to compromise the effectiveness of the force. I’m afraid this will hurt Paul if he runs for President again.
[...] Paul was one of five Republicans who voted to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” I was a Ron Paul supporter before Ron Paul was cool, but that was a bad vote. There is no [...]
[...] thanks to Twitter, as young people alerted their friends to its bomb-status. (Thanks to Norm and Daniel McCarthy) Bookmark/Share « Previous: Henry Ford, Capitalist Hero | LRC Home | LRC [...]
@Red Phillips
I agree with the spirit of your remarks.
Here’s what I DON’T agree with. You said “no reason why it shouldn’t discriminate against homosexuals”. I don’t see where gays are discriminated against.
Gays can belong to the military, they just couldn’t “act” effeminate, or advertise their tendencies to do so.
The homosexual community would like you to think this is different from the treatment of heteros. But any ex-military knows that if you are married, cheating on your wife and family was strictly a “don’t ask, don’t tell affair”, and if it came out into the open, there were penalties. Also, the same is true with having sex between members of the service. If the affair rises to the level of public attention, or an unwanted pregnancy, the military would be looking to punish someone.
And in fact, women have complained, or filed suit, for having being discouraged for having had unplanned pregnancies.
We’re all about PC correctness, and we agressively defend a female’s right to do her job without feeling pressured to accept unwanted sexual advances.
But we can’t extend that same “right” to the male members of the service?
Examine the homosexual agenda. A lot of “closet” homosexuals with an honorable record of service in the military will be uncomfortable with Obama’s taking yet another opportunity to gut the US military.
I don’t even want to know the depths one must plumb to determine the “dumbest tweet of the day”.
If Jack Tapper was in the same situation, and saw a hairy monster coming towards him, he would probably think life is grand.
Borat? Ron Paul was not in Borat. Just like the media to make up things that never happened.
@Red Phillips
While I agree that the military is an unlibertarian institution that should be abolished, I don’t think either of us has the credentials to judge whether openly gay soldiers somehow reduce the efficiency of the military. But as far as I’m concerned, less efficiency means less innocent foreigners killed in my name. Not a bad turn of events…
I would imagine all gay squads would have a much higher sense of ‘brotherhood’ while on the field, if you know what I mean… I’m reminded of that army of all gay men in ancient Greece. I forget the name, but apparently they fought together, ate together, and slept together!
The problem that I have with DADT is that it treats homosexuals as a class or group. I may not like the opinions or their activities, but I don’t see any justification for treating them as a group, for good or ill. If, as individuals, they break the law or reasonable rules of military discipline that apply to all, then they should be punished. But once you recognize the right to treat a group of people differently, based upon a classification other than an illegal act, then you open the door to government control of other groups. We need to be very careful about limiting free speech just because we don’t agree with the content. Laws like that have a way of coming back to haunt us.
[...] That is, how can America’s only statesman be against barring whole classes of taxpayers from tax-funded institutions, and also not want to be lied into a room where the creep-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen drops his pants? How great when that unfunny movie—Bruno, Jake, not Borat—died on its first night thanks to Twitter, as young audiences alerted their friends to its bomb-status. (Thanks to Norm and Daniel McCarthy) [...]
@ Red Phillips:
There are thousands of Gays and Lesbians in the armed forces as we speak, serving honorably. What the military requires of them in exchange for their service is that they lie about who they are. So, if you are of homosexual orientation, in order to join the military, an institution that’s constantly harping on about things like honor and integrity, you have to be deceitful and dishonest and misrepresent yourself to the military administration as well as your fellow soldiers. Seems like a contradiction, borne of a very cynical kind of homophobia that assumes that our “best of the best” will lose fighting effectiveness if their precious little minds are tainted with the knowledge that they’re serving alongside “faggots”. If that is the fear, its either an admission that the military is awash with narrow-minded, insecure and frivolous creeps, or it is an insult to the serious and dedicated men and women who serve, by assuming that they are such creeps.
DADT is ridiculous because it’s practical effect is to serve otherwise extremely capable professionals with a dishonorable discharge merely because they were discovered to be gay, (not because they *are* gay), and to suggest that honesty and integrity is negotiable when it comes to one’s sexual orientation.
For those afraid that the repeal of DADT will result in tons of gay soldiers bursting out of the closet in pink tutus dancing to Madonna, grow the hell up.