ACTA's Must-Reads

Thank you. This is exactly correct. Colleges' attempting to rationalize hatred for the military as some exercise of virtue is revolting hypocrisy. There is no bigger lie going. Harvard, for example, attacked the military in the FAIR suit ostensibly because of DADT, but then promptly accepted millions from the Saudi royal family, which has imposed summary execution as penalty for homosexuality.

If faculty and administrators involved were even a fraction as intelligent as they think they are, they'd realize after all this time that their false account has zero credibility with anyone outside the little bubble world of academia.

Few professors born after 1935 have had military service and few study the military as an institution. Given that, one might think that with regard to the military's prohibition on explicit homosexuality within its ranks, there would be some reserve on the part of the professoriat at adjudging such a policy as so self-evidently deplorable that it would justify a quarantine of the military. One recalls Thomas Sowell's observation that the 'anointed' are given to confounding intelligence with expertise.

First of all, let's examine the argument presented by this student. The fact thet the ROTC hasn't been allowed on Tuft's campus since '69 does not invalidate the *current* reasoning of those who continue to support the policy. Institutions maintain rules even when the reasoning of the members of the institution may change. A simple example is the current debate on gay marriage. Most Republicans deny being homophobes; they simply argue that gay marriage would destroy the special sanctity of straight marriage. But of course, the outlawing of gay marriage is *historically* due to intense homophobia, the same homophobia that outlawed two men kissing. But the historical perspective doesn't mean that today's Republicans are disingenuous in their current reasoning ('tho many no doubt are).

(Let's also remember that the original opposition to ROTC was due to its compulsory nature for all male students at many colleges.)

Then there's the students argument that Tuft's policy on the ROTC means they must somehow hate military men and women: "The lack of ROTC presence on the Tufts campus sends the wrong message to ROTC midshipmen and cadets."

That's no more true than the lack of a creative writing program at Erin O'Connor's university means that her English department hates poets. No university should be forced to maintain departments they choose not to maintain. ROTC is an elective academic program. As such, it's the university's right to decide whether or not to allow it (or to accept credits from it -- many schools are tightening their tranfer credit policies in general, not just for the ROTC -- it's about the money).

The main question is this: if you want to be part of the ROTC, why not go to a college that runs an ROTC program? I have little sympathy for the "But I have to go all the way to MIT" whine. As a prospective graduate student, I chose my school poorly, thus forcing me to take classes in my field of specialty at a college two hours away. That was my fault, not my graduate school's fault.

It's interesting that many people around these parts freak out when a bunch of black students pressure a university into running a Black Studies program; but when it comes to the military, ROTC is seen as having some divine right to be allowed on campuses. Military studies is a major like any other.

Hey, Art, why not enlighten us idiots who cannot conceive of any way in which who a soldier wants to kiss has any bearing on their ability to fight? If other soldiers cannot focus on their own responsibilities enough to bracket off who the soldier next to them takes to bed at night, I don't think the former soldiers should be trusted with life or death decisions. As far as I can see, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is all about protecting the fragile emotions of homophobes who somehow can't do their jobs if their co-workers cuddle people of the same sex.

"Alvin":

I think what the student's argument neglects is that proscriptions of sodomy and/or the expression of homosexual sentiments in the ranks are venerable and were in place in 1969 as today. What I would suggest has changed over the last 37 years is the obtrusiveness of the male homosexual population and the degree to which one's opinion thereof bears on one's self-assessment and the assessments of others, at least among the lot that end up on college faculties. That having been said, I doubt that is crucial to the alienation between that sort of bourgeois and the military. I will offer that we have two different subcultures with quite different sensibilities.

I should note you could likely identify ways in which individuals and institutions in various occupational sectors fall short. However, I suspect it is fairly unusual for colleges to shut down (for ethical considerations) their business schools or law schools or teachers colleges or environmental studies programs or to prohibit commercial corporations, or law firms, or the Natural Resources Defense Council from recruiting on their campuses. The disability attached to the military is a special one. The refusal to have soldiers on campus is, I think, another example of Richard John Neuhaus' observation that in academic institutions, there will be no diversity on matters the people in charge consider important.

I think the student is defensive in ways he should not be. It is not the purpose of the military to attend to the sensibilities of homosexual men nor is it the purpose of the military to engage in social experiments for which they, and not the faculty, pay the price for failure. I am not a soldier or a sociologist of the military so I have little to say about the precise mechanics of the problem. However, I think it a reasonable null hypothesis that the military know their own trade, and if it be their opinion that the introduction of explicit homosexuality into military units damages the spirit of those units by compromising the non-erotic fraternity upon which military units thrive, I am going to give that considerable (though not absolute) weight. You are excluding but 4% of the male population, or, more precisely, the subfraction of that 4% who lack the discipline to keep their sexual disorders to themselves. We can handle that. Please note also that personal self-expression is not valued highly in the military, for good reason.

I suspect people tend to resist the importation of 'Black Studies' programs because they conceive of 'Black Studies' and similar exercises in victimology as advocacy disciplines, not social sciences (among a half-dozen other complaints they might have).

But of course, the outlawing of gay marriage is *historically* due to intense homophobia,

Your analogy is faulty. The idea of solemnizing homosexual couplings is one that scarcely existed prior to about 1986. There was a time in the comparatively recent past when people routinely devoted little thought to the subject of homosexuality, as the homosexual population, to the extent that it operated communally, constituted a demimonde remote from their daily experience. "Gay marriage" was not 'banned'. It simply did not exist and people did not maintain an idea of marriage apart from the union of man and women, and their respective families. (And that was as it should have been).

Art, not all gay men are flamboyant queens, and not all gays in the military are men anyway. The gay man attracted to military service is not the same gay man attracted to Fashion Week (to be stereotypical). So the notion that gays in the military would be obtrusive is misguided.

The military doesn't think that straight male soldiers could possibly deal with the idea that a gay male soldier might find them attractive in the shower. It would be bad for morale. "Don't Ask Don't Tell" doesn't stop that; in fact, it makes it worse, if anything, because in a world where you don't know for sure who's gay or straight, anyone can be gay. Your buddy slaps your behind? Maybe he's gay. Maybe not. You'll never know for sure. At least if gays were allowed to be open about it in the military, everyone would know. Then the military could place gay soldiers in responsible, adult squadrons whose members wouldn't freak out about a gay dude in their bathroom.

(And as someone who has played on sports teams with gay guys, it's really not a big deal to undress with them in the showers. The idea that a gay guy will find every straight man around him attractive is more about the hubris of straight guys and their repressed desire to *be* attractive to gay guys. Adult men and women should be able to undress around each other without losing control of themselves. And if our soldiers lack such self-control, I don't see how they're going to be good soldiers.)

But of course, Art reveals his true feelings when he writes about "the subfraction of that 4% who lack the discipline to keep their sexual disorders to themselves." So, being gay is a sexual disorder? Even the military no longer thinks that! Let's party like it's 1428.

GET OVER IT

"Alvin,"

Whether you like it or not, a majority of the public (including many religious minority groups) just don't want to work with openly-homosexual people.

It is just the way it is. You don't like it here -- move to Denmark. Have a nice day.

As usual, M. AL (MAL) is "out to lunch". The current US military policy toward homosexuals is just and fair, and the vicious anti-military snobbery at colleges and universities must at least in the end go underground, for all federal funds should be denied (including federally guaranteed loans) institutions of higher learning who unfavourably discriminate against ROTC, etc.

--From one scholar who has actually served his time in military service,

Dr JA

NB: I'll later detail how academic lefties and nutters at the ALSC online forum ("The Valve") had me BANNED IN BOSTON!