OK, this is a reasonable response, and I agree with you that those who never served who do not take into consideration the special culture of the military ARE coming from an uninformed position. However, I disagree that someone who has not served cannot understand that culture. It certainly needs to be taken into consideration.
You're right, it doesn't prevent someone with no service from understanding the culture. However, when someone with no time in uniform starts calling a service member--active or not--names and claiming that that service member is wrong is an obvious misunderstanding of the culture.
No, but I'd want to know why the 7 think it's broke and why the 3 think it's not. The majority is NOT always correct.
Agreed and the service members that have voiced concerns about the abolition of DADT have explained numerous times why they believe the removal of the policy will cause problems and what problems those are.
Again, I agree with you. This is not what I am arguing. My position is that it is nonsense to assume that because someone has not directly experienced a situation, they cannot have a valid opinion/position on it.
You're right, however I think that person should provide more than, "it's just the right thing to do", as an argument in favor of the repeal of DADT.
I don't see this as a "link" based issue and have never asked for one. However, it is weak debating to assume that lack of experience equates to lack of knowledge.
Didn't you call me a liar in the past, therefore I must be wrong? I know RightNYC has. I thought you had done that, too. I could be mistaken.
There are many ways to look at this issue. I don't think it would be an easy integration, however, I seriously question anyone who says that soldiers would have a problem following orders from someone who is openly gay. This places the professionalism of our military in an extremely negative light.
Some soldiers will, some soldiers won't. Will the majority swing to either side? No way of telling until we actually get into that scenario. There are many factors that will make the difference, either way; the most important two factors will be the demographical makeup of the unit and even moreso, the leadership ability of that leader/commander. If that leader has weak leadership skills, then orders will be ignored and vice-versa if that leader is a strong leader. Soldiers respond favorably to a strong leader, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation. Pesonally, if I were gay and a serving officer, there's no way I would allow my sexual oreintation to become known to my unit, because
I would be professional enough to take that factor out of the leadership equation. I wouldn't want to give my soldiers any kind of reason to use an excuse not to follow my leadership, because that's what's best for my unit and unit cohesion, mission accomplishment and troop safety and welfare are more important than advertising my personal lifestyle to the entire world.
Soldiers aren't robots that are programmed to conduct themselves in a certain way and never vary from that. They're humans. Humans **** up. It's the reason that regulations and the UCMJ exist, so as to govern the conduct of those human beings. If a soldier disobeying the orders of a weak leader makes you question the professionalism of our armed forces, then the current crime rate within the ranks must leave with zero confidence in our service members.
Tell you what... cease all the "typical lefty" and "typical righty" partisan BS now, or you will find yourself removed from the thread.