Democracy and DADT

(fm the BC thread "Nothing is Written")

winslow,
I don’t like to see even implied advocacy for democracy

We have been around this before. Your position of support for Republican institutions including the Electoral College is one that I agree with. Those institutions derive their legitimacy from the people in a system that provides circuit breakers on passing passions but which is still rooted in the sovereignty of the people. The meta-Legislature is the same as the Citizenry which is the same as the Militia. The functional legislature is less direct and universal but that does not remove the fact that ultimate legitimate authority derives from and en extremis reverts to the people. That is why I call it a Democracy. The only alternatives are a self selecting Monarchy, which Polybius noted becomes a Tyranny, or a self selecting Aristocracy, which will degenerate into an Oligarchy.

My suspicion is that many on the Left feel threatened by the military. The competence the military demonstrates at tasks the socialists conspicuously fail at only makes the hostility of the leftists greater. The campaign to defang the armed forces proceeds on several fronts. Not only is it being simply defunded and shrunken, the Navy being now smaller than it has been since 1916, with critical programs like strategic systems being gutted but other efforts continue that will help delegitimatize the legacy of the military and also discourage talented people from joining.

In that context the expenditure of political capital on the promulgation of homosexuality in the Armed Forces makes some sense. Otherwise given how small the services are it makes no sense at all since there would be no problem filling the available slots without repealing DADT or even by going back to the prior regime of ban, expose and expel. What the repeal will do is make the services less attractive to many young people and their families. Who will send a 18 year old into the Navy knowing that there will be no bar to a sexual predator being placed in their berthing compartment or in a position of authority?