This discrimination so fucking dumb, that it circles back into becoming weirdly advantageous for those affected. Dunno about everyone else, but I would most certainly not be torn up over not being accepted into the US Army…
While i fully agree. What scares me the most is that representation within military and police is incredibly important in context to how those groups get treated.
They’re turning everything in a Ignorant fraternity, and we all know the kind of ideology that will be seeded on those groups.
That is a very good point, and I agree. I think I’m past the point where I even count The Army as a potential ally for anything progressive, quite the contrary.
I mean, we’ve been seeing the dynamics already with Police forces (not saying everyone, but enough to tilt the scales the wrong way), and history pretty much says that, with very few exceptions, mechanisms of the State usually fall in line with whoever is the head of said State.
This is not to say that I lump everyone participating in said mechanisms of the State in the same pot, I know (and hope) that there are individual people who are still sane and doing their best. But the mechanisms/institutions themselves (referring to the concrete contemporary bodies and structures) are so far outside my standards for allocating trust that it’s not even funny.
This is the case. Few people get into the military because it’s their dream. Most do so because there are no other options for them based on where they live, their level of education, etc.
Disclaimer: because I’m not sure this won’t come off as aggressive (I do have very strong feelings about the subject, but not outwardly directed), I need to stress that I am not trying to disagree with the fact that discrimination in any shape is unconscionable and I’m not trying to be beligerent here.
You’re right, I am viewing this from the perspective of someone who has, so far, managed to find other ways. But I also speak from the perspective of someone who grew up with The Army in their life (my grandfather was a Colonel, career Army man, and the main authority figure in my family - every day was abstract boot camp). Having seen firsthand the implications of and intentions behind the existence of The Army as a corpus (regardless of country), both historically and contemporarily, I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t join The Army even if it was my last option. I’d much rather join an informal Citizens’ Militia if practical needs for such should arise, because I’m in it to defend people, not to kill the Enemy.
This is not to say that I judge anyone who does so based on limited options, not even close to it. I’ve had my fair share of scraping by and I know how survival allows for very little philosophy. Nor is it an attempt to dilute the grotesqueness of this rampant discrimination, as I agree that people should be allowed to make their own choices and carry the resulting repercussions regardless of domain.
What I am saying is that I cannot agree with The Army as a viable option for anything, let alone as a justifiable institution for any form of rational society. I can appreciate that it fosters some truly valuable skills, like discipline (I don’t mean learning to bow down to Authority), the establishment of routine, physical health (at least the training routines do), but those skills can be fostered in many other ways (I’d rather we spent half of all global military budgets on training more Emergency Responders with added basic combat training in the extreme case it’s necessary, because we’ll obviously need them) and as an institution it exists solely for mass aggression. And that is the element with which I will never agree.
So, yeah, this is why I will continue to be of the opinion that sparing as many people as possible from joining the Army is a good end, but that it is reached through unjustifiable means in this case.
The military makes me nervous, and is not a job I’d choose, but cordially, that’s not the point, and not relevant or helpful for the people who’ve lost their careers with this announcement.
Agreed, and I’m sorry if it came off as though I was minimising things. Discrimination is discrimination any way we’d cut it, and this mindless erasure is nothing short of disgusting.
Grabbing silver linings wherever I can, to my mind this means lowered chances of trans people being sent to their deaths. At least through the military…
Fighting discrimination is useful to increase competitiveness.
Competitiveness generally leads to strong people gaining status (via knowledge, career-building, business successes, respect of their peers) in a civilized way, that is, with less theft and backstabbing.
This makes areas where discrimination is removed natural enemy of those where theft and backstabbing are the only way. Say, of bureaucracies and crony connections. And if competitiveness is reduced in other areas, they become degenerate and the only strength remains where I said.
So apparently the anti-discriminatory and other such effects of regulations did not outweigh the anti-competitive ones.
And I have to make the obvious right-wing observation that if an anti-discriminatory regulation reduces competitiveness more than increases it, including bureaucratic power and points of failure, then it’s a net loss and eventually there will be also more discrimination.
And Musk and Trump and others “removing unneeded regulations” are showing exactly that, Musk is a child of the system he pretends to be against, and without that system he wouldn’t exist. Same with Trump.
The problem here is not in truisms said in previous sentences, it’s in some things being visible immediately and some over many years, and people being easily deceived.
This discrimination so fucking dumb, that it circles back into becoming weirdly advantageous for those affected. Dunno about everyone else, but I would most certainly not be torn up over not being accepted into the US Army…
While i fully agree. What scares me the most is that representation within military and police is incredibly important in context to how those groups get treated.
They’re turning everything in a Ignorant fraternity, and we all know the kind of ideology that will be seeded on those groups.
That is a very good point, and I agree. I think I’m past the point where I even count The Army as a potential ally for anything progressive, quite the contrary.
I mean, we’ve been seeing the dynamics already with Police forces (not saying everyone, but enough to tilt the scales the wrong way), and history pretty much says that, with very few exceptions, mechanisms of the State usually fall in line with whoever is the head of said State.
This is not to say that I lump everyone participating in said mechanisms of the State in the same pot, I know (and hope) that there are individual people who are still sane and doing their best. But the mechanisms/institutions themselves (referring to the concrete contemporary bodies and structures) are so far outside my standards for allocating trust that it’s not even funny.
Spoken like someone who’s never had to pick their last option.
This is the case. Few people get into the military because it’s their dream. Most do so because there are no other options for them based on where they live, their level of education, etc.
Disclaimer: because I’m not sure this won’t come off as aggressive (I do have very strong feelings about the subject, but not outwardly directed), I need to stress that I am not trying to disagree with the fact that discrimination in any shape is unconscionable and I’m not trying to be beligerent here.
You’re right, I am viewing this from the perspective of someone who has, so far, managed to find other ways. But I also speak from the perspective of someone who grew up with The Army in their life (my grandfather was a Colonel, career Army man, and the main authority figure in my family - every day was abstract boot camp). Having seen firsthand the implications of and intentions behind the existence of The Army as a corpus (regardless of country), both historically and contemporarily, I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t join The Army even if it was my last option. I’d much rather join an informal Citizens’ Militia if practical needs for such should arise, because I’m in it to defend people, not to kill the Enemy.
This is not to say that I judge anyone who does so based on limited options, not even close to it. I’ve had my fair share of scraping by and I know how survival allows for very little philosophy. Nor is it an attempt to dilute the grotesqueness of this rampant discrimination, as I agree that people should be allowed to make their own choices and carry the resulting repercussions regardless of domain.
What I am saying is that I cannot agree with The Army as a viable option for anything, let alone as a justifiable institution for any form of rational society. I can appreciate that it fosters some truly valuable skills, like discipline (I don’t mean learning to bow down to Authority), the establishment of routine, physical health (at least the training routines do), but those skills can be fostered in many other ways (I’d rather we spent half of all global military budgets on training more Emergency Responders with added basic combat training in the extreme case it’s necessary, because we’ll obviously need them) and as an institution it exists solely for mass aggression. And that is the element with which I will never agree.
So, yeah, this is why I will continue to be of the opinion that sparing as many people as possible from joining the Army is a good end, but that it is reached through unjustifiable means in this case.
The military makes me nervous, and is not a job I’d choose, but cordially, that’s not the point, and not relevant or helpful for the people who’ve lost their careers with this announcement.
Agreed, and I’m sorry if it came off as though I was minimising things. Discrimination is discrimination any way we’d cut it, and this mindless erasure is nothing short of disgusting.
Grabbing silver linings wherever I can, to my mind this means lowered chances of trans people being sent to their deaths. At least through the military…
Understood and appreciated, friend.
Fighting discrimination is useful to increase competitiveness.
Competitiveness generally leads to strong people gaining status (via knowledge, career-building, business successes, respect of their peers) in a civilized way, that is, with less theft and backstabbing.
This makes areas where discrimination is removed natural enemy of those where theft and backstabbing are the only way. Say, of bureaucracies and crony connections. And if competitiveness is reduced in other areas, they become degenerate and the only strength remains where I said.
So apparently the anti-discriminatory and other such effects of regulations did not outweigh the anti-competitive ones.
And I have to make the obvious right-wing observation that if an anti-discriminatory regulation reduces competitiveness more than increases it, including bureaucratic power and points of failure, then it’s a net loss and eventually there will be also more discrimination.
And Musk and Trump and others “removing unneeded regulations” are showing exactly that, Musk is a child of the system he pretends to be against, and without that system he wouldn’t exist. Same with Trump.
The problem here is not in truisms said in previous sentences, it’s in some things being visible immediately and some over many years, and people being easily deceived.
There are people who want to be in the military, and they should be able to do that if they choose.