Thursday, June 26, 2008

Don't Ask, Too Bad.


In an upcoming episode of 60 Minutes, they cover the recent resistance to the long-running Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy. They interview a military man by the name of Daniel Davis, the mental titan pictured above, has some arguments against. Let's pick these apart.

"Our purpose in the military... is about fighting and winning the nation's wars"

Spot on! Something tells me that gays can pull a trigger and kill 'dem a sand nigger just like all 'dem udder country boys.

"Military troops are generally conservative and allowing gays to serve openly would offend them and jeopardize battle effectiveness."

Oh no! Offend the poor widdle soldier boys! We can't have that! We can't let a soldier worry that the pickle-smoker behind him won't shoot the bad guy because he's too busy checking out the soldier's ass.

Shut up! They're fucking soldiers (in the case of the gays, literally). If merely being offended by something causes them to act erratically, you don't want to be giving them guns!

"In my view, men are going to die, units are going to fail that would otherwise not fail."

If that is the case, I can't stress enough how much better off the world would be with these men dead.

But, didn't people say the same things about blacks? "You know, I've heard that many times." Yet it worked. "However, if you have a moral or religious issue you cannot order me to bond and cohese with that person because it is morally repugnant to me."

Ok, great job on not answering the question. "people have told me that. I just ignore them." And he called it a moral or religious issue. Moral? MORAL? Define a moral, jackass. Morals change with the times. They always have. Back in the day, people HAD moral issues with blacks. People hated blacks. If this guy was around during the Little Rock Nine, he would have kept the blacks out to "maintain cohesion."

What offends people can be anything. Religion, morals; it all changes. If anyone is offended by gays, you can't order them to bond, but you can order them to shut up and perform. What offends them could be ANYTHING. Heard about atheists in major sports? They get harassed and ostracized. You cannot cater to bigotry and stupidity because it knows no bounds.

There are gay men in the world. The US Military better make its peace with, oh right, REALITY.

Also, bond and cohese? Cohese? Let's look that up. Yep. Not a word.


They later interview a high-ranking official from the British military, saying how allowing gays to serve openly has had no effect. Another open-minded paragon of intelligence and rational thought, Congressman Duncan Hunter (pictured) then says that the US is not Europe, and we CANNOT have gays in the military because the other countries are pussies and they can have gays serving because they don't fight real wars. Oh right. That's a good point. We need nice, pliant idiots to further our wild, unilateral wars on... everyone, apparently.

"He argues that gays do not belong in the US military, because US troops need to be hardened warriors, unlike soldiers in the fifteen NATO countries where gays serve openly."

Let's see now... yep, same argument was used against blacks in WWII to explain why they were only ever used as pack mules and not in fighting situations. Because we needed hardened, skilled warriors. Not those poor, dumb niggers. It's amazing that this guy just called every other country a bunch of pussies with a straight face. No WONDER the world hates us.

"The Fallujahs of the world. The Ramadis of the world, require heavy combat and lots of firefighting capabilities. Those are the places the Americans go.

Yep, because we invade them!

"The other countries tend to go to the peacekeeper zones, where they have fewer firefights... And the European nations show little will to send large contingents of their fighting forces into dangerous places."

Perhaps it's because they realize that they don't have any reason to send their troops there. Perhaps America's obsession with having far-flung military bases on every square centimeter of the globe is really fucking stupid. Perhaps.

Hunter says that now is not the time for change.

"When we risk doing away with this system that works..."

Works? WORKS?! 4,000 gays per year do not re-enlist because of DADT. The military is enlisting felons, retards, and fat guys in huge numbers because they're so desperate. If he says this works, I'd hate to see his definition of broken.

"Where American families sit around the dinner table and they make a decision that their young man or young woman is going to go into this military because they share the values of that military..."

Gee, I thought those values included justice, freedom, happiness, and defense against tyranny. Fear, stupidity, bigotry, and defense against fudge-packers. And also, shouldn't it be the choice of the young man/woman. Why is this a family meeting in this weird fucker's mind?

"...or should we experiment at a time when our military is totally volunteer. When it's extremely capable and perhaps lose that capability or perhaps lose those numbers and lose those re-enlistments (like the 4,000 gays lost each year?) and perhaps lose that effectiveness."

This man is so wrong he's off the chart. Now is always the best time for change. And history has shown, it's those who fight change who are vilified and then forgotten. Those who stand in defense of change; of the unknown, they are the ones who are forever remembered.

Don't Ask Don't Tell (Via Yahoo! CBS News)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

On Genius

Genius gets talked about a lot. The Discovery Channel runs some special about this savant or the other on a daily basis, t-shirts get emblazoned with Einstein's mug, and great brains get dissected to try and locate the seat of genius.

I find this stupid. I don't think genius exists at all. Genius is an actualization, not a state. I cannot be a genius, I can only perform acts of genius. For example, say I score a 200 on an IQ test, thus classifying me a genius, but I then go off and work in a burger joint for the rest of my life. Was I actually a genius? If I was, what worth is the classification in the first place? Who cares if you're a genius or not if you're flipping burgers?

But there are people in the world who are profoundly retarded; to such a degree as to be incapable of feeding themselves. And yet, if given clay, they can sculpt perfect models of things they saw only once. Or paint portraits of stunning beauty. Or design buildings. Or compose music. These would undeniably be called acts of genius, but calling these people geniuses would be silly on its face. So if people who are not geniuses, do things of genius, and geniuses can live pointless, boring lives, what are we to determine?

I think the only conclusion is that genius is a reality. I am only a genius insofar as I have performed acts of genius. And an IQ test is only useful insofar as it has predictive power to say whether a person is likely to create things of genius or not. For example, Marilyn vos Savant, a very famous smart person. To what level has her genius brought her? She writes a weekly newspaper column. Or perhaps William James Sidis, perhaps the smartest man in history. Have you ever heard of him? I didn't think so.