Gay Games and the Spartans
Ron Grossman gives us a history lesson today in the Trib about ...one of the most famous Greek military units, the Sacred Band, 150 pairs of warriors who were lovers.
I wish Gay Activists then would lay off banning ROTC in Universities and instead replace the words American and United States for Spartan and city in this paragraph,
Those gay unions were intended to foster a spirit that, in every generation, on every battlefield, the foremost thought in a Spartan's mind must be never to let down their city.I think they'd do more service to their cause if they tried that.
25 comments:
How 'bout our political leaders putting our country's best interest's first, instead of their own, narrow, theological agenda?
Remember this story?
Report: More gay linguists discharged than first thought
Records suggest U.S. military places anti-gay position over national security
The number of Arabic linguists discharged from the military for violating its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is higher than previously reported, according to records obtained by a research group.
The group contends the records show that the military — at a time when it and U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have enough Arabic speakers — is putting its anti-gay stance ahead of national security.
Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military under a Freedom of Information Act request.
So, tell me Bill, who is it that is failing to put our nation's security first: The military, who is discharging badly-needed intelligence officers at the height of our war on terror? Or the activists, who are trying to send the message to our military that they should stop discharging badly-needed intelligence officers at the height of our war on terror? Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.
The activists agitating to remove ROTC from campuses...
without a doubt... failing the Spartan's test: ...the foremost thought in a Spartan's mind must be never to let down their city.
The activists letting down the United States...
...or as JFK said, when Liberals spoke true...
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Bill, please help me out on this.
I have checked out the web sites of the following national and local gay rights organizations and can find no information that indicates they advocate kicking NROTC groups off college campuses:
Human Rights Campaign
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Stonewall Democrats
Log Cabin Republicans
Equality Illinois
Chicago Stonewall Democrats
Please let me know what gay activist groups advocate for this policy. I clearly may have missed something.
If so, I will let them know what an openly gay, former US Army Infantry Officer, that served during the Vietnam era, thinks of their position. Not much, I can assure you.
Are you seriously suggesting that the best things gays can do for the defense of the United States is to accept a policy that prevents them from serving in our armed forces?
Really?
Bill, "when liberals spoke true"?
By that token, you'd have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt to find "when conservatives spoke true" -- and obviously he left the GOP...
Of course not. I am adamatly opposed to "don't ask, don't tell." It's a stupid policy.
Gay men and Lesbians serve today in the military under an intolerable policy.
The ROTC did not creat the stupid policy. Stupid politicians did.
Larry,
Start writing letters to these folks...
The San Francisco Board of Education appears poised to kick the military's Junior ROTC programs out of the city's public schools, saying the Pentagon's refusal to allow openly gay service members is deplorable and not in line with the school district's anti-discrimination policy.
There are a lot of gay Republicans too. They influence a lot more of the Illinois GOP than people know. They should all come out.
NW Burbs,
FDR spoke true, Truman spoke true, and so did LBJ...
it all ended with him, although I didn't realize it in 1968.
Bizarre
you have no idea how bizare 1968 was... no idea....
Yet the Israelis wonder why the Arab/Moslem world has no love loss for them. Unfortunately, the world has been trained by the Anti-Defamation League to put the whole blame on the Muslim “terrorists,” but Israel has shown over and over again that they are just as terror-minded as their Arab counterparts. As Harry Truman once said:
“The Jews have no sense of proportion, nor do they have any judgment on world affairs. The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as Displaced Persons, as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power – physical, financial or political – neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog.” (President Harry S. Truman, unpublished diary entry of July 21, 1947, Washington Post, July 11, 2003, cited by Michael A. Hoffman II).
Bill:
Are you suggesting that all "gay activists" and National and state gay rights organizations are defined by the position of the San Francisco Board of Education. That's a very big brush. If you mean "some", even "many" say so. Your post suggests "all." That is not accurate.
Thanks.
Larry,
...just the gay activists protesting ROTC on campus...
I'm not aware of any gay activists advocating for ROTC on campus...
I'd be with them... and if you know of them I'd proudly link to them.
Harry,
What's interesting about this current war is the Arab condemdation of Hamas and Hezbollah... this is an Israeli Persian war... it's not an Arab Israeli war by any means... and Arabs know it.
Harry,
You ought give the whole link.
But Truman's comments were, Bloomfield says, "typical of a sort of cultural anti-Semitism that was common at that time in all parts of American society. This was an acceptable way to talk."
"Truman was often critical, sometimes hypercritical, of Jews in his diary entries and in his correspondences, but this doesn't make him an anti-Semite," says John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University and a prominent Cold War scholar. "Anyone who played the role he did in creating the state of Israel can hardly be regarded in that way."
Truman spoke truth becaue he was a creature of his times... he desegragated the Army, he recognized a Jewish State... maybe contrary to what he felt about both peoples....
...yet he knew to speak truth when it cam to time to put words to action.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
Working Paper Number:RWP06-011
Submitted: 03/13/2006
Download Instructions
Abstract
In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby." This paper goes on to describe the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.
To view responses to this paper from Harvard University faculty members, click here
Harry "the Hitman" Aleman said that the boys in the band had influence with HARRY TRUMAN.
St. Louis MO was very ethnic for the Midwest and very corrupt.
The US Army needed the US Sicilian and Southern Italian (Naples, Calabria) La Cosa Nostra/Mafia (our thing/sanctuary)in the Italian invasion. Read the Bob Herguth article in the Chicago Sun Times.
"I wish Gay Activists...would lay off banning ROTC in Universities..."
Please be more specific Bill, which gay activists?
Also, what are you doing to convince "stupid politicans" to accept gays in the military?
Check the link to the SF school board action.
What do I do about stupid politicans?
I vote.
Bill,
Although I agree with your general point, it is difficult for homosexuals to serve their country when the religious zealots will not let them.
We keep kicking good people out of our military. Meanwhile, incompetents get promoted.
That is life under the Bush Administration.
I met a just retired Gunny Sgt at a bar on 38th and third Ave in NYC last week. We spent four hours talking over everything under the sun.
He knew plenty of gays in the corps and said it was time to get rid of DADT.
I knew plenty when I worked for DoD...
It's time to get rid of the policy but I don't think its much of an obstacle to serving.
The people protesting ROTC do a real dis service, to what ever they think their cause is... and their country. That's my point.
So Bill, the only evidence that you have that "gay activists" have launched some sort of campaign is the activity of one school board? Pretty thin.
BTW, I just wanted to take this moment to thank you for your equally spirited post criticizing Donald Rumsfeld and the DoD for not having an occupation strategy for our troops, or adequate equipment, or ensuring that they were well taken care of when they returned from the battlefield.
Oh wait, you haven't written that blog entry yet, have you?
Google around Rumsfeld vs. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights.
Gay Activists aren't necessarily gay you know... check the amicus briefs to this case. Just activists using a cause to further an agenda which I'd argue serves gays badly.
...and Gays aren't necessarily opposed to ROTC. Here's one writing in favor of it,
The Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it would hear the appeal of Rumsfeld vs. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, pitting the Defense Department against a coalition of prominent law schools. At Yale, one of the institutions which brought the suit and where I am an undergraduate, I have seen the unfortunate effects of the otherwise well-intentioned gay activists’ campaign to prevent the military from recruiting law students to serve in the JAG corps and in keeping ROTC off the college’s campus, both because of the military’s anti-gay, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
I agree, of course, that the military’s policy undermines national security by expelling competent individuals, but I cannot bring myself to support an agenda aimed at hindering the armed forces’ vital mission of recruiting talented individuals.
And here is the kicker exactly on mark..
By making homophobia the reigning issue in the debate over military recruitment, gay activists have fostered a form of group-think that necessarily compels all gay people — and all straight people who do not want to be thought of as homophobes — to support their cause. This tactic turns off many potential allies, who are equally supportive of gay rights and a strong national defense.
Sometimes issues affecting gay and lesbian Americans are more nuanced than morally absolutist activists would like them to be. While I may find “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to be unjust, it is more important that my straight peers have the opportunity to serve their country and defend the freedoms that gay activists have also fought so courageously to enshrine.
They fight courageously now in the service. Those activists don't want to talk about that though. They should.
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