Don't Go

As the USA enters its late Weimar Period, with our own Barack von Obama leading us into the pre-Nazi dark, what seems to be more and more exposed is the narcissism, ineffectuality, and just plain dumbness of what the Mainstream Media deigns to call the "left" -- such he-men and he-women as Olbermann, Maddow, Hamsher, Markos deDoofus, the car-alarm known as Joan Walsh, Krugman, the always precious Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Vanden Heuvel and the rest of the The Nation and MSNBC gang. Perhaps the best current proof of this absolute irrelevance is the chortling over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell": while the US is in the midst of five (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and covertly Iran) aggressive wars across the globe, these Starbucks Sandinistas whine and whine about Lifestyle Choice.

Justin Raimondo:

"Don't ask, don't tell" is an appalling policy, one that has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with the most primitive prejudice. But what else can one expect of an institution such as the military, particularly the US military in the Age of Empire?

Also, the idea that the concept of equality means that everyone should have the "right" to join an institution that is currently rampaging over the earth, invading countries hither and yon, and causing in incalculable amount of human suffering and material destruction would be laughable if Americans -- particularly gay Americans -- didn't take it so seriously.

No one should join the military -- not gay people, not straight people, not any people. In a free society, the military would be just another job -- working to ensure the defense of the country. In today's America, however, that is most definitely not the function of the military, which has been turned into an instrument of oppression and worse. To say, therefore, that everyone has the "right" to participate in, say, what went on at Abu Graib -- in the name of "justice" -- is self-evidently absurd.

The mobilization of liberals behind a crusade to make the world safe for the American empire is a key goal of the War Party, and one way to accomplish it is to market the conflict as a war to rid the world of political incorrectness. That fits in rather nicely with this “gays in the military” campaign, which is being brought up at a pivotal point in the life of the Empire: the transition from the conservative Bush regime to an administration much more conducive to the left-liberal imagination. Obama is having increasing problems with the “progressive” wing of his party, and throwing them this sop will help inoculate him against criticism of his foreign policy from the left.

For years, the US military has proscribed, tracked down, harassed, prosecuted, and imprisoned lesbians and gay men, entrapping them, depriving them of their pensions, and disrespecting them as people – and now that they’re desperate, and backed up against a wall, with an unpopular couple of wars to fight, suddenly they need them, they want them, and, by the way, they’re oh-so-sorry about the past.

Anyone who agrees to such a deal — far from being noble, or even patriotic — must be suffering from an enormous lack of self-esteem. We hear so much about “gay pride,” these days – so what kind of “pride” is that?

Finally, to any gay person contemplating a military career at this point, I have to ask: are you ready to not ask and not tell about the atrocities you could well be ordered to commit? If not, then my advice to you is simple: forget “don’t ask, don’t tell” – and just don’t go.