Don’t End the Ban on Gays in the Military!

The U.S.'s military establishment is about to become a tool for progressive social change or, at least, is about to provide a platform for it. If the military is lifting the ban on LGBT people, it will actively contribute to destroying one central pillar of Western social culture – the fundamental value of distinctive gender relations. If a powerful societal entity like the military organization puts gays and transgender on level par, it will contribute to the termination of the traditional binary gender code and accelerate the ongoing process of social decline.
 
However, those who object to the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the part of the military follow a treacherous line of argumentation, merely based on considerations of utility and efficacy. High-ranking representatives of the U.S. Military, i.e., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and U.S. Marine Corps General James Conway, use exclusively utilitarian and consequentialist arguments. Conway, who disagrees with Mullen and goes up against Barack Obama's plan to repeal the ban, judge the issue from the viewpoint of whether or not openly serving gays would enhance or diminish the warfighting capabilities of U.S. Forces. But the political side uses the same shortsighted reasons. As but one example, Senator Joe Lieberman expects to find out from the current policy review process if allowing gays to serve openly would bolster the military's battle readiness.
 
But neither the ongoing warfighting in Iraq and Afghanistan nor the combat readiness question should decide the issue. The primary reasons for continuing the policy of banning open gays from serving in the military are much more profound. They rest beneath the superficial surface of expediency and useful practicality and have to do with our cultural identity. With the dissolution of a coherent societal order due to the increasing infiltration of arbitrary notions of individual hedonism and personal gratification into our social, political, and legal life, the moral decline of western societies has already reached new and alarming heights. As one of the last bastions of traditional order in any political community, the military establishment must not subject itself to undifferentiated equal treatment policies. It is paramount that it resists the onslaught of all those forces that promote social engineering and moral deconstruction. We have to be aware that gays and transgender people's claims are not exclusively about their desire to satisfy individual sensitivities and personal preferences. They also aim to create new power structures and identity designs that intend to alter our societies substantially. 

Therefore, it is apparent that the policy of banning openly gay and transgender people in the military ought to stay in place. However, implemented policies must support the prevention of abuse to escape from mission duress and warfighting tasks. A "well-timed revelation" of gay sexual orientation to that effect must result not merely in immediate and opportune discharge from the military but also in severe penalties that serve as a deterrent and serious obstacle against abuse.

U.S. Healthcare – A Political Debate Gone Astray

The current health care debate appears stuck between two irreconcilable positions – government-provided single-payer health care for all versus private health care chosen voluntarily from a competitive environment of health insurance companies. 

 

Neither of these approaches emphasizes what is decisive for an efficient and affordable reorganization of the health care system in the U.S. and everywhere else – the factor that every citizen, without exemption, must be obliged to be health insured. How the individual provides health insurance is of secondary importance; the primary concern is that every individual must be health insured. It should not depend on the private and personal initiative of whether one is insured or not. To put this obligation in legislative terms is as far as government guidance should go; to support those who cannot afford health insurance is as far as government intervention must go. 

 

People must understand that sickness and injury do not depend on a healthy lifestyle and youth alone. The transcendent aspect of human life, this particular dimension of life upon which we have no bearing, applies to everyone, is self-evident beyond all differences in faith and existential designs. We all know of friends, relatives, or acquaintances who suddenly got struck by cancer, got injured in a car accident, or came down with some unexpected illness that nobody could have possibly foreseen. 

 

In principle, the crux of health care is easy to comprehend. Everybody who works and has income must pay into some health insurance system covering him (plus all his dependents like spouse and children). Everybody who has no work or is otherwise unemployed and unable to care for himself has got to be insured by way of social support. A specific part of unemployment or retirement or disability benefits has got to go straight into health insurance coverage in the latter case.

 

The major flaw in the health reform model promoted by the Democrats is demanding government-provided, single health care coverage for everybody instead of affording it only to those who cannot pay coverage for themselves. The major flaw in the health reform models promoted by Republicans is rejecting government intervention as endangerment of civil liberty or considering it even to be unconstitutional. They neglect that single-care coverage through government support for unemployed and no-income people is essential for social stability and overall societal well-being, as is the legal obligation for everybody else to provide for their health care coverage.

 

The government could provide all of this without changing the current state of affairs of competing insurance companies by subsidizing private insurance companies for those who cannot buy their health insurance. This arrangement would provide social stability as far as the most pressing social issue of nationwide healthcare for every citizen is concerned without implementing a new system of entirely restructured nationalized health care and without colossal budgetary expenditures. 

 

When it comes to health care, there is no reason to violate the perennial principle of good governance – as much government as necessary, as little government as possible!