# Is "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" a reasonable law or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2008, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791 "2008-11-08T11:26:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![usmc8408](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/usmc8408/32/12878_2.png) [@usmc8408](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usmc8408)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/101 "2008-11-10T19:35:03Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Oh, I don’t know… wasn’t it the Spartans who had a unit comprised exclusively of, ah, paired partners? The notion was that you’d fight twice as hard and twice as well if you were protecting and being protected by your lover as by just any ol’ Johnny. > > Mind you, your posts are the first time I’ve heard of “the negative influence of emotions” as the reasoning behind not having women in “combat units.” Usually it’s something about protecting us weaker sex. The argument we’re giving against that is that an artillery gun doesn’t care who’s pushing the red button. > > DADT seems to have led to a lot of gays being kicked out of the military, judging by articles linked from these same boards. So long as nobody who’s a bigot and in a position of power knows officially, you don’t get kicked out. But if the “not in my batallion” colonel (to pick a grade out of thin air) happens to find proof that Mike likes to dress up as Molly and do perfect 69s, Mike does get kicked out for “conduct unbecoming”. Since the military does need gays, wouldn’t it be better to just drop the charade? > > [semihijack]Please, could you learn to count your dots? I have problems taking seriously people who can’t. Ellipses have three dots, not twelve![/hijack] yeah, i’ll learn to count my dots when you learn that periods are inside of quotations…not outside…because i have a harder time taking people who don’t’ know 1st grade sentence structure seriously…look back at your “conduct unbecoming”. and lastly, when you have all that figured out…go ahead and learn how to spell, because it’s battalion, not battallion…but hey, don’t take me seriously, because obviously you’re the smart one here. ---
**Author:** ![usmc8408](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/usmc8408/32/12878_2.png) [@usmc8408](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usmc8408)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/102 "2008-11-10T19:45:46Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You have a poster with only a sporadic interest in the Shift Key and you’re worried about ellipses? if i want a lesson on capitalization, i’ll find it somewhere else…so please don’t talk about my sporadic interests like i’m an idiot who doesn’t know any better. i’m here to post comments…not be graded by random people because i have a “sporadic interest” in the shift key. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/103 "2008-11-10T19:48:24Z")
> [@usmc8408](#): > > yeah, i’ll learn to count my dots when you learn that periods are inside of quotations…not outside…because i have a harder time taking people who don’t’ know 1st grade sentence structure seriously…look back at your “conduct unbecoming”. Where did you go to first grade? Where I come from, they don’t teach sentence structure any differently than they do for the more senior students. You don’t end a sentence with “conduct unbecoming.” You end it with “conduct unbecoming”. ---
**Author:** ![usmc8408](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/usmc8408/32/12878_2.png) [@usmc8408](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usmc8408)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/104 "2008-11-11T00:48:13Z")
> [@Fantome](#): > > Where did you go to first grade? Where I come from, they don’t teach sentence structure any differently than they do for the more senior students. > > You don’t end a sentence with “conduct unbecoming.” > > You end it with “conduct unbecoming”. Hey Fantome, i don’t know if you live in america or not, but here we always put periods inside quotations. i was just looking and i guess in the UK that rule is not 100%. i say this in a nice way, i’m not being sarcastic. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/105 "2008-11-11T01:30:18Z")
> [@geniios](#): > > F\*\*\* you I’ll insinuate anything I want. You’re not the boss of me. 😛 **Moderator’s Note:** Perhaps this was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but **geniios** , personal insults are not allowed outside of the Pit. And _everyone_, I think we can drop the grammar hijack(s) now. ---
**Author:** ![usmc8408](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/usmc8408/32/12878_2.png) [@usmc8408](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usmc8408)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/106 "2008-11-11T04:16:29Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > **Moderator’s Note:** Perhaps this was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but **geniios** , personal insults are not allowed outside of the Pit. > > And _everyone_, I think we can drop the grammar hijack(s) now. i’ve never heard the term “grammar hijack” before. can you tell me what it means? ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/107 "2008-11-11T04:34:26Z")
Hijack is when a thread goes off topic, and currently the thread is focusing on grammar and puncutation rather than DADT and the military - so it’s a grammar hijack 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![usmc8408](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/usmc8408/32/12878_2.png) [@usmc8408](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usmc8408)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/108 "2008-11-11T05:07:48Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Hijack is when a thread goes off topic, and currently the thread is focusing on grammar and puncutation rather than DADT and the military - so it’s a grammar hijack 🙂 ahh…(notice i’m just using 3 solar eclipses), now i get it. thanks for the 411 now, for the moment i must return to watching Jacob’s Ladder. it’s getting near the end and hopefully things will start to make sense. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Grither](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grither/32/425_2.png) [@Grither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grither)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791/109 "2008-11-18T02:09:09Z")
> [@usmc8408](#): > > now, for the moment i must return to watching Jacob’s Ladder. it’s getting near the end and hopefully things will start to make sense. > > 🙂 Ha. Good luck with that. It sounds to me that your problems with gay men were more accurately problems with **assholes**. Alas, there is some overlap there, but it is my profound hope that the one group is not over-represented in the other. Did you ever really state your personal feelings about DADT? I know you noodled with it a bit, but I don’t feel like we ever got a concrete answer. And I know that this is a complicated issue, and “I’m not sure” or “it depends” are definitely valid answers, but I was wondering if you could please tease that out a bit for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-dont-ask-dont-tell-a-reasonable-law-or-not/471791.md?page=5)