Well, I wasn’t refererring to libertine behavior so much as a certain kind of anti-authorianism that characterizes many liberals, and would be reflected in such attitudes as believing they should be allowed to wear their hair more than a quarter of an inch long.
Right: Christian fundamentalist = not liberal. Fewer liberals = better order, more discipline. It’s hard to argue that the military doesn’t have a certain liking for Christian fundamentalism. Have you been following the controversy at the Air Force Academy over the degree of proselytization permitted there, and about the amount of pressure non-fundamentalist Christians are subjected to?
Are you referring to the assigned duties (everyone can be in a combat position) or are you to performance? I served in the Army and was disgusted by the fact that women did not have to meet the same physical standards as the men. Don’t give the bull about men having greater upper body strength. If you want to be treated the same, you must be expected to do the same as everyone else. Part of my job required being able to carry extremely heavy equipment on a daily basis (it was worse when it was covered in mud in the field). We had to consistently pick up the slack for the women in our platoon. We would go on 5 mile runs in our combat boots wearing 40 pound backpacks; the women were allowed to wear gym shoes, did not carry backpacks and they still kept falling out of the run. Yes, I knew women who could match or beat the men physically, but they were the exception from what I saw.
Another gender issue is that a pregnant soldier is allowed to get a medical discharge. I knew quite a few women who got sick of serving so they intentionally got knocked up in order to get out of the Army. I feel that if you don’t like the service, too frickin’ bad. You made a commitment; you signed papers and swore an oath. Stick to it like a man has to.
This is a good question. I think the best answer is that it would lead to a better liberal understanding of the military, where right now liberals see it as a mysterious and even alien bureaucracy and culture.
Your post, sadly, is a perfect illustration of this.
I think that is has been well reported that certain JAG military officers objected, to one degree or another, to interrogation procedures at Guantanamo Bay. I can’t help but think that prevailing political viewpoints within the military is one among many reasons why these concerns were dismissed.
In any case, I’m really pretty surprised that so many liberals here are signing up to the idea that liberals just can’t fit into the military because of some perceived common behavioral characteristics. Heck, for every anti-authoritarian hippie one can point to, I’m sure I can point to a redneck who won’t abide by anyone’s rules. Fer crying out loud, folks like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Frank Lautenberg, Tom Harkin, Dick Gephardt, Max Cleland, and other Democrats/liberals were somehow capable of serving well in the military, well, that otta say something.
If you’re going to persist in this line of reasoning, then surely you can produce some further evidence of a purge of liberals from military service beginning in the mid-1970s, aside from your own interpretation of a single sentence printed in one article.
Perhaps you could explain why you’re (implicitly) saying that unnecessary wars and torture are supported by the military, then. Along with some evidence that that’s the case, of course. Otherwise you’re supporting what BobLibDem says, but apparently dismissing it scorningly on no better grounds than that he’s a LibDem - is that right?
Moto, just because liberals aren’t serving in the United States armed forces, you assume we’re not doing military service?
There are other armies in this country besides the government’s, you know!
You didn’t?!
Oh . . . Forget I said anything.
And sleep with the lights on. 
Huh? I’m not sure what you’re arguing here. I’m saying something that I think is pretty non-controversial, namely that the military would prefer Christian conservatives to liberals among the ranks, because of the perception that non-liberals are more likely to submit to the military’s authority and discipline. That’s what the officer quoted by Kaplan was alluding to, and I don’t doubt that his assertion is correct. I’m hardly arguing that the military has purged liberals. Of course, the end of the draft means that the military no longer has such broad social representation, and instead draws from a somewhat smaller and more ideologically cohesive cohort – not to the complete exclusion of non-conservatives, of course. But the military is definitely a more conservative culture than America at large, as anyone who has ever been around the military knows.
Sorry, but I think a few guys who likely won’t win primary battles, much less a general election, isn’t enough to turn around an entire party on this score.
I think the evidence is clear that both parties have shed a lot of their veteran’s representation in the halls of Congress.
This cite not only indicates that the proportion of veterans in Congress is down to one-third from ahigh of two-thirds, it also provides more evidence for my assertion that the military officer corps is increasingly Republican.
Liberal active duty servicemember chiming in here. I find it curious that so many people would project partisan political motivations on a serious change of life like joining the military. Although attitudes vary by service, the principal motivation for joining I’ve encountered is security.
What I haven’t heard mentioned in this thread so far is that the red states producing our most vociferous Republicans also have the most limited economic opportunities. Coming from Southern California, I didn’t have to join the Navy. I could have chosen from a number of pretty good colleges, and graduated with a fair assurance (as much as anyone gets these days) that a technical degree could result in a decent entry level job. A number of my classmates can’t say the same thing. Granted, not everyone comes from extreme privation. But most people I’ve met would have had rather limited lives outside of the Navy.
On political persuasion: most arm-chair intellectuals feel comfortable generalizing about what “the military” thinks and does, both equating the politicians who direct our use with the actual rank and file, and treating a broad swath of the population as a monolithic bloc. You can find the “nuke the whales” crazies, but I would suggest that politics are derived from upbringing, leading to a bell curve with a swell of moderates. And a question on the mentioned evangelicals - how many exactly of the 40% are the sort of shrill Christian Reconstructionists you see in the news, and seem to have seized control of the Christian image? I don’t like these broad, inflexible categories in any debate. They’re most often used to close off avenues of thought.
Good post, sailorspook. As an ex-OS2 I hope you stick around.
Evangelical here is just a description, and shouldn’t be conflated with political leanings 100%. After all, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton also belonged to an evangelical denomination.
I don’t quite see what is so sad about my post. I get the impression that you think of liberals as some evil commodity that if only they understood the wonderful wonderful world of the military, then they would drop their godless ways and embrace the glories of conservatism.
One might as well ask, why aren’t more conservatives in the Peace Corps?
You seem to be presenting two main arguments: first, that more conservatives serve in the military because the military has a conservative culture. It’s a tautology and it completely misses the question posed in the OP: how to get more liberals serving in the military.
Second, that liberals are not welcome in the military, based upon the fact that Christian fundamentalists allegedly helped restore order to the military after it had degraded in capability following the Vietnam War. This just doesn’t track what the quoted text says. The quoted text talks about discipline being restored to the military by Christian fundamentalists. It doesn’t say a word about liberals. I’m asking you: since you are arguing that liberals were the problem with the military, please provide evidence that liberals were the problem with the military.
What I am saying is that the quoted text seems to mean that Christian Fundamentalists raised standards for recruitment and behavior and
cracked down on lousy soldiers who drank too much, didn’t take their job seriously, didn’t respect the experience of NCOs, etc.
There’s been not a shred of evidence presented that liberals are generally incompetent, unmotivated drunks who lack education or motivation, or that “the military establishment” prefers not to have those with certain (fairly mainstream) political views excluded from the service.
So, let’s just ask the current and former servicemembers here: Moto, sailorspook, any others: do you believe that the military establishment discourages those with liberal views from signing up? In recruiting and promotion boards, is there any perceptable tilt toward those with conservative political views? Does a liberal have a tougher road to hoe in professional advancement in the military?
(FWIW, I recall that a long list of distinguished former servicemembers supported John Kerry for President, such as Gen. Shalikashvili, Gen. Zinni, and others – although it might be more common to be a Republican in the military, I just haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever that liberals who do their duty are discouraged, frowned upon, weeded out, or otherwise disliked in the military simply because of the way they vote.)
The cite was for Lamar Mundane’s statement that 35 Democratic veterans are planning runs for Congress, nothing more.
Ah, yes. Why can’t I get it through my head that it’s poor Americans voted against their own best interests that keep the Republicans in power?
You’re right, of course. However, within those economically-challenged red states, minorities (who I believe still vote largely blue) still over-represent themselves in the military (which I assume is the case for the same reason - lack of economic alternatives). But I have no cites to back it up. Is it not true minorities make up more of the military than the general population?
Well, of course they have. The proportion of the US population serving in the military is about as low as it has been since the end of WWII (with the possible exception of the demobilization period of 1947 until the start of the Korean War). There just aren’t as many veterans - of all political stripes - in the general population to run for Congress.
The big percentage of Congressmen and Senators who were veterans was an anomaly, resulting from service in WWII. As those veterans retired or passed away, the proportion was bound to go down drastically, as it has.
Sua
You’re overstating here. What I’m saying is that the military perceives Christians to be more natural military material than liberals. Do I have any proof? Only indirectly, and part of the indirect proof is that quote we keep talking about. You contrast Christian soldiers not with liberal soldiers, but with lousy soldiers who drink too much, etc. – which may be true, but it’s also true and non-coincidental that Christian soldiers tend not to be liberal. Notice the use of the word tend – because that’s what we’re talking about here, tendencies and perceptions.
A good point, and I would contend that yes, the military does perceptably tilt towards conservatives in both recruiting and promoting. Here’s a suggestive tidbit – I went on the website of the US Army recruiting command to see how many active-duty Army recruiting stations are in (relatively liberal) Massachusetts versus (relatively conservative) North Carolina. So I count 25 in Massachusetts, versus 47 (88% more) in NC, even though the NC population is only 27% higher than that of Massachusetts.
Ravenman, I’m curious – is it your belief that the military is not more conservative than the US as a whole?
Are there a lot of Republican pacifists out there? I think joining the military is just more likely to be incompatible with modern day liberalism - so a greater number of liberals than non-liberals are going to say ‘no, I won’t consider doing that.’ I don’t see why this hurts liberalism or the military. Some liberals definitely mistrust the military (more the leadership than the actual members, but still) and I’m sure there is mistrust of liberals in the military. I’m sure it’d be to everybody’s benefit to remedy that, but I’m not seeing the harm of fewer liberals enlisting.