Dio backtracking once again.
Bullshit. There’s a difference between allowing an opinion poll to influence policy and using an opinion poll to give you a sense of what kind of trouble you’ll face when, not if, you change policy.
No, there’s isn’t. You know why they’re using an opinion poll to give them a sense of what kind of trouble they’ll face? So that it can influence their policy decisions.
Yeah, they’re all linguists, ain’t they, them pervs . . .
No, their opinions are still irrelevant either way.
waves in general direction of posts 18,24,42
pats BG condescendingly on the head
Chessic:
If I had been polled about my feelings on gays openly serving in the military, back when I was a soldier, of course I would have done my duty and completed the survey.
What, pray tell, is your point? Obeying an order to complete a survey is in no way an undermining of my and Dio’s position that servicemembers’ feelings are properly irrelevant to policy.
And let me correct you here: It is NOT the civilian administration that is polling service members. It is the military itself (for some largely inscrutable reason).
My point is that you’re wrong. SMs’ feelings on the matter are extremely relevant to good decision-making.
Except they’re not. They’re not even asked for.
The entire justification put forth by generals for DADT since Clinton has been couched in the idea that we cannot do to the soldiers something that would hurt their moral.
Everybody is talking past each other. I’m not sure there’s any real disagreement here, except maybe the standard SDMB “I will never concede even in the slightest that my opponent has a point” recalcitrance.
Point one: No one, I believe, disagrees that in the military, the chain of command is largely unquestioned (let’s not have any Nuremberg sidetracks), and that civilians are ultimately in charge of the military. The opinions of the dogfaces, in a very real but technical sense, are irrelevant, in that no one need heed them. That is absolutely how it works. Period.
Point two: But the policymakers may heed them–it’s entirely up to them. They can consider them and act upon them in any way they so choose. They can ignore them. They can tweak their imminent policy change. They can keep policy the status quo. Or they can simply use the info to understand how to deal with the aftermath of the policy change (e.g., morale problems, lowered enlistment, whatever they discern). They are under no obligation because of Point One to ignore the opinions of the troops. In fact, if the first point is true, they can do any @#$%ing thing they want with those opinions, including changing their policies. And that may be exactly why they’re conducting the survey. “A soldier will do as he’s told, dammit” is a notion not threatened at all by this survey, so bringing it up is the real irrelevancy.
Does anyone disagree with either of those points? Or should we have the typical eight pages of violently agreeing with each other, quibbling over what is essentially a semantic point?
I disagree with the second point. It would be irresponsible to consider their opinions at all, or give them the impression that what they think matters.
I don’t know what you’re disagreeing with, though. It’s inarguable. You can say that you personally would not for any reason entertain their opinions. That’s fine. But the current policymakers may do whatever the hell they’d like. So an unequivocal statement suggesting that the opinions are de facto irrelevancies is, well, wrong. The opinions have whatever weight the policymakers decide to assign them. They’re commissioning this survey for a reason.
Almost OT, did you see in yesterday’s New York Times article about that Quaker hotline for in-service concisenious objectors? They are getting at least some calls from soldiers unwilling to serve with openly Gay people. The group says they will not help such soldiers get CO status.
What? Its not irresponsible for commanders to consider what their underlings think and feel about an issue…that’s responsible leadership!
And doing so doesn’t in any way undermine the “we own you, shut the fuck up and do as we say” doctrine that the military operates under, either.
Listening to your subordinates and addressing their legitimate issues is part of being a good commanding officer. Ignoring them and telling them to “suck it up” only works in certain scenarios. I think you are letting your previous military experience from awhile ago get in the way of how it operates now…which is much of the same, yet a little different.
I still disagree. It’s the military, not the Oprah Winfrey show. They’re not there to talk about their feelings. Yes, CO’s should monitors what’s going on, and how things are working, but only from a logistic standpoint, not for opinions on how they like the policy. Bitching about policy is the number one sport in the ranks. If the brass started involving themselves in listening to that, they’d never get anything else done.
Sort of like this, then?
LOL, that’s great!
“I’d rather be at home with my wife and kids”
“Would you!?!? Right then, off you go!”
