Boycott the Super Bowl

[notsheigetz]

I don't know about you but I was shocked and outraged by this story ..

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl--repor ... 46715.html

In the year 2013 it's time to put an end to this kind of bigotry in America once and for all. Openly gay people can now serve in the military protecting our freedom from those who want to take it away so why are they not welcome with open arms in the National Football League?

And what about women? A woman can now serve on the front lines of combat in the U.S. Military but she cannot quarterback a football team?

The time has come for Americans to wake up and realize that the National Football League is antithetical to the true American values of equality that our forefathers fought and died for.

(I like Kapernick and predict the 49er's will win).

[melveyr]

Keep in mind you are dealing with a professional that involves slamming your head into other peoples heads for money.

[notsheigetz]

I assume you meant to say "person-cott".

Yes, I did mean to say person-cott, thank you.

At age 63 I do not recall anything in my whole life that I remember enjoying with my clothes on more than playing football.

If I had to compete against open gays and women I'm not sure it would have been the same but who knows? Back then it wouldn't have felt patriotic and like the right thing to do but we've come a long way.

[MachineGhost]

I don't know, all that bending over...

[Kriegsspiel]

I was a center, which I don't think you can beat for the most intimate position on the field...

[MediumTex]

I get the impression that being gay in the black community is a bit more challenging than in the white community.

I also think that we are on the cusp of a generational shift when it comes to being gay.  In 10 years I think that professional sports will probably have a different attitude toward this stuff.

I remember a spoof I saw one time and it involved an all-gay pro football team called "The San Francisco 69ers."

I always thought that was really funny in a Beavis and Butthead sort of way.

[Benko]

A woman can now serve on the front lines of combat in the U.S. Military

And what is the purpose of the military?  And putting women on the front lines serves that purpose?

Women do many things better than men, but this is just liberal insanity.

[clacy]

A woman can now serve on the front lines of combat in the U.S. Military

And what is the purpose of the military?  And putting women on the front lines serves that purpose?

Women do many things better than men, but this is just liberal insanity.

I don't get it either.  They have studied this.  Keep in mind that combat troops carry on average about 75 lbs of gear and amour.  That can't be easy for a woman to do, purely from a physical standpoint. 

[Pointedstick]

The thing is, women have been serving on the front lines for years unofficially, and reports I've seen appear to indicate that they perform similarly to their male colleagues. All this does is make the official policy match the reality of the situation.

[Kriegsspiel]

i suspect there is actually quite a bit of difference between being on a mission that ends up engaged in combat, and being in the front line troops that go out on combat missions, i know it sounds like semantics, but while the actual combat part may be similar or the same, the hardships and conditions are quite different for combat troops, just after this topic hit the news last week a solders description of the ride into Iraq was going around, the level of toughness and endurance of all things filthy humiliating and painfully is beyond anything i would have imagined.

My platoon was involved in the most enemy contact in our entire RSTA squadron, as stated by our commander after the deployment.  We were a support platoon.  So the women in my platoon were involved in just as much/more combat as the soldiers who went on "direct combat" missions (by which I assume you mean dismounted patrols?).

[MachineGhost]

i don't actually doubt a women's ability to fight or see any reason to pull them off of missions where their being there is not harming the operations or has already been integrated, i think it is more a question of logistics. here is the letter i referred to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578260132111473150.html i have a hard time seeing how women could be integrated into the type of mission or the conditions this guy describers. Maybe it can be done, but if it can, it can't harm the ability of the military to get the job done and it has to be cost effective, keeping in mind all that is being done just to prove some academic ideology of equality, the military has no shortage of gung ho men willing to fill this need.

Yes, a woman is as capable as a man of pulling a trigger. But the goal of our nation's military is to fight and win wars. Before taking the drastic step of allowing women to serve in combat units, has the government considered whether introducing women into the above-described situation would have made my unit more or less combat effective?

Come on, we're talking about the government here!  Where political expediency takes precedence over common sense, always.

But, as long as women know fully what they're potentially getting themselves into, it's hard to say they don't have a right.  And not all women are heterosexual, feminized types.

[smurff]

I don't get it either.  They have studied this.  Keep in mind that combat troops carry on average about 75 lbs of gear and amour.  That can't be easy for a woman to do, purely from a physical standpoint. 

It's not easy for men to carry around 75 pounds either, not without training.

Lots of women do it all day, without any training.  Some 4 year olds can weigh 100 pounds.  Add their paraphernalia and it can be a lot more.

[flyingpylon]

Some 4 year olds can weigh 100 pounds.  Add their paraphernalia and it can be a lot more.

A 4 year old in the 95th percentile for weight would weigh about 45lbs.  Just sayin'...

[Benko]

There are some women who could play middle linebacker for pro football teams that run a lot.  How about the gov't mandate that 50% of all middle linebackers must be women and if not the NFL gets fined?

Women and men are equivalent.
The earth is cooling..oops warming...oops changing...
Guns cause violence....

[Pointedstick]

There are some women who could play middle linebacker for pro football teams that run a lot.  How about the gov't mandate that 50% of all middle linebackers must be women and if not the NFL gets fined?

Women and men are equivalent.
The earth is cooling..oops warming...oops changing...
Guns cause violence....

I don't think the government is mandating that 50% of soldiers be women. They're allowing women who are already enlisted to participate in previously male-only combat roles.

Mandate != permission

[Benko]

They're allowing women who are already enlisted to participate in previously male-only combat roles.

Mandate ? permission

This is combat so the only thing that matters is ability (potential ability) to do the job.  If women are really able to do the job as well as men (I am skeptical of that for combat roles) then I would have no problem with it.  But that kind of thought process i.e. can they do the job as well as men is not how liberals (who run everything) think. 

Really anything that would weaken the military liberals would be for (this is the consistent behavior of liberals for decades) which further contributes to my doubts.

[Pointedstick]

They're allowing women who are already enlisted to participate in previously male-only combat roles.

Mandate != permission

This is combat so the only thing that matters is ability (potential ability) to do the job.  If women are really able to do the job as well as men (I am skeptical of that for combat roles) then I would have no problem with it.  But that kind of thought process i.e. can they do the job as well as men is not how liberals (who run everything) think. 

Really anything that would weaken the military liberals would be for (this is the consistent behavior of liberals for decades) which further contributes to my doubts.

This isn't some liberal conspiracy. Women have already been serving in combat roles in Iraq and Afghanistan by virtue of the fact that fighting can occur anywhere in a place with ill-defined battle lines, and the distinction between combat and non-combat roles is breaking down as a result of it.

Read the reports. Women fight just fine. This isn't some grand liberal social experiment; it's simply acknowledging what everyone overseas already knows, which is that women who serve support roles--like embedded translators--are often called upon to fight alongside their male colleagues and they do a fine job of it, from everything I've heard, though I'm willing to be open-minded and entertain dissenting views.

In the end, if women turn out to be poorer fighters than men, they'll get killed in higher numbers, won't be promoted, and most will probably avoid the toughest combat roles (nobody wants to die). Even if you have grave doubts, it's largely a self-solving problem.

[smurff]

i really don't doubt women can and have done a good job in combat, in my mind it is (as i said before) a question of logistics, what accommodation need to be made for women to serve in "every roll", and are those accommodation harmful to getting the job done? and are they cost effective for the limited value added of being able to say "we have women doing all the same jobs as men"..

The accommodations needed to keep them officially out of combat (even though they ARE engaged in combat) are probably greater than any that might be needed after the unofficial is made official. There are also legal and ethical issues as well:  How long can the USA get away with saying they prohibit females from combat when the reality (and the nature of war itself) is that soldiers in the field will of necessity become involved in combat, no matter which gender?

[smurff]

Some 4 year olds can weigh 100 pounds.  Add their paraphernalia and it can be a lot more.

A 4 year old in the 95th percentile for weight would weigh about 45lbs.  Just sayin'...

Yeah, that's true.  But I've been looking at lots of documentaries lately, and it's amazing to me how big Americans are getting.

[annieB]

I've read that of the thousands of near frontline combat jobs they could apply for,only about 150 women have asked to fill them.

[Benko]

The accommodations needed to keep them officially out of combat (even though they ARE engaged in combat) are probably greater than any that might be needed after the unofficial is made official. There are also legal and ethical issues as well: How long can the USA get away with saying they prohibit females from combat when the reality (and the nature of war itself) is that soldiers in the field will of necessity become involved in combat, no matter which gender?

there is a big difference between making what they are already doing, and situations they are already in that have already had the details worked out, legitimate, and moving them into new roles just to say "we have".
It was my understanding they are trying to do the latter not the former. maybe the "rules on paper" are out dated, but as far as i know women in combat is done, accepted and common knowledge. Putting women in every area of combat, or in specifically difficult types of combat is a pointless and potentially harmful exercise in warping the reality of war to fit a questionable ideological goal.

the alpha and omega of war or battles is winning, if they want to fight and it doesn't harm winning then let them, but forcing equality is not the military's job "winning is"

warping the reality of_____to fit a..........ideological goal.

party platform stuff that is.  Or maybe they just read it to their kids with nursery rhythms.

the alpha and omega of war or battles is winning, if they want to fight and it doesn't harm winning then let them, but forcing equality is not the military's job "winning is"

This was what I was trying to say.  Unfortunatly our society has been so contaminated by PC, that I don't trust that any part of to be free of its influence e.g. we would rather risk a bomb be blown up then profile. 

We have created a society that is so pervasively PC that I doubt any military person e.g. general or higher up makes any military plans without considering the PC consequences.

The long term future for such a society i.e. a society where PC is more important that e.g. military victory, preventing bombs from blowing up, etc. are obvious (see James Burnham).

[RuralEngineer]

Can't we let the military experiment with women in combat and reassess later?  Introducing them in small numbers to test the viability of a combat role and looking for unintended consequences with an implementation plan developed by the MILITARY rather than a bureaucrat seems like the most rational course to me.  I have a hard time imagining why sufficient training can't enable a woman to fire a rifle as well as a man, but then again I'm not military so I don't pretend to have extensive knowledge regarding what combat actually entails.

In short, I'm for equality whenever possible and hate to see our military turn anyone away who wants to serve.  However I detest the idea that politicians who have never served a day in their life know more about what makes an effective fighting force than our officers.  This should be a military decision, but we should force them to justify their position.  If the military decides women are a detriment in combat, let them prove it.  If they decide that they are a valuable addition, let them prove that too.

[smurff]

there is a big difference between making what they are already doing, and situations they are already in that have already had the details worked out, legitimate, and moving them into new roles just to say "we have".
It was my understanding they are trying to do the latter not the former.

It is my understanding that they are focused on doing neither, but may accomplish both.  A law allowing women in combat would not go forward without the approval of all the branches of the military.  There was no PC-Devil whispering in the ears of congress or the president to make them spring this change on TPTB.

Unless there are plans to bring back the draft, there will not be enough men to fill all the combat roles in the future.  That leaves them with several options:

Fight fewer wars
Fight smarter wars
Hire more mercenaries for combat
Remove restrictions on combat related to gender

All of these are possible, but the last one has happened.  There have already been massive field experiments with USA  female soldiers in combat, and they have been underway at least 20 years. 

I think it was since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we've been told  it's only a minority of American families with at least one male member in the service.  Before the 1960s and 70s, it was probably every family.  Serving in the military, including the possibility for combat, used to be a rite of passage for young men in America.  What's stopping men from joining the Army to do combat?

[MachineGhost]

That said, it is clear that, in America, one cannot actually have a foreign policy debate.  These people are all buffoons.

Don't vote.  It only encourages them! 

[MachineGhost]

I think it was since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we've been told  it's only a minority of American families with at least one male member in the service.  Before the 1960s and 70s, it was probably every family.  Serving in the military, including the possibility for combat, used to be a rite of passage for young men in America.  What's stopping men from joining the Army to do combat?

Truth?