Kristol on “Don’t Ask”
Balancing liberalism and practical concerns
In a previous post Sam pondered whether the moral elements of the debate over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were as decided as many liberal commentators seemed to assume. In this week’s Weekly Standard Bill Kristol deals with both the practicalities and normative questions surrounding DADT, arguing that now is not the right time to address the policy.
Kristol begins the piece by citing public opinion polls that show that Americans profess high levels of faith in the military, but we can only draw dubious conclusions from these findings given that a majority of Americans also favor repealing DADT. The crux of Kristol’s argument, though, rests on the assertion that Obama is promoting broad principles while overlooking real world concerns:
Here is contemporary liberalism in a nutshell: No need to consider costs as well as benefits. No acknowledgment of competing goods or coexisting rights. . . . Just the assertion that something must be done because it is in some abstract way “the right thing.”
But Kristol fails to acknowledge that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is creating a panel to conduct a yearlong study on how best to implement policies that will allow gays to serve openly. In reality, Kristol is the one skirting practical questions in favor of abstract views. In the article he cites a laundry list of vague concerns, competing goods, coexisting rights, the challenges of organizational complexity, without ever translating these abstract terms into concrete objections. Further, Kristol seems concerned over real world practicalities yet never mentions that gays have served openly without issue in many of the most powerful militaries throughout the world.
The article goes on to draw parallels between DADT and other forms of military discrimination that are deemed socially acceptable:
Women have less opportunity to fight than men. The disabled are discriminated against, as are the short, the near-sighted, and the old. . . . Advocates of repeal will say sexual orientation is irrelevant to military performance in a way these attributes are not. But this is not clearly true given the peculiar characteristics of military service.
The problem with this line of reasoning, as Kristol all but admits, is that while one can clearly see why near-sightedness impairs military performance there is no obvious parallel between militarily performance and homosexuality. When Congress and the military choose to discriminate against a group the onus should be on them to show why such discrimination is necessary. In contrast, Kristol seems to consider intangible anxieties as reason enough for not revisiting a policy that even he admits likely has “muddled origins and theoretical deficiencies.” Perhaps there are good reasons, moral or practical, to prevent gays and lesbians from openly serving. But Kristol has not provided them.
-Luke
Related posts:
ShareComments
Leave a Reply
