This is a big deal because it means medical outs for a fair number of people that the Obama administration admitted, or allowed to remain in the military after they declared their status. Lower courts had held that these folks shouldn't be forced out until and unless the final court ruling was that it was right and proper for the Commander in Chief to discriminate in this way.
I've always held that 'the needs of the service' is the right standard in all of these cases, and that the application of discrimination law was an error. The rights one has as a citizen are properly pre-political in some cases, e.g., natural rights; others are civic rights that come about as a result of your having the status of being a member of this polity at this time and not that one at that time. Even for the pre-political rights, and definitely for the civic rights, the realization of those rights as enforceable realities depends upon the establishment and defense of a polity that will do the practical work of enforcing them. Thus, the work of the military has priority over the question. First, we have to keep a military that will defend the space in the world in which the polity exists; within that space, we can enforce rights both natural and civic.
If it turns out that the military needed to be all male again to be effective at that task, then we should make it all male again. If it happened that an all female force was required to make the space in the world and defend it from all comers, then we should do that. If it turned out it needed exactly 10% women for particular functions, that would be the right choice. If we need transgenders in the service for some particular cause, then we should permit them to serve in the role according to the needs of the force.
Should a demographic, or an excessive percentage of a demographic, actually prove harmful to the needs of the force then it should be culled. It's nothing personal. It's just that we have to defend the space within the world in order for any of the other rights to be practically realizable. We are not doing a great job of defending our space right now; I would guess that in my lifetime, or shortly after, large parts of what is now the United States will depart the union because of just this issue of letting the space go undefended. We need to stop messing around with this stuff.
And as for Europe, well...
Because you used the word "space," I made the association with outer space. We don't really know what mix of people are going to be the best bet for long-distance travel and settlement. It may be that women are better suited to the task, so that some large majority we send might be women. It's not an automatic that all human endeavors are going to break down 50-50. If one race were more suited than another, we probably would not let ourselves know that. We would refuse to see it. It were some very narrow group within a race - some Nuer tribe that was wildly superior for space travel - we might allow that.
ReplyDeleteThat's true.
ReplyDeleteOuter space may not prove to be a government program, though. William Gibson wrote a piece a long time ago about private actors buying up old government rockets, and making it to lower earth orbit to take over a Soviet station that was being decommissioned. ("Red Star, Winter Orbit") He described them as wild-eyed lovers of the frontier.
Elon Musk is developing "Starship," which for now aims at the Moon and Mars.
If you're using your own money to get there, it hardly matters what anyone else thinks about whether you're the right kind of person to go. All that matters then, as Jack Sparrow said, 'Is what a man can do, and what a man can't do.'