You Can't Run a Military Without Weirdos

I am a free speech absolutist, as I generally am about basic rights: 1A or 2A or 4A, all of them all the way. However, the government is not covered by those rights; governments don't have rights, they have powers, and the powers of governments are wisely regulated. 

There's also the question of practical wisdom where government statements are concerned. 

Hegseth: No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals

There was actually a good reason why the beards became a thing during the GWOT. 

Of course Pete is speaking to the regulars, not the operators. The regulars benefit from regularity; as Washington said, discipline is the soul of the army. 

You still have to make room for the weirdos, though, because they are disproportionately likely to be the one who brings back the rest. The attribution of that quote to Heraclitus is a modern fabrication; the idea is not ridiculous.

[Mad Jack] Churchill was second in command of No. 3 Commando in Operation Archery, a raid on the German garrison at Vågsøy, Norway, on 27 December 1941.  As the ramps fell on the first landing craft, Churchill and his Commando leapt forward from their position, while he was playing "March of the Cameron Men" on his bagpipes. They overran the garrison in less than ten minutes, killing or capturing all the enemy soldiers they encountered.... 

In July 1943, as commanding officer, he led No. 2 Commando from their landing site at Catania, in Sicily, with his trademark Scottish broadsword slung around his waist, a longbow and arrows around his neck and his bagpipes under his arm.

Similarly: Should you insult your core supporters?

Young white men are developing the same sort of mentality that blacks, Hispanics, gays, and others have developed. While it might not be tribal per se, it is defensive. And young white men are very aware of their status in society — namely, being the only people it’s OK to abuse, discriminate against, bully, cancel, and so on. Their level of tolerance and their sense of humor around those things is at a low ebb.

Nobody much likes having a group they belong to painted with broad-brush criticism; women don't like it, men don't like it, Boomers don't like it; I've courted some of that with my recent posts, though I trust everyone here is sophisticated enough to understand that such criticisms aren't intended as universal claims but as statistical ones. What's going on here is something different: it's electing to pretend that 'white boys named Brad' are the problem even though, statistically, they really are not. It's akin to the German posters that pretended that white [female!] Germans were feeling up black immigrants at the pool rather than otherwise. 

Just speaking the plain truth is the best use of free speech, for governments and otherwise.