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Suggest that your daughters sign a personal statement against women in the military right about...now

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, overriding both opposition in the Marines and any pretense of common sense, has recently unilaterally declared that women are to be integrated into combat units in all branches of the military. This ends a period of approximately three years from the original, similar announcement by the Obama administration. During those years the administration was supposedly gathering data and reactions from the various branches of the military, but now it emerges that they really had no intention of listening to anybody. The pause period was just for show. Of course, this recent statement of intent to put women in combat includes the disingenuous claim that only those "qualified" will be so used. And as this article points out, women already in the military will not be able to choose whether they want to be used in combat roles.

It also raises yet again the question of registration for the draft, which I addressed nearly three years ago here.

That post is still timely, indeed, more timely than ever in view of Carter's recent announcement. (I note the historically ironic trivia fact that it was President Carter who first, deliberately, began to blur the lines between "support" roles and "combat" roles in the military. He did this because he couldn't get Congress to lift the ban on women in combat. Now it is a Secretary of Defense who happens to have the same last name who announces the "damn the torpedoes" decision of the current administration. This comes after decades of the disastrous effects of Carter's and later Democrat Presidents' policies of integrating women more and more into full-scale military roles. We aren't talking about 1940s WACs and WAVEs here.)

What I suggested then, and still think deserves a shot, though a long shot, is this: If the law is changed so that young women between the ages of 18 and 25 must register for the draft on pain of the same severe penalties that are held over the heads of young men, women who wish to oppose this policy should intend and prepare to apply for conscientious objector status on the basis of traditionalist objections to women in the military if they should be called up for the draft. This would permit registration for the draft, but with the express caveat that one intends to apply for conscientious objector status if one is actually called up. This is the tactic that, I learned, many actual pacifist men follow. In this way one is not in violation of the law requiring selective service registration, but one is also not acquiescing in actually serving in the military.

If women are required by law to register for the draft--which has not yet happened but is now not unlikely, given previous court precedents--and if they are then actually drafted--which might never happen, since the draft is unpopular--it is admittedly a legal long shot to hope that traditionalist women would be given conscientious objector status. Generally, that status has been reserved for pacifists, and the objection here would be rather to serving as a woman and because one is a woman rather than to anyone's participating in war as such.

However, as I pointed out in the earlier article, the actual statement regarding a conscientious objector is this:

A conscientious objector is one who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles.

That "and/or" is particularly important, since a woman might have no objection to being armed for self-defense in civilian life while still objecting, on moral or religious grounds, to serving in the armed forces--namely, on the grounds that it violates her principles concerning her own femininity.

I want to stress here that one can claim, in good faith, that one is conscientiously opposed to serving in the military even if one does not hold that doing so is intrinsically immoral. There is nothing in the legal category of conscientious objector that states that one is claiming that this action is intrinsically immoral in the same sense that, e.g., murdering a child is intrinsically immoral. And we can well see that "moral or religious principles" might forbid an act that is not immoral under all circumstances. For example, it is not intrinsically immoral to give away all of one's worldly goods and go and live on the streets, but a father could well object conscientiously, on the basis of moral and religious principles, to giving away all he has and taking his family to live on the streets. It is not intrinsically immoral to send one's child to public school, but in a given context parents might well object to sending their children to public schools on the grounds of sincerely held moral and/or religious principles. And so forth.

So I think that conservatives should not be put off from this option on the grounds that their religious tradition does not per se forbid women under any and all circumstances to enter "the military" (in some possible sense of "military"). For one thing, the very meaning of "entering the military" is vastly different in a culture that acknowledges real differences between men and women than it is in a culture that does not. In World War II, there was not the slightest question of drafting women who were married to leave their children behind and go to war. There was not the slightest question of forcing women to live in a situation of little or no privacy with men. And there was no question of treating women as warriors, pretending that they are interchangeable with men, and forcing them to deny their femininity and attempt activities that are physically harmful.

Women who intend to use this option should be prepared to explain how their views of men and women affect their lives in other ways. For example, they can point out that they also would resist becoming on-the-beat policemen or firemen. If they are married they can point out that they have sought to have children and have prioritized their own connection to their children and that they have sought to make their husband's career primary. If they are unmarried they can state that they are seeking a complementarian marriage and make this clear to prospective spouses. And so forth. Conscientious objection is supposed to be based upon principles that affect one's life in other ways, but how a given woman's complementarianism affects her life will, of course, vary depending on the circumstances in which she finds herself.

An attempt by gender-traditional young women to position themselves as future conscientious objectors does not have to have a strong chance of succeeding to be worth doing. One obvious advantage is that it permits such young women, in the event of being required by law to register for the draft, to avoid being technically at risk for imprisonment and ruinous fines. That is to say, it allows them to follow a law (should one be passed) requiring registration without thereby simply saying, "Oh, well, I guess this means I'm on board with treating men and women as identical with respect to military service." As pacifists do, such young women can mark and photocopy a draft registration card to indicate their future intent to seek CO status. (The government will throw it away, but the copy serves as a record, and the note is a useful moral gesture.) Moreover, they can document their intent in other ways and keep such documentation on file for future use if they should suddenly receive a notification that they have actually been drafted.

In the event that such a woman did receive a draft notice, her very attempt to obtain CO status creates delay and motivates others to try to do the same, thus slowing down "the system" and seeking to obtain public sympathy for those whose "identity" (!) precludes their viewing themselves as androgynous military units.

Below I present a draft statement (pun intended) that young women can use, sign (if they are 18 or older and their signature is that of a legal adult), and keep on file. I suggest that a woman who wishes to have this on file ask a signature witness who is not a family member to sign the statement. A tip from (again) the pacifist camp: Sign and date a statement and then mail it to yourself. Keep the unopened envelope with the postmark on it. This shows that the statement reflects your views at a particular time and that they have not been invented later for purposes of getting out of military service.

Alert readers will notice that the statement I have drafted is heavily religious. This is deliberate. For purposes of seeking conscientious objector status, the more religious, the better. The idea is to make it clear that one's objections are based upon a larger worldview and set of principles, and interpretations of Scripture definitely count for this purpose.

Naturally, some of the statements here will make feminists and proto-feminists cringe. But that, to my mind, shows that feminists and proto-feminists are going to find it difficult to express principled opposition to having women drafted and treated as warriors.

If you have young friends and family within the relevant age category, feel free to share this with them, and encourage them to consider signing it and keeping it on file now.

***********************************************************

A woman's statement of Christian faith against the use of women as soldiers

I believe that God created man and woman, both in His own image, equal in value in His sight, but different and complementary. (Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 2:18-24, Matthew 19:4-6)

I believe that God intends the man to be the protector and guardian of women and children, to provide for his family, to be the loving head of his own household, if he is married, and to love and cherish his wife, if he is married, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her. (Ephesians 5:23-29, I Timothy 3:4-5)

I believe that God intends the woman to submit herself in love and honor to her own husband, if she is married, to love her own children, if she has children, and to have a special connection to keeping the home and raising children within marriage, just as she has a special biological connection to bearing children. (Ephesians 5:22-24, Titus 2:4-5, I Peter 3:5-6)

I believe that God deliberately created woman as the weaker vessel and that she ought generally to be protected as such by men. (I Peter 3:7)

Therefore,

I believe that treating women as soldiers is contrary to God's design for mankind. Treating women as soldiers implies, falsely, that the proper role of the woman is interchangeable with the proper role of the man and that women are just as much physical warriors and protectors as are men. Treating women as soldiers implies, falsely, that it is just as legitimate to call women away from their families to risk their lives as warriors in physical defense of their country as it is to make the same demands of men. Treating women as soldiers implies, falsely, that the physical dangers and demands and the lack of privacy and modesty that warriors are called upon to endure are equally appropriate for men and for women.

Therefore,

I object to any requirement that women register for the military draft. If I register for the draft, should this be explicitly required by law, I will be doing so only under legal coercion and while clearly indicating and documenting that I intend to claim conscientious objector status should I ever be called up by the Selective Service. I am opposed to women's being called up for military service.

I am conscientiously opposed, as a woman, to being sent away from my children, should I have children.

Based on my sincerely held and comprehensive worldview concerning men and women, I am conscientiously and religiously opposed to serving in the armed forces in any and all wars or other military operations.


Signature_________________________________

Date___________

Witness__________________________________

Date___________

Comments (55)

Women who intend to use this option should be prepared to explain how their views of men and women affect their lives in other ways. For example, they can point out that they also would resist becoming on-the-beat policemen or firemen. If they are married they can point out that they have sought to have children and have prioritized their own connection to their children and that they have sought to make their husband's career primary. If they are unmarried they can state that they are seeking a complementarian marriage and make this clear to prospective spouses. And so forth. Conscientious objection is supposed to be based upon principles that affect one's life in other ways, but how a given woman's complementarianism affects her life will, of course, vary depending on the circumstances in which she finds herself.

A very large percentage of women will not be able to back up enough of that, and could be prosecuted for lying to a government official. For example, there are a lot of semi-traditional women in the DC region. They'd half agree with you. The problem is, no skeptical government official is going to believe their claim to be traditional enough to not be sent off to war. Why? Most of them do not prioritize their husband's career in practice. They ship their kids off to daycare. They don't respect homeschooling as a vocation for women. Many other examples abound, but you get the idea.

If the government drafts women, and you are not known for your open traditionalism, don't try to put on more traditionalism than you really have. They will probably investigate you, interview people who know you and file federal charges.

Your argument is fit together with such precision, like the straight edges of a master stonemason's blocks, that it is hard for the reader to find any chink in the wall into which to insert a remark! The reader may however survey the view from atop the wall, if he find no chink.

You have prepared a statement of conscience to which a young woman might subscribe. I have daughters, but they don't read this. Is the intended audience found here? The intended audience wants your statement.

Does it not seem curious to you that the Obama administration should be the one to force open combat roles to women, even without new legislation thereto? That is, has President Obama ever given you the impression that he cared much about feminism, one way or the other? He seems to have wanted, and gotten, Mrs. Obama to abandon her once emergent feminist lifestyle, after all. Mr. Obama is a Leftist, but this kind of Leftist? I am a bit surprised.

Or was the change driven purely by the Defense Department, in the want of oversight by an uninterested White House? Maybe it does not matter, but I wonder.

I have recently read John Keegan's The First World War, and have just in the past week read the WWI chapter of William Manchester's biography of Douglas MacAurthur. It may be that Keegan and Manchester both rely on the excellence of their prose even more than on the thoroughness of their research or the impartiality of their judgment, but the picture they paint of life and death in the trenches is apalling. The stench, the lice, the ditch-filling floods of icy water, the hundreds of irretrievable corpses yards away in no-man's land, year upon bloody year, defy the imagination. Though in the 1980s I served in the U.S. Army (in an unexciting peacetime support assignment, mostly with men but with a few women, too), I never saw, smelt or felt anything like that which Keegan and Manchester describe.

Do stench, lice, floods and corpses even matter to Ashton Carter?

In the Army company in which I served, during the 1980s, my comrades and I generally believed that the company's commander was—well, limp euphemism is perhaps preferable to plain speech here—engaging in extramarital activity with the prettiest female private in our company. How pretty? Well, our company's function was such that only recruits who had placed in the top decile of the ASVAB (which, for those who do not know, is more or less an IQ test of military recruits) could be assigned to it, so (to the extent to which IQ and looks travel together) a pretty female private was not out of place. At any rate, she was pretty enough that we young men paid attention to what she did, because that is what young men do.

The captain was married to another woman to whom he went home each evening; yet nearly 30 years on I still think it probable that my comrades read the situation right: the captain was, er, fraternizing, sororizing, whatever. Was this disastrous for morale? I don't know. We were all young, we lacked the perspective of years, and that's just how it was, and after all it is hard for a 19-year-old private to imagine competing with the comparative glamor of a captain, a West Point graduate, for the attention of a pretty girl's eye; so I don't know that we brooded much on the injustice of it. It was a subject of idle gossip, rather.

Nevertheless, the circumstance cannot have been good for unit cohesion. And there was no male warrior's bonding with this particular captain, no warmth of manly loyalty, as there had been with the captain who had preceded him.

Again, does this even matter to Ashton Carter?

I wonder.

They will probably investigate you, interview people who know you and file federal charges.

I've never heard of charging someone for trying in bad faith to get a CO exemption. I don't know that there is any actual federal charge that applies.

In any event, when the subject in question is your own personal beliefs and the sincerity thereof, it's one thing for them to say that you haven't satisfied the burden of proof and quite another for them to turn around and satisfy a burden of proof in the opposite direction to say that you "lied." There's plenty of government overreach going on out there, but in this case, I think the farthest the government overreach would go would be just forcing the girl into the military against her will.

That said, if you want to give this even a snowball's chance in hell of working, it certainly will help to have friends who can speak to your sincere opinions.

Bear in mind that any time you are meeting with a federal investigator who is asking you questions about an ongoing investigation, you cannot lie to them. You also cannot even be perceived as lying to them, and that's the problem. There are plenty of women who are traditional or semi-traditional in their own minds, but are at best moderates.

The federal government is engaging in a lot of shenanigans to make this happen. They destroyed all of the records of the two female rangers' training scores while they were requested by an official investigation from Congress. If you think they won't send a dozen young women to federal prison on a charge of lying to a federal official to say "get in line!" then you are probably in for a shock.

A woman has no need to do this. She just needs to fail the physical. When that happens, everyone will point out that women and men are different after all. Men in theory could also fail the physical tests, but in practice this will come with a stigma for men that women will never face.

(This comes from Dalrock, by the way, on his post "The fantasy of drafting women".)

We all fall into the thinking that progressives would not do what they do if they only realized that what they are doing makes things worse. Making things worse is precisely why they do it.

If a draft is implemented, women who conscientiously object on this sort of basis will be subject to alternate service.
the Selective Service System webpage on Conscientious Objection says the Alternate Service Program "attempts to match COs with local employers," but in the Vietnam era, a local employer was not an option. The employer had to be remote. Conveniently, the University I attended (packing a 4-year program into 5 did not fool my draft board) was 3 hours from my hometown, so I worked 40 hours per week there as a hospital orderly.
A woman's conscientious objection "to being sent away from my children, should I have children" thus will be blazing new CO ground if the regulation (the webpage isn't binding) still requires Alternate Service remotely from home.

MA, my understanding is that "the physical" is not a fitness test and hence that she has no way to fail it wilfully. I'm willing to be corrected if wrong. A woman _can_ wilfully fail any fitness tests, fail basic training, etc., and that would be my backup plan. However, that would still subject her to the loss of privacy and attack on femininity of basic training, would still take her away from her family for that, and would also not be a statement of principle. I believe that "just deliberately fail" should be only a last resort measure and that she should try CO status first.

Reader John, yes, I had thought of that. If the woman is unmarried, she could accept remote alternative service. If she is married and especially if she has children, she will have to object to being taken away from them, which would indeed blaze new ground. I have no brilliant ideas about that. One thing I can point out is that if she receives CO status, she may have better treatment than if she didn't.

In any event, it would be a gain not to have to be in the military even if she is sent away from family for alternative service, especially if it were within "striking distance" as yours was.

Women could fail out, but the question is how the military would respond to deliberate efforts to get out like that. Sure, they could fail out of service, but instructors would probably get an increasing level of discretionary power to make life hell on Earth for them.

AFAIK, in practice you have to actually be able to demonstrate a credible claim that you have a real belief worth of CO status. That's why Mennonites and Amish get them, but Catholics and Baptists typically do not. Traditionalists have to think long and hard about including women who are on the fence or ordinarily opposed to traditional gender roles in their push for CO status. The reason we tolerate Mennonites, Amish and similar groups is precisely because they have a credible belief and we don't make exceptions for those who lack one. Otherwise you are just giving cover to cowardice.

However, that would still subject her to the loss of privacy and attack on femininity of basic training, would still take her away from her family for that, and would also not be a statement of principle. I believe that "just deliberately fail" should be only a last resort measure and that she should try CO status first.

All fair and valid points.

(Assume by physical I mean fitness test.)

Traditionalists have to think long and hard about including women who are on the fence or ordinarily opposed to traditional gender roles in their push for CO status.

There is no official movement status here, so there's no question of including or not including anybody. I've written up a proposed statement; people can do what they like with it, and as far as being in good faith or not, that's their problem. This isn't coordinated in any way.

Certainly the people who have the best shot of making this work are people who have a pretty extreme anti-modern lifestyle. I imagine that women from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (the polygamists who were in the news a few years ago) would have a better shot of making the CO status work than _any_ woman who is not part of such a sect.

They can use my statement, too, if they want to, and more power to their women getting out of being drafted. That doesn't make me a dear friend of theirs.

AFAIK, in practice you have to actually be able to demonstrate a credible claim that you have a real belief worth of CO status.

Yes and no, Mike. Yes, you do need to demonstrate that you really have a belief. And yes, you need to demonstrate that such belief is contrary to such service. Not easy to do for plenty of mainline groups.

On the other hand, we have seen from homeschool laws in some states a considerable body of state interpretation of things like "bona fide" that aren't really all that difficult to meet. (Virginia has a religious exemption clause for school attendance, for example). If, as Lydia says, you craft a letter that REALLY DOES lay out your belief on the matter, and mail it to yourself, and then follow up by TELLING friends and family of your explicit belief year after year, then when push comes to shove you will have documentary and personal witness substantiation that you have held the belief for a long time. If, also, you identify specific life-style actions that you take that you probably (or even maybe) would not take if you didn't have those beliefs, those too work to substantiate the bona fides of having the belief.

As to whether the belief really does contradict your being in the military as a combat soldier, that's in some ways a little harder and in some ways a little easier. It's a little harder, because hardly anyone can point to an official Scripture text (based on WHATEVER Scripture you hold to be revealed truth) that says in so many words "women may not be combat soldiers in the army". So you have to rely on deriving the thesis from more basic tenets in the religion. Those "derivations" are subject to scrutiny, to some extent anyway if not fully. If they are obviously silly or irrational, the state may well repudiate your claim. On the other hand, based on liberal freedom of religion court cases, the state doesn't get to dictate the rationality of your religious beliefs. And ANY "world-view" counts, practically, for this purpose. So, if you make a plausible derivation from clearly bona fide religious tenets to a conclusion that "women are not to be combat soldiers in the army", it's not (according to their own precedents) supposed to matter if you can dot every i and cross every t in a mathematically rigorous argument, a sincerely held belief is enough, and a reasonably probable derivation from basic teachings should work.

Would they uphold their own precedents? Don't know. Certainly in some cases you would have hard-liners trying not to. So we pull out other tools as well: good PR would be helpful. Fortunately, people are still suckers for a "sweet young thing" of a lady. Put up a few hundred billboards of a doe-eyed 98 lb. 18-year old girly-girl, overwhelmed by a 100 lb. pack and a 30 lb. machine gun, stuck on some barbed wire in a training ground and with a gash on her face. Crying. Or a before-and-after picture of a young mother nursing an infant, then trying (and failing) to hold back a 250 lb. enemy solder, and put in a caption like "Nurture or Slaughter? What should we ask of her?"

There certainly exist women nowadays in today's world who are chivvied against their wills into, say, a career. A woman who is not able to find a husband and has to get a job is obviously going to find it harder to point to her lifestyle to prove her traditional beliefs than a woman who marries at the age of twenty and is an at-home mom. That's the way life goes sometimes. We can't always choose what direction our life takes. If she has always held to traditional views of womanhood and comes from a family that does so, she will have those who can attest to her beliefs even so. And there will always be things to point to--e.g., modest clothing, feminine hairstyles, etc.

... and comes from a family that does so, ..."

Glad you said that, Lydia, because it's something important that had been missing in your debate with Mike T. I have four girls, all of which have been/are being raised in a traditional home where I'm the sole breadwinner and my wife is a stay-at-home, homeschool mom. My girls could all sign your statement in perfectly good conscience, and if some federal investigator decided to 'prove' their claims by interviewing people that know them and our family relatively well, (s)he would have no reason to doubt when all was said and done. Indeed, I would relish the idea that the investigator would seek to interview people who know us and disagree vehemently with the world view taught and instilled in our home! I would even cooperate and give them names.

Correction: I should have said who disagree *more or less* vehemently. We're friendly with one family in particular who have the same number of children we have (same number of boys and girls), but they disagree with the way we're raising our daughters, and the woman is quick to tell you that the reason she disagrees is because she believes we're raising our daughters for failure in that we raise them to be homemakers and primary educators of their own children. This, to the woman in question (God love her) is wrong of us and unacceptable, because to do so is to put them in an almost inescapable predicament if and when their respective husbands decide to abandon them and leave them destitute. Therefore, she raises her girls to be "independent" of their husbands. She realizes that "men like to think they're in charge," and she goes along with that in her marriage, but she refuses to hamstring her own daughters the way her parents hamstrung her, don't ya know. But anyway, let some federal investigator ask for names of "character witnesses" to interview in relation to what our daughters are taught and believe; hers will be at the top of a fairly long list.

Tony,

It is naive of anyone to think that in a war zone, there is a deep and meaningful difference between a combat arms MOS and a support MOS, especially as fourth generation warfare becomes the primary sort of warfare we end up fighting. This is why conservatives who insist upon meaningful differences in military service and allowing women to serve outside of something like WAC or WAVES is de facto agreement with the left.

It really doesn't matter what a woman is doing in the military if she is deployed into a war zone. As a former coworker of mine pointed out to me, it's precisely the rear echelon women who may face some of the enemy's most dangerous fighters in a war against Russia or China. That's where we'd send Delta and the SEALs in a shooting war with them, and they'd send their elite special forces to engage in direct action against our support structures to cripple the war fighters engaging their main forces.

Sorry for the string of comments, but let me also add that our oldest son (who is 28) is married to a girl who was raised in a home where it was instilled that women should be independent and career oriented. This was taught to she and her sister, and reinforced by mother working. Our son and daughter-in-law have two boys, and another baby on the way. To be perfectly honest my wife and I did not exactly approve of their relationship early on, and one big reason for that was Rebecca's world view she had been taught at home. However, she had and has a very teachable and sweet disposition (also a part of her upbringing, credit where credit is due), and as such she has been relatively easily converted to a better understanding of biblical womanhood. She, too, could (now) sign your statement in good conscience, and everyone who knows her knows it.

s married to a girl who was raised in a home where it was instilled that women should be independent and career oriented

Just curious, what was her upbringing with respect to religion? I have a good male friend who was raised right, is a very conservative Christian otherwise and then shocked me and my wife by saying he'd never tolerate a stay at home wife. What we're noticing is that it really seems to only be the churches that really have an unapologetic complementarian view of gender roles that seem to not produce this sort of schizophrenic "conservatism" where we live.

One tricky thing about pointing to the upbringing of the young woman is that of course the feds would just love to imply that the woman isn't really sincerely saying this herself but is being forced, coerced, pressured, whatever, by her family. At a minimum, this is a reason for her not to bother signing anything until she is eighteen. But preferably she would also be articulate enough and interested enough in the issues to discuss them for herself and make it clear that, though her family background is relevant, she is not just being a droid of her family, which is a caricature they would love to bring to bear.

As I mentioned in a comment above, there is nothing inherently uncomplementary (I realize I am risking opening a can of worms here) if a daughter with such views ends up with a career if, e.g., she is unable to marry for some legitimate reason. Not everyone, nor even every feminine woman, _has_ to marry. And one can be raised to marry and be a homemaker and then just have it not work out--again, in some legitimate fashion. History and life are radically contingent. That could make "convincing" someone of her views on this matter more difficult, but I think it could be done.

Mike T., "non-denominational" Pentecostal with a heavy Charismatic bent. Divorce is rampant in the particular church she grew up in (and her parents still attend), as I understand it.

For such women, Americorps can and should be expanded to provide an alternative. It would be the perfect place for a woman to serve her country in a capacity that is not destructive to her femininity, doesn't interfere with the military, etc.

I am generally skeptical of the right to claim CO status because outside of a real group like the Mennonites or Amish, it becomes a great way to claim virtue while avoiding civic responsibility. Conservatives should close the loop on that by making the law such that your subjective, personal views don't constitute a recognized reason to avoid military service. Barring membership in a group practices those beliefs, the state is not in a position to say whether your beliefs are real or merely claimed out of convenience.

Liberals love to attack freedom of religion on a similar basis, so let's play that game and let none of them avoid military service. The first female officer who served with the infantry and came back physically destroyed merely from the ordinary duties damaging her female body did more to convince many moderates than any rational argument. Sometimes people need to be run over by reality, merely being mugged is not enough.

Conservatives should close the loop on that by making the law such that your subjective, personal views don't constitute a recognized reason to avoid military service. Barring membership in a group practices those beliefs, the state is not in a position to say whether your beliefs are real or merely claimed out of convenience.

Absolutely not. My whole point is to _use_ the rather general concept of CO status to our advantage.

Of course a woman should not have to belong to "a group that practices your beliefs" in order not to be drafted, especially not when the beliefs are this strong. She might not even live within miles of such a group, and the vast majority of religious leaders are going to let traditionalists down by refusing to make any strong statement about women in the military or women in combat from their official position. Those with good-faith objections shouldn't be penalized for the failure of religious leaders to back them up strongly. One might be able to use the fact that one belongs to a religious group that does not ordain women as an ancillary support for the sincerity of one's position, but one's group should not have to be as radically countercultural as the Mennonites or Amish in a way more _directly_ relevant to military service or female military service in order to be exempt.


Americorps is no good if it's sending mothers, and especially both mothers and fathers (as has happened in the all-volunteer force) away from their children and leaving the children to be raised by, if they're lucky, grandparents for several years. That's just flat wrong. It might be okay for single women.

Look: Women shouldn't be drafted into the military at all, and certainly not for combat. It's an abomination.

I'm making what constructive suggestions I can to help.

I categorically reject your characteristic "people need to be overrun by reality" garbage, Mike. I've heard it again and again over the years, and frankly, it makes me mad, so don't keep on saying it. What we're talking about here is a lot of innocent women who deserve better and the possibility that they will be forced into the military. To suggest blocking a possible avenue for preventing this and to muse that, hey, maybe the culture at large will be "run over by reality" when women are harmed in this way is typical of your destructive brand of pseudo-conservatism, and I don't really want to hear more of it. I've heard plenty of this "burn it all down" garbage in our history of you as a commentator.

Actually, I don't want to burn it all down. That's precisely the opposite of what I want. However, it will be burned down if we keep saving liberalism from itself. If you slow a car down, it eventually reaches its destination. You have to actually stop the car. If the liberals want to let female volunteers fight, I say let them. No one is forcing them to go to war. If athletic women can't serve in real infantry duty without physically destroying themselves, their example will be the most effective argument we could ever make to about half the population and help us frame it as a dichotomy. That is, you can side with us or you can side with the egalitarian lunatics who will slaughter your daughters and wives in the name of equality.

Well, I know a lot of people I count as "us" whose daughters I would like to give some chance of being saved from slaughter, whom I do not regard as mere collateral damage in the process of "not saving liberalism from itself," and to do so, it would be mad folly to try to make CO status _harder_ to obtain and to "close a loophole" that permits personal beliefs to be relevant, allowing only those who belong to truly radical groups a la the Amish to claim it.

And for that matter, I, unlike you, would be happy to save the egalitarian women from the horror of combat as well. But I can't do a whole lot for them as things stand. So I'm making a suggestion for those who I think can try to use it.

Tony,

It is naive of anyone to think that in a war zone, there is a deep and meaningful difference between a combat arms MOS and a support MOS, especially as fourth generation warfare becomes the primary sort of warfare we end up fighting. This is why conservatives who insist upon meaningful differences in military service and allowing women to serve outside of something like WAC or WAVES is de facto agreement with the left.

Sigh. Mike, have a little faith in me, here. I didn't use "combat soldiers" in order to separate out different parts of the military and allow maybe women could be soldiers in support positions.

I am going by an analogy to "religious exemption" language and practice for school attendance, in VA. There, the exemption means you can keep your kid _out_of_school, period, if you object to sending them to PUBLIC schools. The state cannot come back at you and say "well, OK, you object to public schools, but you can't object to CATHOLIC schools, you Catholic, so no you don't get the exemption." The exemption is valid with regard to sending your kid to school period, even if your objection is the "public" part of "public schools", not the "school" part.

If the analogy extends over, a woman could demonstrate a religious objection to serving IN COMBAT, and that would be sufficient for getting her out of armed service in ALL capacities. For, combat is what the armed forces are for. It's why mail clerk soldiers are trained for combat, and all the other positions even if they are expected to be 100 miles from the front.

Now, it is possible that the analogy won't carry over. But legal precedents have been building for 30 years on this, and most of them have gone in favor of broader permission, not narrower. These precedents sometimes construe "religious" and "bona fide" and such, and THOSE precedents should cross over. So, I am cautiously hopeful that in an honest courtroom, religious objection to serving by a woman opposed to combat service would succeed for her avoiding all military service.

Nor do I suggest that a woman structure her objection solely on the issue of combat service, (in case more is needed). There is no reason not to arrange a defense in depth, with fall-back positions. Many objections will be valid with regard to ANY membership in armed services, and she should use those too.

Conservatives should close the loop on that by making the law such that your subjective, personal views don't constitute a recognized reason to avoid military service. Barring membership in a group practices those beliefs, the state is not in a position to say whether your beliefs are real or merely claimed out of convenience.

That ship has sailed decades ago, Mike. If we had the capacity to reverse direction on this we wouldn't be in these dire straits to begin with. The "definition" of "religious" (even if you don't grab onto the "moral" part of "moral and religious") is already understood to be so expansive that you would have to reverse 50 court cases to backtrack to the point where it could be useful for what you are saying here. Heck, even in the movie "Sergeant York", (made 74 years ago) it wasn't specific membership in a definite group that was the testing criterion. (I don't care whether the movie was 100% accurate regarding _law_, the point is that the culture around CO has respected personal opinion for a long time already.) I suspect, though I haven't done the research, that the position came out of 19th century jurisprudence in which various Protestants sued for relief without belonging to a group that all agreed on the tenet at issue. A NEW religious belief can't become religious in character by the accretion of a sufficient number of fellow-believers.

As I mentioned in a comment above, there is nothing inherently uncomplementary (I realize I am risking opening a can of worms here) if a daughter with such views ends up with a career if, e.g., she is unable to marry for some legitimate reason. Not everyone, nor even every feminine woman, _has_ to marry. And one can be raised to marry and be a homemaker and then just have it not work out--again, in some legitimate fashion. History and life are radically contingent. That could make "convincing" someone of her views on this matter more difficult, but I think it could be done.

Lydia, I think this is actually one of the most significant points of the difficulties of proving CO. It's not just the "get a job because I'm not married yet" single woman is virtually indistinguishable from "career single woman" from the outside. It's also that the "career married woman with 1.6 children" is indistinguishable (from the outside) from the "I want to be a married stay-at-home mother with several children, but family economics demand I get a job and that curtails family size as well" woman. If a woman has an objection to working outside the home, but that objection can be overcome by "necessity", (however that is designated), then is it or is it not a "moral or religious objection" for CO purposes? Once you start down the road of "well, there's gray area" you make it much more difficult to win the argument that it is the kind of objection implied in "moral or religious". "I have a religious objection to idolatry" doesn't allow me gray area when the emperor says "worship Jupiter or die". So, I guess the question is, what kinds of qualifiers / adjustments ARE allowed in the current rules to meet the definitions?

If a woman has an objection to working outside the home, but that objection can be overcome by "necessity", (however that is designated), then is it or is it not a "moral or religious objection" for CO purposes?

Well, notice, that's why I didn't write my statement up to refer to having or not having a job outside of the home.

*If* a woman doesn't have a job outside of the home and is a full-time mother, that of course *helps* to show that she holds the positions I laid down in the statement.

But none of the positions I laid down in the statement *just is* the position that it is wrong for a woman to work outside of the home. Rather, the objections were to a) being sent away from her children altogether and b) being a soldier.

For that purpose, while the woman with a job and children has fewer resources for _showing_ that she believes that her husband should protect her, that she is the weaker vessel, etc., she isn't claiming that her conscientious objection is to working outside of the home but rather to being in the military, so her working outside of the home is not, per se, in direct conflict with her claims for CO status.

In fact, a woman with a job and children might have more _specific_ things she could point to that would show an asymmetrical relationship between herself and the children, on the one hand, and her husband and the children, on the other. E.g. She took months of maternity leave and he didn't. She takes days off when they are sick rather than him. She has sought a job with flexible hours specifically so that she can have more time with her children. Etc.

In contrast, a woman who has never been married at all or who has not yet had children in a marriage isn't going to have any "relationship with her children" to point to, even if she is even more strongly committed to not working outside the home *if* she ever has children.

Lydia,

I think you misunderstand my goal. I don't want to see women actually drafted, what I want to do is force the issue. At this point, I think bringing women into the selective services system is all but a done deal. The way we lost on gay marriage is a good indicator that the battle is on the horizon and will be a very hard one. Look at the way the Republican-Democratic divide works. Democrats hit the gas, Republicans hit the breaks. Neither actually stops the car, and the car keeps going in the same direction. So what do we do? I say we throw some monkey wrenches in their gears and see if we can mess things up.

The problem is going to be convincing the semi-traditionalists to firmly put their foot down and say women have no place doing any of this. They are thoroughly liberal on many things and are content to let the liberal women you want to save from themselves voluntarily go to their own slaughter. So what to do about them? Force them to take a side. Tell them they can't have their cake and eat it too. Women have a choice: go with the liberals and embrace equality or go with the traditionalists and admit that some positions are the domain of men by nature.

I admit it could blow up and lead to precisely what we don't want. However, giving women an easy out guarantees that if there is a draft the policy will be set up to allow millions of impressionable women to march off to their deaths. Many women would choose to serve out of patriotism and feminist indoctrination. That's the flaw I see in your proposal. A lot of women will be given the choice and go off in that direction.

As it stands, I think women who are traditionalists absolutely should claim CO status.

If the analogy extends over, a woman could demonstrate a religious objection to serving IN COMBAT, and that would be sufficient for getting her out of armed service in ALL capacities. For, combat is what the armed forces are for. It's why mail clerk soldiers are trained for combat, and all the other positions even if they are expected to be 100 miles from the front.

In principle, I like that, but I think that will back fire because gender neutrality requires by law that this be open to men when it should not be. Pacifism should never be recognized under law as a legitimate belief system worthy of setting aside civic duty. In fact, denominations like the Mennonites that practice non-resistance actually don't avoid military service when called up, but claim CO status specifically to combat roles only. At least that's how it's been explained by a few I know.

but claim CO status specifically to combat roles only. At least that's how it's been explained by a few I know.

That is not how CO status is explained anywhere I have read it. I think what you have been told, Mike, is a confused reference to what Reader John, above, called "alternative service." Alternative service is not the same thing as "being in the military but in non-combat roles." A pacifist would be opposed to any _military_ "support role" as well, of course.

Some pacifists have become medics. But there is a bright line between being a medic and the large zone of non-combat _military_ roles. Generally, my understanding is that alternative service is non-military _altogether_.

Perhaps this threat, though it seems remote and far-fetched, of women being drafted into military, might encourage second thoughts in the people having fantasies about Total War.

It is very doubtful that even men are likely to be drafted in near future.

It is very doubtful that even men are likely to be drafted in near future.

True to some extent. But things can change fast. If you pay attention to my post, you will see that any claim for CO status has to be documented _ahead_ of time.

Anyone who has a daughter in her teens or early twenties should be mulling right now the idea of taking a statement like this and discussing it with her, going over it with her. Women in the military should be a topic of, say, dinner conversation. If you aren't informed about the way the military was messed up concerning its use of women *even before this*, you should get informed now, and tell your daughters. (This way they won't make the naive assumption that "non-combat roles" and "support roles" meant what one might take them to mean.)

Then if a young woman is eighteen or older, it can be suggested to her that she might want to sign something like this and have it on file, if she desires.

Otherwise, *if* the law is changed and *if* a draft occurs, you have only _ten days_ to report. There is no time then to scurry around and _start_ documenting your objection. You objection is supposed to be a matter of long standing and of your whole approach to life.

So given my suggestion, I'm suggesting people consider starting now to do what would need to be done to give it a shot. The time to do that is _precisely_ when it is only a remote possibility.

Another point: It is _not_ unlikely that women will be required to _register_ for the draft in the near future. In fact, I consider it plausible that there will be a court case forcing that conclusion (or a preemptive surrender to it by Congress) within the next five years. Possibly sooner. The pace of social change is picking up enormously lately.

That will face traditionalists with a difficulty. This CO idea is, as I said in the main post, an idea that would allow them to register for the draft and thus follow the law while at the same time not thereby _actually_ acquiescing in entering the military. It is an alternative to outright civil disobedience on _registering_ for the draft, which could come up very soon for all girls between 18-25. If we don't have such an idea in mind, and if women don't take actions which make it clear that this is not what registering indicates for them, then the very act of registering just like boys have to do will further reinforce the misguided egalitarian ideas and will make people hopelessly think that "this is just how it is now" and acquiesce generally in the normalcy of women in the military. Moreover, if a woman registers for the draft but says _nothing_ at that time in writing about her objections to _being_ drafted, it could be used against her later if a real draft happens and she wants to claim CO status.

So all of this is very timely, despite the improbability of _actual drafting_ happening soon.

Finally, human history is in all likelihood not going to end in the next decade. There will be more girls born. I don't know about you, but I know of plenty _little_ girls around who are going to grow up. I think that everyone who cares about them needs to be thinking about setting up the structure for this possibility for them later on.

I consider it plausible that there will be a court case forcing that conclusion (or a preemptive surrender to it by Congress) within the next five years. Possibly sooner. The pace of social change is picking up enormously lately.

THAT's certainly true. 5 years? It only took 5 years for Candidate Obama (the most liberal candidate ever) go from to declaring nationally that he opposed same sex "marriage" (without that sinking his hopes of nomination as Democrat candidate) to declaring that he his administration "would not defend DOMA" to outright opposition to DOMA and getting it overturned at the Supreme Court. This is a vastly smaller social change (at least in appearance, though it affects vastly more people directly) than that was.

As far as courts go, I consider it a virtual done deal that someone will find a court and a judge that will overturn the males-only registration within a couple years. Whether it will be sustained at appeal is questionable. There is no telling what someone like Kennedy would do, but since it doesn't require turning a blind eye to "what goes on in the bedroom" he might even say that there is a compelling interest in maintaining combat effectiveness and that permits the federal government not to be sex-neutral on this. (The dis-juncture between the LAW (passed by Congress) that provides male-only registration, and the PRACTICE of the DoD of using women in combat without distinction, would be troublesome for such a result).

There is no telling what someone like Kennedy would do, but since it doesn't require turning a blind eye to "what goes on in the bedroom" he might even say that there is a compelling interest in maintaining combat effectiveness and that permits the federal government not to be sex-neutral on this. (The dis-juncture between the LAW (passed by Congress) that provides male-only registration, and the PRACTICE of the DoD of using women in combat without distinction, would be troublesome for such a result).

Right, I don't think that _can_ be the argument, because all the relevant government agencies have officially declared that combat effectiveness is _not_ compromised by using women in all positions. The draft registration law really doesn't address this at all. It's the other way around: Draft registration was restricted to men and allowed to be restricted to men _because_ of the block on women in combat. In fact, there is a previous SCOTUS precedent, an actual precedent, in which SCOTUS concluded that the only reason the draft registration law passes constitutional muster is because of the policy of the other parts of the government (in place at that time) not to use women in combat. Based on that precedent, the SCOTUS conclusion would seem to be foregone now that that has changed.

In fact, I highly doubt that the federal male-only voter registration law will be defended in court. The precedents are so explicit, and everybody has so ostentatiously "moved on," that I doubt the federal government would spend money defending the constitutionality of male-only registration, being sure that they would lose anyway.

It's that bad.

I think BI was saying that men are unlikely to drafted for practical reasons. In general, I agree with that statement. The logistics of very rapid expansion of a country's armed forces today are significantly more complex than they were in 1941 or earlier. You can't just grab a Ford factory and start producing tanks and F22s. That is why there is such a paranoia about maintaining the right amount of troops, ships and supplies right now.

One of the reasons why the right lost the political fight over gay marriage was that the right was unwilling out of "public decency" to demonstrate what the expansion of homosexuality into our culture would look like. That helped maintain the "oh they're just like us except they like their own sex" nonsense common among mushy moderates and many non-radical liberals. It would have been 10x more powerful if we had broadcasted images of gay pride parades in their debauched "glory" and said "coming to a middle class town near you, courtesy of Anthony Kennedy."

You want proof I'm right? Look at how those "human rights" ordinances for transexuals were defeated in Texas recently. The smart conservative activists went purely on rhetoric: vote for this and you're voting for men peeing next to your daughter. The mental image of a transwoman doing his business next to their daughter, girlfriend or wife was significantly more visceral than any rational argument about why it was unnatural. Consequence: the legislation got crushed in a landslide defeat.

It would have been 10x more powerful if we had broadcasted images of gay pride parades in their debauched "glory" and said "coming to a middle class town near you, courtesy of Anthony Kennedy."

Mmm, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Those opposing my local ordinance tried something like this. They made other mistakes, mind you, but they _really_ hammered on the debauchery and the transgender-in-the-bathroom stuff, and it did not work.

I was at a city council meeting where it was being discussed. Our county treasurer, a local conservative politician, brought in a video of a Gay Pride parade and played it behind her on a screen while giving her testimony. The homosexuals had packed the meeting, and they were sitting in rows, giving catcalls and laughing, yukking it up over the video, even whistling at the images. One might have thought this would have backfired on them, but it didn't. The ordinance passed handily even when we finally fought and had it brought to a direct public vote.

One person testifying at a particular meeting pointed out, relevantly, that in a nearby town the homosexual lobby was objecting to police arresting people for having sexual trysts in public parks, stating that it violated non-discrimination. The person brought documentation of this. But later in the same meeting someone on the other side got up and scoffed at the idea that this had _anything_ to do with sex in public parks. What a straw man, blah, blah. After the point had already been demonstrated by a quote from a recent news story right next door, from activists on his own side of the issue.

I talked to quite a few people on the street about it, trying to drum up votes against it. The impression I got was summed up in one person's comment: "I wouldn't want to do anything that would be against the gays." I guess he deemed that that would be un-nice.

Then you've done all you can do, without going a bit closer to criminal prosecution like making a pamphlet that shows some good, clear shots and mass dumping it on doorsteps across town.

I see something similar with women and the military. I'm in favor of letting volunteers serve in combat for the same reason I think it was wise to show those images. If the sight of very athletic (above average) women, getting destroyed under the load of combat service doesn't make society viscerally reject that policy, then no rational argument will reach us as a society. Unlike the average female draftee, these women are some of the best. If the best can't even carry the combat load out without needing physical therapy, then the average woman has no hope. If society can see that, process that, and go forward anyway then we are truly living in interesting times.

This article should also serve as a sobering look at the Republican elite. The sort of idiot who would proudly declare his willingness to start WWIII over Syria is also the sort who probably wouldn't hesitate to get us into a position where we need the draft either there or elsewhere.

In the article linked by Mike T, Cruz is reported as saying

We have done a tremendous disservice not only to the Middle East – we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have been wiped away – and for what? It’s not like we had victory. It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized, a total and complete mess.

I wonder if the Total Warriors agree or not.

If you are referring to the neocons, then I doubt they would. They'd probably say we didn't do enough. Didn't build enough roads, hospitals and schools. Didn't kill enough people, etc. What is most ironic about it is that if they'd actually done to some of the Afghani tribes what Julius Caesar did to some of the celtic tribes in Gaul, Afghanistan might actually have been able to revert back to where it was in the 1960s before the USSR annihilated their modern civilization. In a society like that, such policy tends to sharpen the mind if you will.

While I am not a supporter of Total War, as it is intrinsically immoral, one cannot help but notice that if our policy had been run by men who actually adhered to that sort of policy, it would probably have resulted in fewer deaths and less destruction at this point. There is little worse in foreign policy than an incompetent man or men at the helm of a very powerful war machine.

Not that this is going to turn into a generalized foreign policy discussion.

(I blame Bedarz for this this time, Mike, but don't encourage him.)

I think we have pretty well established that Wonderland is not on the other end of that particular rabbit hole by now, so no worries there...

That link, however, I think is relevant to this particular issue for at least two reasons. First, if you are worried about a draft, particularly of women, voting for candidates who are practically jumping around the stage like angry male chimps is a pretty good way to raise the risk of needing one. Second, scratch the surface and most of those candidates aside from Bush are probably the sort who actually would issue a draft order for women in the name of equality.

The fact is that conservatives do a lot of really counter-productive damage to their own cause on a regular basis in choosing politicians. Witness Dobson nearly repudiating Rand Paul without realizing that if Paul is anything like his father, he is actually to the right of most republican politicians on abortion. Fortunately, someone pulled Dobson aside and whispered in his ear that he was about to make a very foolish endorsement out of ignorance.

In hindsight, God probably spared us greatly in electing Obama versus McCain. The sort of warmongering garbage that has come out of that man's mouth is just unbelievable. Only Lindsay Graham can match him for the title of "Most Likely to Needlessly Start WWIII."

The republican base needs to repudiate men like this. We cannot afford, as a country, to continue supporting warmongers.

I don't want men to be drafted either. I've never been a fan of the draft, though I don't try to argue that it is unconstitutional.

To my mind foreign policy has to be evaluated, though, to a pretty large degree independently of whether it "might lead to a draft." I'm not saying they are completely independent, but *if* we "should" be doing a particular foreign policy thing (whatever is meant by "should") then presumably we "should" be doing it even if it might lead to a draft. And if we shouldn't, then presumably we shouldn't for reasons having to do with foreign policy itself, not to any great degree because it might lead to a draft.

After all, even with an all-volunteer army, it's not as though it makes sense to be looking for fights to get into for the heck of it. But on the other hand, if a given war is, in fact, necessary, then the consideration that it might lead to a draft cannot be allowed to stop us from taking that step.

None of these comments is intended to say anything about what I think in concrete is good or bad foreign policy. It's just that I don't really look at the two issues as very much interrelated. I would like to see foreign policy evaluated on other grounds. I suppose if one regarded a draft (even of men) as _always_ an evil action by the government, even in a necessary war, then there might be more linkage between foreign policy generally and an absolute moral mandate to avoid a draft, though even there the argument from one to the other is fuzzy to me right now.

After all, even with an all-volunteer army, it's not as though it makes sense to be looking for fights to get into for the heck of it. But on the other hand, if a given war is, in fact, necessary, then the consideration that it might lead to a draft cannot be allowed to stop us from taking that step.

And that's precisely where most of our candidates fail this cycle, yet how many conservatives are turned off completely by the proposal that we shoot down Russian jets that are bombing anti-regime targets in Syria?

For a lot of conservatives, a promise to bomb someone is an election winner just like a promise to "help someone" is a winner on the left. Many of them don't have the sense to realize that eventually the world will grow sick of this and we will probably pick a battle that turns into the sort of unforeseen geopolitical explosion that happened in Serbia in 1914. Then we may also end up paying the price in another way, which is our refusal to keep the tent small enough to be meaningful means that a lot of our leaders will be the sort who don't oppose drafting women, and they won't oppose it when there is a price to be paid for standing in the way of "equality." (Remember, most republicans are absolutely chickencrap when it comes to standing up; a perfect example is this recent budget bill which was practically the republicans holding us down while the democrats beat us and rob us)

Unbelievable. Have we come to the point where in order to be a "serious" Republican candidate, you have to promise to attack at the second largest air force in the world, in a a hotbed with at least 4 different factions, not ONE of which is clearly aligned with our best interests? In a place where we would just as soon it fall off the planet as "improve" to the mere state of mere civil unrest and backwards economic hellhole?

But Lydia's right: If war is truly called for, I don't want our president and Congress to back away because they are afraid of calling a draft. The will to fight when necessary is a sine-qua-non of a real president. The will to refuse to fight when that would be wrong is, also.

Obviously, if a war is truly necessary, the draft should not be an impediment. What should prevail, however, is the understanding that if you are likely to need a draft then what you are undertaking is no small thing and demands serious evaluation.

And it should also go without saying that someone casually picks a fight with the 2nd largest air force in a region that is within probably an hour of supersonic flight from its main air bases is a blithering idiot who has no business operating a police dispatch, let alone handling The Football.

I read a novel a few years ago, by a part-but-not-full feminist, that posed this question: Men want to "put women on a pedestal", to protect them. Men then reap the honor of doing that protecting - and (not at all incidentally) also reap the right to make the decisions on the how and the what of doing so. What if a woman doesn't want to hand off the task of "being protected" to another, but wants to take part in it herself, and (at least to some extent) to earn the honor implicit in bearing risks for others? And to earn the right to participate in the deciding also?

You can see the modern-day tension involved in suggesting that a woman has no right to decide to be a soldier and be a "protector" instead of a "protectee". But if you ask the question more broadly, some (at least) of that tension evaporates: does a handicapped person, using crutches, have a "right" to be a soldier? Does a child have a right to be an active protector rather than one protected? Does a octogenarian have a right not to have young adults ready, willing and able to protect her life at their own risk? What's good for women as a whole cannot be separated out from what a whole society ought to look like. And in society some roles ARE INDEED assigned - by nature, by circumstance, by "fate" (or God) - not simply chosen. That your sex prohibits certain options should be normative, not something to be rejected as "violence".

There's also the fact that women are mostly neither physically nor temperamentally suited to the job. Women are too weak to be effective soldiers. Time and again, they just pull down the rest of the unit when the work is in any way physically demanding like infantry service. As for temperament, women have a lower threshold for regarding their lives at mortal danger than men. That is a bit less of a deal on the battlefield, but soldiering often involves an element of policing. For that reason, women should be neither soldiers nor police, as they are more likely to feel the need to resort to violence in self-defense.

One of my kids is right now reading the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. I kind of like the books, though they aren't high art, but when one has a child who reads very fast, one learns to be grateful for authors who have written whole series of long books that are acceptable reading. The books have a high-level vocabulary, a strong sense of good vs. evil, some nice pictures of peaceful life and beauty, a good emphasis upon loyal friendship, and no sex.

I do, however, keep on reminding her that all this "sword maid mouse" and "boxing female hare" stuff is feminist propaganda. The female animals in Jacques's books are interchangeable with the male animals as far as being able to be warriors, up to and including paw-to-paw combat. It's of course unrealistic as far as female animals are concerned, and it's definitely a fantasy of the rear-end-kicking girl warrior concept intended to carry over to humans. So I keep carefully deprogramming.

Who knows how many girls would have been saved from violence if trash-talking Ronda Rousey actually got shoved into the ring with Floyd Mayweather after she gave her little speech about how she stood a chance of whipping his butt. It would have been very ugly if Mayweather was forced to do it, but it would have conclusively demonstrated that female warriors tend to belong more on demotivator posters (ie "Failure, when your best just isn't good enough") than in armed combat.

Mike T., correction: "Failure when your best ain't even close to good enough." There ya go, fixed.

Btw, how do you see a Mayweather v. Holly what's-her-name matchup going? Lol.

I see Holly what's her name shaking his hand and saying he's the better fighter. Then they go off to drinks and laugh at all of the people who paid to see them fight.

Ha, ha. 'Bout right, yeah: laughing all the way to the bank. One of my daughters one time choked out her karate instructor. She was pretty proud of herself over it for awhile until I reminded her that he had *let her* get him into a choke hold to teach her various techniques for escaping. His mistake was underestimating her strength (she was a gymnast, and the better female gymnasts are very powerful for their size and gender) and determination, so she put him to sleep. But the point is, she has no delusions about being able to overpower the average man under normal circumstances. Homie don't play that stuff, don't ya know. :-)

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