Monday, June 8, 2009

Blatant Moral Relativism

In a post by Shikha Dalmia (Reason Magazine, Obama's Betrayal on Don't Ask Don't Tell: The president's forgotten civil rights promise, June 5, 2009) we find some of the most blatant examples of moral relativism as to found on the Internet, and to defy reason (and I italicize "reason" because of the source of the article):
In World War II, the United States sacrificed about half a million American soldiers to defeat Nazi racism. Yet the U.S. itself practiced strict racial segregation, including within its military.

Given such blatant historic contradictions, it seems like no big deal that now, while the U.S. valiantly tries to plant tolerant liberal regimes in Islamic countries, at home it harbors among the most intolerant policies toward gays in the military in the Western world. But just as with abolition and desegregation, equal rights for gays is an idea whose time is way overdue—especially the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the policy that bars known gays from serving in the military.

There is no comparison between people living separately and people being exterminated.  Stop it.  It's insanity to equate the two. There is no equivalence between "Nazi racism" which included torture, medical experimentation, and thinking of certain races as animals that could be exterminated because they weren't considered human beings, and segregation in the U.S. military.

Moral relativism is when one thing shares a minor similarity to another, and they're thought to be equally as bad or good as the other.  It is like saying that an orange is the same as the sun, because they're both round and both are orange in color.  But no one, in their right-thinking logical head would think that the sun and the orange are the same thing.

The second is equating "gay rights" with "civil rights."  The Constitution protects the civil rights of persons, i.e., that all must receive equal treatment (by the government NOT by the private sector), regardless of race, religion, creed, or sex. What is not protected, and is therefore not under the umbrella of "civil rights" (because it would be insane and contrary to do so), is behavior.

Someone, for example, could be a born psychopath, with an innate desire to hurt/murder others.  The person's race, religion, creed, or sex is irrelevant to the criminalization of the behaviors that person may choose to demonstrate.  That person could also decide not to demonstrate those criminal behaviors and suppress their natural behavior to conform to behaviors that are not criminal.  Who they are or what the feel is off limits to the government (that is the realm of conscience that is restricted from the government by the First Amendment).  What someone does is what we may restrict, criminalize, condone, or ignore.

There is not one set of laws that pertain to psychopaths and another set for people who aren't psychopaths.  The laws apply equally to all and there is one set of laws.  Similarly, there is not one set of laws for homosexuals and another set for heterosexuals, or asexuals, or any prefix you want to apply to sexual.  Homosexuals already have equal rights, so what in the Hell is the fuss about?

There may be good arguments to make to support the idea of gays in the military, but including this blatant sort of moral relativism is not the way to make friends or influence public policy.

Homosexuality if undisclosed is no one's business.  The moment someone makes it public and their behavior public, that behavior can cause someone to experience a consequence.  That consequence may be that it is a behavior that is found not to be consistent with what is needed to have a military that functions for the purpose of providing national security and safety for all.  The military is not the civil service or a blue collar welfare program that must be open and accepting to all.  The military can ignore ADA rules, too, because having a paraplegic as a soldier would be nuts. The military is a special case where one puts their life on the line for their country.  Because of the high risk of death, it is immune from normal requirements. It might be "nice" to offer the paraplegic the job security of the military, but he wouldn't be able to perform the role of soldier, and that's what the policy is all about.  It is not a policy in place to be mean to gay men.  It is there because it would create issues for the soldiers who have to share a shower and toilet.

People can repeat the memes all they want, but behaviors are not protected, PERIOD.  In fact, just the opposite is the case.  It is behavior (i.e., acting on an impulse to do something or engage in some activity) that are either criminalized/condoned or not, regardless of race, religion, creed, or sex, and that includes sexual orientation.  A city, county, state, or nation may decide that sodomy is illegal, and that would apply EQUALLY to all, regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, OR sexual orientation.

The "rights" the government is supposed to protect is the right of the people to make the laws they want, as long as they apply equally to ALL.