Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 10/21/2008 1:30:14 PM PDT by NYer
“‘Women are already serving in combat [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and the current policy should be updated to reflect realities on the ground,’ said Wendy Morigi, Sen. Obama’s national security spokeswoman. ‘Barack Obama would consult with military commanders to review the constraints that remain’.”
In the same Pittsburgh Post-Gazette internet article of October 13, 2008 ([1] http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08287/919582-470.stm?cmpid=elections.xml), Obama highlighted: “There was a time when African-Americans weren’t allowed to serve in combat…And yet, when they did, not only did they perform brilliantly, but what also happened is they helped to change America, and they helped to underscore that we’re equal.”
Comparing sex to race is like comparing apples to oranges. Whether black men perform as brilliantly as white men on the front line is not the same issue as whether men are abdicating their roles by advocating for women to fight on the front line. Is our culture diminished by asking women to be front line killers? Women killing as well as men is not a promotion of real values and equality, nor does it underscore equality. It is as bad as advocating that abortion is good for women. Misled by seemingly Marxist egalitarian principles, Obama’s advocacy for women in combat roles demonstrates it is an issue just as far above his pay-grade as whether human life starts at conception. He should get straight the right-to-life, the foundational issue, before pretending to understand subsequent issues like women in combat.
Obama Should Learn from Ratzinger
In his God and the World interview Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) comments: “Personally it still horrifies me when people want women to be soldiers just like men, when they, who have always been the keepers of the peace and in whom we have always seen a counter-impulse working against the male impulse to stand up and fight, now likewise run around with submachine guns, showing that they can be just as warlike as the men. Or that women now have the ‘right’ to work as garbage collectors or miners, to do all those things that, out of respect for their status, for their different nature, their own dignity, we ought not to inflict on them and that are now imposed on them in the name of equality. That, in my opinion, is a Manichaean ideology that is opposed to the body” (p.82).
In other words, bodily difference of male and female are not insignificant factors. The difference represents authentic diversity which should be respected as providing real complimentarity for fruitful relationships and enriched societies. Beyond any doubt there have been abuses where the gifts of women were overlooked or suppressed in society, but denial that “persons are their bodies,” Ratzinger comments, is “a kind of egalitarianism that does not exalt women but diminishes their status. By being treated as male, [women] are dragged down to being undistinguished and ordinary” (p.83).
Obama has said he knows how to treat a woman, as he jokes about ice cream dates with his future wife and comes across as a very likeable guy. Deep down he seemingly knows women are special and to be treasured. Why then the rush to send them in to slaughter and active combat? Why the militant-feminist national security spokeswoman? Why not advocate for men to respect women and to prefer that men should be willing to sacrifice in place of women? Why not ask men to be men instead of asking women to be men? Additionally, if he is going to advocate for women, why not advocate for a more just society within America and speak out against depersonalizing women… just using them for sex and putting them in that dangerous circumstance of pregnancy outside of wedlock, where children are fortunate if they are not painfully shredded in abortion by women who have been depersonalized, too?
Time to Resist the Culture of Use and Death
Instead of speaking in favor of sending women into active combat, why not speak out against a culture of pornography and fornication that puts women in compromising circumstances? Besides being unfashionable, is it now un-American to speak out against fornication. Does the American man equate American culture with the freedom to use women for sex? Is this why ‘egalitarian’ men do not mind putting women in situations like combat since they already don’t mind seeing them in situations like fornication? If we are going to compromise their gift of fertility, why not their lives?
Even were women as capable as men at wielding arms, we are lesser men for asking them to do it for us; just as we are lesser men when we willingly abandon them to raise our children without us. Because women are not ordinary, but represent authentic diversity in the unity of humanity, they stand as witnesses to a culture of life. What a diminishment to their dignity that they should have ever become submachine-gun-wielding poster-pin-ups for socialist guerilla movements! What a diminishment that women should have been so used by men for sex that they march waving coat-hangers!
Unless marriage and family are respected as instituted by God for the promotion of the human race and real values, society will continue to degenerate in moral blindness and strange advocacies. Without the light of Christ in politics, living will become more and more about selfish fulfillment and individualism instead of discovering who we are by making a real gift of ourselves for others in the image and likeness of Christ. Distinction between male and female will be lost more and more as the lust for self-fulfillment will enslave even the light of reason. Society will grow cold-hearted and incapable of real love. And it will give women submachine guns to shoulder instead of shouldering its own responsiblity to give them the safety of commitment, homes, and children.
Ping for the POPE!
Pope Benedict XVI rules!
“and they helped to underscore that we’re equal.”
Good, excellent, NO more affirmative action.
Women in the military should be in combat, just like women should to allowed (required)play with the men in the NFL, NHL, PGA, NBA, etc. THE MILITARY SHOULD NOT BE A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT WITH PEOPLES LIVES.
Yes, I know women have been killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I contribute heavily to charities for these wounded warriors.
Hooray to the pope for writing this or whomever did. For years this has been a thorn in my side, the double standard. This should be shouted from the rooftops. If men weren't so cavalier about expecting free sex, that would take care of a lot of the abortions, STD's, degradation right there.
I know some women tend to bask in degrading themselves, posing in the nude, it makes me furious.
Now back to women in combat. As a general policy, it is not a good idea. Wars frightened me as a child, and that was one of the few reasons I was glad I was born femals. But lately, if all the available men are bearing their share of the load and there is a serious attack, I'd tote a weapon myself in the defense of country, home and family. But it would have to be really bad, an exception. Israel has done it for years, probably because of the unique situation there, but most countries, at this point, it should be a grave exception. Other than that, I agree wholeheartedly with the pope.
There was actually a woman who dressed like a man and fought in the Revolutionary War, and wasn't caught out for a long time. And while Joan d'Arc didn't wield any weapons, she was right there in the thick of things, in the same or more danger than the male fighters, and made a real difference. Heh. How about that, Pope Benedict? :-)
I don’t really know the ins and outs of why women should be in or out of the frontline (although that ‘women are nuturing mothers’ crap has no impact on me). The question is, would they contribute positively, or more importantly, would they detract from the operational efficiency of the military by being on the front line?
I do know that some of the Soviet Army’s best snipers in WWII were women...
I suspect any woman who was with us in armored combat in Vietnam would have wanted out real quick.
Israel originally had women in the front lines with men (its socialist roots!), but stopped after a few years because the men tended to "look out for" the women in a way they didn't feel they had to for other men. Of course, a few years ago, the Israeli supreme court decided women should be treated equally with men in this -- ideology trumps reality!
Yes, but it was in a communist country, but more importantly, they were defending against an invasion of their country.
Communists do utilitarianism. Christians don't.
Joan — an unlettered peasant girl, was chosen as a sign of contradiction. God frequently raises up the lowly and improbable. Off the battlefield she promptly put aside men’s clothing (except when she relied upon it in prison to protect her virginity). She never aspired to mannish ways.
Israel’s use of woman in the armed forces flows from its secularist origin.
Israel’s use of woman in the armed forces flows from its secularist origin.
Probably. Or exigency. I'm not sure. Often I wonder where they find enough men for their military. Many recent ones seem to be Russian immigrants.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.