Vox Day, the not-quite-Nazi fantasy author and generally repellant human being, is evidently upset that some people would like trans folks to be allowed to serve openly in the military. In a blog post today (archived here), Vox (Theodore Beale) cites recent gains by ISIS as proof that armies that “tolerate effeminacy” will inevitably lose to, well, armies run by people who hate gay and trans people enough to murder them.
No, really. Here’s his argument, in all of its horrendous, er, glory:
Military history clearly demonstrates that the side that executes homosexuals, whether throwing them off buildings or having their fellow soldiers beat them to death, reliably defeats the side that allows its soldiers to dress up and pretend they are women.
Yes, wealth and technology are on the side of the crossdressing military. But attrition, geography, and history are on the side that does not tolerate effeminacy.
Naturally, Beale’s commenters step up to offer their own equally terrible opinions on the matter.
According to Musashi #0350,
This national validation of all things homo is an affront to God and we will witness the resulting consequences. This is arrogance, pride, and most of all, rebellion. So now we pollute the military and somehow expect there will be no negative outcome.
We will lose our next war, and rightly so.
Alexander adds
Let’s see how long discipline lasts when mentally ill individuals have the power of the state behind them to remove their commanders from their positions, on the basis that said commanders don’t tolerate the private prancing about in heels and stockings.
Or conversely, when the officers insist upon it.
ajw308 is afraid the armed forces could be overwhelmed by the “sexually confused.”
I fear the day is coming where the US gov’t will pay for the mutilatiotional surgery that the sexually confused think will make them happy and the US military is flooded with transgenders seeking pretend surgical reassignment
Cail Corishev, meanwhile, indulges in this rather old-fashioned fantasy:
Just imagine if we (meaning the US govt. military) came up against a Christian army — not just a heathen army that God might use to chastise us, but a Christian army that could ask for His favor directly.
Theodore Beale and his fans: in essence, a Christian version of ISIS.
@blucatbabe
“I love the way the “thing I dislike/thing that makes me uncomfortable” becomes “the end of civilisation as we know it, fire, brimstone, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and then you’ll all be sorry” so extremely fast with these lovely lovely people.
It’s almost as if the entire universe revolves around them.
In their opinion.”
This is pretty much manosphere in a nutshell. Apocalyptic predictions just because the world isn’t the way they’d want it to be.
A letter from one WWII GI to another (reminder: we won).
I sense ranks on ranks of straw men being set up, because (alas) we live in a world in which it’s by no means sure or evident that entities like ISIS or Al Quaeda are entirely separate from the Pentagon or the CIA. Even though they (ISIS et al.) have attacked us, they’re at least partly creations of ours, and can, in that sense, be described as “our” fighters. They exist in their present form (to some extent) as the result of our meddling. What we’re observing in the present day world is not the bloated poncy army of an effete nation being opposed and beaten by the noble-savage warriors of primal desert peoples, but one big disorganized fighting force, some of whose factions are engaged in a showdown with the others.
We’re already living under one-world conditions (which don’t necessitate peace at all.) Get used to it.
So clearly I forgot to cite it.
One of those pithy non-statements like “all experts agree”, sure sign of impending avalanche of bullshit. He didn’t disappoint.
@katz
Tears in my eyes, tears in my eyes, I really hoped they found each other again and if not why does the world have love oh god it’s so cruel.
So are they saying the US won in Iraq and Afghanistan? What about Vietnam?
Tightened that up a bit for you.
I’ll give you that.
I can nail a three inch target at over a mile with a .388 Lapua or a .50 Caliber BMG, and the armed forces turned me down because I’m transgender. These people are full of shit, I can out shoot a marine sniper at long range, I carry two Smith & Wesson M&P 45s on my person at all times, I own four rifles and two shotguns. Guess whose ass these moron as are gonna kiss if the US get invaded? My perky trans butt. I’m an American Citizen, I’m armed as is my right, I’m fairly able bodied too. That makes me a part of the US Militia, these idiots are damn stupid cry babies. We get invaded they’ll cry, I’ll fight, and we’ll win with out these transphobic wusses. Why? Because I and others like me have rights we value and will fight for. These guys? They’ll cry all over their neck beards in their grandma’s basement. Worthless idiots.
Because the Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese militaries are just so well-known for their progressive ideas about LGBT people…
(I mean being some of the only countries in the middle east where homosexuality isn’t a crime is a few steps up from ISIS, but Day and his fans are idiots if they think tolerance of homosexuality is why they haven’t crushed ISIS)
(Scratch that, Day and his fans are idiots regardless)
Alas, Dave never made it home from the war 🙁
During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army allowed women in the ranks (and in fact preferred them for tank crews, because Soviet tanks were cramped enough that women’s smaller statures were an advantage.)
The Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS did not permit women in the ranks. At most, some Volkssturm and Allgemeine-SS roles were female, but they didn’t see action until the war was already decided.
Beale, like all military sci fi writers, has a deep love of the Second World War. I wonder if he perhaps temporarily forgot this when talking about military history and the crippling effect that effeminacy has on the effectiveness of armies? I say this because I seem to remember that the Red Army beat the Wehrmacht fairly handily.
Oh, another example, based on another war Beale may have heard of. The Viet Cong allowed women and gays in the ranks. The US Army did not. Which side had to flee their own embassy from the roof via helicopter, again?
Sssshhh, every American knows Vietnam never happened.
(I am often amazed by how brazenly we Americans rewrite history to ignore the bits we don’t like. Even if ti happened within living memory.)
@katz
Why must beautifull things die? Why must flowers shrivel and wilt? Why must the world give love and take it away? Why can’t there be a happy ending for once?
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/cdwu.gif
I need to go watch Touch of Pink.
Can’t make any tough boasts – I’m a short, awkward Canadian who has trouble steering a lawnmower – but I’m pretty sure if you kill off members of your army because they happen to be gay or trans, you have fewer people in said army. Which means fewer people to fight your enemy.
Okay, “attrition warfare” means to wear the enemy down through massive losses. In WW1 at least, that meant soldiers on both sides were dying at massive rates. No, it wasn’t pretty, but it did mean that the side with more people and more resources (often, not even more weapons but simply more food) was the one that won. What the flying fudgesicle does that have to do with “effeminacy”?
Thirty years from now, photos of George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln will be used as proof-positive that the war in Iraq was a resounding success. “See? They had a big party, and that banner says ‘Mission Accomplished.'”
Thirty years from now, people will point to pictures and video of George W. Bush’s speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln and use them as proof positive of a resounding U.S. victory in the Iraq War. “See? They had a big party and that banner says ‘Mission Accomplished.'”
Hey hey, I just remembered, I DO have one claim to physical toughness! Just recently, at the ripe old age of almost 27, I did ten chin-ups in a row. Yay. I feel accomplished now. 🙂
katz, Pandapool – hell yes, that is a sad letter. But it reminds me of this oddly detailed surreal dream I had where I was browsing through a bookstore (in real life, I’d been reading up on WW1 a little for my RA work):
“Finally, there’s a Penguin Classics paperback (published circa the 1980s but apparently written decades earlier) about a love affair between two WW1 soldiers – the blurb on the back explains that, while it may sound funny to modern readers, 1910s slang included calling one’s male comrades “homo,” meaning man. Naturally, the main characters’ straight friends call each other this constantly.”
(me, modified from a post on another website)
Hope those assholes one day learn that trans and other MOGAI people are, in fact, NOT caricatures. We prance around in high heels as much as cis people in the army, which to my knowledge isn’t very much in any armies that I know of. Those dickbags are so confused about everything though so I’m not very surprised here.
Dammit, double post. This thread and I do not get along.
Wait, what are kids being taught about Vietnam? Because it hasn’t been long since I was in school and we were talk that it was an awful clusterfuck that fucked over many people’s lives in order to contain communism, which was laughably stupid.
…
To paraphrase.
Also agent orange is fucking awful for many reasons.
I’m surprised David even bothered to make this post, VD is a generic hard Right bigoted asswipe who spits up a slightly updated version of a decades old spiel: “the gays are decadent, decadence makes us weak, the barbarians aren’t decadent, so the barbarians win and The American Empire falls”.
VD starts off by making a weak attempt to establish his assfact street cred:
After that, as Falconer and others have pointed out, VD is off to the races and he makes a series of wildly broad and completely unsubstantiated claims.
Sorry, but name dropping van Creveld doesn’t mean VD can claim “military history clearly demonstrates” one of his ridiculous assertions. VD also thinks ISIS and al-Qaeda are the same thing, and I’ve officially lost interest.
I was hoping for a Gerard vs bar manager post, that kerfuffle has a lot of humor potential.
Funny, but it worked great for the US when they had nukes but no one else did. Or the Chinese when they were the only ones who had gunpowder, for that matter.
Again, more evidence that Pox has no notion of military history, not even the most basic.
@Bina
He’s watched Avatar one too many times.
On a different subject about Vox, he had a whiny post a while back claiming that Eric Flint, and others, were mistaken about his being a very weaselly racist, and poor little Vox is an innocent little lamb, and not a racist at all.
Well, I doubt Vox is an innocent little lamb, and am more inclined to agree with Eric Flint that he is a very weaselly racist. But leaving that aside for the moment, if one takes Vox at his word, and assumes that he is really an innocent little non-racist lamb, this leads to an interesting conclusion. The thing is, it is really completely unbeleivable that so many people would either believe he is a racist for no reason at all, or that so many people – most of whom do not know one another – would all be involved in a conspiracy to smear Vox’s innocent name.
This being the case, the only possibility remaining (if you actually believe that Vox is an innocent little lamb) is that he has some sort of very severe communications disability, such that he is completely unable to adequately communicate his actual beliefs. If that is, in fact, the case – and it would pretty much have to be if he is really the innocent little lamb that he claims – then he should probably find a different career other than author and internet blogger, as both those careers require that one not have a severe communications disability.