The Military Discriminates Against Transgender Persons -- and a Lot of Other People, Too

It’s always those who know nothing about the military that want to shape it toward their purposes, whatever those purposes may be. Of course, this never involves improving military deadliness readiness.

As an informed observer, the fun part is exposing the ignorance of the "reformers."

(Related side note: the Rathergate fraud was exposed because of several incredibly stupid mistakes the perpetrators made. One that receives less attention than the others is that official military letters are strictly formated in composition. The perps did not know this when they typed up the Rathergate fake letter and presented it to the public.)

Behold the irony.

Several Democratic lawmakers replaced the POW/MIA flags outside their Capitol Hill offices with transgender equality flags to protest President Trump’s new [sic] policy on transgender troops.

The National Center for Transgender Equality sent flags to all members of Congress, including Republicans, to commemorate “Trans Visibility Week,” Fox News reports.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tweeted a photo of the door to his congressional office with the transgender equality flag standing in place of the usual black-and-white flag honoring prisoners of war and Americans missing in action.

Sanders’ tweet:

Sorry, Bern, but the military discriminates and will continue to discriminate.

 And many "forget" that it was President Obama who, in 2016, changed the military’s long-standing policy barring transgender individuals from serving in the military. President Trump simply reverted to the old policy.

Like almost all disqualifications for military service, the original transgender ban and the reinstated ban are strictly military-readiness issues.  Simply, if your condition makes your presence dangerous for you and/or others in a war zone, you cannot enlist, not even as a Chairborne Ranger.

The old bans – those involving racial segregation and open homosexuality -- did not involve deployment risks and were merely sociological. That’s why they were discarded.

During my time of service, I served alongside several gay people -- Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell was a thing long before President Clinton made it official policy. I didn’t care about this and most people I know didn’t either. (As a matter of fact, several of my good friends have come out after leaving the USAF.)

The point is that these people served honorably and were not a hindrance to the missions of which they were a part.

And the notion that there is no place in the military for discrimination is laughable.

While I was active duty USAF, I had three career fields: Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist, Germanic Linguist, and Slavic Linguist (Russian). And – pertinent to this topic – in the Reserves, I was an Aeromedical Services Specialist and an EMT.

I have many talents.

As Reserve medics, we performed the paraprofessional part of annual physicals for both flight crews and ground personnel and for some new recruits; that is, immunizations, EKGs, hearing tests, eye exams, etc. (I was the NCOIC of the Immunization Clinic.)

And it was our duty to be familiar with the regulations regarding entry into service and continued service.

Those regulations list the terms of discrimination and the terms are manifold.

Here are a few which bar entry into military service:

• Any immunodeficiency
• Deafness
• Blindness
• Diabetes
• Pregnancy
• Absence of one kidney
• Being too short or too tall
• Asthma
• Previous cold injury (frostbite)
• Organ transplant recipient

Disqualifications for continued service are a little different, but the point is that the military is discriminatory by its very nature.

So, all the Democrat congressional wailing about the military's transgender ban is mere floor-showing.

And, a patriotic and honest person who is transgender would understand the reality of his/her situation and that of the military. I bet there are such people out there.

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Gazans and Central Americans Trying to Jericho the Two Satans?

$330. Halfway there.

*****

The other day, I pointed to the similarities between the Israel-Gaza border clash and the approaching mass of Central Americans marching through Mexico headed toward its border with the USA.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard to the border days ago*  and, now, President Trump says he’s ready to take more action. (I'm not even bothering to check to see what my own governor -- Jerry Brown -- is doing.)

Previously, Trump used the caravan as an example of why his border wall needs to be built and also as an excuse [sic] to attack Democrats for their part in watering down border-security measures included in the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. He's also attacked the Mexican government for ignoring the situation, ominously threatening to remember their negligence as NAFTA negotiations continue.

Today, he took his threats one step further by not only threatening to kill NAFTA - Mexico's "cash cow" - but also to cut off foreign aid to "Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen" before closing with: "Congress must act now!"

In the Israel-Gaza situation:

Tens of thousands of Palestinians began a six-week-long protest last Friday in tent encampments set up along the fenced border of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. They are pressing for a right of return for refugees to the villages and towns where their families lived before 1948 in what is now Israel. 

Sixteen Palestinians died after being shot by Israeli troops on the first day of the protest, Palestinian medical officials said. The 17th Palestinian killed, 25-year-old Ahmed Omar Arafa, was standing about 50 metres (165 feet) from the fence when he was shot, his father, Omar Arafa, told Reuters. 

“He was standing next to me; he posed no danger to them but they killed him,” he said. An Israeli military spokeswoman had no initial information on the latest reported fatality.  

The deaths occurred in the course of one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the 65-km (40-mile) border in years. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman defended Israel’s response. 

“I warn (Gaza protesters) against continuing the provocation. We have set clear game rules and we do not intend to change them. Every person who comes close to the fence is endangering their lives,” he said on a visit to the border. 

“This was a well-organised provocation by Hamas’s armed wing in an attempt to harm our sovereignty, to disrupt daily life and to disturb Israelis on their Seder (traditional Passover meal) night. We are doing what we must do.” (…) 

The [IDF] said its troops used live fire only against people trying to sabotage the fence or rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks. Palestinian organisers said they had called for a peaceful protest and Hamas denied that its fighters had fired on Israeli forces, using the crowds as cover, though it said five of the dead were members of its armed wing.

As an unashamed conspiracy theorist, I think that there is little chance of coincidence that two large groups are intentionally and simultaneously approaching the borders of the two most powerful and most hated countries in the world demanding to be let in. Some entity/entities made this happen and the only reasons that Gazan group is much larger than the Central American group is that the latter has much farther to travel than the former and the latter needed the permission of the Mexicans for their trek. And, yes, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Mexico created this situation with hidden help.

So, now Israel is being condemned for the deaths at its Gazan border and the same thing will happen to the USA when the group meets the US military at the US-Mexico border.

All of this was planned by the same people, I say. Because it isn’t as if we who are paying attention don’t know that hidden-actors have been doing every thing they can for decades – centuries – to bring about a borderless world. These two situations are mere drops to wear down the rock of nation-state sovereignty. But there have been others drops.

And there will be more.

*When discussing state National Guards, it is necessary to remember that the commander-in-chief of each state’s NG is that states’ governor unless a NG entity has been called to Active Duty, where the c-in-c becomes the president of the USA. Any president is required to submit formally request to a governor to call up a NG entity to Active Duty. No governor has declined such a request.

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