Ethics 2016 | Col. Linell Letendre: Constitutional Ethics

May 20, 2016

*****
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the speaker's own and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or any other branch or agency of the U.S. Government.

[chapsbareng]

41:14 - Interesting scenario and great answer by one of the students. If I heard the student correctly, he said, "U.S. CODE Title 10 Sec 6031 dictates that a Chaplain may conduct divine services according to the manner and forms of his or her Religious Organization" (paraphrase mine). So, short answer is, No. No Commanding Officer can prohibit the Chaplain from giving a sermon in which homosexuality is considered a sin.

[hurrderr]

also, one should note that the presenter lady's glowing feelings about general ham and the like are only AT ALL reasonable because the system is a "volunteer" for pay system, which gives all the issues of a mercenary army
if it were a citizen army style then none of this would be acceptable, since it would be in essence communistic as understood to mean USSR/maoist china, which of course would make acquiescence a form of treason, *particularly* if the politicians and judiciary system claimed it wasn't, unless there's an extremely convenient opt-out method for people
one should note that there is a subset of the population that will necessarily see to it that if they are forced to fight, the government at home will provide more reasons to be targeted than the one abroad

[hurrderr]

it's so god damn stupid to try to decouple military responsibilities from civilian law - the US system as a whole sucks in keeping its enforcement dogs in line with democratic principles though, partially from over-use because of pre-existing cronyism pre-empting ulterior solutions
since peacetime cannot exist without a situation in which all (or rather almost all, since a criminal element of the population always exists - but I would argue that the american system absolutely sucks for making a system where people don't need to rely on criminal actions to get by, seriously get your act together 'murica) members/parties/individuals can agree upon more or less, and various disobeyances that are relatively minor in their infractions (and most notably don't harm people or do so minimally) outside of the formal legal system (grey areas and smalltime infractions that functionally pre-empt greater infractions by the civilian but not enforcement base - or so very minimally by enforcement it might as well be said not to at all) then civilian policies must encroach entirely upon the military without exemption
without it the military doesn't deserve to exist in a democratic nation, but it does serve a purpose in a dictatorship or feudal system, albeit different set of purposes
AND WITHOUT THIS, THE MILITARY SIMPLY CANNOT ENFORCE THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM, BECAUSE WITHOUT THIS AS ITS SUPREME PILLAR WHEREUPON ANYTHING ELSE CANNOT. CANNOT. CAN NOT. BE RELIED ON TO KEEP THE MILITARY IN EXISTENCE, THEN IT WILL NEVER, EVER, WORK IN FAVOUR OF THAT THING - because noone of a democratic system will be able to trust that military, and in so being unable to trust it, will not support it, as it is a danger without a use to those people (although the dictator or feudalist rulers will use it and so on, in class wars etc)
and without that democratic support base, the military will be FORCED to find other ways to justify its existence, first by proxy of democracy, previously illegal things will be made legal etc etc by the political class, and this is where tyranny starts to emerge

it's so god damn stupid to let that happen