Political Correctness Obliterates Common Sense – Part 1

During the Republican Debates, Governor Jeb Bush, and Senator Marco Rubio were asked, “Do you believe young women should sign up for Selective Service?” Senator Marco Rubio stated, "I do believe that selective service should be opened up for men and women.” Jeb Bush agreed, "We should not impose any kind of political agenda on the military“ but hedged his answer by stating that the draft is not going to be reinstated. Governor Christie joined in taking a different tack: “There’s no reason why one young woman should be discriminated against for registering for the Selective Service." My initial reaction was, “Did they neither hear nor understand the question?” At a town hall meeting the next day Ted Cruz injected a dose of common sense sadly lacking on this issue when he stated, "I have to admit, as I was...listening to that conversation, my reaction was, Are you guys nuts? Listen, we have had enough with political correctness, especially in the military. Political correctness is dangerous. And the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat... is immoral.”

The Conference Committee debating the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the last hurdle for the Obama Regime to clear before Obama succeeds in mandating that our daughters register for selective service if we go back to a draft and ultimately into military combat. Goals of the left, that as little as four years ago seemed folly, are serious threats under this lawless administration.

Gender Neutrality

It is very easy to connect the dots. In a radical secular culture that attempts to blur the difference between men and women, the Supreme Court overturned a bedrock of society and legalized gay marriage. In December, 2015, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced the directive to integrate women into all combat roles by January, 2016, thus removing all gender based requirements for military service. This proceeded despite concerns of the effectiveness of mixed gender units in ground combat. An extensive 9-month Marine Corps’ Gender Integration Task Force study, which evaluated mixed gender units in 134 combat training activities, showed that all-male units outperformed mixed units in 69 per cent of the activities, while mixed units outperformed male units in just two tasks. Ignoring these results, in a Senate hearing in February, both the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Army Chief of Staff endorsed registering women for the draft. Next Eric Fanning was confirmed as Secretary of the Army, the first openly gay head of a service. Meanwhile, potential drafting of our daughters is flying under the radar because other issues, such as the transgender battle extending from North Carolina HB 2, give it cover. Obama once again sidestepped the Constitution by threatening to withhold federal education funding if states did not abide by Department Of Justice directive to allow biological boys identifying themselves as female unfettered access to girls’ lockers, showers and bathrooms. In addition, a new Obamacare regulation requires federally funded physicians, hospitals and insurers to fund gender identity transitioning procedures with no religious exemptions. The latest dot, but by no means the last, is the Pentagon’s announcement that the U.S. military is dropping its policy of treating male and female troops according to their biology – to be replaced by a new radical gender ideology. Now transgenders (.06% of the population) are part of Obama’s social military agenda.

Moral Clarity of GOP Congressman Duncan Hunter

With GOP House and Senate leadership typically absent, Rep. Duncan Hunter introduced legislation titled Draft America’s Daughters Act to force the discussion. While the 1981 Supreme Court upheld a males-only draft registration law, that law is now under peril. Congress concluded then that: “Since women are excluded from combat, they would not be needed in the event of a draft.” Rep. Hunter proactively introduced the bill knowing he would vote against it with the following moral clarity. “It’s wrong … to make wholesale changes to the way America fights its wars without the American people having a say on whether their daughters and sisters will be on the front lines of combat. If this Administration wants to send 18-20 year old women into combat, then the American people deserve to have this discussion through their elected representatives. The Administration made its decision to open all combat specialties without regard for the research and perspective of the Marine Corps and special operations community, or without consideration or care for whether the draft could be opened to both men and women. This discussion should have occurred before decision making of any type, but the fact that it didn’t compel Congress to take an honest look at the issue.” Duncan Hunter, a retired Navy Seal, knows you do not win by playing a “prevent defense” on the field of common ground and bipartisanship with the Left. That is defined as surrendering your values. The bill passed 32-30 with Democrats on the Armed Services Committee uniting with defecting Republicans who value political correctness over common sense. Fortunately the bill was killed when the Rules Committee members voted to cut off consideration.

Senate’s Lack of Moral Clarity

The Armed Services Committee Chairman, Senator John McCain, added a Draft-Our-Daughters provision to the Senate NDAA with the following convoluted logic: “The fact is, every single leader in this country, both men and women, members of the military leadership, believe that it’s fair since we opened up all aspects of the military to women that they would also be registering for Selective Services.” Senator Mike Lee presented a motion to strike that provision which was defeated when six of the Republicans on the committee joined Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised the white flag prior to the vote with the following: “I don’t anticipate going back to the draft. The professional volunteer Army has been very successful. We’re talking here about registration for Selective Service, should we ever go back to a draft. And given where we are today, with women in the military performing virtually all kinds of functions, I personally think it would be appropriate for them to register just like men do.“ The fact that “all aspects of the military” have been opened up (without a national discussion) to those women who have volunteered, should not mandate that all women ages 18-26 be required to involuntarily register for Selective Service with the very real possibility of being conscripted into combat in the event of war. You cannot have it both ways. Either you favor sending women into combat involuntarily or you do not.

Conference Committee

With this bill in Conference Committee, it is imperative that we support both Senator Mike Lee and Senator Ted Cruz and let our Senators know where we stand on “Drafting–Our–Daughters.” More importantly we need to encourage and support our courageous Congressmen who have shown steadfastness by not succumbing to the cancer of political correctness that attempts to quash dissent and permanently silence those they cannot beat at the ballot box.