Archive for the ‘Soapbox’ Category

For those of you who are just reading for the first time check out this post from last week.

So I have been leaving comments in Amy Proctor’s site about this, and my feelings on the subject. I pointed out that nearly every argument that she made could be applied towards banning a religion from the post, provided that someone else objected to it.

She responded with:
“Right, Skippy, banning the sexualization of women for profit on posts and banning religion are one in the same. I don’t know why i didn’t see it sooner.”

Actually, it is the same thing.

It is the exact same thing.

It is allowing one group to look at another and say, “You can’t do that because I don’t like it”. It is saying “You shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions that I don’t agree with.”

And if religion gets a free ride, what then happens when someone makes a religion around porn? There is already one based around the Jedi Knights. So its more probable that you would think. I’m sure the argument would become “No, only real religions get protected status”. Call me on it if I’m wrong, Amy.

But the Army, for better or for worse, can and does limit religious expression on post. Rastafarian’s don’t smoke pot, Wiccans could barely practice and not have their sacred items confiscated, and I’m positive that no one will be sacrificing a POW to Tláloc to ensure a good rainy season and bountiful harvest anytime soon. Heck, I’m pretty sure that the Westboro Baptist Church wouldn’t be welcome on most bases.

Now, people have tried arguing with her on facts. The damage that she claims porn will cause has not materialized in societies where porn is accepted. Nor have these kinds of harm shown up in societies that have newly accepted porn.

But facts would not sway her.

And people tried logic. They pointed out that ink and paper can’t hurt someone. That magazines sealed in plastic don’t actually effect her simply by existing. The whole “they are harmful on post but safe if stored five minutes away” borders on superstition. That, or the belief that they are somehow radioactive. (Completely inappropriate side note: What superpowers would you get from a radioactive adult magazine? Defend your choices.)

Logic would not budge her.

And so I am left with my last, and perhaps strongest tool.

Farce.

A Modest Proposal…..For Military Bases

As Amy has pointed out, people who claim to support the military and our troops must also support the families of our soldiers. There are a growing number of soldiers who also have families. And our soldiers must be secure in the knowledge that their wives, and more importantly, their children, will receive adequate care and protection at all times. A soldier who is insecure about his family’s well-being is a soldier that cannot focus on his job. And when soldiers cannot focus on their jobs it can lead to unnecessary waste, accidents, and even death.

And so, I am forced to draw your attention to a growing danger facing our military families.

Catholicism.

“But Skippy”, you might say, “Catholicism is a religion. How can you accuse a religion of being dangerous to the military family?”

And so I will demonstrate the harm.

First of all, Catholics teach symbolic cannibalism. It’s right there during Mass, where everyone can see it. Now, if a consenting adult wishes to partake in such activities during their free time, that is their right. But it should certainly be limited to off-post, because non-Catholics shouldn’t have to have their children exposed to the idea that it is okay to eat people.

Secondly, Catholics drink wine as part of their religious services. Again, adults should be allowed to whatever they like, but there are children on Army bases now. And children shouldn’t be encouraged to drink. Because alcohol has been positively linked to alcoholism.

The current leader of the Catholic Church is a former Hitler Youth. An organization that teaches that Nazis are the infallible representatives of God’s will is on our Army bases? Goodness I should hope not.

And many people worry, justifiably I might add, that certain practices on base might harm our children. But who has time to worry about ink and glossy paper when there are children who have been irreparably harmed by Catholicism? By having turgid priest injected directly into their buttholes. Which the Church condoned by covering up. And then assigning the priests to go work with other children. I don’t think that child rapists, or their apologists, belong in the same places as our soldier’s families.

And this is just the modern, current era issues. Let’s not forget the Crusades, institutionalized torture, the Inquisition, witch trials, the selling of indulgences, religious suppression, the consumption of fish on Friday, and genocide. It’s like a laundry list of unacceptable behavior.

Now I’m not saying that soldiers shouldn’t be allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. After all, they are adults and their free time is theirs to do with as they please. I’m just pointing out that common sense dictates that the behavior of the Catholic Church is incompatible with military families.

And really, is it such a big deal to make all of the Catholics go off-post to spend their free time in the manner that they so choose? I would think that the well-being of the children should definitely come first, before the selfish desires of the Catholic Faithful.

Military Honor and Decency Act

Long term readers may remember this post.

And so once again we have a group of people that think they know more than the rest of us should.

If you have any respect for our soldiers, or value freedom in any way, you should contact your Representative and tell them that you don’t support this.

I first saw this on my regular Internet news sites and at first I thought, “Eh, I’ve written about this before.” But then one of my readers, Patrick, sent me this site. As I read Mrs. Proctor’s arguments and her defense of them, I found myself getting angry. And then I realized that an unfortunate reality is that silence equals consent.

I do not consent to having our soldiers privileges sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

I do not consent to freedom of speech being limited to only things that are bland and fail to offend the tender sensibilities of the sexually repressed.

I do not consent to politicians, who as a group are typically some of the most horrifically amoral people on the planet, deciding that they get to dictate proper morality for the rest of us.

I do not consent to allowing people to get away with pretending that their moral decisions are more valid than mine.

I do not consent to lazy parents abdicating their responsibility and instead demand that society at large eliminate anything they don’t like, to prevent them from ever having to have an awkward conversation.

I do not consent to a magazine being banned from sale because someone doesn’t like it.

I do not consent to our brave soldiers being bullied in this manner.

Now to answer some of the obvious responses to my statement.

“Pornography is harmful to women”
-How so? I have run a careful experiment exposing my wife to pornography. She has yet to catch fire, develop cancer, or run off to become a prostitute. Okay, maybe if a pallet of dirty magazines was to fall on you it would hurt. But I think you’d be just as crushed if they were bibles.

“Pornography leads to rape”
-I’m sure that this is following the logic that some person once read porn, and then went on to rape someone. There are also rapists who have read the bible, sang pop songs, and driven automobiles. I think I am safe in saying that most men in the U.S. have looked at porn at some point in their life. And most of us have managed not to rape anybody so far.

“Think about how porn affects the women on military bases”
- With the possible exception of that Air Force SGT that posed for Playboy last year, I would have to say, “Not affected in the slightest”. Unless they are buying and reading it, in which case I might go with “they are titillated.”

“They can always go somewhere else to get it”
-Not always. Some might be stuck on post for some reason. Or they may be deployed to a country where it is not readily available in the economy. Maybe they don’t have a car. Perhaps they are on a ship.

“It’s degrading to women”
-How so? The women who are getting told, “You are so beautiful that we will pay you thousands of dollars for the privilege of looking at you” don’t seem degraded to me. Are other women degraded simply by the magazines being nearby? Because men are looking at the pictures? Because men are thinking impure thoughts after looking at those magazines? So in this logic chain no one but the model, the PX, the magazine, and the man who bought it are involved. I’ve heard some people say that the magazines make men look at women who are around them with lust, but let me tell you, men don’t need magazines for that, we are quite capable of perving out without them.

“Think of the children”
-You know what I think? I think that a kid with one or more parents overseas with a serious threat of bodily harm has more important concerns than a magazine sealed in plastic. And even if it wasn’t sealed in plastic: “Oh noes! Teh naked boobies! I am scarred for life!” Seriously, it’s one thing to not want your kid exposed to something. It’s another to think that everyone else needs work around your hang-ups. Also, Playboy magazine wasn’t involved in a nasty series of child rape cover-ups in recent years. Things more important than magazines could be banned from post if people are allowed to start trampling on rights over “protect the children”.

“But they don’t need it”
-You absolutely right. They don’t need it. But the fact that the PX keeps selling it tells us that they want it. If porn was eliminated soldiers could still do their job. There are lot’s of things that soldiers don’t need to do their jobs. Video games, alcohol, cigarettes, movies, the Internet. We could ban all of those things from post and soldiers could still function. Just because someone doesn’t need something doesn’t give you the right to take it away. Soldiers also don’t need to have families on post. And judging from the behavior of some military wives, I think an argument could be made for keeping them off-post only. One just as strong as banning Penthouse and Playboy.

I think people should be free to practice, or abstain from the practice, of any religion they so choose. And if your faith tells you that you should avoid dirty magazines, well then that is a great reason to not purchase or look at dirty magazines. But it is a horrible reason to try to make other people stop having them. Your right to practice your faith ends at your neighbor’s right to practice his.

So in closing, the human body is nothing to be ashamed of, sexuality is a valid form of expression, and “Family Values” is just a dirty way of saying censorship.

A few weeks ago I posted a few stories that showed some examples of bad Army leadership. One of the readers, Fry, suggested that I post some examples of good leadership.

At one point during my military career we had several days of maintenance-type activities that had to be done in the vicinity of the motor pool. During the summer in North Carolina. Basically we got to spend several days in a row doing heavy work in a giant parking lot. It was hot and unpleasant. So another Specialist and I came up with a great idea. We’d stop at the PX on the way to the motorpool and buy a cooler and fill it with ice and drinks. We’d just ask people to pay what our costs were so that we didn’t go broke providing drinks for our company. We made the purchases and brought them to the motorpool, cheerful and anticipating praise from our chain of command for our thoughtfulness. Since this story is on my site, you can probably guess that this is not how things turned out.

Several NCOs approached me and my friend over this. Did they thank us for thinking of our comrades? No.

Did they comment on how we went out of our way and spent our own resources to take care our buddies? Nope.

They screamed at us. For about ten minutes. It seems that me and my friend, by bringing cold drinks for everybody, had succeeded in making our NCOs look bad. Because we had done more to take care of the soldiers in our company than they had. And they felt that we had done it deliberately.

About half an hour after this happened one of the NCOs came back. She wasn’t mad any more and, in fact, she looked ashamed.

She told us that if we made our NCOs look bad by helping out our buddies then that was a poor reflection on them, not us. She apologized for taking part in the NCO lynch mob and asked us how much we had paid for everything. She then handed me that amount of cash and just gave the drinks away to her soldiers.

Step 1: Be this person. If you screw up and one of your soldiers pays for it, have the decency to admit it, and if necessary, go back and make amends.

Another time I was asked to go to 4th PSYOP Group headquarters. Apparently there was some kind of meeting going on to determine what the new product development workstation was going to have. This was a laptop that would be used by an illustrator to create propaganda. And since I was an illustrator, someone thought my input might be helpful. When I get to the meeting I discover that I am the only enlisted person in the building. So there I am, in a room full of officers, who are very opinionated, and more or less totally ignorant about what the soldiers who were going to use the equipment actually did. So being in possession of more survival instinct than most of my readers would ever give me credit for, I sat very still and tried not to attract any notice. Eventually I failed.

“What are you doing here, Specialist?”, asked a Major with the almost exact tone of voice that you or I would say, “Ewww…I got some of that on my shoe.”

“My team SGT told me to come here, sir.”

“What unit are you from, and why did they send an E-4?”

“Because I’m an illustrator sir.”

And with that, a Colonel sitting on the opposite end of the room took notice. “You’re a 25 mike? Why didn’t you say so earlier?” And he then proceeded to direct all suggestions for the equipment through me because I was “The only one here whose ever gonna actually use this stuff”.

Step 2: Be this person. Sometimes your soldiers will have specialized or specific knowledge that you lack. It’s not beneath you to listen to them when that’s the case. It’s generally a good idea to be on the lookout for lower ranks that know things; they can help you make informed decisions.

And lastly, there is this story that I call “The Best Sergent Major Story Ever.” I did not serve under this particular NCO but I had this story relayed to me by a soldier who did. The chain-of-command had recently held several inspections on the barracks. And many soldiers had been dinged for various infractions. Dust on top of the blinds, shoes not neatly lined up under the bunk, clutter on the furniture. The sort of thing that soldiers get gigged on during an inspection. When it was done, many of the lower enlisted who lived in the barracks were getting reamed out for not having their living areas up to Army standards. During a formation afterwards the SGM gave a speech stressing the importance of always keeping your living area up to inspection standards. He then asked for a show of hands of those who had a cell phone. Confused, the soldiers that did, mostly officers, raised their hands.

“Please bring you cellular phones up here, and leave them with me for the remainder of this formation. Now, everyone who lives on post, you are dismissed, have a great weekend. Everyone who lives off post, please stay here. I will be carpooling out to your homes with you to inspect them. I’m sure that all of you are keeping your homes to the sames standards that you hold you soldiers to. And if any of you call home to have your wife, girlfriend, or pets start cleaning up I will have your ass. I can fit five at a time in my car; who wants to go first?”

Step 3: Sometimes it’s just awesome to fuck with people.

My first MOS in the Army was 25M, or Multi-Media Illustrator. For those readers who are not Army, that was my Military Occupational Specialty. M-O-S is how soldiers say J-O-B. Now for some strange reason, the Army felt that the only possible use for Illustrators was in Airborne units. So all 25Ms had to go to jump school after their MOS training. So just imagine my surprise to find out that I was the only one who was going to jump out of planes. It would appear that my recruiter had lied to me.

Step one: Don’t be this guy.
Don’t lie to your soldiers to get things that you want from them. Your soldiers remember what you do, and they can talk to each other. You don’t want your troops to feel like you’d sell them out.

Nonetheless, I went off to jump school. I did promise to do so when I enlisted, and the extra money looked nice, so I kept up my end. The especially fun part was that I went during the summer. Which is when the cadets also attend jump school. This is significantly less fun than it sounds. Some of these cadets were from military academies, like West Point. They were generally pretty squared away and at least knew how to act like they were in the military. But many were ROTC cadets. Which meant that they were college students wearing a uniform. I have nothing against college students per se. But if your well-being depends on them not acting like college students, well, you might start to have some issues. The problems ranged from the comical, “Hey look…one third of the formation went the wrong way”, to the significantly less comical “Everyone is restricted to the barracks because one third of the formation went the wrong way”.

Here is one incident that stuck in my mind. At one point a bunch of us were on an assignment stacking reserve parachutes onto a storage rack. We were passing them in bucket-brigade style. One of the cadets near me said “One of these just came open, get a SGT Airborne quick”. So another private and myself ran off to grab an authority figure to report the problem to. All three of us returned to discover that all of the reserves chutes are fine. The SGT Airborne was angry. “Why did you waste my time Private?”

“That cadet told me one of the reserves came open.”
“SGT Airborne I have no idea what that Private is talking about.”

Step two: Don’t be this guy either.
My buddy and me wound up doing roughly a bazillion push ups over this. To this day I have no idea whether this was an accident or just a dumb punk kid’s idea of a funny joke. But in any case, don’t let your soldiers take the fall for your mistake. And if you do, try to have the decency to not look surprised when you discover what they did to your toothbrush.

But the worst offender is a guy who I will refer to as Cadet Snowflake. When I arrived at Ft. Benning, my luggage didn’t. Two other soldiers and one cadet where in the same fix as me. At one point after a formation, those of us that were missing our luggage were taken to see the Sergeant Major. He asked us a few questions about our luggage and which barracks we in so that he could make sure that we got it when the airline delivered it later. He made sure all of us had access to toiletries and that no one was missing any critical items. He summed up the whole thing by assuring us, “Don’t worry boys, Sergeant Major will get you squared away!”

“You’d damn well better!”

Four faces, totally incredulous, slowly turned to look at Mr. Special Snowflake.

“What. Did. You. Say. Cadet?”, asked the very senior, and should be noted, incredibly huge and scary NCO.

“I said you’d better get this taken care of. I’m going to hold you personally responsible for this.”

At this point the other soldiers and me tried to very slowly scoot ourselves away from Cadet Snowflake. We knew what was coming was going to be bad and we certainly didn’t want to get any of it on ourselves.

“I think I may have misheard you cadet.”

“I made myself clear. You’d better do what I say. I’m going to be a Lieutenant soon and then I’ll outrank you.”

For those of you who have not been in the military, I will give you this analogy. Imagine walking up to Chuck Norris. Now imagine telling him he’d better treat you nice because someday you’re going to start learning martial arts. And as soon as you train up enough to hold multiple black belts you’re going to kick his ass.

Now, a cadet mouthing off to the Sergeant Major is about a hundred times dumber than that.

Step Three: Definitely do not be this guy.
In fact, try to not even know this guy.

The lower enlisted were released and we got to hear the opening of a Grade-A ass chewing as we hurried away from ground zero. I never found out what happened to Cadet snowflake, but I strongly doubt his military career lasted for much longer. I do know that he didn’t attend jump school with us.

New rules once I take over as supreme ruler of the United States.

Declaration #1: Being an asshole will be considered a form of violent assault. As such, violent retribution will be considered self-defense. In other words, as long as you can convince a jury of your peers that the son of a bitch had it coming, it’s kosher.

Declaration #2: All non-violent crimes will be punished with public flogging. Want to eliminate white collar crime? Start dragging crooked investment bankers into a public square and beat them. They’ll get the idea really fast. Particularly attractive female convicts may get a spanking instead.

Repeat offenders may have an implant installed into their ears that plays “Tom’s Diner” on a loop. Until they die.

Declaration #3: All juvenile crimes will be punished with use of the stocks. Nothing amends teenage behavior faster than public embarrassment.

Declaration #4: The definition of the crime of pedophilia will be amended to include all acts of terrorism. This way anytime a terrorist is named on the news, they will be described as a pedophile.

Declaration #5: If a news agency is caught telling, fabricating, or repeating information that it knows to be false, see declaration #2.

Declaration #6: People who go on killing sprees to get attention (See V- Tech, NIU, Columbine, etc.) will not ever be mentioned by name in the press. They will only be referred to by silly emasculating names such as “Darling Princess Poofiness the Third”. All pictures of them will be modified to put them in ridiculous outfits. Once a year there will be a holiday where small children gather to laugh at these people. This will do more to reduce school violence than any amount of dress codes or banned music.

Declaration #7: All proponents of intelligent design as science must give up their thumbs. (People that believe it as religion are fine…just as long as they stay the hell away from public schools.)

Declaration #8: The practice of dueling is will be reinstated. This will solve many of societies problems immediately, such as people who use cell phones at the movies, folks who don’t tip waitresses or the pizza guy, media pundits, and Andy Dick.

Declaration #9: Restaurants will be forbidden from creating their own sizes. Small, medium, and large are sizes. Venti is an invitation for an ass-whooping.

Declaration #10: Reality shows will be outlawed, unless they are arranged in such a way that 95% of the participants die. The Surreal Life/Running Man hybrid, alone, will make this one worthwhile.

Declaration #11: Seth Green will be publicly executed, by way of an elephant, a waffle iron, and a case of Thunderbird brand malt liquor.
He knows why.

Did I forget anything?

I have discovered some people that I heartily approve of.

FUN for Our Troops.

They are taking donations to send video games to deployed soldiers. As I may have mentioned before on this site, deployments are boring. Soldiers need things like books, magazines and video games to keep both out of trouble and sane.

So check them out and if you can afford it, donate something. I also decided that 10% of the proceeds from my soon-to-be erected internet t-shirt store will be going to this particular cause. So if you don’t buy a squid t-shirt then you hate our soldiers. (And you probably kick puppies for fun too. In a fursuit.)

And on a similar note; I have a link to the site of the artist who made the nice squid picture.

Kirk Charlton’s Art Is Here

Be advised that some of the pictures are not safe for work.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/11/05/groups_attack_military_store_sex_mags/5604/

I mean seriously.

I can understand that someone could look at the military and see issues that they want fixed.

And I can understand that some people don’t approve of adult images. That’s fine too.

And I’ll even, for the sake of argument, accept that there are men out there that don’t enjoy pictures of naked women. (Although we all know that there are only two kinds of men who don’t like nude women….liars and homosexuals).

But these people took a look at the military and said “Y’know what the problem is? All these people risking their lives to protect our countries and freedoms? Yeah these guys are able to look at pictures that I don’t like. We can’t have that! “

Soldiers already give up so much to protect our country. Huge amounts of time, the ability to interact with their families. And frequently their lives. These are things they have to give up in order to do their job properly.

Soldiers have to give up so much that it is just wrong to try to take anything else away from them without a good reason. National security is a good reason. Some fundamentalist with his undies in a wad is not.

Any people who take part in this attempt on our soldiers freedoms are ungrateful, selfish, conniving bastards.

If you care about soldiers issues, please be sure to contact you Representative and Senator to tell them to send these folks packing.