"R. David Steele" steele.david@verizon(DOT)net/OMEGA wrote in message
...

| | | | Yet another political post that has virtually nothing to
do
| with
| | | military aviation.
| | | |
| | |
| | | It is of a political nature. Do you really want the military
| | | taking a political position?
| | |
| | |Back up your bus, Gus. He said absolutely nothing about the
*military*
| | |involving itself in politics here at home, so you can get off that
| horse
| | |right now.
| | |
| | |Given that the military is about
| | | 50% republican, 10% libertarian, and only 15% democrat (the other
| | | 25% are too young to have made up a political view but tend to be
| | | socially conservative), are you really wanting the military to
| | | have a larger role in politics?
| | |
| | |Really? And pray tell where did you get these "statistics"? From
Dan
| | Rather,
| | |maybe?
| | |
| | |
| | | It has been wise to have a wall of separation between the
| | | military and politics (much like the separation of church and
| | | state).
| | |
| | |Read your Clauswitz, especially the bit about war being an
extension
| of
| | |what...?
| | |
| | |Brooks
| |
| | There are those who do not even want the military voting in that
| | they want such a firm wall of separation between the military and
| | the policy making.
| |
| |Bullcrap. Point to anyone claiming the modern servicemember should not
be
| |allowed to vote. Stop making this crap up.
|
| There was forum at Westpoint dealing with military-sociology.
| One of the professors commented that the military should be
| prevented from voting. I have the paper somewhere. Many few
| that there should be a high wall of separation between military
| members and policy makers. Already there is huge barrier for
| agencies like the FBI, CIA, SS, and NSA. They are barely able to
| vote. Everything else is forbidden for them.
|
|WTF?! The above makes no sense whatsoever. "Many few"??? "Already there
is a
|huge barrier"??! WHAT barrier? WHO has said those agencies' personnel
can't
|vote? FYI--you need to go read the civil service guidelines regarding
what
|is and is not allowed in terms of political activity by *all* federal
|workers--it is not a "huge barrier", and no "every thing else" is NOT
|forbidden, for cryin' out loud. Where on earth do you get these strange
|ideas?

Federal ethics rules, under the Hatch Act, forbid those who work
for the FBI, SS, CIA, or NSA to have ANY political involvement.
They are allowed to vote and that is all they are allowed to do.
It is a huge barrier.

Bull****. Read the following *permitted* acts for those employed in
organizations that are in the restricted activities category (i.e., your
FBI, NSA, etc.):

a.. register and vote as they choose
b.. assist in voter registration drives
c.. express opinions about candidates and issues
d.. participate in campaigns where none of the candidates represent a
political party
e.. contribute money to political organizations or attend political fund
raising functions
f.. attend political rallies and meetings
g.. join political clubs or parties
h.. sign nominating petitions
i.. campaign for or against referendum questions, constitutional
amendments, municipal ordinances
That is quite abit beyond your assertion of being forbidden to engage in ANY
political activity. Soursce, you might ask? How about the Office of the
Special Counsel--good enough? http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm#may_not

You continue to be full of horse****--or are you gonna claim that the OSC
does not know what they are talking about?


Everyone else at federal level, and there are state level
agencies who receive federal funding that also under Hatch Act
rules, can be a precinct committeeman or state delegate. However
their political involvement is also restricted compared to you.

Duh. I once was a federal employee, along with serving in the military once
upon a time. And your comment is again off the mark--you are always being
too definitive. The ACTUAL list of permitted activities includes:

a.. be candidates for public office in nonpartisan elections
b.. register and vote as they choose
c.. assist in voter registration drives
d.. express opinions about candidates and issues
e.. contribute money to political organizations
f.. attend political fundraising functions
g.. attend and be active at political rallies and meetings
h.. join and be an active member of a political party or club
i.. sign nominating petitions
j.. campaign for or against referendum questions, constitutional
amendments, municipal ordinances
k.. campaign for or against candidates in partisan elections
l.. make campaign speeches for candidates in partisan elections
m.. distribute campaign literature in partisan elections
n.. hold office in political clubs or parties
You seem to have left most of the permitted activities out. And note that
this list exceeds the scope of usual political activities undertaken by most
Americans NOT covered by the Hatch Act.

http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm#may


There are those who want to restrict the military even more.

So you keep saying...without much evidence.


|
| |
| | However, the military has become very skewed to the right due to
| | the draw down.
| |
| |Please, provide specific evidence that the "military has become skewed
to
| |the right due to the drawdown". Have you ever been in the military?
Those
| of |us who have recognize that we had a wide range of disparate
political
| views |evidenced in the ranks--the basic tendency may have been towards
the
| |conservative, but that has likely been the case since the volunteer
| military |came into being--not "due to the draw down".
|
| The volunteer army did start the process. The draw down
| accelerated. it.
|
|Bull****. You have no idea whatsoever about what you are talking about.
What
|is the source for this particular gem of alleged knowledge?

Don't have one, huh?

|
|
| |As the military became smaller, mostly the
| | conservatives were left.
| |
| |Balderdash. The drawdown has not been shown to have resulted in any
| change |in the political makeup of the services.
|
|Where is your evidence to the contrary? Can you even find poll results
|indicating what the political views of serving military members are? I
have
|never seen such a poll--if you have, please provide it.

Figures.

|
| |
| |Given your knowledge base, I would
| | assume that you have a good handle on the make up of the current
| | military. It should be self evident, without an need of
| | statistical backup, that those who serve are very socially
| | conservative.
| |
| |Nope. A lot of them are conservatives when it comes to foreign affairs
| and |fiscal matters, etc., but "socially conservative"? I attended an
all-male
| |military college back in the eighties, where the majority of us leaned
| |conservative in many respects--but when Jerry Falwell's kids (i.e.,
those
| |from his pet "university") showed up to visit they got a rather chilly
| |reception. You'd be surprised at the number of military personnel who
| |support the right of an individual to choose abortion versus having
the
| |government make that determination. Stop bandying about these claims
of
| |yours that you think don't need any statistical backing--they do,
since
| they |have little basis in actual fact.
|
| That is a libertarian position, not liberal-progressive which has
| a hatred of the military and is strongly pacifist.
|
|Answer the challenge and provide something more reputable than your
strange
|assertions to back your thesis--what do you have that indicates that
"those
|who serve are social conservatives"? Nothing, that's what--because it is
|merely your opinion, and not a FACT. There is a difference between the
two,
|you know?

As suspected...

|
|
| |Military service is even more distasteful those
| | who are rebellious as the military (since Desert Storm) has
| | become very intolerant (Navy the least so) of alcohol abuse and
| | other social disorders. Most of the liberals in society thus
| | find that military service is too confiding and requires too high
| | a level of self discipline for their tastes.
| |
| |What?! You ever been to an O-Club located on a post situated in a dry
| |county? I have, and let me tell you, it was a swingin' place. You
think
| the |military is now made up of a bunch of teetotalers?! The fact that
the
| |military does not tolerate alcohol *abuse*, specifically as it regards
| |driving or work performance, is nothing new--at Ft Knox in the
mid/late
| |eighties, a DUI for an officer yielded a guaranteed trip to the post
CG's
| |office--that does not mean that either were "conservative". Liberals
| don't |like drunk drivers, either.
|
| Still libertarian
|
|???!
|
|
| |
| | As for Clauswitz, that is at a very broad level far above what
| | the typical enlisted or officer would deal with. Or do you want
| | the military setting policy of your local school board?
| |
| |LOL! You are getting further afield... This started as your attempt to
| take |a poster to task for remarking upon the election process and the
fact
| that |the President is indeed the C-in-C, and you have continually
tried to
| draw |it into some kind of weird military-as-threat-to-civil-rule or
| |military-is-synonymous-with-John-Birch-Society diatribe. Get a clue,
and
| dig |up those statistics if you want your inane ravings to stick.
|
| There are no statistics as no one has done a real study.
|
|
|So you are talking out of your ass--no big surprise there.

No, from current and very personal experience. I doubt that you
have been in service within the last 10 years.

You'd be wrong.

Or that you have
had detailed experience outside of visiting a post or base.

You'd be wrong.


Things have changed. And most Americans, even vets, would be
shocked at how much change has happened. The Army no longer
lives in open bay wooden barracks, you know.

What is apparent is that you have little grasp of reality when it comes to
these topics; you toss out "absolutes" that under further inspection prove
to be incomplete at best, and danged wrong at worst. You have this strange
idea that the "drawdown" had some apocolyptic level effect on the political
views of serving military members, but FYI, I served both befroe, during,
and after the drawdown was completed--and know that you are full of BS in
this regard.


|I know,
| I have looked at almost all the military-sociology studies out
| there. But with over 20 years of military service, what I have
| seen is that the military has shifted. I do not see many fellow
| democrats in the ranks these days. Most democrats, especially
| the academics, are heavily into pacifism and have a very anti
| military attitude.
|
|You are taking a very, very small data set and attributing it to the
|whole--bad idea, and worse logic. I commanded a company of troops and
would
|have been surprised if anywhere near even *half* of them had voted for
Bush
|Sr over Dukakis in '88; most would have classified themselves as
democrats.
|That does NOT mean I can take that sample and declare that the majority
of
|the military are left-handed liberals--just as you can't do the opposite.
|Dig up some real supporting evidence.

After the Gulf War, we saw huge changes.

I doubt you saw ****. I served before, during, and after the Gulf War in
various units, and have never seen this homoginization of political thought
coalesce behind a "social conservatism" that you claim has occured. You have
proven to be utterly unable to support this hypothesis with any solid
evidence, too.

The draw down in the
mid '90s accelerated that. My guess is that you were out by
then.

You'd be wrong.

You are not seeing a lot of democrats in the ranks these
days. What democrats we do get tend to be minorities. White
democrats tend to see the military as too "masculine".

You ever been to parts of Appalachia? White democrats still rule the roost
in many areas of that region--and they send their sons and daughters into
the military, both active and reserve components. Stop taking your absurd,
unsupported generalities and trying to apply them across the board.


|
| Here is an example. Note that the author points out that the
| military is skewed to the right but that no one really knows by
| how much.
|
|Whoopie. You cite an article that acknowledges there is no statistical
|database from which to assert which way military voters will swing, much
|less support the assertion you have made that virtually ALL of them are
|republican voting, social conservatives; the author of that article is at
|least one step ahead of you, since he at least recognizes that trying to
|definitely classify the military is therefore a lost cause. Then he goes
on
|to try and use the veterans' poll results to declare that they are a
viable
|method of ascertaining how current troops would likely vote--but that
falls
|flat when you consider that a lot of folks adjust their political beliefs
|over time, and there is likely a goodly portion of YOUNG troops who will
|vote the same way a lot of YOUNG civilians vote (i.e., stronger tendency
to
|lean leftwards). So in the end your cite is not doing much to support
your
|assertions.

If you read the article, no one has done much of any studies.

Which is why your thesis is unsupported by evidence. Worse, your assumptions
are way too generalized and homoginized. I commanded a company of troops
that undoubtedly was primarily democratic in terms of political leaning--and
that command tour extended until 1993. I went to battalion staff and guess
what? The rest of the battalion drew its troops from the same melting pot,
and also reflected a widely disparate political makeup. Later still I went
to brigade level--and guess what? We had units from two states, and a lot of
those troops were (gasp!) democrats!

Lest you get the wrong idea, I am a conservative (though not necessarilly
"socially conservative") independent--voted for the elder Bush, against
Clinton, and for Bush the younger. But I don't have those blinders on that
you obviously are wearing--I recognized a substantial number of democrats in
the ranks of the units I served in, active and reserve.

Brooks

I
think that they are afraid to. Pew Report would be ideal for
such.

Again, I see too many that have been out for a period of years
who just do not have a clue as to the huge shift that happened in
the '90s. For the most part democrats have been AWOL from
military service over the last 10 years. Pacifism and feminism
as a dominate ideology within the democrats have made the
military unattractive to them.

|Brooks
|
|
| Military vote puzzles experts
| Neither pollsters nor candidates can be sure just how active-duty
| personnel will vote.
|
|
| By Esther Schrader
| Los Angeles Times
| September 19, 2004
|
|
| WASHINGTON -- Kevin Dellicker stays away from politics when he
| reports for duty at the National Guard armory in Harrisburg, Pa.
|
| But out of uniform, the captain in the Pennsylvania National
| Guard does everything he can to persuade the people he served
| with in Iraq to re-elect President Bush.
|
| Shaking some of the same hands is Jonathan Soltz, a former Army
| captain recently returned from Iraq. He pleads with soldiers to
| vote for Sen. John Kerry.
|
| In the swing state of Pennsylvania, where both live, the votes of
| those in the military -- including more than 15,000 reservists --
| who are serving or have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are much in
| demand.
|
| But which way the people fighting the war will vote in
| Pennsylvania and elsewhere is anybody's guess.
|
| Tight restrictions on seeking the votes of active-duty military
| personnel, along with taboos in the military culture against the
| open expression of political views, make it tough for candidates
| to target military voters -- and make it tough for pollsters to
| figure them out.
|
| Historically, military turnout in elections has been low.
|
| With more than 400,000 troops overseas now, many living in
| difficult and dangerous conditions, it is not clear whether those
| who want to vote this fall will be able. A Pentagon initiative
| meant to make it easier for troops to cast absentee ballots via
| the Internet and by fax is under fire as vulnerable to tampering.
|
| That has left the Bush and Kerry campaigns working the edges of a
| potential voting bloc that could be significant in a tight
| election.
|
| "It's very hard to get a read on how the active-duty personnel
| are reacting to the war politically, because they are so busy
| reacting on the ground," Soltz said. "So what I do, I talk to my
| friends, tell them to e-mail their friends about Kerry.
|
| "I talk to people like me who are out of the service now. I'm not
| going to go give a speech to a group of soldiers. It's not the
| thing they want to hear while they're just trying to keep their
| lives together."
|
| Political activity in the military is -- like much else --
| strictly regulated.
|
| Troops are not prohibited from expressing political opinions, but
| they are not allowed to work for partisan political organizations
| while in the military. Campaigning is prohibited at military
| facilities, and the rules for conducting polls among active-duty
| troops are so cumbersome that pollsters have generally given up.
|
| "As a society, we rely on the apolitical loyalties and
| professionalism of the military -- we entrust them with
| capabilities that we don't give anyone else -- and in exchange
| for that we demand total political neutrality from them," said
| Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke
| University.
|
| More is known about how veterans lean politically: Polls show
| they tend to vote Republican.
|
| Because of that, it has long been presumed that the active
| military also leans Republican.
|
| A poll by Army Times of its readers last December found that more
| supported the administration than did not. But the magazine's
| poll did not ask respondents for whom they would vote.
|
| Its pollsters acknowledged that its readers tend to be older
| career soldiers, rather than enlisted personnel, 35 percent of
| whom are black or Hispanic -- groups that among civilians tend to
| vote Democratic.
|
| This year, both presidential campaigns have infused their efforts
| with military imagery, and the experiences of Bush and Kerry
| during the Vietnam War are under scrutiny.
|
| A parade of retired generals gave endorsements at the Democratic
| and Republican conventions. Kerry opened his speech with a jaunty
| salute. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have regularly
| visited military bases, and Kerry meets with veterans, reservists
| and military families almost everywhere he goes.
|
| Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democratic vice presidential
| nominee John Edwards, parlays her background as the daughter of a
| career soldier into chats with military families.
|
| "The political appeals to this broad category of people somehow
| associated with the military has not been this overt in decades,"
| said Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center for the People
| and the Press. "But of the leanings of active-duty military, the
| people in the fight, the candidates are as stumped as the
| pollsters."
|
| http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/179886-4633-010.html
|


---
"If ye love wealth better than liberty ... servitude better than ...
freedom,
go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms ... May
your
chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen."
- Samuel Adams