Egalitarianism & Women in the Military

Once in a while the great paleo talk radio show host Charles Goyette brings up the subject of women in the military. It always brings interesting calls from different sides of the debate. Mr. Goyette, as do I, believes that women should not be in active combat.

It is true that I am not a fan of the military. Yes, obviously, I do believe in security. However, security should come through the enforcement and respect of private property. (See Chaos Theory or “The Private Production of Defense.” [pdfs])

But things are currently the way that they are. Women do not have a “right” to be in the military; anymore then a ten year old wanting to join up. The thing is---shocker!---there are differences between the females and males. They are not equal, but different. Real physical and emotional differences exist. They also act different when with each other than with the opposite sex.

One has a higher level of achievement and ability for combat than the other. Unless the biological facts of the sexes changes, males are superior in fighting roles. A stronger military is a military with the physically stronger sex.

Male-female relationships in active combat bring about problems. In active combat, a group of men working together is better and less able to be problematic. Not only because of physical and/or strength differences, but how the nature of how they work together changes with the entrance of women. Men act differently with their buddies. This is natural and will not change. When you throw a woman in into the group, the relationships of that group changes.

Deductive logic on who's a better fighter and empirical reason of how the group and buddies will interact as a group --- as a unit --- tells us these things. These are the "laws of nature," so to speak.

For other (and overlapping) reasons it is smart for the military to be against homosexuals in the military. No, I am not saying hunt them out. Just do not welcome them.

Beyond that, and more importantly really, is not for reasons of trying to "beef up" the military. I do not see how it is moral to have women in combat. Mankind being what he is, wars should be, as far as possible, "gentleman wars." There is a line between combatants and noncombatants. There is a line between women and children, and men.

And we must not allow left emotionalism and its drive to promote civil “rights” get in the way, as Rothbard has noted. Once we allow the State to adopt non-discriminatory measures, it is that much easier for the State to get away with destroying private property and force property owners to do likewise.

Here is what Murray Rothbard wrote on the subject:

This brings us to the first controversial move of the Clinton-elect pre-administration: eliminating the ban on gays in the military. The military should be considered like any other business, organization, or service; its decisions should be based on what's best for the military, and "rights" have nothing to do with such decisions. The military's long-standing ban on gays in the military has nothing to do with "rights" or even "homophobia"; rather it is the result of long experience as well as common sense. The military is not like any civilian organization.

To skip ahead...

The same strictures apply a fortiori to women in the military, especially to integrated close-contact and intimate units such as exist in combat. (The old method of segregated female units for typing, jeep-driving, etc. did not pose such problems.) Since there are far more heterosexual than homosexual males, and since there is no question of a "closet" here, favoritism and abuse will be far more rampant. Once again, illegalizing sex within the military would be even more difficult to enforce. This is especially true in the current climate where "sexual harassment" has been expanded to touching and even ogling. Think of sex-integrated showers and think of Tailhook maximized to the nth degree!

Murray Rothbard continued:

The problem of women in the military has been further aggravated by the sex-norming of physical requirements in the military. Since it proved almost impossible for women to pass the standard tests for strength and speed, these tests have been dumbed down so that most women can pass them; and this includes such essential combat skills as carrying weapons and throwing grenades!

He concluded:

Finally, libertarians will fall back on their standard argument that while all these strictures do apply to private organizations, and that "rights" do not apply to such organizations, egalitarian rights do apply to such governmental outfits as the military. But, as I have written in the case of whether someone has "the right" to stink up a public library just because it is public, this sort of nihilism has to be abandoned. I'm in favor of privatizing everything, but short of that glorious day, existing government services should be operated as efficiently as possible. Surely, the postal service should be privatized, but, pending that happy day, should we advocate allowing postal workers to toss all the mail into the dumpster, in the name of making that service as terrible as possible? Apart from the horrors such a position would impose upon the poor consumers (that's us), there is another grave error to this standard libertarian position (which I confess I once held), that it besmirches and confuses the fair concept of "rights," and transmutes it from a strict defense of an individual's person and property, to a confused, egalitarian mishmash. Hence, "anti-discrimination" or even affirmative action "rights" in public services sets the conditions for their admittedly monstrous expansion into the private realm.

Hear, Hear!

The Paleo Blog will not fall into political correctness. Despite what certain egalitarians would teach you, science shows that inequality exists. It is apart of nature. This is not to say, of course, that one sex has any more or less rights to person and property than the other. What the sexes do not have is a “right” to equality---whatever that really means nor could it be physically possible to bring about.

Even though inequality is a part of nature, this does not stop people from fighting it. Next, I guess, they will try to fight the physical constants in the universe. They are unequal too. But did it ever occur that these constants are set for a reason? If you just change the force of gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, or the strong force then the universe as it currently exists could not exist. Certain requirements are necessary for the division of labor too. Certain requirements are needed for a species or race.

There are also moral, spiritual, and religious reasons that the females should not be in combat. Several articles at the great LRC cover this topic, but one (relatively) recent one I very much enjoyed. It’s called “Mothers Wearing Army Boots” by Larry L. Beane II. Please give it a read.

Reading Material:

• "The Religious Right: Toward a Coalition" by Murray Rothbard
• --"Against Women’s Lib"
  
• “Mothers Wearing Army Boots” by Larry L. Beane II
• Women in Combat Google Search @ LRC