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Trump - No transgender individuals in the military

BobTheCoward said:
He isn't my president. I don't have a president. We are not on some team.

Also, he is incapable of forming ideas. So taking something he says as an argument gives it way more value than is actually there.
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You need to face reality.

Or as a famous writer once wrote:

"You might as well turn the sun into a block of ice by blowing at it with a feather."

Henry V
 
Worm said:
I know the answer is almost certainly 'no', but has there been any reporting or statement anywhere that clarifies which "Generals and military experts" Trump has consulted with?

Is there anything to suggest this is actually based on actual advice from someone from the military side rather than a straightforward attempt to appeal to Trump's base supporters as a political move?
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I suspect it is a variation on "Some people say ...".

Trump doesn't need to ask generals about this. He already knows more than all the generals.

He told us so himself, so it must be true.
 
Border Reiver said:
You are a US citizen. That makes 45 "your" president.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Seconded!

While one is quite at liberty to like and/or dislike their political leaders, they are the political leaders all the same.

Saying otherwise makes about as much sense as 45 bitching about those "so called judges".
 
Crossbow said:
That bit about skipping 45 is quite silly because 45 is still the only President we got and he says and does is still of considerable import.
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Just because he didn't issue it as a direct order doesn't mean he won't.

It was a clear indication of intent.

If he does issue it as a direct order then it certainly will matter that it was made by the 45th President of the U.S. That goes with being Commander in Chief.

Knowing his intent on the issue matters too.
 
Sabrina said:
We'd save a hell of a lot more by eliminating paying for Viagra, which is a frivolous expense at best. $41.6 million dollars is a hell of a lot more than $2.4 million.

The annual budget for the military as a whole is over $500 BILLION. That's with a B. $2.4 million, while a lot to the average American, is a drop in the bucket compared to what the military spends each year. So unless you can point out some thing that costs around the same as the $2.4 million that the military would be better off spending that money on, I say pay for the hormone treatments and gender replacement therapy, and let them serve their country.

I'm predicting right now that you will be utterly unable to find anything we don't already have in the military that the $2.4 million would be better spent on.
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I've had a few more thoughts on the budget issue.

Not only is 2.4 million basically a rounding error compared with the budget we're talking about, but we would almost certainly not save 2.4 million by expelling trans people from service.

Unless I'm misinformed, the military is not overstaffed, so discharged soldiers would either need to be replaced, or the effectiveness would suffer.

It's hard to exactly measure the cost of replacement. I believe it currently costs something like $6.5k per recruit. That comes from about a billion a year in advertising, staffing recruitment offices, enlistment bonuses etc.

We don't know how many trans people are currently serving, but even conservative estimates make something like at least 3,000 pretty likely.

So just in recruitment costs, for just the one time replacement we're looking at $19.5 million.

Now we'd also be throwing out all the training that these people received and having to spend on training all new people. Some of these trans people seem to be quite advanced in their training, but to be generous and simple, let's just look at basic training. There are a variety of numbers, but it looks like at least 50k to bring one soldier to readiness.

So replacing 3k trained soldiers would cost about $150 million in replacement training.

There are a million other smaller costs, like simply filing paperwork (not a small thing in a bureaucracy the size of the US military) updating recruitment paperwork and every system that has to list requirements. Fighting the inevitable law suits. Shipping people home from overseas posts and shipping in their replacements. And on and on. It's very likely that the minutiae would end up costing more than the direct $169.5 million of the one time replacement.

But even leaving that out, it would take 70 years of saving 2.4 million a year for this to break even. Now charitably again, I can imagine that all things being equal, more trans people might serve in the future, and the costs of medical procedures might rise, so let's say 50 years.

(Realistically, all the real costs likely mean it would be more like a century before this policy broke even)

This is of course leaving out continuing costs. If we've got a ban, then every so often they're going to have to discover trans people and kick them out. If we're leaving out a segment of the population, however small, we're going to have to spend more yearly on recruitment. You're probably going to turn off some potential recruits who view this action as bigoted.

If this were actually a budget saving measure, it would have originated with a study of all the economic factors above and more, instead of a tweet.
 
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Crossbow said:
Seconded!

While one is quite at liberty to like and/or dislike their political leaders, they are the political leaders all the same.

Saying otherwise makes about as much sense as 45 bitching about those "so called judges".
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I am not disputing they are "the" leaders. But being a leader of the government is not the same as leading individuals. I have no connection to the president other than a roundabout process where I will comply with laws because of the people with guns.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I am not disputing they are "the" leaders. But being a leader of the government is not the same as leading individuals. I have no connection to the president other than a roundabout process where I will comply with laws because of the people with guns.
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Unless you can turn all humans into pacifists, that is how reality works in practice. So why don't you tell us all how to get rid off the guns? And how we all makes laws and not just make laws which suit you?
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Unless you can turn all humans into pacifists, that is how reality works in practice. So why don't you tell us all how to get rid off the guns? And how we all makes laws and not just make laws which suit you?
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I didn't object to the situation. I only said is it isn't a relationship that guarantees use of the "my" determiner.
 
Cavemonster said:
I've had a few more thoughts on the budget issue.

Not only is 2.4 million basically a rounding error compared with the budget we're talking about, but we would almost certainly not save 2.4 million by expelling trans people from service.

<snip>

If this were actually a budget saving measure, it would have originated with a study of all the economic factors above and more, instead of a tweet.
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There isn't any question that the "budget saving" aspect of this was nothing but a smokescreen by a handful of Right Wingnut conservative bigots who were using the budget as a pretense for their ongoing campaign against anything 'icky'.

Representative Vicky Hartzler, Republican of Missouri, has proposed an amendment to the spending bill that would bar the Pentagon from spending money on transition surgery or related hormone therapy, and other Republicans have pressed for similar provisions.


<snip>


Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers had come under pressure from Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian conservative group, and an ally of Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Perkins opposed the bill over spending on transgender medical costs and lobbied lawmakers to do the same.
“Grant repentance to President Trump and Secretary Mattis for even considering to keep this wicked policy in place,” the Family Research Council said in one of its daily prayers last week. “Grant them understanding, courage and willpower to stand up to the forces of darkness that gave birth to it and wholly to repeal it.”
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We have some indication of how the top military commanders felt about the whole thing.

Mr. Mattis had worked behind the scenes to keep such language out of legislation, quietly lobbying Republican lawmakers not to attach the prohibitions, according to congressional and defense officials.
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​
"Mr. Mattis" being, of course, Gen. James Norman Mattis (ret.), currently Secretary of Defense. Whose nomination could only be confirmed thanks to a waiver from the rule requiring the position to be held by someone who either was a civilian or had been retired from the military for at least three years.

His job at retirement had been as Commander of the United States Joint Forces Command, a position he had held for nearly three years.


I'm more inclined to take his opinion as fact based than the grandstanding of a handful of Bible-waving hypocrites egged on by one of the most notoriously bigoted groups of LGBT hating fundamentalist religious cranks in the country.
 
quadraginta said:
There isn't any question that the "budget saving" aspect of this was nothing but a smokescreen by a handful of Right Wingnut conservative bigots who were using the budget as a pretense for their ongoing campaign against anything 'icky'.

​
We have some indication of how the top military commanders felt about the whole thing.



​
"Mr. Mattis" being, of course, Gen. James Norman Mattis (ret.), currently Secretary of Defense. Whose nomination could only be confirmed thanks to a waiver from the rule requiring the position to be held by someone who either was a civilian or had been retired from the military for at least three years.

His job at retirement had been as Commander of the United States Joint Forces Command, a position he had held for nearly three years.


I'm more inclined to take his opinion as fact based than the grandstanding of a handful of Bible-waving hypocrites egged on by one of the most notoriously bigoted groups of LGBT hating fundamentalist religious cranks in the country.
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Oh, it's unquestionably a smokescreen, but the kind of pivot that Trump supporters, and useful idiot conservatives are already going for is more or less:

"The motivation doesn't matter if it's a good budget move"

And it's important to understand that that's ******** too.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I am not disputing they are "the" leaders. But being a leader of the government is not the same as leading individuals. I have no connection to the president other than a roundabout process where I will comply with laws because of the people with guns.
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Since there are very few people who actually do have a direct connection to 45, then you have a good bit of company to be miserable with.
 
Crossbow said:
Since there are very few people who actually do have a direct connection to 45, then you have a good bit of company to be miserable with.
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What did I say made you think I have a problem with the situation? Jeff Bezos isn't my CEO. That doesn't mean I have some existential issue with Amazon.
 
caveman1917 said:
Interesting how the US military uses the names of people they've committed genocide on for naming their military gear. It's like the German army naming their gear "Jew", "Gypsy", "Commie", or something.
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It would be hard to find an American war which didn't feature Native Americans, typically fighting on both sides. Not far from where I work, they named an elementary school after General Stand Watie.
 
BobTheCoward said:
What did I say made you think I have a problem with the situation? Jeff Bezos isn't my CEO. That doesn't mean I have some existential issue with Amazon.
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My indication of your problem with situation was clearly shown in the post that you wrote and which I quoted when I responded to it.
 
Cavemonster said:
If this were actually a budget saving measure, it would have originated with a study of all the economic factors above and more, instead of a tweet.
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But it makes some people feel all warm and fuzzyyy.

We haven't seen the last of this administration's attempts to root out "undesirables" from various fronts. How can we fight this s***?
 
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