18-25 year olds are going to be fucking like rabbits;
There, got rid of some unnecessary specificity for you.
most gay guys consider that to be the number one selling point of being gay.
This is bullshit. Sure, it's significantly easier as a MSM to find a partner willing to skip the pretense of dinner times whatever number is currently socially acceptable, but the idea that most gay guys are having sex with multiple partners a night is pure fantasy. Hell, as far as I know it was hetero kids that came up with FWB.
If you actually observed for a minute instead of just dismissing homosexually, you'd find that most homos are just like most heteros. We all like to sleep around when we're young but we also want to find a stable relationship with a partner. Of course, when your society discourages you from forming or keeping those relationships, yeah you kind of are just left with cheap sex to fill the void.
You won't hear much about it, just like you don't hear about the problems with integrating females. After all, all units have disciplinary problems, and they deal with them all the time. The difference is simply that when there are more problems, your command spends more time doing legal paperwork and less time working on training. You have more soldiers who are not pulling their weight. You lose camaraderie and get bickering and politics. I think that's been a major problem with our support units and, notably, we have been moving towards using contractors for support jobs far more than we used to. I can't see how we're going to insulate our combat units from this change.
The bottom line is that this is a social experiment being performed that will result in people dying. It's a privilege to serve, not a right, and not one that's worth a single person dying.
No you probably won't hear much about it, but because it won't be that big of a deal (or at least, it doesn't have to be--I don't doubt the homo-haters will try). This is not a "social experiment." As always with social progress, we've let others do the hard experimentation for us so all we have to do is take the empirical evidence. Yes, such human rights pioneers such as China and South Africa allow homosexuals to serve in the military.
Even the Israeli army (who few would dispute that operate in an extremely stressful and hostile environment) can manage it:
In a comprehensive review of interviews with all known experts on homosexuality in the IDF in 2004,[23] researchers were not able to find any data suggesting that Israel’s decision to lift its gay ban undermined operational effectiveness, combat readiness, unit cohesion or morale. In this security-conscious country where the military is considered to be essential to the continued existence of the nation, the decision to include sexual minorities has not harmed IDF effectiveness. In addition, while no official statistics are available for harassment rates of sexual minorities in the IDF, scholars, military officials and representatives of gay organizations alike assert that vicious harassment is rare.
Interestingly, they also seem to realize that the real security threat is not from openly gay service men and women, but the closeted ones:
Israel takes the position that gays in the closet (those who, for example, may have informed their superiors of their sexual orientation, but on a confidential basis) cannot get security-sensitive jobs while those who are out can work anywhere.
So, it would seem that gays serving openly will result in fewer people dying.
You can try the "extreme cases" argument, but you gotta understand this is an "uncommon" endpoint and by the time you hit 13 it's "less than common" and then 15 is "common."
Do you have a citation for this? I do:
In 2009, 10.0 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 were current illicit drug users (Figure 2.6): 7.3 percent used marijuana, 3.1 percent engaged in nonmedical use of prescription-type psychotherapeutics, 1.0 percent used inhalants, 0.9 percent used hallucinogens, and 0.3 percent used cocaine.
0.3 percent is hardly "common."
Mid-teens hard drug users are oddly more common than mid-20s hard drug users; college kids seem to stabilize on marijuana, but high school kids want to try heroin.
No, no they are not. From the same reference:
Rates of current use of illicit drugs in 2009 were higher for young adults aged 18 to 25 (21.2 percent) than for youths aged 12 to 17 (10.0 percent) and adults aged 26 or older (6.3 percent). Among young adults, 18.1 percent used marijuana in the past month, 6.3 percent used prescription-type drugs nonmedically, 1.8 percent used hallucinogens, and 1.4 percent used cocaine
As for heroin, the average age of active and first time users has always been higher than that of any other hard drug.
There is a large overlap in the people that bitch about how bad HFCS is for your health and those that want to stand against drug prohibition. I understand the difference between HFCS being "forced" on you
... and cocaine being "voluntary"; but it's still a strange position.
I'm not convinced that there is a large overlap in these two groups but even if so, how is it a strange position? It seems to be a logical extension of the right to control one's own body. That said, I disagree that HFCS is forced upon anyone and is (as I myself found out) surprisingly easy to avoid.
Then you find the people that are against cigarettes but for legalized marijuana and cocaine, and one can only assume they're retarded.
One can only assume you're making shit up, because I've never heard someone say cigarettes should be banned in one breath and to legalize marijuana and hard drugs in the next. Perhaps you're confusing the issue with smoking in public places? There you have the previous situation where one is being deprived of the right to control what enters their own body because you cannot avoid breathing in the smoke (or at least it goes well beyond any sort of reasonability).
Esoteric arguments about peoples' conflicting stances aside, there's a severe ethical problem with selling someone a simple poison with no benefit to get their money in your pocket. Cigarettes gradually damage your health and the "benefit" you get from initial nicotine high quickly fades into "tolerance" and "cravings"; good tobacco at least is enjoyable, and less toxic.
Indeed, let's just throw out the whole drug debate and label it an "esoteric argument" and just declare that drugs are a severe ethical problem. Or not. You may recall that the entire debate largely is an ethical, "esoteric" one. Namely, is it ethical to allow someone to purposefully damage their health and is it ethical to control such actions through force of law?
Alcohol is the same way, a horrible substance with little benefit (although some significant in low daily dose); but good beer and good wine cannot be de-alcoholized without destroying the flavor and/or texture as well.
What makes it a "horrible substance?" As you point out (however subdued), alcohol does have such benefits as lowering overall mortality when consumed around the one drink per day level, not to mention the social benefits. More importantly, what's your point here? That you would bring back Prohibition if beer and wine could be made alcohol free?
No part of the Federal Government is constitutionally permitted to levy such a direct tax on citizens of States and no amendment to the Constitution has changed that, not even the 16th amendment.
Er, well the 16th amendment did change the Constitution to allow it, and courts have confirmed that it applies to wages and other income.
The article does point out that the increasing taxes were enacted to help pay for the war and so they were in full effect during the 50s. This is the same 50s during which the concept of a "nuclear family" really took off. Somehow in the golden era of the nuclear family they did just fine paying the taxes with only one parent (the father) bringing home the bacon. So why is it that today a nuclear family struggles with both parents working?
On the other hand, a homosexual man can marry a woman (of any orientation). So, while I agree with you that the net effect is that of the groups discriminated by the law, the group "same-sex homosexual partners wishing to marry one another" is the most represented, it's not the only case either. The law discriminates against all men of any belief or persuasion from marrying another man.
Take the sentence you quoted from me:
No, it's decidedly not about sexual orientation. The law says that if you are male, you cannot marry another male (and the same with females).
Your inference is that a male marrying another male must be homosexual and the law prevents one male from marrying another male, thus the law discriminates against homosexuals. The conclusion is true but not exclusive (as it also potentially discriminates against other demographics). You premise is unnecessarily exclusive (i.e. it is not necessary that both or even one of the male/female parties in a same-sex marriage be homosexual).
In case it's still not clear, two buddies that have zero sexual interest in each other or sex with men in general and have never desired anything but a woman but decide to get married for shits and giggles would also be prevented by the law because the law says two people of the same sex cannot be married. If it said that homosexuals cannot marry people of their own sex, that would be discriminating based on sexual orientation and in that case the two buddies would be allowed to get married because they are heterosexual.
Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." -- David Guaspari