I’m going to go ahead and say something very controversial here that will probably make it impossible for me to ever run for public office as a member of any major political party: War is awful and bad and everyone who disagrees can go fuck themselves.
I’m sure you’re wondering why I believe such a thing. And I have to say it comes down to a few things that I believe are objectively bad and cause immense suffering. These things include, but are not limited to: Death, disfigurement, dismemberment, disembowelment, destruction, debris, denudement, depravity, division and a bunch of other words that don’t even start with D.
On March 6, The Onion ran a piece titled, “Trump To Americans: You Won’t Have To Pay Your Son’s Cell Phone Bill When He Dies At War.”
And, yes, The Onion is satire. But it isn’t hard to imagine Trump actually saying the quotes The Onion attributes to him in the article, such as this one: “You may be grieving at first, but, believe me, you’ll be smiling when you see how much less you’re shelling out every month.”
I saw this article on the very same day that my wife and I updated our car insurance plan to add our son, a 16-year-old newly licensed driver. The cost was pretty staggering and honestly made his cell phone bill seem like pocket change.
But here’s the thing: I still don’t want him to die. And I certainly don’t want him to die fighting in a war started by the most corrupt, incompetent and selfish person ever to be called president.
My son has also been getting military enlistment propaganda in the mail lately. Now, Trump hasn’t, at least not before this was written and submitted, said that he wants to reinstate the draft. But Trump’s war with Iran is not exactly going well. And that region of the world is not exactly known for stability and peace. So even though Trump and his administration have said that things will be quick and easy and over before we know it, there’s no reason to believe that.
So, yeah, I’ve been feeling pretty anxious lately that the war Trump started with absolutely no real plan of what to do after he blows things up will have repercussions for generations.
I posted about this on Bluesky and received a response that included a link to a document from the Department of Defense about conditions that make someone disqualified from serving in the military. There are, it turns out, a lot.
The very first section of this document makes clear that transgender people are disqualified unless there’s, like, a really good reason for the government to give them a waiver. But only if they meet criteria such as “36 consecutive months of stability in the individual’s sex without clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning,” no attempt to ever “transition to any sex other than his or her sex,” and the willingness and ability “to adhere to all applicable standards, including the standards associated with his or her sex.”
In other words, you can’t actually be transgender. But maybe if you flirted with the idea once and can prove that you are cisgender in your heart (and in your genitals), they might begrudgingly let you join their little war club.
Now, look, I don’t want my child to be part of the military. Nor has he ever expressed an interest in enlisting. But even if his life and safety being at risk weren’t an issue, I still wouldn’t want him to be part of an organization that so blatantly discriminates against transgender people.
That we have transgender people who are willing and able to join the military only to be told by Pete Hegseth, the semi-sentient wad of chewing tobacco we have in charge of the Department of Defense, that they aren’t fit to serve is enraging.
Hegseth has made it his mission to make the military less “woke.” Remember last year when Hegseth made all the generals and admirals fly in to watch him give his anti-woke speech in person?
“This administration has done a great deal, from Day 1, to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics,” Hegseth said. “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.”
As if removing social justice and DEI and transgender military members aren’t political decisions.
The people most unfit to serve in the military are the people who are literally in charge of it right now. They want us to think that transgender people are the real threat. But it’s clear from every move they’re making that they are making this country and, indeed, the world, less safe for all of us.