I went to see Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln last night, and what an amazing experience! If Daniel Day-Lewis does not win the Oscar for his performance, the Oscars are a crock of shit. He was utterly, magnificently perfect as the man who led a lost, warring nation back to the roots of their country by insisting that liberty is the province of all, and not just the elite few.
The movie is essentially a procedural drama, but no less interesting for that. Most of it concerns the wrangling and vote-buying that was necessary to pass the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, and was instrumental to ending the civil war that had gripped the nation and soaked it in blood for four long years, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
It’s also a story about Lincoln as a man. A husband, a father, a friend. And naturally, those are the parts that I found most interesting. Lincoln’s wife, Mary, is a bit of a fragile thing, still broken with grief from losing their son Willy to illness. At one point, Mary pulls out the whole “you can never understand a mother’s grief” card, and Lincoln responds:
I couldn’t tolerate you grieving so for Willie because I couldn’t permit it in myself, though I wanted to, Mary. I wanted to crawl under the earth, into the vault with his coffin. I still do. Every day I do. Don’t speak to me about grief.
Shortly thereafter, the debate over slavery rages in the legislature: if slavery is abolished, what happens next? Will black people be enfranchised? Will they get the vote? Then what? Will women get the vote, too?
The house goes nuts at the suggestion. How ridiculous! Women voting? Unthinkable!
Watching these scenes, my mind leapt to the recent debate over women in the military.
Should women be in combat? Should they be subject to the draft? Should there be strict gender equality when it comes to defending liberty? Because that’s the deal men made with one another, isn’t it? When they agreed to live together in a country governed by the people, for the people, the deal was this: You have liberty, but if and when that liberty is threatened, you are required to put your life at stake to defend it. Liberty is to be defended, ironically, by refusing liberty. As in many other countries, young American men are required, by law, and with great penalty for refusing, to declare themselves to the government, and to join a lottery that, when activated, can call upon them to die for their country in battle.
They have no choice. Men’s citizenship comes with responsibilities and obligations, including the obligation to die.
Countless thousands of men HAVE died. In order for liberty to be preserved, their liberty was denied, and their lives were sacrificed.
Women’s citizenship has no such obligation. When women were enfranchised, they gained all the privileges of full citizenship, but none of the responsibility or obligation, and certainly not the obligation to die defending their rights.
This is pretty tricky, sticky territory, but I believe that women should NOT be subjected to the draft. I do NOT believe women should be in combat positions, or in any high ranking-positions in the military at all. I do NOT believe that women’s citizenship obligations should be identical to men’s.
http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/28/no-women-should-not-be-in-combat-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/
Here are my reasons:
First of all, lady soldiers are simply not up to it. Gender equality on paper is one thing and biology is quite another. Women are not strong enough to be soldiers, end of story. All the ladies who screamed blue murder to be allowed to take elite military training?
Washed out! FAIL! And these are the BEST women soldiers we have! The BEST cannot do it.
Men are required to offer their lives in defense of their country. As a society, we are obliged to provide them with the best training and equipment and weaponry that we can. Sending them into dangerous situations with fellow soldiers who cannot protect them or help them or stand by them as equals is sentencing them to certain death.
It is men who will pay when women are in combat. We are already asking them to sacrifice their lives. The ideology they are asked to defend is LIBERTY, not EQUALITY. Because we are not all equal.
Back to Lincoln. Tommy Lee Jones plays a hard-core, completely uncompromising abolitionist who argues for total racial equality. This does not go down well with his fellow legislators. In order to pass the 13th Amendment, Jones MUST compromise. He does so by noting that the notion of strict equality is ludicrous. There are measurable, observable differences between everyone. Some people have gifts that others do not possess. Some people have slime in their veins instead of hot, red blood (movie quote), but each and every one of us deserves to be seen as equal under the law.
And that’s true. But being equal under the law does not mean identical. Men’s citizenship comes with an obligation that women’s DOES not. But that is not the same as saying that women have no obligations. Theirs are different.
In 1885, women’s obligations to the state were unavoidable. They produced the next generation. Men were responsible for upholding and even dying for the state, and women were responsible for producing the men.
The whole idea behind the draft is that men are disposable in a way that women are not. It’s a simple breeding reality. 100 men and 1 woman, and your society is done. 100 women and 1 men, and life goes on. Women are smaller and weaker and more reproductively valuable than men. Put all those things together and it should be obvious that sacrificing an entire generation of women in battle is an insane thing to even contemplate.
Are you in a rage yet? You should be. It’s an ugly reality, and one that CAN be mitigated against. Claiming that women are more valuable than men REPRODUCTIVELY and need to be protected is not the same thing as claiming that they are WORTHY of that protection. And that, in my opinion, is the real issue.
Women broke the social contract. Men sacrificed their lives so that women could bear and raise children in a free society. Young men were sacrificed so that the entire society could continue to exist. Men were obligated to make that sacrifice, and still are. But women have now removed all their obligations as citizens by refusing to bear the next generation. Birth rates across the developed, western, feminized world are well below replacement, and the more that women are permitted to claim all the advantages of citizenship, with none of the responsibilities, the lower the rates decline.
And the solution to that is to start enforcing the obligation to DIE uniformly? Does anyone not see what a disaster that is? Who will replace the men and women who die? Where are those people supposed to come from?
Obviously, this all hypothetical. We are not going to face a murderous land war like WWII again. Highly unlikely. And call me a cynical bitch, but I think THAT is why women are now eager to play a role in combat. Because they will gain all the privileges, and again, avoid all the obligations.
I call bullshit. No woman should be in combat, and no military commander should be able to order anyone to face what he himself has not faced. That is the reason operational experience is an absolute requirement of command. If there are no women in combat positions, then no woman will gain the operational experience to achieve command, and no woman will be authorized to order others to their deaths.
Let’s go back to Mary Todd Lincoln. I really didn’t like her much, except for this one scene:
Mary Todd Lincoln: You think I’m ignorant of what you’re up to because you haven’t discussed this scheme with me as you ought to have done. When have I ever been so easily bamboozled? I believe you when you insist that amending the constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war. And since you are sending my son into the war, woe unto you if you fail to pass the amendment.
Abraham Lincoln: Seward doesn’t want me leaving big muddy footprints all over town.
Mary Todd Lincoln: No one ever lived who knows better than you the proper placement of footfalls on treacherous paths. Seward can’t do it. You must. Because if you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, sir. You will answer to me.
Mary is frantically worried that their eldest son, Robert, will be lost in the war. She has met her obligations to the state by producing children, and her sacrifice will be to bear their loss. THAT is the obligation women have to guard their citizenship. Men are required to die, and mothers are required to abide the death of their children.
Should women be obliged to bear children? You know what? I think they should. Citizenship comes with obligations. Men who refuse the draft will face a lifetime of social ostracism, a huge financial penalty and a long stretch in jail. Women who refuse to have children should face similar consequences. Both should have the right to refuse their obligations, and both should pay dearly for that.
Women who refuse to have children? Yeah, they should be subject to the draft. Send them out first and dig the trench deep. Let them taste equality. I have a feeling it will taste a little bitter.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
“And call me a cynical bitch, but I think THAT is why women are now eager to play a role in combat. ”
Bingo.
LikeLike
One does begin to wonder how many women would deliberately get pregnant if there was a new universal draft, which leads down some very dark roads (mandated contraception and such) indeed.
LikeLike
I think both the darft and an obligation to have children are abominable ideas, and big human rights violations. The kinds of wars we’re fighting are often very senseless, too, nothing to do with defending ourselves. The fact that giving up freedom to gain freedom is ironic, should tell you something.
LikeLike
However, as long as men have the draft, it wouldn’t be unreasonable fo the government to reserve the right to take any woman at any time and make her produce babies. It is almost morally equivalent.
LikeLike
Exactly! That was my point. And the truth is that women can get out of their obligations by getting pregnant.
The idea of equality, in this situation, is impossible.
LikeLike
Women served in combat in Israel in the 1948 war and have been barred from combat since…after the post conflict assessment revealed that the men tried to protect the women, which placed their lives in greater danger and jeopardized the survival of the unit. It also seriously adversely impacted morale.
LikeLike
Thought I’d share a link to Michael Yon’s informative thoughts on the matter:
LikeLike
JB my dear, I started reading you when I was reading Roosh. Started to read you as a side-bar, mostly reading Roosh, barely paid you any attention. Now I hardly read Roosh (who has become too cynically turned inward due to his shocking realizations of the harshness of the world, and thus damaged) and I read you every day: you put out one really good posting a day, and thus you make your readers get a habit of reading you. Well done.
How is your traffic? You write like a top-tier blogger, I think you should have top-tier traffic. You’re one talented girl, JB. Bravo. Seriously. Well done.
(PS- If you ever get the chance, you should read Florence King, specifically her big opus work, “The Florence King Reader”. I think you would love her).
LikeLike
Even without a draft – whether you agree with it or not (and I’m not here to argue that) – any society that is neither willing to replace itself (keeps up a birthrate) nor willing to defend what it believes in against those who believe otherwise (defend their culture/memetic model) will cease to exist because either the ideas that formed it will be replaced, or the people who held those ideas are gone (often dead).
On the movie – yes, Lewis’ performance as Lincoln was brilliant. The only two things that threw me out of the movie at all (as in – OK, what in-story purpose does this serve) was the carefully staged scene right at the beginning of the movie, and the whole discussion about “equal” vs. “equal before the law”
I’d have to do some research that I haven’t had time to, but to ME, personally, as a programmer and engineer, no two people are equal. Period. Not in the 2==2 sense. They have different hopes, dreams, aspirations, skills, talents, and inclinations.
So, perhaps it was a factor of how language was used then (I’d have to read up more on the debates), but to me equal before the law means that they have the same rights, obligations, duties, justice, and opportunities, regardless of their race. The right to vote, to start a business, to go to school, to own property, and intermarry. That they are considered and treated by the law as HUMAN.
So to me, arguing the difference between “equal before the law” and “equal as people” makes no sense, unless you’re trying to make people believe that, in terms of justice and freedom, “equal before the law” is somehow inferior. Even if you don’t think of them as quite equally human in person because you are a bigot, then from a governmental and regulatory standpoint, if you declare them equal before the law, you are declaring them, legally, equally human, no matter what bigotry you personally espouse – and affording them the same protections.
We can’t do anything about whether or not someone is a bigot inside their own heads – and should not legislate what people are allowed to think and say. I’ve run into racist bigots in both the deep south and the north, in equal measure.
LikeLike
I think you’ve hit it – “equal before the law” allowed the opposition to continue to believe in their own inherent superiority. Just semantic bullshit, but it was necessary.
LikeLike
That’s an extremely interesting concept.
I disagree with the obligation for women to have children, most of all because I don’t think we need more children. I think expecting constant growth is unsustainable and not helpful to a nation (though nations do have to stop running pyramid schemes to prop themselves up for it to work).
I think we get at least as many children as we actually need just by letting women who want kids have them, and there’s no need to coerce more.
Most importantly, I think that women who need to be coerced to be mothers generally don’t do a good job of it, and for the sake of the children (who we have no shortage of), I strongly oppose convincing unsure women of motherhood. any woman who isn’t sure she wants to be a mother should NOT be raising our next generation.
As for the draft, I’m of mixed opinion about it as a concept. I can see the argument in truly dire times, but I think that makes it easy to draft people when it isn’t dire, ad it’s not necessarily easy to decide which it is.
IF we are to have a draft, however, that doesn’t necessarily equate to women in combat. It would be entirely possible to add women to the draft, but put them in non-combat positions, similar to how it is done in other countries.
LikeLike
That moral equivalency rings true, but sounds to me like a very good reason to remove a draft.
LikeLike
Come to think of it, my most important reason comes up in drafts too.
One argument I hear against the draft is that a drafted military doesn’t perform near as well, and a soldier drafted against his will isn’t often good for much of anything.
I don’t know how the science bears out on it, and I suspect there’s a difference between an ongoing draft where all citizens are trained (Israel) and the feeling in a country which starts drafting for a specific ongoing war. But there is a parallel argument which can be investigated.
(*my* major reason for opposition is that we don’t need more children. But the sake of the potential children with unfit mothers is what I think the *most important* argument against a motherhood draft.)
LikeLike
I don’t think women really *are* eager to play a role in combat. I think there are a rare few women who might actually be interested, who are part of the rare tiny percentage that always might have been, who simply are at the far end of the bell curve.
What women want is the RIGHT to serve in combat, because lazy women at home who would never actually desire to be in the military at all feel oppressed when they are told they aren’t allowed to do something they’d never do anyways.
It’s like women in politics. So many women in the media, business, and academia decry the lack of women in politics – but never actually run for office.
Despite the fact that women aren’t actually desiring to get into front-line combat, women demand the RIGHT to do so, because god forbid men be ‘allowed’ to do anything they are not.
LikeLike
I agree with everything you just wrote, but it would have been a pretty short, boring post to just write “get rid of the draft”.
I think there is an important moral equivalency, and my real point was that adulthood comes with obligations and responsibilities. To the state, to each other, to ourselves.
It eternally pisses me off to see women try and avoid responsbility and deny obligation and then claim the moral high ground. And to me, that’s what the effort to get into combat really is – now that there IS no real threat of dying in a trench, women want to hop on board and claim all the advantages. Most of them will end up sitting at desks while the elite forces (which women can’t pass the physical to get into) do all the real dirty work.
LikeLike
Yep!
LikeLike
Rather than a military draft, I would support a mandatory 2-year public service draft. Something that all young people have to do, like in Germany or Israel, but not necessarily (or only) for the military. A person can choose to perform their public service by joining the military (and then, after their required 2 years, can choose to go on or leave, as is done in other countries). But those (male or female) who are not ideally suited for military could also serve society in other ways. There are all kinds of public service projects other than defending the country that people could do. And it could demand the same basic commitment of all people without having to imagine that all people are functionally equal and have the same abilities.
LikeLike
Good idea! National Guard kind of duties. I would be behind that, but women could still get out of it by becoming pregnant, no? Of course, then they would be fulfilling their social obligations anyways, so that wouldn’t really matter.
Assuming they’re going to be decent parents, that is.
LikeLike
There are all sorts of ridiculous issues with women who claim that ‘for every dollar a man makes, women make 75 cents’ that I don’t need to get into here (despite my enjoyment of getting into it), but relevantly, I like to tell women that I’ll support their desire to change that when they do something about the fact that for every woman who dies on the job, 10 men die as well.
I do think that a ‘motherhood draft’ makes a really good comparison point for thinking about conscription that a lot of people (me included) have never thought about.
LikeLike
As I was thinking about the reasoning, this is what came to mind:
LikeLike
I’m not sure how it would work with pregnancy. I think there would be some options that a pregnant woman would be fine to do, though once the kid’s born, chances are it wouldn’t work quite the same
Assuming it was an 18-20 years old immediately after high school thing like the required military service in many countries, I think it would be few enough women getting pregnant at the time to not really be a major part of the planning process.
LikeLike
Lincoln has had great press, but in actuality he was a fascist pig. He was the first US President to establish (all unconstitutionally):
1. The draft
2. The income tax
3. Unbacked paper money
He also had opposition politicians arrested for opposing him, and did many more completely disgusting and abhorrent things. Read “The Real Lincoln” for details.
As for “freeing the slaves”, the Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves that were in areas in rebellion, i.e., those places that he had no authority over. I don’t know whether he could have freed the slaves in the Northern states, but he didn’t even try.
Other than that, good post. 🙂
LikeLike
The movie covers the part about the Emancipation Proclamation really brilliantly, actually, and Lincoln admits that he has acted like a tyrant in pushing it through. He figures it’s pretty much illegal, which is WHY the 13th Amendment is necessary.
LikeLike
Hm.
Per number three, the Confederate states issued fiat currency as well. After a certain time, they simply didn’t have the silver reserves to do anything else. A gold standard or silver standard, platinum, or whatever is only as good as the government’s credibility (ability really) to stick with the standard.
LikeLike
Judgybitch, I usually agree with you, but this time couldn’t agree less.
I must say that I simply don’t see how one can understand the principle behind the 13th Amendment and advocate the draft and mandatory childbearing at the same time. My reply was so long I decided it merited its own post on my personal blog so it wouldn’t swamp your comments section. Here is the link if you wish to read it:
http://www.michaelspitler.com/?p=12
LikeLike
I posted a response, Michael. I hope it answers your questions.
LikeLike
Yes, I know about the Confederate states printing unbacked paper money, but he was still the first US president to do it. Of course, if we want to go back to before the US federal government was formed, there’s always the good old saying, “Not worth a Continental”.
And all governments have the ability to stick to a metallic standard. The reason they don’t is because they wish to spend more than they can raise in tax revenues, so they steal by inflation instead (or in addition). Hmm, that sounds familiar somehow…
LikeLike
SH: “And all governments have the ability to stick to a metallic standard. The reason they don’t is because they wish to spend more than they can raise in tax revenues, so they steal by inflation instead (or in addition). Hmm, that sounds familiar somehow…”
Point taken in the latter case, but we are speaking about measures taken to avoid the dissolution of the Union in the context here. The “government had the ability” at that time to avoid a fiat currency in essentially the same way that everyone has the ability to avoid taxes. Ceasing to exist.
LikeLike
How about we just STOP being such a damn militarist and paranoid society when it comes to foreign affairs?? STOP being the world police? Then we’ll have NO NEED FOR A DRAFT, not that such an idea- being essentially a SLAVE to the state- was worthwhile anyway. Cultivate a nation THAT MAKES SENSE TO DIE FOR AND BE PATRIOTIC IN, and people WILL FIGHT FOR IT ANYWAY! Why did anyone ever think nations needed drafts in the firsit place??
It’s simply to GET OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS (i.e. the non-elites) to fight FOR THEM (the elites), while claiming it’s “for the good of the country.” Nah… After WW2, with one or 2 exceptions, all the wars we’ve been in have been, pretty much, POINTLESS as far as I’m concerned! Let’s face it- THE CHANCES OF AMERICA BEING ‘UNDER SIEGE’ BY A FOREIGN INVADING ARMY are ALMOST ZERO! So why is the military-industrial complex AS POWERFUL AS EVER??
*facepalm* Btw, did Phyllis Schlafly create this blog? What the HELL?? Women’s MAIN ROLE in society is to be BABY-MAKERS? Ugh… I agree with you ON SOME OTHER POSTS, but ridiculous, non-thinking crap like this just makes you lose almost all credibility you may have had before.
How long did it take you to write such an absurd posting? A mere 2 minutes??
LikeLike
Jeff,
The whole post was sarcasm, dude.
LikeLike
Hmmm You think our military personnel, in today’s military (VOLUNTEERS) want to serve next to some suit douchebag who wants to be anywhere else BESIDES the military!? Even if two years! Fuck that!
Our men and women today who serve are our heroes because THEY WANT TO! They are not forced or obligated to do so! That’s what makes US (United STates) the best damn military in the world. We do not FORCE our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Seamen, Coasties or Reservist to serve. They do so willingly.
Don’t compare US to Germany or Israel, we are not them.
LikeLike
I would like to willingly give up my right to vote, own property, vehicle or bank account UNTIL I produce offspring! It is only fair to my male counterparts.
Signed
Single American Female.
LikeLike
Two things.
1. If it is about strength, would your opinion change if strength enhancing exoskeletons became normal gear?
2. What about overpopulation? How would that change the obligation?
LikeLike
“It eternally pisses me off to see women try and avoid responsibility and deny obligation and then claim the moral high ground.”
I get pissed when a self-righteous feminist declares how “men start all the wars” without acknowledging women’s historic role as cheerleaders, wartime manufacturers, and simply wives and girlfriends who are more than happy to spend all of that blood money for her own vanity and comfort.
The mother of a Spartan soldier would giver her son an ultimatum: “come back with your shield, or on it.” This translates to “Win or die. Surrender or retreat will disgrace me.”
Roman Legionaries often brought back Celtic and Germanic slaves, and guess who commanded them to do the domestic chores around the house… The victor’s wives.
A warrior tribe in the precolonial Philippines had a courtship ritual where the male suitor would bring to his beloved for her hand in marriage… not a ring, not flowers, but the severed head of his enemy. And she would not stand for anything less!
Let’s not forget the hypocrisy and dirty politics behind the white feather movement either.
Yup, I guess this defines the “moral superiority” of the modern feminist women: She shakes her head in disapproval at the inferior male who slaughters the innocent calf, but won’t she be in front of the line to demand her share of the filet mignon!
LikeLike
Oh Steve, you amuse me so….
Hadn’t Lincoln made those “abhorrent” decisions, I shudder to think of how the conditions of our nation would be in now! Ultimately, our unity as a nation with a strong, centralized government is what allowed America the powers and luxuries we take for granted today.
And if you are a Confederate sympathizer, you would be the last person I would want to hear making any moral posturing about the Civil War and their contemporary rights.
LikeLike
Ouch! I think I actually had that happen to me. LCDR USNR. Back in 2011 I was mobilized to lead a small unit to the Middle East, and within a month of mobilization, one of my sailors was pregnant. I still don’t know if it happened before or after the mob date.
LikeLike