Trump Throws Trans Troops Under the Bus [Podcast]

Reason editors discuss the president's management casualties, free speech on Twitter, blowing up Mt. Rushmore, and more.

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Trump Throws Trans Troops Under the Bus [Podcast]

On today's podcast, Reason's Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, and Andrew Heaton discuss the trans military ban, Trump's management casualties, and free speech on Twitter.

The president is making a lot of noise and staff shuffling, but not much legislative progress. Good news? Yes and no.

"A big upside for [libertarians] is that Trump seems to be not very good at executing these [illiberal] maneuvers," says Mangu-Ward, citing the travel ban. But low trust in government "oddly doesn't seem to lead to calls for less government."

They also discuss whether Twitter is the new battleground for free speech.

And should we add Trump to Mount Rushmore or just blow it up?

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

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Comments

[Libertarian]

Aren't most trannys underneath the vehicle?

[Elias Fakaname]

Nice.

[Crusty Juggler - Hero]

Re Trump's management: this is style, and it is all part of his plan. His lieutenants duke it out, and the loser gets fired. It's all in his book, cucks!

Re trannys: they are MENTALLY ILL and therefore aren't really people at all.

Re Twitter: the fake news leftists at TreasonNN (get it?) are scared Twitter is now where the TRUTH is.

Re Mount Rushmore: lol blow it up u r acting like a terrorist. I'm going 2 report u.

#MAGA

[mad.casual]

Re Twitter: the fake news leftists at TreasonNN (get it?) are scared Twitter is now where the TRUTH is.

I liked the part where the President doesn't tweet for 10 min. and we assume that Doom has, in fact, not Ended.

[Charles Easterly]

... TreasonNN (get it?)....

Are you trying to rhyme TreasonNN with CNN, and by so doing imply that both are progressive/liberal-leaning sites, which I suppose implies that Reason is treasonous to Libertarianism/libertarianism?

Crusty, I just don't get this at all.

[mad.casual]

Good to see Reason mocking Trump's punctuated equilibrium or Lamarckianism in favor of Obama/Clinton's Lysenkoism.

We are, of course and without question, supporting Trannies' war boners. We don't condone war as a fundamental principle but, when we do condone it, we condone it in all corners and to the last penny.

Boots on the ground is messy and involved but dronessassinations conducted around the globe and within countries we aren't at war with is professionalism. Fuck you Reason.

[WakaWaka]

Dude, Reason is the most libertarianist website ever. They have half their staff opposed to free speech for the wrong people, a couple others cheerleading war with Russia, while the remaining people complain incessantly about how the government won't get involved in the 'right' culture issues. All they have to do now is attack some rando college kid for making a bad joke about one of the writer's obsession with identity politics (treating people as part of identity groups is so much more libertarian than treating them as individuals!) and they might be as libertarian as Chuck Schumer!

[Elias Fakaname]

Yep. And apparently trannys in the military is the hill they choose to die on. Even though no one has an actual right to serve in the military, and no one even brought this shit up until Obama made a big deal about it. In fact, prior to that the tranny lobbying groups were working for decades to have them declared a protected class under the Americans With Diabilities Act. So now suddenly they're all Captain America, super soldier? What a bunch of progtard hypocrisy.

And since it was TRUNP who reversed Obama's fuck up, Nick and the gang have lost their collective shit over this. This article makes.......six, seven articles since the announcement? They really need to get over it.

It was the right decision and it's a done deal.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

You know, you're right- why should the Majority concern itself with the welfare of the Minority?

After all, trans people are so few in number, they're of no value to an electoral coalition of us normal people, so who cares what happens to them?

I mean, government is supposed to help the people that voted them in, not all citizens equally, right?

Tyranny of the Majority FTW!

[Elias Fakaname]

None of which has a goddamn thing to do with the tranny ban. Your comment is non responsive and nothing but emotional gibbering. Just like a progressive.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Firstly, I'm a libertarian who thinks you should be allowed to own an RPG-7 without a background check or waiting period. And stash it in your bedroom next to your Big Bag O' Meth (TM) and indoor swimming pool of gold bullion. So, you think I'm a proggie? That's adorable.

Secondly, I WAS responding to your comment, specifically these bits:
"No one used to bring this shit up... They really need to get over it... It's a done deal".

...which translates as: "I know my side (the Republicans') is losing the debate, so let's stop talking about it, because I know *I* will never be affected one way or the other".

And THAT was my point: you're blas? about this, because you don't know anyone who's trans in the military. As it happens, neither do I: the difference is that I make an effort to care about the rights and well-being of people I will never meet, because I know if I don't care about other people being abused by government in the US, come the next election, they (the Left in general) are gonna have power over ME (rural cis-het white guy)... And they'll have no reason to be sympathetic.

Sadly, thanks to folks like you, that's probably gonna happen anyway. And so it goes.

[Mmmmmm]

"...which translates as: "

Why do you assholes always resort to making shit up like that?

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

I am fully aware that is not what he was thinking verbatim.

It is the only explanation I can think of for the anti-trans talking point "there are only a few of them, why should we care, why are we talking about this".

And it always comes back to this: regardless of what we (the voters) do about the trans issue, YOU will not suffer. And so YOU are unconcerned...

... Just as people who don't own guns don't care about gun owners, people who never smoke marijuana don't care what happens to pot-smokers in jail, and people who don't own Christian bakeries don't care if Christian bakers have their livelihoods destroyed. You understand the problems there? Then why don't you understand that it applies to this issue as well?

I'm not asking either of you to share *my* opinion on what is best for trans folks: I'm asking you to stop *delegitimizing the discussion*. "This shit" IS going to be brought up, because it IS important, however few trans folks there are.

[Last of the Shitlords]

So once again you spew a bunch of feelz based rhetoric that addresses nothing I've said. which is what prog do. I have no idea what your politics are, but you certainly throw out a bunch of emotional gibber like a progressive would.

Your straw man, and it's nonsensical translation doesn't address anything accept your feelz. The fact is that the military can and does disciminate on a wide variety of criteria, including TG. As they should. Their is no right to serve in the military. There never will be. I'm not sure if you just don't understand that, aren't capable of understanding, or are just wishing, really, really hard. Either way, it doesn't matter. It was the right call, for a wide variety of reasons that have been extensively covered. So their is no legitimate argument for letting them in.

But you're welcomed to not like it one little bit.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

I don't think my arguments are "feelz" based at all, and further I think you're using that as a strawman of your own.

But if you want a concrete, policy-based dispute, here's one:

"There is no right to serve in the military"

This statement is absolutely correct BY ITSELF. But never once have I argued that trans troops should be given special treatment. Quite the opposite: my *entire point* is that they should be treated, and have the same standards applied to them, as *everyone else*. With the point of my comments to "Elias" and "Mmmm" being that this is a legitimate civil rights issue in the vein of Don't Ask, Don't Tell or Woodrow Wilson's discriminatory hiring practices, which *does* require continued debate.

I gather you hate my analogies, but here's one more anyway: do you support discriminating against Asian and White students under the guise of "Affirmative Action"?

I bet you do not. Nor ought you. But would you support reversing it against Black or Hispanic students? I will do you the courtesy of assuming you would object to this equally strenuously. And that's the exact problem here: the Democrats want to give trans recruits special treatment, and they oughtn't. But YOU, and Trumpy, and the Right et al want to do the reverse- apply the Precautionary Principle to trans recruits- and that is at least as bad. You have no right to *not be rejected*, but you DO have a right to *apply*, even if it ends with your rejection.

[Last of the Shitlords]

"But would you support reversing it against Black or Hispanic students"

......And this is the real fallacy. As if the TG ban is in any way based on something like ethnic identity. It isn't. A much better analogy would be diabetics, who are NOT eligible for service. Even though some could probably manage. 'some' doesn't cut it when you're talking about a group that has unusual physiological needs, and has an extremely high incidence of severe psychological disorders and problems (i.e. clinical depression, high incidence of suicide, etc.). None of these things are a component of merely being a member of an ethnicity. The military has many disqualifies for service. Many of which are less complicated and problematic, as relates to military service, than TG. For example, there are minimum and maximum height requirements. Falling outside of these parameters is a disqualifier for service. Those people could certainly do at least some military jobs, but they aren't allowed in on the same principle.

So again, it isn't about your discrimination straw man, but accommodation.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

I suppose, then, it comes down to whether you or I define "disqualifying health condition" the same way.

You define transgenderism as equivalent to diabetes or height. I do not. I concede that your argument has many good points, but I do not think depression or suicidality are fair to use as predictors, owing to the fact that *some* trans people are never suicidal or depressed, and they should not bear the burden of other trans folks' problems. Transgenderism *by itself* is not a disability.

And I still think you and the other Right-leaning commenters here are too dismissive of this issue, as if there is no downside to Trump's decision. There is. The more driven from society transgenders feel, the more of them will die. The LGBT suicide rate has always been high, but it has always gone down the more society accepts them. If you don't even take that into consideration, then there can be no common ground between us.

[Tony]

The US military employs more trans people than any other employer in the world.

Being libertarian and a small-minded idiot shouldn't go hand in hand.

[Red Twilight]

Membership requirement for reason.com poseurs

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

Leftists then: "FUCK THE MILITARY I BET BOMBING BROWN PEOPLE GETS YOUR WAR BONERS HARD HUH YOU ISLAMOPHOBIC BIGOTS!!"

Leftists now: "THE MOST PATRIOTIC THING ANYONE CAN DO IS SERVE IN THE ARMED FORCES!!"

Funny how all it took for the left to jump on the war train was for Trump to threaten to take the trannies out of the caboose.

[Tony]

I will do you the courtesy of assuming you know how retarded that comment is.

[Mmmmmm]

So, you know he's right and don't even have a talking point to spew.

[Elias Fakaname]

Well Tomy, you are only the latter.

[Mark22]

Boots on the ground is messy

That's why Reason and progressives advocate stiletto heels on the ground!

[Homple]

Trump is just keeping demonstrably crazy people out of the military. No bus is involved.

And, yes, a man who imagines the dick he was born with didn't exist is crazy.

[Tony]

To be a mental illness, something must impede your ability to live a normal life. How does a person unqualified by mental illness serve for 20 years and be a Navy Seal? The only impediment to living a normal life trans people have are people like you trying to maintain a society that treats them like shit.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

How does a person unqualified by mental illness serve for 20 years and be a Navy Seal?

"Don't you dare say I'm not a woman or I'll use my biologically male body to break your neck!"

[Elias Fakaname]

That would be an extreme outlier.

[Homple]

Letting your imagination run loose to the point of having your dick cut off is hardly a normal life.

[Tony]

Neither is regularly fucking blood relatives.

[Tony]

But you don't see me coming to your job and knocking your cousins' dicks out of your mouth.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

Just because you want to get railed by your Chad cousins doesn't mean others are the same way, Tony.

[Mmmmmm]

"To be a mental illness, something must impede your ability to live a normal life. "

Wrong.

And yes, asshole, I AM a qualified professional in that EXACT area.

You are wrong. Point blank, full stop.

[Mark22]

The only impediment to living a normal life trans people have are people like you trying to maintain a society that treats them like shit.

And you're going to fix that by having jack booted government thugs break the legs of anybody who disses a tranny! Yeah, that will lead to a huge amount of good will and tolerance!

[BearCharlton]

The self-crowned Warrior Princess did not begin her transition until after ETSing. This is not an issue of civil rights. It is not an issue of cost. It is an issue of being combat ready, able to deploy to often very austere environments, without the constant access to medical care and medications changing physical genders requires.
It is the same reason people with ANY chronic condition are barred from enlisting. Diabetics, epileptics, muscular dystrophy, hep c, hiv, even pregnancy and adult onset asthma are barred from enlisting for the same reasons. Chronic medical conditions requiring constant and ongoing medications and care are NOT compatible with the necessary physical hardships and deprivations required.
This makes the issue completely different from gays and lesbians in the military. They require no ongoing, constant medical care, so they are not barred.
This is not about civil discrimination. It is medical. Just as any other chronic medical condition.

[Entelechy]

He's just getting even with Vogue for throwing his daughter under the bus.

goo.gl/wVW9Zr

[Dick Puller, Attorney at Law]

Is Reason butt-hurt much?

[SusanM]

Shouldn't that be "apply conservatively"?

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

"And Matt Welch, who's coming to us from France."
"Hello!"

Oh, Matthew.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

So Nick mistook Heaton's "Whiggish theory of history" for a wigger theory of history, right?

[Red Twilight]

Thanks every military-loving Republican and libertarians like Amash, Paul, Massie... have spoken out against the Fuhrer

[Elias Fakaname]

They're wrong on this subject. Which really has brought out so much irrational, illogical, soft headed, progtard feelz based thinking from so many.

[chemjeff]

What I find surprising, is why so many people here just casually *expect* libertarians to adopt the Republican position on social issues. Why should they get the presumption of correctness on these issues?

[Tony]

Right? The only reason libertarians are remotely useful is their alleged liberal social positions.

[Mmmmmm]

?

You claimed earlier today they didn't have those social positions you assign to them now.

[Mark22]

What I find surprising, is why so many people here just casually *expect* libertarians to adopt the Republican position on social issues.

Libertarians expect the socially conservative position on social issues to be tolerated and for interactions to be voluntary.

That is, if socons don't want to hire trannies or faggots (like myself), that ought to be their right. If progressives want to hire only trannies and faggots, that ought to be their right as well (love my lesbian auto repair shop).

Likewise, if you want to scrape your half formed fetus out of your womb, be my guest. But don't force me to pay for it, directly or indirectly and don't force doctors or hospitals to perform the procedure.

See, the libertarian position only looks "Republican" or "conservative" to you because of the blindness induced by your political partisanship.

[Last of the Shitlords]

It would be nice if people here could distinguish the difference between something that is a right and something that is not. Serving in the military is not a right. I suppose a lot of folks just lack the analytical ability to make those distinctions. And some are jsut fucking stupid pieces of shit, like Tony.

[Entelechy]

https://goo.gl/wVW9Zr.html

[RRiver]

The whole issue is outright unreasonable. On the one hand the Progressives want to ban guns, while on the other, they want their star attraction to be allowed to join the military. I have an idea, how about they rewrite "The Dirty Dozen" and make it a story about a group of tranny special forces in their pink uniforms, and see how well it does at the box office. To be included could be lines like, "You better not mess with me, you don't want to know what I got in my purse," and "Hey, watch crawling under that wire, your petticoat could get caught." Maybe include a couple of scenes where "the girls" have a good time at the EM club shaking their stuff, and chasing Seal Team 13 around in the neutral bathroom. Boy now that could be a hoot. As an opening scene you could show the Tranny "girls" sitting in the barracks doing their nails and hair, while Lola by the Kinks plays in the background. Then after the big firefight where the majority of the "special unit" has been wiped out, one of those still breathing could say, "Man those "girls" were heroes," while the song "Walk on the Wild Side" plays in the background. After which "Jet" by McCartney and Wings would play during the credit roll. It would no doubt be nominated for at least a half dozen Academy awards.

[Rebel Scum]

The president is making a lot of noise and staff shuffling, but not much legislative progress.

The president legislates?

And should we add Trump to Mount Rushmore or just blow it up?

Blow it up. We shouldn't lionize politicians. And we definitely shouldn't do so while they are still alive. They're just people (and typically the scum of the Earth) after all.

the trans military ban

You guys really need to stop getting your collective panties in a twist over this.

[sam89]

Maybe include a couple of scenes where "the girls" have a good time how to create a business plan
small business plan template at the EM club shaking their stuff, and chasing Seal Team 13 around in the neutral bathroom. Boy now that could be a hoot.

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