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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Sure. I don't know what the thread has been discussing recently that you might want to provide a contrary opinion to, though.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Americans' Attention to IRS, Benghazi Stories Below Average
Chuck Hagel: No "silver bullet" to reducing military sexual abuse
edited 18th May '13 6:19:07 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016I'm not really up to date about the whole IRS thing, haven't decided it sounded worth caring about that much. I know a lot of people are freaking out about the Marine umbrella thing, which I can understand both sides of when it comes to if it is or is not worth talking about.
I gave a whole sermon on different reasons Obama's name is a curse-word to most people in the military in The Military Thread earlier.(and I want to claim that I'm not negatively biased that way, I voted for him both times, even if I'm kind of regretting it now and wishing I'd gone independent.)
I also talked a bit about Benghazi, and why it is sort of a big deal, and why it shouldn't have been a big deal.
I'm game to talk about any of those things, so long as I don't get crucified by fluffy blood-trickling hearts that are more optimism and emotion than practicality.
Oh, I know! Let me repost my spiel in the Law Enforcement Officer thread on sexual harassment in the military, since you linked that article involving Hagel:
Because the problem is this, in investigating anything involving military personnel, you need people who understand how the military works. If you make a third party agency full of civilians who are outside the chain responsible for it, their investigations will be severely hampered by a lack of understanding of how the military works, as well as a lack of trust from possible sources based on the fact that they aren't "one of us". This is a very key element to an internal investigation like that. It needs to be people who are able to navigate around military culture and society. Thus the three investigative agencies for all the branches are the best people for the job. They are already trained investigators, they are already involved in all sexual harassment and assault investigations, and they are familiar with and immersed in military culture, but outside of the regular chain of command. They don't even have to answer to the IG.
Plus, those organizations have a separate chain of command that falls outside of regular COC. They don't have to answer to commanders, they answer directly to their own respective directors and the special agent in charge of the field office they belong to. So even a base commander doesn't have authority over them or their investigations.
Oh, and I wanted to note that this sentence in the article is actually false:
There are two types of reporting in the military, restricted and unrestricted. The difference is that one is completely anonymous and is used to obtain counseling and stays off the record. You can either go to your base person-of-responsibility for sexual assault, or to the chaplains office, to make one of those complaints. You can upgrade an anonymous complaint into a formal complaint requesting an investigation if you contact your base law enforcement authority, your sexual assault representative on-base(same one who does anonymous reporting) or your local investigative field office(NCIS/OSI/CID depending on branch). You do not go to your commander or supervisor to report a sexual assault, you're specifically trained and told repeatedly to make the report to one of those organizations outside of your chain of command, for exactly that reason.
As far as my resume of experience on the subject, for anyone who doesn't know, I've been an MP for over half a decade, and I've been a first responder to cases of everything from sexual harassment, assault, rape, and domestic violence. I've also had to start up those cases for OSI when women have voluntarily came to me when I've done duty at the law enforcement desk to report the crime. Just to kind of state where I got my information.
edited 18th May '13 6:32:56 PM by Barkey
Sun Tzu said, in order to achieve lasting peace, one must thoroughly understand warfare. Or something like that.
Point is, we're pragmatic people. We want to know how reality is; we already know the shape of our fantasies.
I hear a lot of people don't pay nearly as much attention in briefings as they should.
edited 18th May '13 6:32:44 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.And I want to make it clear that my recommendation to put the actual investigatory agencies in charge isn't because I'm looking down on civilians, but because I feel that them being civilians can and will impede their investigation. I've always found SARC representatives to be very poor at trying to root out sexual assault cases, they are nearly always incredibly nice people who have a primary role as a support function. They are there to coordinate help, and counseling, and proper contact with law enforcement on the issue. But they aren't very useful for actually getting evidence that can put someone away for the crime. You really do need soldiers for that, soldiers who are investigators.
OSI, NCIS, and CID are all outside of the immediate chain of command of the base. They answer to their Special Agent In Charge of their field office they belong to, and above that it goes up to the director of their region, and then the director of their respective agency. At no point can a Commander tell the agents what to do or purposely obstruct their investigation.
@Briefings: Maybe if they were a little less boring and tedious, they would. The vanilla sexual assault computer-based training thing is pretty frigging boring. I have a special law enforcement version that is twice as long, and even more boring.
edited 18th May '13 6:37:20 PM by Barkey
You really shouldn't care about the IRS scandal because it ain't one. What happened is some political ggroups tried to become tax exempt non-profits, and the IRS laughed and told them no since tax exempt groups have to be apolitical. Some Tea. Party groups took this and whined about being persecuted for their political beliefs, despite tge IRS doing the ''exact same thing to several liberal and pro-Obama groups as well.
The IRS had a right to investigate, but from the sound of it, they were a bit more intrusive than necessary, and only focused on tea party groups.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayIf it were a different organization within the government, I'd be suspicious.
But this is the IRS. They've got colder and darker hearts than the worst serial killer ever to exist. I've got a theory that their organization collectively birthed Dick Cheney.
Yeah, get THAT image out of your head. I don't mean metaphorically.
The IRS is like the Grim Reaper, it always gets its due eventually, and it's never personal.
edited 19th May '13 12:43:10 AM by Barkey
The thing is that the IRS is just following the laws as set forth by Congress.
Also, it is their job to take money from millions of people so they have to do everything "by the book" (that they reasonably can) or else people will lose faith in them and the government would be even more in debt.
You might not agree with how it is all set up, but that is the way it has worked for decades and it is what we've got for now.
EDIT: And I just realized that you are saying that "it probably isn't political" because of all this. I'm up WAY too late tonight... Oh well, people saying that the IRS shouldn't exist is a small button for me—AKA: I get frustrated but not exactly angry.
edited 19th May '13 12:54:15 AM by Belian
Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!Technically, the IRS shouldn't be doing the job of enforcing tax laws on wannabe scam organizations. But the sequester and the utter refusal of Congress to vote on appointees to head federal offices have left the organizations whose job it is unable to do so.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Nate Silver Debunks Peggy Noonan’s Claim IRS Also Went After Individuals Opposing Obama
I was responding to this quote from another poster:
over the guys who sent 5k of our soldiers to their deaths needlessly, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians over intelligence that was shaky at best and outright fabricated at worse.....?
And I responded with this quote:
At the end of the day, hitting people in their pocketbooks is the way to motivate someone for or against something, more than any other.
Illegal war or not, pointless war or not, soldiers get paid because there are wars to be fought. If I were still active duty, my opinion would be "We can stay in Afghanistan forever for all I care if it meant I got to keep my job and not be kicked out onto the street."
The Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, really hasn't had much of an effect overall on the US Military. My roomate is gay and in the military, and his whole unit knew already. I have two lesbian friends in the military, one is in my unit and the other is in intelligence. Their units all knew as well. When I came home and said "Hey dude, I guess DADT got repealed." he just shrugged. DADT was, for most gays in the military, kind of like "Women in the Infantry" is as a topic to women in the military. They are causes that most of the people in the military who are affected by it don't give a shit about, and if implemented wouldn't affect their lives all that much. However, for every military member who is affected, regardless of if they give a shit or not, there are like 100 pissed off civilians who these changes have nothing to do with championing the cause for those people. My roomate has even said it's outright annoying when civilians would protest DADT outside military bases. He yelled "Go the fuck home!" out of his car once because it was kicking traffics ass and he just wanted to go to work, and they called him a homophobe of all things.
And for those of us who aren't gay or lesbian, it didn't really that matter that much. LGBT rights aren't an issue that get my blood boiling or get me super involved. Repealing DADT just got Obama a golf clap from me at best. I supported the decision to get rid of it, but it didn't make me go "WOW WHAT A KICK ASS PRESIDENT!"
Want to know what would make me think Obama was a kick ass president? If he said "I won't let the Do D make bullshit excuses to fire the troops until we've burnt through every single contractor we're hiring until the budget is balanced first. And I absolutely refuse to chip away at your retirements, or your GI Bill, or your healthcare."
I would take a bullet for the president that made me that offer. Nothing against Obama, but we both have vastly different priorities, and as his second term has gone forward, his priorities have shifted vastly away from mine.
What I was trying to explain is that none of Obama's more progressive policy changes with the military have really done anything to earn the good favor of people like me who are currently serving past a head nod or a golf clap from some of us(like myself) in the military who are a bit more progressive than the norm.
So he made a lot of changes that are seen as really great by civilians to policy, but he's done a lot of things that are extremely damaging to the personal lives of soldiers. He edged away on some of our education benefits, he is supporting what is called "selective retention" which is essentially kicking out perfectly good troops for the process of drawing down our forces, and his administration has had cuts to our healthcare on the table for discussion as well.(Our current healthcare is Tricare. We don't pay for it, but the quality of service already kind of sucks and it takes ages to get an appointment for anything that doesn't involve straight-up going to the emergency room or precluding you from working. The only good thing about it is that it's free, and at one point they discussed a premium being taken out of all our pay automatically to help pay for it.)
What originally led to that topic was the discussion of the marines with the umbrella. The troops who are outraged about it are more outraged because Obama is very unpopular with the military. If it were a president who the military liked, the entire incident would get a disapproving nod because it was against regulation, and then a shrug of "Well, it's the President I guess."
I'm not really here to talk about how I feel about Obama personally, but I just want to give perspective on why it really is reasonable for military members to not have any love for Obama.
TLDR: Obama some good things that positively affected a rather small part of the military. He did some bad things that negatively affected all of the military. Those of us who can appreciate him doing something nice for groups we aren't a part of doesn't even close to make up for the punch in the balls that he gave all of us. If that makes any sense. Civilians see it as ending two wars we shouldn't be in, regardless of how troops feel about that, we see it as "Oh my god, I might lose my career that I've built all of my long term plans and life around." For those of us who are lifers, our careers are the most important thing we have, and threatening that pretty much gets a president on our permanent shit list, and there isn't anything he can ever do to get off of it.
And just food for thought, I'm part of the minority in the military that voted for Obama, and I'm wishing now I'd just thrown my vote to an Independent I liked who had no chance. I voted the first time because I saw Palin as a disaster waiting to happen and didn't want her one heart attack away from the white house, despite the fact that I really like Mc Cain. I voted for him the second time because I think Romney is a smug bankster POS who is there to line the pockets of the rich and de-regulate big business in an unreasonable way.
I regret my choices.
edited 19th May '13 12:12:34 PM by Barkey

-pokes head in-
Sup. Haven't been in this thread in a while.
There's room for a non-echo chamber here, right?