America's Military

Earlier today, President Trump banned (on Twitter?) transgender people from serving in the military. No matter who you are, I hope you can agree that this is absolutely ridiculous. His reasoning for this is that the cost of gender transition surgery would be too burdensome on the military. This is BS because the amount of money spent on gender transition surgery in the military pales in comparison to the amount of money we're already already spending on the military.

What do you think? More military spending? Less military spending? Why?

Is the question about military spending or the transgender issue?

Military spending, I used the transgender issue as an introduction to the issue of military spending.

I believe that the united states military spending is contributing a lot in safety of the world securing free trade and as well as contributing money for new technology’s that help everyone not only the army or the USA. The USA is not even spending that much money on their military as a percentage of their GDP their economy is simply so big that it makes the budgets of all the other nations look tiny. I do think that the us is the best country to be a global power because it values are the same as my own and they should be spread which is easier with more money.

Serving next to somebody who relies on hormone therapy for their mental stability is no different then serving next to somebody who requires anti-psychotic medication. Diabetics are also banned.

Transgenderism is a mental disease called Gender Dyphoria and it is currently treated with hormone therapy and genital re-assignment surgery. The Government reserves the right to deny enlistment to anybody with a mental disease, is dependent upon medications (like hormone therapy or Insulin), substances (like drugs), or requires the taxpayers to pay for their surgery.

Any combat unit carries the risk of being cut off from your supplies (like anti-psychotic medication and hormone therapy) for months at a time if encircled and sieged. This puts trans soldiers at a much higher risk of mental deterioration than regular soldiers. I will remind you that the trans civilian suicide rate is 40%.

In conclusion,
1. Trans soldiers/sailors cost more than normal soldiers/sailors.
2. Trans soldiers/sailors add the additional threat of mental deterioration under certain circumstances.
3. The Trans soldiers reliance on hormone therapy is an added weakness that can be exploited by enemies.
4. It is immoral to ask for someone else (in this case taxpayers) to pay for an elective surgery.

DavidlVofGeorgia wrote:1. Trans soldiers/sailors cost more than normal soldiers/sailors.

While this is true, it does not justify completely alienating them from the rest of Americans, and cutting them off from a basic American right. We were already paying for their transition surgery for an entire year with the low, low cost of ~5-8 million$ This is pocket change on national standards - For example, a single Apache attack helicopter costs ~30 million$. And Trump plans to cut ~9 BILLION$ on education. Where is that 9 Billion$ going to go? On more Apaches, of course (And maybe a little bit on the wall, too).

DavidlVofGeorgia wrote:2. Trans soldiers/sailors add the additional threat of mental deterioration under certain circumstances.

I know Trans people were only allowed to serve openly in the military for a year, but can you name a single time a trans soldier has lost it due to their "severe mental illness" and opened fire on their comrades in arms or have caused ANY issue in the armed forces? In fact, you don't really hear about transexual citizens getting involved in violent crimes because of their "mental disease". Also, do you know why trans suicide rate is 40%? Trans people (many of them are teens) get harassed, bullied, and excluded by their peers, and get driven to depression and even suicide.

DavidlVofGeorgia wrote:3. The Trans soldiers reliance on hormone therapy is an added weakness that can be exploited by enemies.

To my knowledge, transexuals don't need hormone therapy to live like a diabetic would need insulin to live. If supply lines were severed, transexuals wouldn't have any problems with it.

DavidlVofGeorgia wrote:4. It is immoral to ask for someone else (in this case taxpayers) to pay for an elective surgery.

It is also immoral for Trump to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort. It is also immoral to use the military to pay for viagra (~85 million$ a year). What is not immoral is to use the military to pay for a surgery that is necessary to complete your gender transition, so you can be yourself.

I really couldn't care less about the policies as long as they keep things efficient. Don't ask don't tell solved this problem nicely by keeping what isn't anyone's business out of their business.

For some reason, identity appears to take precedence over service. If that's the case, you shouldn't have joined the armed forces to begin with. You're not serving for who you are. You're serving for everyone else.

With that said, the military is by and far overfunded and should be sliced in half at least. It's a gross waste of funds and it is like a drug left out in the open, as the U.S. is constantly searching for a new enemy to justify the massive budget and expenditure.

This seems to be the more active version of this thread, so I'll repost my response here.

I'm, fairly right wing, but I'd cut the hell out of our military spending. Not because I don't like the military, or I don't think it's important. It's just that the military is so damn wasteful with the money it has.

For instance, ProPublica released a report in 2015 showing how the military blew $17 billion dollars during the Afghanistan operations on useless expenditures. Especially fun ones are the $43 mil we spent on a gas station no one used, $59 mil in uncollected insurance refunds, and a staggering $486 million on cargo planes which couldn't be flown because of a lack of spare parts.
(https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/afghan)

Even worse is the scandal which broke last year thanks to the DoD's own Inspector General, finding that the military cooked its own books to the tune of $6.5 trillion dollars in 2015 in order to create the illusion of a sensible budget. These spending claims lacked any receipts and invoices to back them up. All of this means we really have no idea how much money the military throws away in total, because the military is receiving our taxpayer dollars and just making up numbers and projects . Wasteful spending is probably much worse than anyone thinks it is. (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG)

The problem, unfortunately, runs deep. During the Reagan years, the government liked to overspend on the military so they could shove the budget sheets under the iron curtain and scare the Soviets. They never quite broke that habit. Military bureaucracy has grown into an unfathomable Lovecraftian entity capable of making vast quantities of money and materiel disappear. They also have contractors who are paid the same regardless of the quality of what they sell, and who are also handsomely overpaid to boot. The military needs to gut its own procurement protocols, streamline its bureaucracy, and conduct extensive audits every quarter. Unless Congress decides to cut the military's budget, however, they would have no real incentive to do this. Raising the military budget is ridiculous, but maintaining it at current levels is almost as bad.

(Edit: I don't support Trump's attempt to ban transgender troops, either. I can see nothing which would prevent a transgender person from fulfilling his/her duties, especially in one of the military's numerous non-combat roles. Attempting to bar them from enlisting is a disgrace to people who already honorably serve our nation and more people who wish to do so.)