all right

Occasionally adding corroborative details to add verisimilitude to otherwise bald and unconvincing,
but veridicous accounts
with careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination.

31 October, 2017

Unbanning a Ban

From Bloomberg comes “Trump’s Ban on Transgender Soldiers Is Blocked by U.S. Judge” by Erik Larson:
A U.S. judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s promised ban on transgender Americans serving in the armed forces, ruling that an earlier policy of inclusion must remain in effect.
The ban, due to be implemented in March 2018, is a form [of] discrimination based on gender and is already causing harm to personnel, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington said in a ruling Monday.  […]
Citing threats to troop readiness and morale, as well as costs associated with transgender medical services, Trump in July said in a series of tweets that he would reverse former President Barack Obama’s policy allowing transgender soldiers to serve.  The suit by the National Center for Lesbian Rights claims the plan violates the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.
The injunction means Trump’s policy cannot be implemented while the case is litigated. No trial date has been set.  In her ruling, Kollar-Kotelly said she was required to apply a greater degree of scrutiny to the government’s plan because it impacts a class of Americans that has lacked political power.
“As a class, transgender individuals have suffered, and continue to suffer, severe persecution and discrimination,” the judge wrote.  “Despite this discrimination, the court is aware of no argument or evidence suggesting that being transgender in any way limits one’s ability to contribute to society.”
Ignoring the obvious point that a person who is severely physically or mentally disabled might be definitely unfit for any military service but still able to “contribute to society” (and despite the fact that not all discrimination is necessarily evil), let us apply a little reductio by exchanging one fashionable delusion accepted (seemingly uncritically) by the judge—that men who insist they are women and women who avow they are men, despite contrary biological evidence, are sane—with other forms of delusion:
“As a class, people who think they’re pet poodles, or have a firm belief that they’re garden walls, or possess deep certitude that they are intelligent vapours visiting Earth across the vast expanse of time and space from some settlement within the constellation which we call the Pleiades, have suffered, and continue to suffer, severe persecution and discrimination,” the judge might explain.  “Despite this discrimination, the court is aware of no argument or evidence suggesting that allegedly being a dog or an inanimate structure or an alien emission in any way limits one’s ability to contribute to society, therefore I demand that such people must not only be allowed to enrol (or, if already enrolled, stay) in our military forces but thenceforth our military forces must bear the inconveniences, and the taxpayers must foot the bill, for any subsequent special treatment that the supposed canines, constructions or gases may require or demand.”

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