The left regards the armed forces much the way they regard the education system, as an ideal Skinner Box within which to condition subjects to their enlightened fundamental transformation. The military is a ready Skinner Box because it is a top-down organization which can impose a remarkable degree of conformity merely by issuing an order. If you want to make society accept gays, have cost free sex, elevate the status of women, or simply bestow marvelous new norms on society, the military offers an instant petri dish if you can get control of it.
No worries on the left that they will be corrupting or weakening an institution vital to national security, the left as a fundamental thesis does not believe in American national security, quite the contrary it believes that American power is an evil which should be controlled. Enervate the military and diminish America, the leftist in a stroke has achieved a win-win.
In my view, it does not matter whether the left was exposed to gory aspects of combat in Desert Storm or not, they were after all exposed to the gritty realities of combat in The Second Gulf War and it did not deter their push to exploit the military to advance their social engineering. It might have disposed the greater society to opposition to women in combat but we must never make the mistake of believing that leftists shrink from sacrificing their own useful idiots when it might advance their agenda.
It is unreasonable to expect Secretary of Defense Mattis to accomplish what the public culture has not been conditioned to accept, witness the decapitation of Bill O'Reilly or the madness at the University of Virginia. Yes, the military is a top-down organization but is unreasonable to expect it to deviate from the cultural momentum now favoring the women's movement. The battle must be won the way the left won it, by conditioning the culture through other institutions such as academia and the media. That is how they gain all their victories. Even though it appears they are imposing top-down imperatives when, for example, the Supreme Court requires the states to sanctify homosexual marriage, the reality is they had won that court case long before the court granted certiorari.
You want to save the military? Reform academia, restructure media.
Do you want to save the justice system?
Contrary to the situation beheld by the Clinton staffers, it is our military now but who owns the drivers of culture?
