The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy Is Beneficial To The United States

I agree with both my opponents definitions but would like to illustrate that he left out one key element from his definition of DADT. You must recognize that in the armed forces if you do disclose your sexual orientation or are "outed" by your colleagues then you must resign or are dishonorably discharged. I will now list my own contentions and then illustrate what weaknesses there may be in my opponents argument. I negate the resolution "The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy is Beneficial To The United States" First and foremost, DADT is not beneficial due to the amount of money it costs the United States Armed Forces. For the 9,448 troops discharged between 1993 and 2004 the government had to spend 95.4 million dollars on recruiting costs, and 95.1 million on training the troop's replacements. This amasses to over 190 million dollars just in the time between 1993 and 2004. Currently, the Government Accountability Office ((http://en.wikipedia.org...) released numbers stating that the government has spent 14.3 million dollars removing service members, 17.8 million for training officers, 252.4 million for training enlistees, and another 79.3 million dollars in recruiting costs. In this time of economic recession and bail out scandal it is obvious that this is an unnecessary amount of money to be spent, just to keep the gays out of the military. This is one of the many reasons that shows DADT is not beneficial to the United States. Second, the policy in and of itself is impractical. By fighting a two front war we are militarily, spread far too thin. With troop surges and deployments we have sent far too many troops overseas with at least a fourth of them coming back in body bags. Relatively soon the armed forces are going to need to not be so picky - we are running out of people to fight mindless wars. In addition to this, Clinton stated this in his rationale when imposing DADT, " having openly gay service members would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability." I would like to point out the ridiculousness of this statement - in America, we allow convicted criminals (http://www.army.com...) to serve in the Military. Are we assuming that they have the high standards or morale, good - order, discipline and the unit cohesion? Let's not go into what happens to males in federal/state prison, or shall we? The military also helps to expunge the records of their recruits - where is the morality in this? They can expunge a felony off of Joe Schmoe's record but can't expunge the homo out of Daniel Choi? Daniel Choi, West Point graduate, Iraq veteran, and Arabic translator who came out on national television. Having violated the "don't tell" part, Choi was informed that he would have to resign from his National Guard unit. This is absurd and obviously does a great disservice to the United States. Finally, the policy itself is unpopular throughout the United States. A Washington Post - ABC News Survey showed that 75% of all Americans were in favor of having openly gay members of the military and were against DADT. Now, if the rationale behind banning gay marriage is that most people are against it, and most people is what makes up democracy, shouldn't the most people help to abolish this program? It seems the Government is wielding a shiny double - edged sword that they refuse to point at themselves in this blame game of simple segregation. (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Though my opponent, by his own admission states the DADT is unpopular he is saying that it is a sign that people are beginning to come over to the side of equality and tolerance. DADT is the exact opposite of what he says it does. DADT is a tool of segregation and demoralization. It alienates a specific group of people and prevents them from having a simple right. This program was not serving as a transition, this program was serving as a blockade from the gay community and "gay panic defense". (http://en.wikipedia.org...). The fact of the matter being that the United States Military would prefer to keep the gays out all together than deal with issues that may arise. All members of the GLB(T) community should be able to serve in the military regardless of whether they do or do not disclose their sexual orientation. Due to the fact that it segregates, costs the country more money than it is worth, and is unpopular - the DADT policy is not beneficial to the United States. The rest of this debate should be interesting, to say the least, and for the sake of the United States economy, and its democratic values, I urge a negative vote.