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The Gays Destroyed The "No Politics" Rule
Pride month began, and the moderators of /r/Battletech enforced their "no politics" rule as they have through elections, wars, referedums, economic crisis, etc. A long standing rule fastidiously kept by most Battletech groups I frequent. It's preserved Battletech as one of my escapes for long years as every other hobby I had got overrun with far left politics. Alas, no longer.
In response, Catalyst games launched /r/OfficialBattletech, specifically calling out the "bigotry" of /r/Battletech, and announcing Battletech is a "safe space". They parachuted in a community leader with experience moderating "safe spaces". People began making the sorts of spurious claims against the mods of /r/Battletech you are used to seeing, calling them being fascist at best, literally "Heil Hitler" nazi's at worst on the most spurious of circumstantial evidence. The originator of /r/Battletech came out of nowhere and completely removed the mods of /r/Battletech to make damned sure /r/Battletech participates in Pride Month.
Because it's not political. It's just being a decent person.
So I guess Battletech is explicitly left wing now. You are no allowed to opt out of their politics.
Hobbies/Fandoms I'm allowed in
Video GamesBoard GamesScience FictionStar WarsStar TrekBattletechWoodworking
And I log into youtube to watch Stumpy Nubs tell me how to sharpen a chisel every day in fear some flashpoint will have occurred. That the Eye of Sauron finally noticed that woodworking is too white and must be destroyed. And suddenly every content creator I watch will be posting these mewling apology videos for not doing enough to foster diversity and inclusiveness in this important hobby. And the rest of the month ends up being pride themed woodworking content. Making your own buttplugs on a lathe or whatever. How to add glitter to a poly finish.
Gays destroyed the what now rule?
You don't have to look all that far back to remember days where the dynamic you see was, in fact, entirely upside down. DADT was implemented in the 1990's, and was replaced by gays being allowed to serve openly a cool two decades later. When my parents left high school and the male graduates applied at the draft office, the military still undertook serious effort to root out anyone gay - and I live in a nation that is friendlier to gay people than most of Europe is.
Talk about the vacation plans you and your (fellow gay) SO have been making in 1993? You're fired, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You don't get to marry that person, because of course people of the same sex don't get to do that. Local drunks will ambush you if you go for a drink and the police will cackle about this. If you bring any of this up, well, it's really not politics, is it? It's just being a decent person.
Yes, there's excesses in this: call it part of man's desire to have his culture be superior over others. So it goes. But accusing the gays of this uniquely? Please. Many of them well remember how they used to live, they can see places in their own nations where people still do, and they act accordingly. There's nothing odd or particularly wicked about these people, and we don't have to pretend otherwise.
Since the military has made gays openly serving a policy, how has their organization been doing? Have gays been rushing the fill the recruitment numbers? Or are they in a crisis to find anyone who even cares to join their organization?
Maybe there is a reason for this fence that has existed for thousands of years. Or you think you know better than all your ancestors?
No differently than before, if the numbers are anything to go by; I see no dropoff in the slightest after 2011. Are the numbers wrong, or are you?
Your numbers lacks serious range, stopping around 2011 for some reason. I still can easily see a visual steep decline starting when “don’t ask don’t tell” was implemented, which actually helps prove my point.
https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/addressing-the-u-s-military-recruiting-crisis/
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Try looking at actual numbers, not just the first graphic from a web search. Active duty numbers are published yearly and it's public information, and if you're not poor statista will compile that into more parse-able charts. There is a noticeable drop from a local peak in 2010 to 2016 but that has halfway recovered since. Keeping in mind that in raw numbers it's a drop on the order of 100,000 members, with a recovery on the order of 40,000 and that in per capita terms that is a continuing decline.
One hundred thousand fewer people on active duty, in an army of over a million, the cause of which the statistics (obviously) won't tell us.
If that's it, I'm going to keep filing this under the non-issue drawer, yeah.
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