Aunt Sam

AITOOW is bored with the predictability of humans as a group? Take the women in combat issue. I wager it will mimic the pattern of racial equality. Some self serving demagogues (Douglas/NOW) will complain about it as violative of real or imagined civil/natural liberties. Some monomaniacal official will find it expedient to use it as a political tool (Lincoln/Obama). The old guard (non-abolitionists/armed forces) will try and slow or stop implementation. This already happening with a "separate but equal" agenda by lower ranking armed forces officials (non-mixed sex units and adherence to current qualification requirements). Race had this with schools and John Crow laws. The courts will decide against any arguments supporting separate units and uphold any decisions to lower the qualifying standards based on heightened scrutiny standards. Additionally, law makers and/or leaders in the armed forces will enact affirmative action policies (college admission policies, etc) to ensure a critical mass of "non-compliant" applicants are accepted. The courts will uphold those policies for decades as remedial measures. Can't we just get to the societally damaging conclusion without the prologue. Just give Miss Piggy a gun and let her finally pull her share of the weight even if she can't pull her own (let alone another GI's) around the obstacle course. The funny thing is that by the time they work this out we will have robotic aids that will make the physical argument moot.