Can't we all get along? Hetero Marriage, Gay Marriage, the State, and You

 This post addresses one of the cases for gay marriage and develops some rational solutions to the issue dilemma.

To start with, a little background reading:  http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957.  This presents a cogent argument for the legal approval of gay marriage.  To summarize the author's argument:

1.  The state recognizes (heterosexual) marriage as a citizen's right
2.  The state ought not deny rights to citizens
3. Gays are citizens, too
4. Therefore, the state ought not deny what it has recognized as a citizen's right (marriage) to a class of citizen

This is a valid argument in its current form.  If, after all, marriage is "a relationship recognized by governments as providing a privileged and respected status, entitled to the state's support and benefits", and "It is an expression of our desire to create a social partnership, to live and share life's joys and burdens with the person we love, and to form a lasting bond and a social identity", then what's the fuss about?  Surely lawmakers ought, barring electoral, (i.e. employment) considerations, to extend that legal right to our gay brethren without any repercussions.  So what's the fuss?  Rather, what should we do about the fuss?

The author states that, as noted above, marriage is an expression of a desire to create a "social partnership".  He uses the implicit assumption that the government should be able to legitimize and incentivize marriage as a social partnership.  Now, in all of this, he barely mentions the impacts of marriage and family on the raising of children, or even the state's interest in sanctioning marriage; he makes his points on equality under the law and social partnerships.  Given his framework, he is correct; however, if we look at his view on the purpose of marriage and revise it, then we begin to see other avenues of approach for policy.  His legal argument and logic is impeccable, and I have no doubt that his prognostication of the future of gay marriage in the US is accurate.  Before that happens though, we ought to re-look at how we got into this argument in the first place.

Let's consider marriage, or more particularly, why marriage exists; then, we can move on to considering the state's role in marriage.

We can view marriage through multiple facets.  Currently, there is a point of view--which the author articulates--that marriage is about building a relationship between two people.  Another is that marriage is an economic exchange between a man and a woman; the man exchanges his excess labor capacity for a woman's reproductive capability, i.e. having children and a family, which he cannot do on his own.  A variant on this is that marriage is a framework for raising children.  Still another reason, and not so common anymore in the US, is that marriage is a political and economic tool for parents and families to build influence and wealth.  That summarizes the key reasons for the institution of marriage.  The strongest case for marriage as an institution is a combination of points one and two above--namely, that marriage is a tool for formalizing a social relationship between two people, and that it provides a stable framework for the production and maintenance of children.

Where, considering those reasons for the institution, does the state's interest in recognizing and privileging marriage lie?

I submit that the state's interest lies in the "production and maintenance of children" area.  A nation's citizenry, in quality and quantity, is its strength.  To maintain a competitive edge, a state needs to encourage a positive birthrate--witness the coming "ageing" disaster in Europe, and again here--which has profound implications for demographic makeup, economic/scientific/industrial performance, financial stability, and political outlook.  (Note: Understood, Europe is not going to disappear, or become all old people, but having an aging population and a welfare state puts considerable strain on social programs, crowds out younger workplace involvement, and etc.  This is a complex topic which I am not going to address here in depth because it touches on a whole mess of areas.)

In addition to a positive birthrate, a state should encourage people to couple-up and raise the children to become productive members of society.  This reinforces laws and social customs, both of which are vital to a state's welfare.  Having two parents raise children is the ideal situation.  It happens with one parent, I am aware, but remember: we are describing what behaviors the state should encourage.  There is little evidence that single-parenthood is a behavior that the state should encourage.

In counterpoint to the considerations above, the state should have no role in straightforward social relationships.  The government has no material interest in two individuals'  "desire to create a social partnership, to live and share life's joys and burdens... and to form a lasting bond and a social identity."  I can do all of those things or not, and it has no effect on the greater welfare except perhaps on happiness surveys.  Whether I raise a child, on the other hand, does have an effect on the greater welfare, particularly in aggregate.

Now, when the government does accept the premise that it has a place in formalizing "social partnerships", then gay marriage follows seamlessly.  However, the government has no mandate, legal or otherwise, to do so.  There is absolutely no need for government to regulate and/or encourage social relationships in the first place.

This leaves the business of child-bearing and child-rearing as the government's only stake in the marriage business.  The implicit assumption behind traditional marriage is that married couples have children.  This has been true for a very long time.  While not all married couples have children, the defining characteristic of marriage as a "social partnership" was that a man and woman got married for children and property.  When couples did not have children, this was accepted as inefficiencies or wastage in the institution due to the "human factor".  Only relatively recently has marriage become about self-actualization.  Now, putting off having children or not having children at all is not seen as detrimental to the institution; but why should it be, when the institution is a "social partnership"?  The popular perception of marriage in the West has changed dramatically from its beginnings.

This does not change the fact that the only interest that the government has in marriage is the child-bearing and -rearing business.  This is the only area where government should apply incentives to encourage a specific set of behavior, namely producing and raising kids.

To do this, the government should cease recognizing, certifying, or otherwise regulating ALL marriages. It should stop offering tax breaks or special tax situations to married couples.  It should leave the business of who gets "married" up to individuals and their religious institutions.

What government ought to do is incentivize the behaviors it has an interest in--making and raising babies, independent of marital status.  If it is going to offer incentives, it ought to offer dependent-based incentives, such as tax credits and/or other benefits programs, for couples raising children.  These benefits would apply regardless of gender, age, or whatever.  While there is some dispute over the effects of being raised by gay couples on children, if a gay couple wants to adopt and raise a child, there should be minimal objection to government encouragement of this behavior.  It meets the criteria for government interest and societal well-being.

This solution would be fair, across the board.  It would allow individuals to make their own lifestyle choices independent of others' particular judgments.  It would get the government out of social relationships and into managing the country's future welfare.  It would de-link government from a personal, religious practice, and align it instead with demographics.  It would re-empower religious and social institutions to define marriage and live within that definition.  People are well capable of marrying without a local magistrate's registration of approval.

Further, a "dependent-keeper" status would most likely completely re-arrange current legal marriage laws.  It would require a re-thinking of issues currently assigned to divorce law such as child custody.  Alimony would probably disappear under this framework, unless there was a separate set of child-bearing/rearing laws explicitly targeted towards mothers and housewives (or the gay equivalent).  It would also nullify a hot-button issue by removing marriage as a state-conferred privilege from the table, and there would be no question about equality under the law.

This seems to me to be the best way to address marriage as a whole from a social and societal perspective.  I am not certain whether this would be marriage-rate neutral, but it seems to me that it would.  The only things it ought to affect are birthrates and family makeup percentages.

Army Information Sharing, and Solutions To It

The Army puts vast time and resources into something called Knowledge Management.  Any user of Army Knowledge Online and its agglomeration of user groups, networks, libraries, menus, and searches, knows that this is a well-intentioned but mostly futile endeavor.  It is a blocky, chunked-up system that requires an endless array of credentialing, accounts, and searches to do anything.  Worse, the Army requires that most personnel functions be accomplished through the online system.

The in-theater information management system is also terrible.  You might think that the Army has a streamlined, easy-to-use information system.  Nope.  The Army does have a system where you can spend half an hour looking up a phone number, and discover that it's the wrong number for someone who left the country months ago.  This is because sites require constant maintenance, which gets progressively lower in priority the longer a unit has been deployed, and the more times it has changed personnel out.  You may find some of the information you need for a specific staff section, but you will only do that after dodging dead-link minefields, outdated and un-maintained sites, and so forth.  Then, the document will only be about an 70% solution to your question, as it was produced for a totally different reason.  Trying to find a simple document is extremely challenging, though to the Army's credit, there is typically some sort of search function that may help if you're really astute with keywords.  And very patient.

If you are trying to get an answer to a question that isn't in a product somewhere, you have to resort to email and phone calls to get ahold of the person who knows what you're talking about.  More than once, I have sent out an email question to someone, only to get the 20-email thread back in two days and see that the last person referred the thread to me as the subject matter expert.  If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked!  Now I am back at square one, and don't know where the email chain should have branched to get me to the right person.

Why is this worth valuable electrons and your time to read about?

Well, one of the key challenges the Army (or whole military, as most large operations are now joint) faces is sharing relevant information in a timely fashion across all organizations that need it.  This is a formidable task.  When one organization partners with Iraqis, for instance, and writes a report or hears some useful information,   that information typically has applications all over the country.  If that information isn't disseminated in a timely manner, then huge amounts of time and energy are expended trying to accomplish the exact same task that has been accomplished before.  Winning wars and building nations is tough enough, but try to do it twice, concurrently, and you get the idea.

Information handling is vital to conducting synchronized operations across literally hundreds of staff sections and organizations, and yet the Army's response leaves huge gaps in awareness of reports, policies, orders, statistics, and meetings.  Half of the meetings (in this SM's humble estimation) are conducted because someone is trying to find out information that other people already know.  This causes a huge cascading effect, where meetings are held to prep for other meetings, which are in turn used to prep for other meetings, which are used to prep for other meetings, the results of which are then taken to a decision-maker for judgment.  I do not offer exaggeration on the layers of CYA pre-meetings that are necessary to get a decision or guidance.  While some meetings are necessary for discussion and analysis, most meetings should happen to make decisions or when a discussion is absolutely necessary.

Poor information management causes vast waste of time and effort.

But does it have to be this way?  I suggest not.  Let's look at some alternate tools for awareness.

There is technology available to make information sharing easier.  For instance, let's take a look at a typical division website.  There is a scrolling SIGACT bar that someone put in; there is a set of outdated links, or perhaps links to the unit's internal portal, which is great for the unit but terrible for anyone else trying to get information.  The staff section links will go to pages with little useful information.  If I know someone in the unit has something that I want, getting it takes ten times longer than it should when I have to do a separate research project to find a current staff roster, call the person, and wait for him to dig up the information.

While the unit's internal portal may be useful and have information, that information does no one any good if it's not accessible and if other folks don't know it's there.  Critical reports, assessments, and data sheets often languish without potential customers being able to see them, and sites go un-updated due to lack of trained site-maintainers.  How can we remedy this?

Simple: Use a market solution.  There have been very few things in history that the government can do better than private enterprise, and this is not one of those things.

Pay Google to re-vamp the search, archiving, and information management system, like with a Google search engine, Wave, and Google Docs.  I'll bet a paycheck that the company could set up a much more efficient and effective system for the military for less than the current system's cost outlay.

Use Twitter to ask and answer questions in real-time.

Use the available technology and tools to get people away from the static section web-page concept, and get them tied in together for cloud computing, real-time messaging and information boards, feeds, and whatever else works for sharing information to the right people at the right time.

Let's get away from fact-finding meetings and move towards getting accurate, current information to decision-makers.  It's time to move on to doing other productive things, like winning, and putting our soldiers' time and effort to better use than trying to building Sharepoint that no one looks at.

DA Photos are Divisive and Costly

DA photos are racist. For those not in the know, DA photos are pictures of a soldier that go on his record brief to be looked at for promotions and other activities.  For instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1SG_Carl_E._Howard_DA_Photo.jpg


You don't believe me?  Here are reasons that I have run across that might justify getting a DA photo: 


1.  Shows professionalism for the promotions board
2.  Serves as photo for a funeral ceremony if a soldier gets killed


Reason 2 is a last-ditch, urban legend reason.  I haven't heard any actual soldiers or anyone else cite it, so while it may be true, it is of secondary importance.  Which takes us to the main question:  Is reason 1 really necessary?  Do these board members sit around and really look at ribbons and compare awards to the records?  Do they inspect haircuts for the photo in order to judge professionalism, over the contents of the ORB and the officer's OERs?


Here's the regulation:  
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/R640_30.pdf


It states: 
"The photograph is an important representation of the Soldier. It is of particular interest during DA selection boards and career management activities."


Really?  Why is that?  


That statement is disingenuous.  It means exactly what it says, but it's phrased to make people think that it's about evaluating a soldier's professionalism and qualifications.  I think it's to ensure that the boards meet goals for ethnic and/or gender representation.  There is no reason that a board needs a photo to represent a soldier other than to visually verify the soldier's race, his/her gender, and general physical attractiveness (which matters even for guys-- attractive people generally make better first impressions than do ugly ones).  It's a great PR tool.


Let's see:  Do photos like these affect promotion decisions for the wrong reasons?
http://www.bragg.army.mil/DA_Photo/thephoto.htm
Is there anything in these photos that cannot be represented on an Officer Record Brief, which lists all assignments, awards, schools, height, weight, security clearance, educational background, branch, home of record, and other qualifications?   Or an OER, which is based on superiors' feedback of a soldier's job performance?


So what, you say, let's let kids be kids and play ball.


NO.  Not only does this become a horrendous waste of soldier and Army time, effort, and money (see the policy above), but it's a PC tool to ensure that the Army looks good, instead of ensuring that the Army can do its job.  It's another example, a bright idea, to ensure that someone can carefully pick a mix of promotees to match the Army concept of equal opportunity and gender/race equality.  Enough of that crap.  It's affirmative action, and it's divisive and counterproductive.  It introduces doubt about the qualifications of minorities and women who have been promoted, regardless about whether those individuals are qualified or not.  Or, if you want to go the other way with the argument, it gives the opportunity for board officers to discriminate against minorities and/or women.  It is not fair to anyone regardless of how you care to spin it.


The Army, and in particular its soldiers--our nation's sons and daughters--deserves people who are qualified to do their jobs, not people selected to fill a slot.  


Only by positing a neutral board do we see any benefit (excluding the soldier's time spent preparing for and getting the photo, the unit's time without the soldier, and the expense of maintaining DA photo studios at every base), but please refer to my proposal below for saving time...


Let's do it this way:  Get rid of the photo and eliminate visibility of the person's name during the board selection process.  Evaluate on qualifications, experience, and performance.  If the board can take the time to read OERs, the ORB, and look at the photo now, let's save them some time and get rid of the photo.  Any takers?


I cannot find any history of the DA photo policy; if I've missed something big, I welcome feedback and additional information.

Can the Army be Efficient? Pt 4: Objections

I fully understand that there are several good objections to the idea of a free-market structure for our military's personnel management.  I've outlined some of the ones I've thought of, and some work-arounds or solutions.


1.) There's no point!  Reason: The free-market system is driven by the profit motive.  The Army is in a non-competitive environment, fueled by taxpayer dollars, managed at government pleasure, and engaged in a business where winning and losing is determined not by market share or profits, but by wars won or lost, regional stability, and casualties.  There is no profit motive; ergo, the Army cannot play free-market in this environment.

This is a valid and very dangerous (to my argument) point.  That the Army doesn't have the same profit motives as other industries is indisputable.  On the other hand, something motivates units to perform.  Is it superiors' orders?  Is it a devotion to duty?  Is it individual recognition?  Is it money?  Is it a combination of all of the above?  Businesses in the civilian world exist to make money, but individuals in those businesses also have motivations that don't necessarily exclude incentives other than money.  Likewise, pretending that soldiers work only for reasons unrelated to money is ignorant.  The problem at hand is creating a framework of incentives that is analogous to the civilian marketplace and applies to individuals in the army as well as units themselves.  On the individual level, the marketplace model works fine; on the unit level, we run into problems of evaluation and performance.  My proposed solution of using a combination of training event evaluations and real-world mission evaluations tied to monetary/budgetary compensation is far from perfect, but it's more performance-oriented than the planning system we have now.

The other side of the profit-motive coin is losses.  What would happen to an under-performing army unit?  Would it be decommissioned, all of its officers fired, and everyone spilled into the DoD personnel pool?  Would its leadership simply be fired by the "Board" (i.e. DoD or JCS)?  This is a serious issue, but I think it can be addressed by one of the latter means.  There has to be an alternative to profitability to drive performance, and in this case I think it's strongly tied to leadership losing jobs after sub-optimal performance.  This could be applicable down to the small-unit level as well; right now, firing someone in the Army can be a tortuous process, and units are not guaranteed replacements.  Under my framework, this situation might improve because of the availability of a pool of potential "employees".

2)  Doesn't this logically point to forming a mercenary army, and a loss of civilian control over the military?

Not necessarily.  As long as the government doesn't outsource standing-army military functions to outside businesses-- that is, as long as the government employs people directly--then the government can exert the same control over the military that it does now.  But let's look at this a bit more closely.  Would a mercenary army be a bad thing?  That's a whole other topic, but the main issue with that idea seems to be the concept of civilian (governmental) control over the contracting entity.  Having direct governmental control is necessary to prevent disclosure of state secrets, pre-empting coups, maintaining a strong standing army in accordance with national strategy goals, and having a stick that the good ol' US of A can beat bad people with.  Now, there's not a lot in that list that can't be put into a long-term contract with a Triple-Canopy type organization, but I'm not ready to make the leap of faith and separate defense organically from the government.

3) Wouldn't an open marketplace lead to bribery and corruption among job seekers and units?

I don't think so.  Bribes to people would probably fall under the category of "salary" and "signing bonuses"; kickbacks to units could be a problem, but since salaries would be tracked, serious irregularities could be monitored.  Past the individual's salary, there wouldn't be a lot of money to give kickbacks with, which would seriously limit the amount of kicking-back going on.  Unit funds would be controlled and tracked on a DOD-audit-able system, instead of units having closed books and receiving carte-blanche funding from the gov't.  If there are other possibilities

4) Is the current system so inefficient that it would merit this sort of sea-change in culture and process?  That's a lot of upheaval, and we can't afford to have our pants down in this day and age.

Again, I don't have the HRC databases to show what HRC is doing with its resources and constraints.  I do know that centrally planned systems analogous to HRC's are typically inefficient and wasteful, so while I can't point out systemic waste, I have no doubt that it occurs.  The evidence I have as to HRC inefficiency is purely anecdotal.  As to the overall benefit, overall readiness would likely improve, retention of the right people would increase, recruiting (as needed) would become easier, and we'd see better leadership in the military.

5) Wouldn't this cause a loss of the military culture needed to fight and win the nation's wars?

Doubtful.  Money's a huge incentive for performance, regardless of patriotism and service motivators.  To ignore its potential for encouraging maximum performance out of our service members is naive at best.  The Army's been offering huge bonuses lately, in addition to all sorts of other benefit packages to keep service members in; why not call a spade a spade, and tie salary to performance?

Soldiers are motivated by many things, and money is not least among them.  Maintaining military tradition, pride, patriotism, and so forth, would still be possible and encouraged by unit tradition.

6) It may be a good idea, or an idea with good points, but it'll never happen.  The military's too entrenched culturally and resistant to change.

Ok, you win on that one.

Comments always welcome.