If you weren't wearing X, bad thing Y wouldn't have happened to you

[dead0man]

Both Australia and Canada have instructed their armed forces members to not wear their uniform out in public after a couple of bastards committed cowardly acts.  Obviously I understand why, and it MIGHT even help keep a soldier alive, but is it victim blaming?

[politicus]

Dunno if you can use that phrase in this context, but it certainly feels wrong - and it seems pointless. If they want to kill a soldier they can easily find one.

[checkers]

I'm a bit skeptical about the law, but I don't think you can seriously say that it's in any way comparable with the victim blaming of rape victims.

[Mechaman]

I'm a bit skeptical about the law, but I don't think you can seriously say that it's in any way comparable with the victim blaming of rape victims.

Yes.

While I don't agree with it's logic it is a bit of a stretch.  Rape apologism usually involves more than just "if she wasn't wearing that tiny skirt!"

[angus]

Both Australia and Canada have instructed their armed forces members to not wear their uniform out in public after a couple of bastards committed cowardly acts.  Obviously I understand why, and it MIGHT even help keep a soldier alive, but is it victim blaming?

Victim blaming?  Maybe.  It reminds me of when people say things like "Well, if you wouldn't wear such skimpy skirts then all these guys wouldn't be hitting on you..." or whatever.  Same idea.  I don't know if that's really victim-blaming.  I think it's more like giving some advice in order that you might not become a victim in the first place.  Whether you choose to follow that advice is another matter.  Frankly, I think a person should be able to wear a uniform (or a skimpy skirt) with impunity.

Did you ever see the movie Barcelona?  Taylor Nichols plays an uptight sales manager for a US company with offices in Barcelona.  His cousin, a sort of party animal played by Chris Eigeman, is a US Navy Lieutenant, or whatever they call an O3 in the Navy.  Eigeman is in Barcelona temporarily and shows up at Nichols' house and needs a place to crash.  Anyway, they're walking around together, Eigeman in his dapper black and white Navy officer uniform, and some leftist punks harass them a bit (this was in the mid-90s).  Nichols says that he shouldn't wear his uniform about if he doesn't want to be harassed.  Eigeman fumes.  He's a party guy, but he's also a patriotic American.  He'll wear his uniform proudly in public, goddammit.  Anyway, late in the movie a communist activist on a motorcycle drives by and shoots him in the head, for no other reason than the fact that he is a "fascist" (as determined by his attire.)  

Was Eigeman's character too stubborn for his own good?

[Person Man]

Its not just soldiers that shouldn't be walking around in active duty wear. Government supervisors even say that Government officials, especially higher-ranking ones and those with clearances, shouldn't wear their badges in public, even when they are walking to work.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Reminds me of when European governments advised Jews not to wear visible indicators of their relation because they're incapable of controlling their rabid mobs of anti-semites.

[checkers]

Reminds me of when European governments advised Jews not to wear visible indicators of their relation because they're incapable of controlling their rabid mobs of anti-semites.

Seriously? I think the point here is that there is a fundamental difference between this instruction and victim blaming, in that this simply a pragmatic instruction designed to keep armed services members safe from harm. It hardly comes with the implicit shaming - "well, they deserved it if they got attacked" that comes with the way a victim is blamed after rape, and particularly does not entail the sense that the victim was somehow lesser - "if she was wearing that then she's a slut". Which of course points to the larger dimension here - that while attitudes blaming women (or Jewish people in your example) from attack further contribute to the oppression of those groups, the armed forces are in no way oppressed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

this thread is dumb

[angus]

Its not just soldiers that shouldn't be walking around in active duty wear. Government supervisors even say that Government officials, especially higher-ranking ones and those with clearances, shouldn't wear their badges in public, even when they are walking to work.

Different issue entirely.  When I was a post-doctoral research fellow for the US department of energy, I was expressly forbidden, contractually, to display my ID badge in public.  I usually cycled to work and I tended to wear it under my shirt till I got to the gate then I'd whip it out.  Clearance badges remain property of the US government and the government has a stake in keeping them out of sight in public.

[dead0man]

...and I got the email today.  If I go to Canada, I'm not supposed to wear my uniform.  (I'm not going to Canada and don't wear a uniform)


They don't really have "clearance" badges anymore (badges with approved areas identified on them).  Where you can go and what you can look at resides on a chip in your CAC.  You're still supposed to pocket your CAC when you leave the facility though.