Ranks: Why Have Them?

[Alaric]

You assume folks make it to Major that easy in the first place.

I'm not making any assumptions, just showing that 3 people can have vastly different amounts of CAP experience and still show the same rank.  I know people 10 - 20 years in that are Lieutenants and Captains and perfectly content, I know others that are charging through the PD program, are hugely active and want the rank that reflects it.

[Майор Хаткевич]

You assume folks make it to Major that easy in the first place.

I'm not making any assumptions, just showing that 3 people can have vastly different amounts of CAP experience and still show the same rank.  I know people 10 - 20 years in that are Lieutenants and Captains and perfectly content, I know others that are charging through the PD program, are hugely active and want the rank that reflects it.

Doesn't mean they get it, even if they want it, work for it, check the boxes, etc.

[Alaric]

You assume folks make it to Major that easy in the first place.

I'm not making any assumptions, just showing that 3 people can have vastly different amounts of CAP experience and still show the same rank.  I know people 10 - 20 years in that are Lieutenants and Captains and perfectly content, I know others that are charging through the PD program, are hugely active and want the rank that reflects it.

Doesn't mean they get it, even if they want it, work for it, check the boxes, etc.

Once again, you're missing the point I'm making, I'm not saying that everyone who tries to acheive rank will get it, I'm saying that people can have vastly different levels of experience in the same rank due to the different ways that rank can be obtained.  I have a friend who is a school teacher, he was a Captain 3 months after he joined due to his appointment as AE officer, a year later he was a major.  I received my Captaincy after only 2 years and 2 months in the organization as I have a Master's in accounting and was a finance officer, I received my Majority 14 months later.

[RiverAux]

Knowing a lot of the local players in the CGAux, and knowing further that we share many members, I find it infinity amusing how the
CGAux is characterized as this utopia of common spirit and society where all members work towards a common goal with no disagreements,
they elect leaders of consensus, and their parent service is never anything by royally pleased.

Nice straw man argument.  I don't think I've come across any Aux members on this board who have even come close to presenting such a picture.  I feel confident that every dual member on here would say that there are good things and bad things about both organizations and how they work.

If some CAP members refuse to believe that some Aux procedures actually work, when in fact they do, theres not much we can do about that. 

Regarding electing of commanders I'd say that it is infinitely better for our sort of volunteer paramilitary organization than the good old boy system that CAP uses.  Yep, there are going to be occasional problems with elections, but they are only a fraction of the routine problems faced in CAP when CAP commanders select lower-level commanders that they are either buddies with or even worse don't really know, that may not be capable of the job, that they don't supervise properly, and that are unlikely to face accountability for not doing their jobs.  While there are some politics involved at the higher level, at the flotilla and division level it is rare to even have an opposed election.  Even the the higher level politics is better in the Aux since the high level elected leaders really don't have any power that even comes close to CAP high level leaders that results in all sorts of retribution and other bad stuff. 

Regarding rank in the Aux, the system more or less works as designed.  Yep, there are the same sort of potential problems in the Aux as in CAP with military rank, but for the most part aren't a big deal.  CAP could change to the same system and it wouldn't be a big deal.  I don't think it is really any better than CAPs.  The one thing is that at least CAP has some sort of professional development system while in the Aux there isn't much at all.