Tuesday, February 14, 2006
They're definitely heaping scorn on me now
22 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Tue Feb 14, 05:08:00 PM:
You know we love you, Hawk, and Catchy isn't about to let anyone, Republican or Democrat, get away with rancor unfounded in facts.
By Cassandra, at
Tue Feb 14, 06:57:00 PM:
By 
, at
Tue Feb 14, 09:01:00 PM:
I read the post over there. It's practically incoherent. I wouldn't consider it an insult if they don't like what you say. More like a compliment.
By , at
Tue Feb 14, 10:37:00 PM:
Yeah, dude, you are so rubber and The Poor Man is so glue.
And by rubber, of course, I mean a disposable latex penile sheath.
By , at
Wed Feb 15, 02:02:00 AM:
West opines:
I read the post over there. It's practically incoherent.
Well, then here's part of what Mr. Editors used as a response. It's pretty concise and damn if it doesn't get right to the point:
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
That's Teddy Roosevelt. He was right in 1918. The sentiment is just as right today.
Tigerhawk: unpatriotic, servile, moral traitor.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Feb 15, 04:37:00 AM:
There is only one problem with stickler's comment.
That's not an accurate representation of what TH said.
Like so many of the commenters over there, he has just inaccurately paraphrased TH's post in order to dismiss it. So much easier than actually addressing his point.
But intellectually lazy.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Feb 15, 08:37:00 AM:
"the fact that most Americans do not agree with the Bush administration's policies of torture and secret imprisonment - a true fact, and a vital point for public diplomacy to communicate."
How do you figure?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10345320/
That's dated 9 December, 2005, BTW, and is therefore probably representative of current trends in public opinion.
This one includes Rendition and Secret Prisons, and is even more recent.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=621
For the lazy, here's the gist:
* 55 percent of all adults believe that rendition (as explained above) is justified either often (14%) or sometimes (41%), when interrogating suspected terrorists.
* 60 percent of adults believe that the use of "secret prison camps in Europe or elsewhere" is justified either often (14%) or sometimes (46%).
* 52 percent of all adults believe that the use of torture is justified either often (12%) or sometimes (40%).
Don't assume that your opinions are widely shared and then report this assumption as "fact."
By Gordon Smith, at
Wed Feb 15, 08:56:00 AM:
Y'all ever work in marketing?
Torture, secret detention facilities, extraordinary rendition, use of White Phosphorous, cherry-picking intelligence to make a case for war - these are all bad ways to market the Freedom brand. Why? Because they run antithetical to it.
When America behaves poorly, expect Americans to care. When Americans stand up and say that they care, don't get all upset at the speaker. Get upset at the government that doesn't understand that subverting the Rule of Law we purport to uphold or that violating the human rights we purport to value makes us appear to be barbaric hypocrites.
Terrorists are, by their very nature, barbaric hypocrites. America needs to offer a clear choice. Not will I take the oppressor who says they'll strictly enforce Sharia or will I take the oppressor who says they'll give me freedom but behaves as though they'll give me torture?
This is some no-brainer stuff, peeps. Fight the bad guys - but don't torture, don't hold people without trial, don't use banned chemicals, don't lie your way into war. It seems so simple, and when folks on the right defend these actions and say that my voice is the one motivating the terrorists, I stand agog. America can lead the world, but only if we're practicing the ideals we preach.
By Admin, at
Wed Feb 15, 11:26:00 AM:
Amen to that, screwy!
"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." -Thomas Paine
By , at
Wed Feb 15, 12:33:00 PM:
Screwy,
You had me until the white phosphorous canard. Believing WP is "evil" is like a big, neon sign that reads "I have no idea what military operations are like, nor do I understand the laws of war, therefore you do not need to trust anything else I say."
Dude, drop the WP claim, its' stupid and not at all constructive criticism.
By Gordon Smith, at
Wed Feb 15, 01:03:00 PM:
O.K. Squid,
How about the rest of the argument then? Or are you going to allow the WP to stand in the way of our having a conversation?
By , at
Wed Feb 15, 01:17:00 PM:
I read The Poor Man's response, and it seems pretty straightforward to me. The crux is:
"The loyalty “owed” a President, or any government official, or any policy of the same, by a private citizen, is this much loyalty: zero. Let me say that again: the loyalty I, or you, or anyone “owes” to someone in the government, or to some course of action they favor, is none whatsoever. To think otherwise, Teddy Roosevelt might comment, is “unpatriotic and servile”. Now, this is not to say you can’t give your loyalty to the President or his policies - it’s a free country, and you can do any non-treasonous thing you want with your loyalty - but that’s your decision, and nobody has to live with it but you (and all the people who suffer from the consequences of your stupid choice of loyalties, of course.) Personally, I think the President is a horrible fucking stupid cunt and his policies are for shit. Your results may vary. But if someone tells me that I “owe” it to the President or his crap policy to act like I don’t think that, well, that person can get in the big long line with WPE and the rest of folks who really desperately need to go fuck themselves.
But Democracy gets even worse. The President and the President’s policies owe me loyalty. The President and his policies are supposed to be working for the good of the country and her people. That’s how the loyalty flows. The President is required to act for my (ok, “our”) benefit; if he does not, the betrayal is his, and the sorts of things which you’d like to call “disloyalty” become duty. Does Gore’s speaking out against torture “undermine” the country? That’s a tricky position to hold if you oppose torture. Does it “undermine” the policy? I wish. No, it does this: it reminds the world that however fucked up our government is, it isn’t us, it doesn’t speak for us, and it can never, ever make us quiet down. And I do say God Bless America."
So, since the gov't is serving *us*, it owes *us* loyalty, not the other way around. The responsibility isn't ours to not say something bad about bad torture policy -- rather, it's the governments responsibility to make good policy that doesn't need to be criticized.
Care to respond?
By Admin, at
Wed Feb 15, 02:15:00 PM:
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Wed Feb 15, 02:18:00 PM:
Look Gore has a right to free speech. So do Tigerhawk and the Poor Man.
That having been said, when Tiger writes an angry rant about Gore's angry rant, only to be countered by the Poor Man's angry rant...I'm sorry. Not a one of them persuades me to alter my world view in the slightest.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Feb 15, 02:38:00 PM:
Speaking of hypocrisy, where does Gore get off criticizing us when he was all in favor of rendition when he was in office, Screwy?
Because I'm really confused on that point.
How can you just ignore inconvenient details like that?
By , at
Wed Feb 15, 02:49:00 PM:
Sometimes the end justifies the means. What the Gorebot is missing, and his peeps as well, is that Saddam remains a really bad person. He needed to be dealt with, and the balance of the world's "leadership" was unwilling. What he's also missing is that it's ignorance that breeds the dislike of America, and corruption with the ME governments that oppress the people. Not the USA. If we limit who can come here - GOOD! If Saudis or anyone else doesn't like it, stay home, wet back it in from Mexico, or look at your own policies.
As TH posted early on, 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis. Seems like a good idea to look twice at them.
Gore is a pathetic pile of rancid meat, pandering to those who hate us, and offering fuel for the fire burning in the ME. What Gore's saying cannot help America. What he's saying is half-truth at best. What he's doing as a former VP and Senator is simply wrong.
Thank God Bush beat this loser.
In the end... I hope the media covers Al 24 by 7. It can only help the GOP.
By Gordon Smith, at
Wed Feb 15, 09:05:00 PM:
Cassandra,
I'm not overlooking it, Cassandra. I'm saying it's wrong.
What are you saying?
By , at
Wed Feb 15, 10:01:00 PM:
Based upon the inout in erlier comments, I feel I should clarify my statement.
The parts that were not written by the proprietors of the Poor Man blog were coherent. Not applicable, but coherent. The rest? Incoherent, the usual laundry list crap slinging in the hope that some of it would stick.
Dissent is great, but maybe one of the proud and brave dissenters out there could enlighten me on the purpose that was served by dissenting before an audience of non-americans, that do not vote in our elections, could do nothing to change the situation, and would in all likelihood use that vey patriotic dissent as incitement to violence performed against our armed forces and our citizens.
I won't get into all the details of the distortions of the Al-Al-Bot - for instance 'indiscriminate' - seemed pretty 'discriminating' to me - we only picked up Saudi's and other Arabs that were here on expired visa's, false pretenses, or who were suspected as being an immediate danger to our country and it's citizens. If it had been indiscriminate, we should have rounded up a couple of Tibetians, a Swiss, maybe even a Rastafarian or two.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 07:35:00 AM:
I think what I'm saying, Screwy, is that in light of Gore's stance on rendition when he was in power, one has to cast a pretty critical eye on his current criticism of "horrible abuses".
He wasn't at all concerned about "horrible abuses" being committed against detainees who were rendered during the time he and President Clinton were in office (a time, I might add, when we were not at war and the stakes were not nearly as high). His righteous indignation appears to date from the time George Bush took office.
This, by the way, is precisely the same criticism you leveled at Rumseld because he met with Saddam twenty-odd years ago when we knew considerably less about his proclivities and he was viewed as a counterbalance to the infinitely more dangerous Iran: "how can we object to Iraq NOW when we used to treat with them in the 1980's?".
Al Gore's inconsistency is of far more recent vintage and the connection is less tenuous, yet you ignore it.
That is what I am saying.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Feb 16, 11:23:00 AM:
Gotcha. Not ignored.
Gore should have done it differently. O.K.?
Now, are you suggesting that extraordinary rendition is wrong? Or are you going to avoid that point in order to tow the party line?
Gore's hypocritical. Surprise, surprise. The question now is this - are the abuses he speaks of actually abuses? If so, then why the hell are you supporting them?
By Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 05:50:00 PM:
Screwy, why are you putting words in my mouth?
When have I *ever* supported abuse?
Can you name a single time? My policy on detainees is quite simple: if they want to opine (and it is, after all their job) then Congress needs to come forth, UNEQUIVOCALLY, and say what torture is so the military knows where to draw the line.
The things that happened at Abu Ghuraib DID NOT HAPPEN BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T AGAINST THE LAW. THEY ALREADY WERE.
They happened because people BROKE THE RULES. They were an enforcement issue, not an question of their not being rules or of people not knowing what they did was wrong.
There is not a single person in the military or the Guard who doesn't know that:
1. They aren't allowed to do the kind of crap that is in those pictures, and,
2. They do not have to follow an unlawful order, and,
3. If they DO follow an unlawful order they can be prosecuted.
They learn this stuff in basic.
This isn't brain surgery. Just about every military person I know people thinks this was wrong. Just about every military person I know thinks Karpinski should have been strung up by her thumbs and fried until she screamed but we all know why that won't happen too.
Do I think rendition is wrong? I'll be honest. I don't know Screwy. What do we do with these people?
What is your solution?
How would you solve this problem. You are full of criticism but I don't see you ponying up any solutions.
By Phoenician in a time of Romans, at
Thu Feb 16, 09:36:00 PM:
He needed to be dealt with
Are you one of the soldier getting shot at because "he needed to be dealt with", Cassandra?
Are you one of the Iraqis who is worse off that they were under Saddam because "he needed to be dealt with"?
Do you have a father shot by an Iraqi? Did one of your children die under an American bomb? Were you rounded up for being in the wrong place, stuck in jail and tortured because "he needed to be dealt with"?
Assuming you're an American taxpayer, you're going to be paying about $10,000 for this little fiasco. Was it worth it?
