Just ridiculous. In response to TSI’s eulogy of Solzhenitsyn, comes this:
Earlier this evening, I blogged at Liberty Street about Alan Brinkley’s review of Jane Mayer’s new book, “The Dark Side.†At the very end of the post, having just heard about Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s death, I wrote the following:
Interestingly, just as I was about to wrap up this post, I read the news that Alexander Solzhenitsyn died today, at the age of 89. I expect that we will soon be treated to reams of laudatory praise for this towering human rights hero (which he was) coming from the mouths of people who are responsible for exactly the same horrors Solzhenitsyn experienced.
Well, guess what? It’s started.
My response:
Dan Collins on August 4th, 2008 7:38 am
Can you explain how it is people like that are responsible for “exactly the same horrors� I’m not feeling it.Kathy on August 4th, 2008 9:14 am
When I wrote the post at Liberty Street, I was referring specifically to members of the Bush administration who are responsible for designing a torture regime based in large part on the Soviet model.The first response to Solzhenitsyn’s death that I saw at a conservative or right-wing blog was the one at Protein Wisdom. As you would probably agree, Protein Wisdom supports the Bush administration’s policies with regard to the detention, interrogation, and treatment of individuals arrested in the “war on terror†(although I’m sure you don’t agree that the U.S. has set up a regime of pain and terror that extends all over the world, but then that’s the point, isn’t it?).
That being the case, I felt it was rank hypocrisy for a Protein Wisdom contributor to write about Solzhenitsyn’s greatness as a human rights figure and the horrors he suffered at the hands of the Soviet government. It is true that no one at Protein Wisdom (to my knowledge) is *responsible* for Bush’s torture regime in the direct sense that Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, et al., are. You are, however, responsible for accepting the administration’s lie that it isn’t happening, and/or that it is justified, and/or that the people being tortured are all terrorists who have vital intelligence which can be reliably extracted via torture, and/or that all of it is legal and constitutionally permitted under the Constitution’s supposed grant of blanket, absolute executive authority to the president to define the law as he wishes and break the law as he wishes.
So it’s a bit much for anyone at Protein Wisdom to praise Solzhenitsyn for refusing to accept his government’s lies and for championing human rights and for having survived torture and exile and terrible mistreatment.
I hope this answers your question. If not, feel free to ask again.
Dan Collins on August 4th, 2008 10:15 am
That’s funny, because, as I’m sure you know, Solzhenitsyn felt that the US was too lax toward the Soviets, and savaged us for not having the will to win in Viet Nam, which he felt was responsible for the USSR hanging on.A comparison between the gulags and Guantanimo doesn’t hold much water, I’m afraid. Have you read the books? Are we deriving forced labor from the detainees? Are they, in your view, political prisoners?
Your comparison is silly. The real collaborators have been people like Duranty.
The progg tendency to put the GWOT in quotations, as if it is somehow irrelevant or a figment of teh Evil Bush admin’s imagination, is naive and laughable. It does probably explain how they form their foreign policy ideas, with the US always as the bad actor in need of a good CHANGEing.
*giggle*
Little does “Kathy” know, but we already have her home bugged. She’s going on the list.
So Kathy is a fucking moron, then. Now that makes sense.
Oh boy, now the Left wants to beat the Right over the head with Solzhenitsyn’s corpse.
Well, Thor, it’s only one person. Perhaps her tinfoil is just too tight?
All of which ignores the log in in the left’s eyes regarding their insistance for decades that the Soviets “weren’t that bad.”
I wonder if Kathy like s a good
waterboardingborscht?I’ve said too much.
Oh, wait! According to Kathy i’m a supporter of the oppressive torture regime that spans the globe (“bringing you the constant variety of prisoner abuse!” (Jim McKay)) thus I can say any damn thing I want!!
ENJOY YOUR FISHEYE SOUP #03-625467!
if people would just stopped trying attribute AS to left or right, please?
He was traditionalist, Russian nationalist. In this way one could probably call him right-wing, probably closer to the paleocon definition if one wants to draw any comparisons….
Does Kathy realize that puplic/printed criticism of the Clinton administration automatically brought an IRS audit, and just heckling at a Clinton appearance got you 3 days in jail with constant interrogation? These were American citizens, just exercizing their 1st amendment rights. To my knowledge, this has not been a policy under the Bush administration.
Again, Sashal. Admiring a man doesn’t mean you’re attempting to “own” him.
“#Comment by thor on 8/4 @ 9:46 am #
Oh boy, now the Left wants to beat the Right over the head with Solzhenitsyn’s corpse.”
Or the empty whiskey bottle you’d try to use.
Well he’s dead now. Pretty sure this is the first time that twat ever had any use for him. Me I could care less cause it’s sort of way too life of the mindy I think to spare any brain cells on this.
Yes. I’m grumpy.
“better dan collins response”:
Kathy, read Anne Applebaum’s “Gulag: A History.” Then, explain how the Bush administration use of Gitmo and Stalin-Kruschev’s use of concentration camps are analagous. No really, I’m not joking. Please compare the use of waterboarding precisely three times with the use of mass executions. Please compare the treatment of prisoners on the issue of forced labor. With respect to incarceration, please compare the nature of membership in Al Quaeda or the Taliban with membership in the Soviet’s ever-changing roster of out-groups.
I can’t believe Kathy has read a page of Solzhenitsyn. It surely can’t be possible to be that ignorant.
Also, compare the starvation and planned famines in the Soviet Union to the massive weight gain among Guantanamo detainees.
The US is running the only wartime prison camp in the history of the world where the prisoners are gaining weight.
Of course, the ABC article spins this as us forcing them to eat too much “high calorie food”.
Ivan Denisovich was happy if he could steal an extra bowl of kasha. These guys get prime cuts of meat, prepared according to halal rules.
But, of course, Gitmo is “just as bad”.
If this is the same Kathy who comments here on occasion, she’s admitted that she’s a communist before.
I would also point out that the left stood behind the Soviet Union pretty strongly, wanted us to “co-exist” and were against any and all efforts by the U.S. to vigorously fight the cold war.
So, anyone on the left who now mouths support for Solzhenitsyn at this late date is a crass lier and hypocrite. Indeed, the left still loves them some Che and Castro who did/do the exact same things as the Soviets. How the left can claim they ever (and I mean ever) were on the same side as Solzhenitsyn or any other people trying to document the communist abuses and trying to combat communism worldwide is a farce.
They (the left) stil take no responsibility for what happened to the Vietnamese after they forced the U.S. to surrender in that war. They still think that Castro has created a “paradise” with top-notch “universal health care”.
To come forward now and claim that ThEY were/are on the same side as Solzhenitsyn and it is the right that is not, is so anti-factual as to begger the imagination. Indeed, that woman obviously has no understanding of history or did not live throught the 70s and ’90s when her compatriats did everything in their power to keep the U.S. from actually confronting the horrors of the Soviets.
I am absolutely enraged. How do we actually have political debates with people who are so dishonest. I am beginning to think that these people really believe the things they say – that they are so divorced from reality that they believe that it was the left who stood up to communism instead of the right. It is dumbfounding.
The American left would have pissed on Solzhenitsyn in the 70’s and 80’s b/c he was a traitor to the Soviets.
“The American left would have pissed on Solzhenitsyn in the 70’s and 80’s b/c he was a traitor to the Soviets.”
My understanding is that they did, in fact, do this.
See, this is just one more example of why I don’t believe rational political discourse is possible (for the most part) in modern America. Anything that qualifies as torture (and in this case, I believe a sternly-worded letter from the Bush administration would qualify as “torture” to the group of people I’m talking about) is equivalent to Soviet-era torture.
It’s patently ridiculous on its face, but the fact that some people will draw that comparison renders discussion moot.
What really kills me, much like here with Solzhenitsyn, in 30 years when Bush’s course of action in the GWOT in general and Iraq in particular is pretty much accepted as having been right, these people will do the same thing they are doing with Solzhenitsyn and the Soviets and claim they were on the right side all along and us knuckle-draggers were somehow wrong.
Just like they now claim to have liked and/or supported Reagan, and pretend they weren’t vicious and nasty toward him for 8 years.
People of the left – doesn’t it ever cause you to wonder about your beliefs when you ALWAYS have to lie about a) what you believed / did less than 30 years ago and b) lie about what your actual beliefs are right now? If your ideas were right, they would not require so much damn lying – both about history and about the present. Does that never occur to you?
Once Cuba overthrows its communists, and the full horrors of that regime are disclosed to teh world, these asshats are going to pretend that they never idolized Castro and Che and that they did not fully support Castro’s regime. It will be just as sickeningas this with Solzhenitsyn.
Great Banana: we’re seeing that process being carried out with Mugabe right now.
I’d agree, there is no point arguing with these types, our best response is simple recitation of the facts.
Like the fact that there were children’s camps and camps for mothers with babies.
Anything that qualifies as torture (and in this case, I believe a sternly-worded letter from the Bush administration would qualify as “torture†to the group of people I’m talking about) is equivalent to Soviet-era torture
Ever notice how the left ends up trivilizing anything important in this way? Every racial grievance is the new Selma. Every new campaign for a new “civil right” (a la homosexual marriage) is the new civil-rights movement, the new jim crow, etc. Now Guantanemo is the same as the Gulag.
They have no sense of porportion. I suppose this is what comes from basing everything on emotion rather than rational thought. If you operate solely from emotion, to get yourself worked up, you have to equate your new crusade to some great crusade of the past. You can’t simply be having a policy/philosophical disagreement with your opponents. No, you have to be fighting the good fight against pure evil. That is the only thing that will satisfy your emotions.
Moreover, if it were just a policy / philosophical disagreement, you would have to try and rationally debate it and persuade people. If it is a great moral crusade, you can dispense with any argument and just get on with bashing the heads of your evil opponents.
Posted at LGF last night:
I’d bet “Kathy” was one of those applauding.
Well in Russia you’re the Left and the Commies are the Right, just sayin’.
It is merely the continuation of the “moral equivalence” KGB propaganda meme. The left can always be relied upon for that.
Well in Russia you’re the Left and the Commies are the Right, just sayin’
Thor, please. You are just saying what? How is the American right the commies in Russia? How is the American left the non-communists in Russia? that is absolutely asinine. do you think before you type?
Are you trying to claim that the left in America did not fully support the Soviets and oppose all U.S. efforts to aggressively fight the cold war (after all the hawks had been driven out of the dem party – say 1970 forward)?
Or, are you trying to claim that it was not the american right who supported Solzhenitsyn and those like him? Or that it was not the american right who wanted to (and did) bring the Soviet Union down?
What is it you are “just saying”?
Thor,
the american left (despite their best efforts) are not going to be able to delete from history their full-throated support of the Soviets and their full-throated hatred of Solzhenitsyn and those like him who tried to shine a light on Soviet human rights abuses.
Does that history give you pause? does the fact that the american left was so decidedly wrong on the biggest issues of the day regarding communism ever give you pause as to whether the american left is wrong today? After all, the left was morally sure of its cause then just as now. they used all of the same arguments then as now. And yet they were absolutely wrong then. And, the kicker, the right was proven correct.
Why is it so impossible in your mind that the same won’t be proven true again? And, bonus question, does it bother you that the left has never admitted their being wrong about the Soviet Union and the Cold War?
You know, my neighbor has a newfoundland-black lab mix. It’s not quite as big as a full blood newfie, but its overall smaller stature sure hasn’t translated to its gastrointestinal tract. Now my neighbor is pretty good about cleaning up after the behemoth, but every now and then I go out the front door and find a great big stinking pile of thor on my sidewalk.
That is all.
i re-posted my comment over there.
SarahW: spot on. They HATED AS with a venom that can only be described as true believers vs. the heretics.
these are the things, now that the right in the US has been neutered for the next 5-10 years, that the left would like forgotten, that they need forgotten.
what the historian John Keegan described, in referencing the European desire to forget WWI and the trenches, as “Far off, unpleasant things.”
“Well in Russia you’re the Left and the Commies are the Right, just sayin’.”
– Of Course. “National Socialism”, the Nazis, were the extreme of Conservatism. But equally obvious, in fact, the application of the dogma has little to do with the social climate, and everything to do with power and the exploitation of a cult and its figurehead.
– All cults, regardless of what they call themselves, or the supposed political ideology they follow, are simply a means to that end. The power.
– All cults end badly.
23
German Nazis were very rational and not emotional…. just saying…..
Did you have a chance to go though those links I supplied the other day , btw?
– Pragmatic would be a better discriptor of the Nazi mindset sashal. Rational, not so much.
Pragmatic and nuanced they were.
Yeah, the problem with the “rational” Nazi’s was only their INSANE furhrer, AH. Otherwise they were a-ok, eh, sashal?
Yea, Sashal, that’s why Hitler had all those parades, built all those monuments, and whipped-up national pride to a frenzy. To appeal to the rational side of the German population.
How many German chicks has Sashal banged? Perhaps you lack the proper experience to discuss Germans.
BBH, GB, you have missed thor’s point.
If you assume the classical definition of “conservative” — hidebound maintenance of the status quo and/or return to the “good old days” — thor is precisely correct. There are sizable numbers of people, minorities in most of Eastern Europe, I dunno in Russia, who long for the good old days of boring predictability under the Soviets. I have a friend in what used to be the DDR who will come within a few syllables of defining it just that way; of course, he had a relatively privileged position in the ancien regime, just like thor’s in-laws. We often overlook, and many of us deny, the advantages of slavery to the slave — no responsibilities, and guaranteed food and shelter; maybe not good food and shelter, but I keep my cows and horses fed pretty well. Today may not be very nice, but once you’ve adjusted to it, the prospect that tomorrow will be just the same can be very comforting.
Of course, those of us who consider ourselves conservative today have an entirely different attitude, but thor is constitutionally unable to recognize, let alone acknowledge that.
Regards,
Ric
“A comparison between the gulags and Guantanimo doesn’t hold much water, I’m afraid. Have you read the books? Are we deriving forced labor from the detainees? Are they, in your view, political prisoners?”
So, if one can point to any dissimilarities when one makes an analogy, the analogy is not valid? Why not argue against analogies generally then? Unless your analogizing proposition A WITH proposition A (which is silly, of course) then all analogies are useless according to you. In this case, you’ve found dissimilarities while you selective ignore the similarities – i.e., a lack of due process, the fact that many that were (are?) held have been released and were innocent (akin enough to a political prisoner for my taste), that the Bush administration has tried (and failed via the courts) to claim the right to unilaterally declare US citizens enemy combatants and detain them w/o due process.
But forget all that because they’re not put to hard labor? At the least, you could have pointed out that the degree puts them on different scales, and of course what the Soviets were doing was Gitmo x 1000.
It’s always easy to only discuss the parts of an argument that support your point, and ignore the rest. I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing here.
– For instance, if AH and his merry band had been a bit more “rational”, he would have waited a few more years while his scientists (the majority of the best physicists were all German, or close by) developed the bomb and jet aircraft.
– Had he done that we might all be sprechender Deutscher now.
carin, sdferr
I was just picking on GB.
I am sure he/she understood where it is coming from….
Are you from CNN, pan?
Pan – I take it you haven’t read Solzhenitsyn either, sport. Otherwise you wouldn’t have made that comment.
BBH: “Of Course. “National Socialismâ€Â, the Nazis, were the extreme of Conservatism. But equally obvious, in fact, the application of the dogma has little to do with the social climate, and everything to do with power and the exploitation of a cult and its figurehead.”
The Nazis?? Right wing?
The Nazi leadership, with their populism, anti-smoking, back to earth paganism and agrarian ideal, right-wing?
They might have been Marxist, but they were *not* right wing.
Following the war, the Nazi beliefs were essential split in two. The sloping brow street-fighters went on to become the so-called “Neo-Nazis,” whilst the pagany agraian control-freaks went on to become the Greens.
Rick, even the miserable food and shelter were not guaranteed.
One had to work or more likely in the later days of USSR, pretend to work for an official establishment…
But I know that plenty of older folks are missing those days, when meager existence was secured..
German Nazis were very rational and not emotional…. just saying…..
Yes, can’t you just feel the rationality and absence of emotion in this and this?
Seriously, sashal, wtf are you smoking today?
*sigh*
s/b might *not* have been Marxist…
Sashal: “German Nazis were very rational and not emotional….”
WTF are you smoking?
Never had to sit and watch any newsreels or movies ofthe era, have you.
The Nazis were stubborn and emotional. I don’t think those should be confused with rationality or even pragmatism.
“We often overlook, and many of us deny, the advantages of slavery to the slave  no responsibilities, and guaranteed food and shelter; maybe not good food and shelter, but I keep my cows and horses fed pretty well. Today may not be very nice, but once you’ve adjusted to it, the prospect that tomorrow will be just the same can be very comforting.”
– I can’t speak for others Ric, but I hardly overlook that <comfort benefits drives the Progressives Socialistic dogma.
– Hell, they are so fearful of any idea of competition, and its bedfellow independence, they even try to outlaw dodgeball in schools.
– “Warm fussy, cradle to grave sameness. and an assured future.”
– They can hardly be expected to understand if you take the chocolate you sell your soul. They generally don’t believe in the concept of “soul”, so they fancy its cost them nothing.
– And no, there is no comparison between what a Soviet means by Conservative, and the Western meaning of the term, only superficially at best.
Bill Mauldin, 1958:
http://www.intergate.com/~canu/art/art4jan/82mauldn/82paster.html
So, if one can point to any dissimilarities when one makes an analogy, the analogy is not valid?
It’s more like “no similarities whatsoever”, but hey, what does that matter?
Well, the Nazis and Soviets were both into slave labor, so they’ve got that in common.
actually , Rick on the second thought if they knew about the Western welfare system they would probably love the countries like Germany or France even better.
USSR never achieved so much generosity towards those who do nothing in the contribution to the economy of the country.
To some degree the welfare even in the USA is much better then Soviets had it in their best days.
What a country…
Sashal: “actually , Rick on the second thought if they knew about the Western welfare system they would probably love the countries like Germany or France even better. USSR never achieved so much generosity towards those who do nothing in the contribution to the economy of the country.”
They also never had the economic subsidy implicit in the NATO security guarantee…
Damn. I hate it when I misspell. Guantanamo.
The analogy isn’t valid, because what really is attempted is known as moral equivalency. Honestly, there’s more equivalency, all things considered, between those who would have been perfectly happy for Saddam to stay in power.
I’m against torture. Saddam seems not to have minded it’s more spectacular forms. How many detainees have been subject to waterboarding? How many people in Iraq have been spared from the more violent forms, do you suppose, because of “Bush’s War”?
Pan, you’re an idiot.
– I go back to something Carin said earlier.
– Don’t buy the Lefts insistence that the political is the personal. Most Russians that do not live in the center of major cities see their country in a totally different non-political light from the party followers and the academia.
0 That was always the goal of the “good Communist” programs. To instill a feeling of cult dependency on the prolitariot.
– For the most part, the common people just nodded their heads and went along to get along. They basically just accepted it was out of their hands, the government was corrupt and crazy, and went about making the best of a miserable situation.
I did say that the DEGREE makes them somewhat imcomparable, but don’t let a lttle thing like what I actually said get in the way of deconstructing my argument.
The bottom line is this: the Bush admin argued to the SCOTUS that they had the right to declare a US citizen an enemy combatant and sensd them off forever anywhere they chose. That’s creepy, and there’s ana analogy to be made there, I think, based on that.
But NO ONE here is going to address that, even though it’s completely indefensible, becasue it makes you look ‘weak on the terrorists”. But it happened.
Does the analogy hold up beyond that? Probably not, especially when one looks at his actual words:
“…coming from the mouths of people who are responsible for exactly the same horrors Solzhenitsyn experienced.”
‘Exactly the same’is an absurdity, I have to agree. But to dismiss the point W/O engaging where it’s most effective is selective. Defend the notion of the exec haveing the power the Bush administration was arguing for – sending US citizens to prison camps for life w/o due process.
Wasn’t Pan some mythological Greek creature, half man and half goat, that screwed anything that crossed its path?
So, the goat-fucker wants someone else to defend a position that they do not hold. Convenient, that. Another mendoucheous douchenozzle.
pan: “The bottom line is this: the Bush admin argued to the SCOTUS that they had the right to declare a US citizen an enemy combatant and sensd them off forever anywhere they chose. ”
You are aware that there is a precedent for this, are you not?
Perhaps you were asleep that day in history class, but Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and imprisoned Maryland residents sympathetic with the cause of the Confederacy. Are you suggesting that Lincoln was some sort of dangerous extremist?
Don’t be such a dork. The Administration took a maximalist position in the interest of public safety… it’s really simple as that. They did the best they could, and the Supreme Court decided it would be better if we were less safe. So there you go. That September 11 Commission farce a lot validated this approach.
Nuclear arms are potentially very destructive. They’re less so when they aren’t used. The executive has tremendous power. He’s less destructive when he doesn’t employ it perversely.
American cops carry guns. Most of them don’t shoot haphazardly.
How many people have been tortured by America in the GWoT? How many has that war stopped being tortured by Saddam’s regime? Is this argument of Kathy’s REALLY about torture? What do you think, Pan?
Read 58, Dan, and defend what Bush argued for. Please.
And, again, I’ve said several times now that the two aren’t comparable becasue of degree (which you will continue to ignore so you can enjoy calling anon people idiots – “I feel so smart now!”). Still, you refuse to engage where the analogy actually may hold some water.
But who cares – ignore my argument and construct mine for me – who knows what great insults that may lead to!
“…sending US citizens to prison camps for life w/o due process.”
– Actually treason should be a basis for loss of citizenship. In most of the countries the Left seems to love so much, you lose your life instead.
– And just for shits and giggles, how many “American citizens” were busy fighting in the WOT on the side of the Islamofacist maniacs? (other than the Left I mean)
“So, the goat-fucker wants someone else to defend a position that they do not hold. Convenient, that. Another mendoucheous douchenozzle.”
WTF? Goat fucker? Are you fucking serious?
Are people REALLY this incapable of having an adult conversation?
Pan, the party in question was, in fact, engaged in making war on the United States.
He was doing so while not wearing a proper uniform or acting in accordance with any of the other Laws of War. Hence, he was an unlawful combatant.
Bush didn’t make up those rules, pan.
Let’s count the other ways in which the situation at Gitmo is completely unlike the Gulag, shall we?
Gulag: forced labor, starvation, freezing, prisoners “disappeared” and never heard from again, people who spoke about them were themselves often “disappeared”.
Gitmo: No forced labor, abundant food, pleasant climate, prisoners have lawyers who represent them in court, morons like pan feel free to screech about the “brutality” on the Internet with absolutely no fear of being disappeared.
Yes, you’re quite right, pan. They’re exactly the same.
There, I addressed your “points”.
Happy now?
Dan,
Kathy stated that the Bush regime was responsible for exactly the same horrors Solzhenitsyn experienced. There is no beating around the bush here – Pan agrees that there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between Guantanamo and the Gulag. When Solzhenitsyn said the West as doomed because we had lost our moral compass, Pan proved him right.
So, don’t worry about a spelling mistake.
Look here, Pan. We have wave-particle theory as an example of an analogy that proves useful. Other analogies prove useful, too. But one as absurd as this, that has to be jury-rigged and qualified into a Rube Goldberg contraption to make it shit out one tiny rabbit pellet of truthiness isn’t worth defending.
– Tell you the truth Pan. I’d look on more favorably toward a lowly goat fucker than a total bastard that would sell out his own country.
Oh, and did I hurt your feelings? This twat called us Tantamount Stalinists. Too effing bad.
“Don’t be such a dork. ” Wow.
“The Administration took a maximalist position in the interest of public safety… it’s really simple as that. They did the best they could, and the Supreme Court decided it would be better if we were less safe. So there you go. That September 11 Commission farce a lot validated this approach.”
I don’t agree at all. Isn’t it antithetical for the POTUS to argue that the constitution is moot? It’s OK becasue it was ‘maximalist’? You do realize that that would give the power tot the exec to whisk anyone away for anything and just say “they’re a terrorist”. Would it be used that way? No, it wouldn’t, at least not by Bush. But it’s irresponsible to attempt codify such an anti American notion IMO.
BBH: “And just for shits and giggles, how many “American citizens†were busy fighting in the WOT on the side of the Islamofacist maniacs? (other than the Left I mean)”
You mean in the sense of actually handling firearms?
Two that I can think of…and one of them is the spawn of a West Coast Leftie couple.
Adult conversation, you say? With someone who will insist there is a useful analogy between the Gulag and Guantanamo Bay Detention facility?
No, silly. You just don’t understand how policy is made when you have to deal with a bunch of liberals that love terrorists, pan. You have open the bid high, and then hope that the ACLU and the Nancy Pelosi and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg leave something of your policy in place that maybe helps dissuade terrorists from bombing and stuff. It’s kind of a crapshoot. Bush definitely took the right approach.
No, you couldn’t hurt my feelings. I don’t mind being insulted, I’m just surprised that you guys do it in lieu of answering my points – I’m just sort of surprised that everyone here thinks they’re Buddy Hacket becasue they can spell douchebag. At least be funny OR substantive….
Are you a physicist, Dan?
Pan: “Isn’t it antithetical for the POTUS to argue that the constitution is moot?”
Lesee… Wilson and the APL during WW I, Lincoln and habeus corpus during the War between the States, Roosevelt and a whole host of economic programs prior to WW2, not to mention the small matter of the internment of the Japanese…
I’m just surprised that you guys do it in lieu of answering my points
I answered your points, pan, you’re just ignoring that fact.
Both rocks and rocketships are analogous because both can spend some amount of time in the air. Pan seems to find a similarity between what Bush asked for regarding the detention of American citizens, and has used only in cases in which trial was an end result, and the Soviets who made the detention and forced labor of citizens an art form.
We can just skip to the chase with pan, because what he is likely to move to next is that torture is bad. I agree.
“I don’t agree at all. Isn’t it antithetical for the POTUS to argue that the constitution is moot?
– In a word “no”. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. It can be superceeded in time of war or imminent danger,
– That the Left is incapable, or unwilling, to understand that simple fact is their failing, and has nothing to do with the realities of the situation.
– Trying to turn the POTUS responsibility to protect the country back on him, when its his highest obligation in his office, is just part of the same “Get Bush” bullshit the Left has engaged in for his entire administration.
*have to* open the bid high… I mean… really. Bush loves America and wants to keep us safe. Start there. Jeez.
I don’t believe that the Admin. did argue the constitution was “moot”. Far from it. They argued the powers claimed were inherent to the powers designated by the Constitution to the Presidency.
“Adult conversation, you say? With someone who will insist there is a useful analogy between the Gulag and Guantanamo Bay Detention facility?”
Seriously, what else do I have to say to satisfy you people?
“At the least, you could have pointed out that the degree puts them on different scales, and of course what the Soviets were doing was Gitmo x 1000.”
“I did say that the DEGREE makes them somewhat imcomparable…”
“Does the analogy hold up beyond that? Probably not, especially when one looks at his actual words:
“…coming from the mouths of people who are responsible for exactly the same horrors Solzhenitsyn experienced.â€Â
‘Exactly the same’is an absurdity, I have to agree.”
Isn’t it antithetical for the POTUS to argue that the constitution is moot?
First you are being very broad when you shouldn’t be if you are serious about and “adult conversation”, and second shouldn’t you change it to is it antithetical for this POTUS … as opposed to Adams or Jefferson or Lincoln or Wilson or FDR, etc.
“I don’t believe that the Admin. did argue the constitution was “mootâ€Â. Far from it. They argued the powers claimed were inherent to the powers designated by the Constitution to the Presidency.”
But it makes all of the other rights moot, Sdferr. Giving one branch of the gov’t the right toremove w/o due process anyone they want makes all fo the other rights completely moot.
I’m not saying that the Bush admin wanted to use it this way. But this was a radical legal idea that is anti-constitutional.
Seriously, what else do I have to say to satisfy you people?
Admit that drawing tortured analogies between Guantanamo and the gulag system is ridiculous on its face?
That cooze was just being opportunistic is all, pan. Don’t let her confuzzle you with her strained analogy powers.
– #82
– Correct, but that wouldn’t fit “teh Narrativeâ„¢” so well.
“First you are being very broad when you shouldn’t be if you are serious about and “adult conversationâ€Â, and second shouldn’t you change it to is it antithetical for this POTUS … as opposed to Adams or Jefferson or Lincoln or Wilson or FDR, etc.”
See 85 for wht it’s not too broad, and I don’t understand the rest, TBH.
#45 sashal — exactly. Today was crappy, but we got through it, and if tomorrow is no worse, we’re likely to survive that, too. The conservatism of the oppressed.
Regards,
Ric
“But forget all that because they’re not put to hard labor? At the least, you could have pointed out that the degree puts them on different scales, and of course what the Soviets were doing was Gitmo x 1000.”
Those were your words, weren’t they pan? Please, for the edification of all here, could you explain this?
Pan, what do you think of FDR’s trying (in a military tribunal), convicting, and executing (six) of the eight (mostly German) saboteurs (including one American) caught on the east coast during WWII?
Executive power at its rawest, no?
I await your illumination about analogies.
pan: “But it makes all of the other rights moot, Sdferr. Giving one branch of the gov’t the right toremove w/o due process anyone they want makes all fo the other rights completely moot.”
As opposed to, say, SCOTUS creating new rights out of penumbras, essentially amending the Constitution without having to go through the whole unpleasenentness of amending the Constitution?
I don’t believe it was radical at all. Much of the argument was made through a review of the historical precedents, as I recall. We are faced with a relatively new form of warring enemy. Potential treason is quite clearly implicated in this war.
“I’m not saying that the Bush admin wanted to use it this way. But this was a radical legal idea that is anti-constitutional.”
– There it is again. The “Big Lie” promulgated by the Lefts endless manipulation of reality.
– The POTUS could declare Marshall law pan, and throw your ass out of your house if he needed it to fight the war.
– You may not like that. It may curdle your post toasties, but he has that power. Hes not doing anything “radical” that any other President can’t do, or hasn’t done in the past already with his Constitutional powers. You’re not giving him a damn think, and hes not taking anything he isn’t already entitled too.
– Just because you keep saying something, no matter how long you keep it up, will not make it so!
So you guys are fine with trusting the gov’t to have the power to decide who has Habeas rights and who doesn’t? I’m not. There are limited instances where martial law has to be declared, but I don’t belive this rises to that level – not even close.
Beyond your being, IMO, too trusting of the gov’t (what kind of right wingers are you?), you’re ignoring that this power would be there for good! The war on terror, as presently defined, will last for at least 30 years, right? Giving the exec will-nilly power to dismiss HC for the fordeeable future is too much power for too long.
FTR, I spell it “dooshbag” in honor of alppuccino, whom I don’t believe you’ve met.
“You may not like that. It may curdle your post toasties, but he has that power. Hes not doing anything “radical†that any other President can’t do, or hasn’t done in the past already with his Constitutional powers. You’re not giving him a damn think, and hes not taking anything he isn’t already entitled too.”
With US citezens? No, dude. And the SCOTUS agrees with me (thank God). And I adressed martial law exceptions in 96
“As opposed to, say, SCOTUS creating new rights out of penumbras, essentially amending the Constitution without having to go through the whole unpleasenentness of amending the Constitution?”
So two wrongs make a right now?
Seriously, what else do I have to say to satisfy you people?
You could demonstrate a functioning understanding of how un-alike Gitmo and the Gulags are. That would be a good start. The degree makes them somewhat incomparable? Good Allah. The difference in quality between a Chevy Chevette and a Mercedes S-class makes them somewhat incomparable.
But this was a radical legal idea
A radical legal idea advanced by such noted Radicals as Lincoln and FDR.
Maybe your missing this little fact in your anaology but the Bush admin went before our system of courts to try its case. They cited past examples of where what they wanted to do had been done before, and argued them under our system of government. Whereas the Soviet government you know, JUST DID WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANTED INCLUDING ASSASINATING THEIR OWN CITIZENS. Kinda a big difference if you ask me. You seem to think though that we are not allowed take great offense when you are saying our country is a bunch of torturing, murdering, criminals akin to Stalin. F@ck you and the horse you rode in on in all honesty.
By the way pan speak to some MP’s that work at Gitmo the rules they have to follow would make your head spin.
“Pan, what do you think of FDR’s trying (in a military tribunal), convicting, and executing (six) of the eight (mostly German) saboteurs (including one American) caught on the east coast during WWII?”
That was TRYING, right? Did I read that correctly – TRYING.
I’ll kill ’em myself – IF I know they’re guilty!
pan: “So two wrongs make a right now?”
No, but it does lay naked your hypocrisy / selective outrage.
“Beyond your being, IMO, too trusting of the gov’t (what kind of right wingers are you?)”
Who the hell implied this? Now that I think about it, we should have seen this one coming from miles away.
I did say that I think the US is as bad as the USSR – so please keep pointing out how absurd that was everyone.
I think we have a Mona-style libertarian in the pool.
“Who the hell implied this? Now that I think about it, we should have seen this one coming from miles away.”
No implication – it’s quite explicit, actually. You have to trust that whomever the POTUS outs in prison is really there becasue they’re terrorists.
That’s right, TRYING in a MILITARY TRIBUNAL. *gasp*
YOU ARE ALL FASCIST RACIST WAR-MONGERS WHO ADVOCATE GULAGS FOR THOSE BRAVE PATRIOTS THAT DARE DISSENT !!!!!!!!!!!
This is pretty, VDH from NRO’s The Corner:
“Liberals once welcomed him to our shores in the 1970s as a kindred voice of free expression and resistance to authority  only to see him work at the Hoover Institution and then lecture them at Harvard in 1978 on the moral consequences of left-wing appeasement of the Soviet Union. And when he condemned protesters that had opposed the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg, and American popular culture, the estrangement from the American Left was complete. Who in the post-1960s wished to be reminded that a surrender to the appetites, material gratification, atheism, and an absence of pride in one’s own nation were the classical ingredients of civilizational decadence and decline?”
“You have to trust that whomever the POTUS…
I think we’re getting somewhere, building to a diatribe, as it were, about a particular POTUS.
Arrgh, I missed the header for my #110:’
“Remembering Solzhenitsyn”
“With US citezens? No, dude. And the SCOTUS agrees with me (thank God). And I adressed martial law exceptions in 96”
– See the Left thinks itself clever on this issue. They hate Bush, so they’ll play every game they can think of to demonize him and mis-represent the situation, EVEN WHEN HE BENDS OVER BACKWARDS TO APPLY HIS POWERS MINIMALLY.
– The point being that instead of just declaring Marshall law and suspending Hebeus, he went the extra mile and stayed within some bounds that other Presidents have not been willing to limit themselves to. And he did so even in the face of a clever enemy that try everything they can to skirt the rules of Geneva and the Hague.
– So what does he get for his troubles? The Left using their fucked up conspiracy mindset, and the SCOTUS deciding its an arm of the legislature instead of doing their damn job.
Couple things:
1. analogizing present America to the Civil War Era or WWII is almost humorous considering the thread.
2. Just becasue FDR or Lincoln did something doesn’t mean it’s right. And I alreday discussed that martial law sometimes DOES need to be declared – but that I think this is not one of those times.
If you REALLY wanna go down the martial law path, though, remember:
1. Bush did not declare martial law.
2. YOu need to make the argument that martial law is required NOW, which I thin we can agree is absurd.
pan
As to the part of my statement you didn’t understand, American history is riddled with examples of presidents who overstepped their strict constitutional limitations. The important thing ends up being that the cause is just for doing so, and that it is nor permanent.
I notice you keep shifting your argument, which is usually not a sign that you are on solid ground with your premise.
Executives make executive decisions. I have no problem with government disagreements playing out in the courts, as they have. What I do have problems with, though, is blatant double standards, as for instance the left’s silence on Clinton’s undeclared war against the Serbs. I supported that intervention, though I did believe that it would require boots on the ground, which in the sequel has proved so. I also would have preferred Europe to take care of the problem. Either way, it saved a lot of lives, though it may have offended my constitutional preference.
So, I’m okay with it.
As for suspension of habeas corpus vis-a-vis US citizens, name them, please, then tell me whether that’s a bigger injustice than Ayers getting off on a technicality because the cops were assholes.
You have to trust that whomever the POTUS …
I do. And not just President Bush. I trusted President Clinton when I served under his command. I will trust Baracky should he win. You do not have to agree with them to trust that they have our nation’s best interests at heart.
No implication – it’s quite explicit, actually. You have to trust that whomever the POTUS outs in prison is really there becasue they’re terrorists.
See here is when I can tell your an idiot. The POTUS is not going out himself pointing out people at random and saying “look a terrorist”. This is trained counterintelligence personnel, NCIC, FBI, and CIA, doing their job and finding people that want to kill American citizens. This is not the evil BOOOOOOOOOOOOSH, these are American citizens and Americans in uniform doing their freakin job. You should be applauding their efforts, which have led to 0 attacks on our soil since 911, and not denigrating them or comparing them to F#cking Soviet torturers.
analogizing present America to the Civil War Era or WWII is almost humorous considering the thread.
You were the one who claimed that this was a radical innovation, pan. Now you’re complaining that others have presented historical evidence that it’s anything but?
Pick a position and stick to it, m’kay?
As I suspected, pan does not have a problem with the POTUS overstepping his constitutional limitations, he just has a problem when this one does. I suspect he doesn’t believe the risk to the country is as great as it is.
“I think we’re getting somewhere, building to a diatribe, as it were, about a particular POTUS.”
Not in the least. And you and BBH should read where I specifically state that I don’t think Bush would have used the power in some political way. It’s still irresponsible for them in a historical way to try and assert such a radical power.
It’s still irresponsible for them in a historical way to try and assert such a radical power.
I’m starting to get dizzy, pan.
Pan,
Any chance of an answer to #91?
So you guys are fine with trusting the gov’t to have the power to decide who has Habeas rights and who doesn’t? I’m not. There are limited instances where martial law has to be declared, but I don’t belive this rises to that level – not even close.
Contrary to popular belief, the courts are a branch of the government.
pan: “analogizing present America to the Civil War Era or WWII is almost humorous considering the thread.”
IOW, you have no rebuttal and must disparage the comment.
pan: ” Just becasue FDR or Lincoln did something doesn’t mean it’s right. And I alreday discussed that martial law sometimes DOES need to be declared – but that I think this is not one of those times.”
Uh-huh… which is why the entitlement mess FDR created is all but carved in mable according to liberals, despite having been written, what 70 years ago? Liberals think the Constitution should be a “living document,” but the SSI act of 1934 is granite.
Hypocrite.
It boggles the mind, that this is even an argument. The
American counterpart to the Soviets are the likes of John Reed,Lincoln Steffens,Walter Duranty, that talked up the regime; and any American contemporary which are too numerous to outline now. Although Durbin, in his brief for the man, who would have murdered him, given half the chance, Det # 603. Murtha, who demeans the Corps anchors as much as Whitman or Oswald. Arnett, sadly Brian Williams in his last interviews of Ahmadinejad; et al When you have attorneys trying to find and represent you, as the partners at Covington & Burling, Shearman & Sterling, Wilmer Cutler have trumped over to Gitmo. When just one of their clients;
No, I think Clinton overstepped many times. Illegal search and seizures, illegal pardons, illegal assertions of exec priv. I think it was all BS.
Is it really fun to argue like this:
1. Find someone with whom you don’t agree
2. Ignore most of what they say, and turn them into a walking (typing?) Democratic platform
3. Argue against that platform with all of your stock counter arguments peppered with sophmoric insults.
Doesn’t that get boring? Is it really fun to be in any sort of debate where you know exactly what’s going to be said before it even starts?
Hey, how does everybody feel about arugula and the shredded remains of the Constitution with red onion, zuchini and a balsamic vinigrette?
They’re known as precendents, pan. Why don’t you just come out and admit that your concern over the administration’s actions boil down to one thing: you hate Bush. Because, honestly, pretty much every incensed civil libertarian who shows up here eventually outs their true motive. It’s like a Unified Field Theory.
Feel the sweet release!
I have to agree with you on that last one pan.
Dread:
Hillarious! After I write 127, I see this:
“Uh-huh… which is why the entitlement mess FDR created is all but carved in mable according to liberals, despite having been written, what 70 years ago? Liberals think the Constitution should be a “living document,†but the SSI act of 1934 is granite.
Hypocrite.”
Hypocrite? Only by my theory of your arguing in 127. When have I discussed entitlement with you> Never. But feel free to put whatever you want oon me, and then pull out your ‘prepared position statements”
Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick that fucking boring.
Pan, if you could answer #91, I think we can begin to get a handle on why people are a wee bit cross.
Not radical pan. Sorry. What may be radical is the attack on the nation on Sept. 11, 2001. Or if you prefer, the “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” by Osama bin Laden in August, 1996.
So your fear is of a pragmatical sort, pan? Doesn’t strike me as entailing all that much in the way of Constitutionality. Not to mention that the administration is subjected to the daily oversight of such proud civil libertarians as yourself, your fellow ideologists, your political representatives, the courts, and so on.
As to getting to trials, so far as I’ve seen, most of the delays can be lain at the feet of the defenders of these accused, not the DoD or the admin. in general. I think the latter have been attempting to put together unprecedented guarantees of fair treatment for the unlawful foreign combatants and get on with trying these accused as quickly as the can. Many trips to the courts to adjudicate the system under which these trials will take place have intervened. And Congressional actions. And Supreme Court decisions. And more Congressional action. Rinse, repeat. Oh my, such delay!
2. YOu need to make the argument that martial law is required NOW, which I thin we can agree is absurd.
– Maybe you’ll feel differently, or at least shut your pie hole, if you and the ACLU manage to tie the gov.’s hands until one of our cities goes up in nuclear dust.
– BTW, I have not a shred of doubt that the same bunch, surprise, surprise, screaming about civil rights will be absolutely damning which ever Pres. that little misfortune occurs under, gawd hoping it never does.
pan —
The people in Guantanamo are people who would have been, and were (in earlier conflicts) simply shot out of hand. That’s what international “law” in the form of the Geneva Conventions calls for. They were captured under arms, without uniforms or “identifying marks”, during combat operations, which makes them illegal combatants. And, yes, sometimes innocent people get graunched by that procedure; people who have just pissed somebody off.
Detention, at Guantanamo and elsewhere, was intended as ameliorative. Instead of simply shooting them, they were captured and detained at great effort and expense, and shipped off to Cuba, where there was some possibility that they could be of some intelligence value, and further investigation into what they actually did could be done at leisure, instead of while bullets were zipping by.
You and the rest of the Left have now declared this an absolutely unacceptable, Gulag-like violence against the Constitution and human rights. Fine. We understand that.
Do you suppose the question hasn’t come up again?
Of course it has. The difference is, instead of getting fat and tanned in the Cuban sunshine, the people in question are pushing up sand and rocks somewhere in the trackless Afghan deserts, where daisies don’t grow. Nobody will ever hold a hearing, let alone a Supreme Court case, to find out if they were really bearing arms or just victims of personal vendettas. But they aren’t being illegally detained in an abuse of power by the President, so that satisfies your delicate scruples, doesn’t it?
I do agree that nasty words aren’t appropriate. You are too contemptible to insult.
Regards,
Ric
It’s a lousy analogy. That’s what I’m saying.
You seem to think that it’s a good analogy, if you qualify it into airy nothingness.
People don’t like torture when it’s committed by Americans? Good. On the other hand, what about when America stops torturers from torturing? Put that in the scales to balance, and what have we got?
1. Find someone with whom you don’t agree
You came here, and out of the gate you tried to assert an analogy that doesn’t pass the laugh test. If something matches in 1 way out of 10,000 it’s a shitty analogy.
2. Ignore most of what they say, and turn them into a walking (typing?) Democratic platform
3. Argue against that platform with all of your stock counter arguments peppered with sophmoric insults.
You are just making this up, people are arguing against your positions and adding the occasional ad hom. My advice is to ignore the latter and focus on your position. Which you may want to restate/rethink at this point.
pan: “When have I discussed entitlement with you> Never. But feel free to put whatever you want oon me, and then pull out your ‘prepared position statements—
Pan, first you claim that Bush’s actions are unprecedented and, yet, when presented precedents, you become disparaging and insulting. You’re a lightweight seemingly wholly unacquainted with the matter you’d like to discuss. You have embraced a wholly fallacious analogy and wonder you’re mocked.
Go get your helmet and run for the half-a-loaf bus.
What’s a chap have to do to get an answer from a crypto-libertarian?
Anyway pan, you’ve been mostly civil and have tried to deal with a large number of comments directed at you. I just disagree with your position.
Have a good day.
The rest of you are filthy ignorant racists. Just so you know.
EG I think he was referencing the comments about Social Security and “living” Constitution which are standard Democrat fare. Neither of which he has commented on here or is even relevant to his assinine comparision. I would have to say I can see where he would think he was being mistaken for a walking Democrat platform and being used as a pinata. IMHO.
Pan, while the neocons are the disgusting heirs to the Bolshevism in their authoritarian impulses and claiming to know the best what is good for the world and trying to inflict their life threatening academic theories on innocent population and while they did borrow the worst propaganda tactics from Pravda and torture techniques from Chinese, I would not go that far as comparing Gitmo to Gulag, and this is not even the scale or degree thingy.
THere are much more many differences. But let’s just take in my view the most important one.
Gulag was for the enemies(imagined enemies mostly) of the regime, for the citizen of one’s own country, political dissidents.
While Gitmo is for the prisoners( and I do not want to get into the Geneva descriptions) caught in the process of the conducting the war against certain outside enemy of the USA…not political dissidents….
Silver Whistle: “What’s a chap have to do to get an answer from a crypto-libertarian?”
Feh. The question must be harder to answer than having your unprecedented argument challenge by precedents.
OK silver whistle:
“But forget all that because they’re not put to hard labor? At the least, you could have pointed out that the degree puts them on different scales, and of course what the Soviets were doing was Gitmo x 1000.â€Â
Those were your words, weren’t they pan? Please, for the edification of all here, could you explain this?
I’m advising dan on why the two aren’t analogous, becasue his argument didn’t make the point well and ignored what was simlilar, even if similarity was vastly in the minority (hence the x 1000 comment) – and allowed him to ignore the Bush admin’s legal ‘theories’.
Mr Pink: “I think he was referencing the comments about Social Security and “living†Constitution which are standard Democrat fare. Neither of which he has commented on here or is even relevant to his assinine comparision.”
When presented with one stupidity, it is hard not to suspect the individual subscribes to others. Mea Culpa.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST – I said from the beginning that they’re NOT analogous, but that Dan was selctively ignoring what similarities there are. How many times CAN you people ignore that? Seriously?
Did you read 127 Dread? Remind you of anyone you know?
And even AFTER he reads 127, I get 145. Unreal.
– Well I for one, do not take to kindly for logistical somersaults that tty to paint Amtrica, or our President, as some kind of torturing madmen.
– If America was 1/100000 th as bad as any number of countries the Left seems to adore, by now there simply wouldn’t be enough places to bury all the bodies, and the Lefts would be first among them.
– The fact they’re still breathing, and obstructing, and whining, isn’t enough “proof” of our freedoms for their limited mentalities I suppose.
That’s your substantive point – that they are indeed similar, but vastly in the minority? I submit the following:
Your knowledge of the Gulag is very poor. Your knowledge of the Geneva and Hague conventions are even sketchier.
And you would do well to pay attention to Ric Locke.
which is why the entitlement mess FDR created is all but carved in mable
It was gonna be either Mable or Eunice, and Eunice already had the lyrics to Bust it Baby Part II carved into her, so Mable it is.
Sashal, there were at least two(?) US citizens, I believe, who were held under the circumstances pan has laid out upthread. His argument would be required to focus on them as opposed to Gitmo.
Very nice talking with you Ed Guy
Gee, thanks a lot, sashal. Noblesse oblige and all that.
pan: “Did you read 127 Dread? Remind you of anyone you know?”
Aw, pan — you still haven’t adequately rebutted the historical precendents you’ve been presented, why should I let anything you have to say bother me?
Your outrage is selective, your grasp of history and geo-politics is selective and your arguments are weak.
Yeah, I got a little lazy with one post — mea culpa.
But that does nothing to change *ANY* of the above, goat-legs.
“Your knowledge of the Gulag is very poor.” Yes
“Your knowledge of the Geneva and Hague conventions are even sketchier.” No
“And you would do well to pay attention to Ric Locke.”
I read what his wonderfully flowery prose, but he did not address any of the points I’m making, but when he does…
pan in #58: That’s creepy, and there’s [an] analogy to be made there, I think, based on that.
pan in #146: I said from the beginning that they’re NOT analogous
Ummm…. okay.
“Aw, pan  you still haven’t adequately rebutted the historical precendents you’ve been presented, why should I let anything you have to say bother me?”
I did in the post where I said you need to argue for martial law
– You havn’t made any viaable points pan. Just opinionated constentions.
– All of which boil down to the usual paranoia of not trusting your own gov., while at the same time ignoring the threat to your country so you could do the former.
– Wake up and smell the humus. Bush isn’t running this time around.
I think we have reached the objective. It seems pan hasn’t even read Solzhenitsyn, but has some emotional responses to Gitmo. That’s all you had to say in the beginning, mate, we would have understood.
“pan in #58: That’s creepy, and there’s [an] analogy to be made there, I think, based on that.”
Pan, also in 58:
Does the analogy hold up beyond that? Probably not, especially when one looks at his actual words:
“…coming from the mouths of people who are responsible for exactly the same horrors Solzhenitsyn experienced.â€Â
‘Exactly the same’is an absurdity, I have to agree. But to dismiss the point W/O engaging where it’s most effective is selective. Defend the notion of the exec haveing the power the Bush administration was arguing for – sending US citizens to prison camps for life w/o due process.
I’m saying that Bush et al. argued for the right to detain US citizens indefinitely (another difference with Lincoln [besides the martial law] and even FDR [which I think was wrong]), and that is similar to what the USSR was doing. Getting rid of Habeas IS a big deal.
I think I’ll have some fish tacos for lunch. The lady at the counter somehow thinks I’m fluent in Spanish because I can order, “dos tacos de pescada con agua.”
Thanks for the civility, pan, you satyr, you.
– Rics correct observation that in most countries illegal combatants would simply be shot most have added to pans ulcer garden.
“It seems pan hasn’t even read Solzhenitsyn”
I never said I did. I’ve read accounts, but not alot. I think I admitted htis in sevral places, actually.
Then again, I never said that Gitmo was nearly as bad (based on what I know) – I think I said that the Soviet camps were 1000x worse. So, again, I’m not sure what you’re saying.
“- Rics correct observation that in most countries illegal combatants would simply be shot most have added to pans ulcer garden.”
So my problem is constitutional, and Ric brings in non-sequitters about other countries. I hope that he brings up something relevant to what I’m saying
“….con agua”
– Why “no water” kelly. Don’t you like them fresh?
I’ve never argued with anyone who won’t allow you to agree with them.
For someone who didn’t have a scooby-doo about the subject at hand, you have to hand it to the goat god. He did play a decent innings with nothing but bluster.
“…I hope that he brings up something relevant to what I’m saying”
– I thought you guys were Uber-interested in moral equivalence. So then you think shooting them is preferable to military tribunals?
Homosexual goat-fuckers.
I think they argued detention “for the duration of hostilities” as opposed to “detain US citizens indefinitely”. You can argue that hostilities may go on indefinitely if you wish. That’s easy of course. But don’t think you get to play rhetorical games around here, please.
“For someone who didn’t have a scooby-doo about the subject at hand, you have to hand it to the goat god. He did play a decent innings with nothing but bluster.”
But I agreed that the camps weren’t nearly as bad (from what I know), so we agree… I just don’t understand.
Again, my problem is constitutional and limited to the fact that the POTUS shouldn’t have the right to put people inprison camps w/o HC. It is weird that most of you ignore that, ignore my agreeing that gitmo isn’t as bad, and keep on keepin on putting word sin my mouth. It’s almost bizarre, TBH.
“Comment by sashal on 8/4 @ 12:47 pm #
Pan, while the neocons are the disgusting heirs to the Bolshevism in their authoritarian impulses…..”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!
jeebus on a Ritz, you’re a funny one, sash.
“I think they argued detention “for the duration of hostilities†as opposed to “detain US citizens indefinitelyâ€Â. You can argue that hostilities may go on indefinitely if you wish. That’s easy of course. But don’t think you get to play rhetorical games around here, please.”
fair enough – I should have added a ‘de facto’ in there. Really doesn’t change anything, though.
No pan, the Gulags were not 1000x worse. Not the same ball park. Not the same game. Not the same freaking time zone. Not the same goddamned anything. Do you get the bloody point yet?
“But don’t think you get to play rhetorical games around here, please.”
– What are you up to Sdferr? Are you trying to silence the Lefts ability to debate entirely?
“- What are you up to Sdferr? Are you trying to silence the Lefts ability to debate entirely?”
I answered it – better than can be said of you.
It amounts to bearing in mind that there is a state of war in play, hence the relevant Presidential Powers, I think. Let’s don’t forget, is all.
“No pan, the Gulags were not 1000x worse. Not the same ball park. Not the same game. Not the same freaking time zone. Not the same goddamned anything. Do you get the bloody point yet?”
But what underlies both – a lack of HC, which you guys are willing to give away because your fav political party told you it was OK.
But I agreed that the camps weren’t nearly as bad (from what I know), so we agree… I just don’t understand.
Then why even bring them up?
“It amounts to bearing in mind that there is a state of war in play, hence the relevant Presidential Powers, I think. Let’s don’t forget, is all.”
And in the instances I’m talking about – say Padilla – those are? Maybe you’re confusing Artical I and Article II.
– I had nothing to “answer for” pan. I generally find it less than useful to go around making unsubstantiated declarations.
– But then I’m funny that way.
– But I did respond to your claim by saying that Bush, if anything, took a more moderate approach, trying to not have to declare habeas, and what he gets for his troubles is even louder bitching.
Habeus corpus? You think that was the root of the problem in the Soviet Union? You think habeus corpus underpinned the Gulag? Why would you get up on your hind legs and bray such a thing? Please, stop now, as you are belittling the state murder of millions. Please stop.
“- But I did respond to your claim by saying that Bush, if anything, took a more moderate approach, trying to not have to declare habeas, and what he gets for his troubles is even louder bitching.”
So Bush has the constitutional authority to suspend Habeas unilaterally, is that right?
But what underlies both – a lack of HC, which you guys are willing to give away because your fav political party told you it was OK.
And the bullshit spews forth. As predictable as the sun rising.
“Habeus corpus? You think that was the root of the problem in the Soviet Union? You think habeus corpus underpinned the Gulag? Why would you get up on your hind legs and bray such a thing? Please, stop now, as you are belittling the state murder of millions. Please stop.”
No, no, no – I never said that….uhhhhh
From the Kathy screech that Dan linked:
Almost everything about the gulag that this tight little cabal put together is still unknown.
All they know is has to exist, so it does.
No, but Lincoln did, pan.
Granted, the situations were not the same.
As you’re aware, the question is what constitutes an illegal combatant.
Can you recall the rationale the Administration offered for denying Habeas rights to Padilla and the dual-citizen fellow (his name escapes me at the moment) who were held, pan? Were there others held under this rationale? If so, would you remind me with their names?
pan: “So, if one can point to any dissimilarities when one makes an analogy, the analogy is not valid?”
It immediately identifies the analogy as flawed.
pan: “Why not argue against analogies generally then? Unless your analogizing proposition A WITH proposition A (which is silly, of course) then all analogies are useless according to you.”
Not so, but all analogies, on one level or another, are inherently flawed. One could, for example, analogize Obama in Berlin with Shicklegruber at Nuremburg with many points of similarity — sheep-like chanting masses, memorials in tribute of German military might, a populist speaker, etc., but it would not be a valid analogy. Points of similarity do not make an effective analogy if the central notions are not sufficiently alike.
pan: “In this case, you’ve found dissimilarities while you selective ignore the similarities – i.e., a lack of due process,”
You’ve already allowed that military tribunals, which were sufficient for the eight German saboteurs who landed during WW2, met your threshold. What deficiencies do you perceive in the regieme that the detainees went through?
pan: “the fact that many that were (are?) held have been released and were innocent (akin enough to a political prisoner for my taste)”
While others who were released, who were deemed innocent, turned out to be not so innocent, having been re-captured or killed in subsequent action. Likewise, a high percentage of the remaining detainees want to remain, since they fear what will happen to them upon returning to their Islamic wonderlands.
Pan: “that the Bush administration has tried (and failed via the courts) to claim the right to unilaterally declare US citizens enemy combatants and detain them w/o due process.”
Again, it is not without precedent, with both the Roosevelt and Lincoln administrations claiming that power — hell, Lincoln didn’t even see the need for the detainee to be a combatant, having imprisoned paper editors, legislators and the like. Likewise, there are precisely *TWO* American citizens who were seriously at risk under these regulations. One pled guilty and is in Federal prison, the other one is at large. As such, until or unless it happens, your issue is “unripe” as the court would phrase it — he has not, potentially exceeded his authority until or unless he attempts to exceed his authority.
pan: “But forget all that because they’re not put to hard labor? At the least, you could have pointed out that the degree puts them on different scales, and of course what the Soviets were doing was Gitmo x 1000.”
They weren’t put to work, they haven’t been starved, they have been treated with the utmost consideration for their religious needs and diets, no effort has been made to re-educate them. These are not individuals who are imprisoned for what they believe as much as the actions that these beliefs led them to commit. The Gulag was a collection of 400+ camp complexes, each made up of hundreds of camps, housing some 7,000,000 citizens of the Soviet Union at any given time, with some 18,000,000 passing through it over the decades it was in operation.
Likewise, your analogy fails to encompass the reality of the Gulags, where one could be imprisoned simply for missing work or anti-Soviet humor. The mortality rate at the Gulags was tremendous, peaking in excess of 17% for those years that records are available. The prisoners in the Gulags were subjected to “nourishment scales,” where what one was fed depened upon the amount of the labor quota achieved by the camp.
Lastly, there will be a future difference — those who committed atrocities in the Gulags were never investigated or prosecuted. If there are actionable offenses at Gitmo, I have no doubt they will be investigated within an inch of their existence, with prosecutions to follow.
Your analogy is akin to comparing massive arterial bleeding with a paper cut. There is almost no there there.
It’s always easy to only discuss the parts of an argument that support your point, and ignore the rest. I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing here.
– No bush does not have unilaterial rights to suspend. When did anyone say that?
– You’re wandering.
“No pan, the Gulags were not 1000x worse. Not the same ball park. Not the same game. Not the same freaking time zone. Not the same goddamned anything. Do you get the bloody point yet?â€Â
But what underlies both – a lack of HC, which you guys are willing to give away because your fav political party told you it was OK.
I’m afraid you did say it. Maybe you didn’t mean it. Maybe it was poorly written. Maybe you really are incredibly ignorant about the subject. I would write a couple of thousand pages on the subject for you, but really the ones by Solzhenitsyn are really quite good.
OK, you refuse to argue with me. Maybe someday you’ll find your mythical beast that’s equal parts Murtha/ACLU/Clinton/DemParty/MoveOn/Obama/Soros/unions/Dean/ etc., and you will slay it with all of your prepared arguments. I just can’t have an “argument” that’s really just endless words you wish I’d have said put in my mouth.
later
– Some 30 to 40% of released Gitmo prisoners were later killed or recaptured on the battlefield.
– Maybe the Left would be happy if we passed a three strikes law for terrorists.
pan’s a dude? And Semanticleo is a chick? Huh. 0 for 2.
Ah, I found it. Hamdi, it was. Yaser Esam Hamdi.
– MURTHA – Is that bastard behind all this!
We refuse to argue when you make BS moral equivalancies, false analogies, spew predictable BS, refuse to offer concrete positions, and in general, act as slippery as shit on a donkey’s ass.
That you deny saying what you clearly said makes it easier to ignore you.
Uh huh. Tell me, pan: are there still people shooting at Americans (and others) in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere? How many people have been added to the prisoner list in Guantanamo since you and your friends started this tempest in a teapot?
Regards,
Ric
pan: “OK, you refuse to argue with me.”
Because you’re not making a serious argument. You’re comparing two things that are sufficient unlike as to be ludicrous and upset that we won’t drink the kool-aid. You present a thesis that is so broken that were it a clock, it wouldn’t even be right once a day, let alone twice, for the reasons I point out in 190 above. You can’t address even those items that simply attack the hype you’ve built into your breathless arguments, such as that this is somehow an unprecedented move, let alone the short-falls in the analogy you’ve embraced.
We can’t “argue” with you seriously because you’ve failed to make a serious argument.
Since illegal foreign combatants captured on the battlefield are not subject to the Geneva Conventions (indeed intentionally operating outside them), and “the POTUS shouldn’t have the right to put people inprison camps w/o HC”, we have NO CHOICE but to let them go? Really? Or are you suggesting that some Yemeni or Saudi jihadist caught attempting to murder Americans and/or local civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan is somehow granted all the rights and privileges of a US citizen because he chose to ignore the Laws of War?
If that ISN”T the argument you’re trying to make, please try to explain how it isn’t.
“… Where the Government accuses a citizen of waging war against it, our constitutional tradition has been to prosecute him in federal court for treason or some other crime. Where the exigencies of war prevent that, the Constitution’s Suspension Clause, Art. I, §9, cl. 2, allows Congress to relax the usual protections temporarily. Absent suspension, however, the Executive’s assertion of military exigency has not been thought sufficient to permit detention without charge. No one contends that the congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force, on which the Government relies to justify its actions here, is an implementation of the Suspension Clause. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision below. …”
Justice Scalia in dissent (joined by J. Stephens), Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
I’m skunnered wi’ that bampot.
pan is a goat-fucker. Guy. Girl. It matters not.
Pan, I think a large proportion of our ‘failyah to communicate’ is due to the fact that the original post was about how comparisons of Protein Wisdom’s community to Stalin’s internal security apparatus are baseless and unfair, being that they’re predicated on a description of unlawful combatant detention as “a torture regime based in large part on the Soviet model,” a comparison that fails to stand up to even superficial analysis. When you came in with a “yes, but…” response to the analogy, the community could hardly be blamed for feeling that you espoused the underlying indictment, and so we weren’t terribly predisposed to cut you a lot of slack.
Subsequent evidence seems to show that you’ve backed away from defending the analogy, though you’re still continuing to try to stir debate on the merits and demerits of keeping people at Gitmo. Given that this community has been debating the policy for five years now, I ask you to trust me that you’re not bringing anything new to the discussion. Please, feel free to peruse the archives.
Now, if I were trying to draw parallels between the U.S. and “a torture regime based in large part on the Soviet model,” I’d look to a prision system that puts hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders into a system where they’re in poor conditions, packed in like livestock, and where they’re liable to be physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by the hard-core felons with whom they’re imprisoned. This analogy would be closer in numbers of prisoners, the conditions they’re subject to, and the political nature of their crimes. Even so, the analogy falls far short by comparison to the Gulag, not least because it can’t be pinned square on Bush.
But it’s like the old saying goes: you go to war with the analogy you have, not the one you wished to have.
I think pan abandoned Gitmo in the argument a long time ago and reverted instead to the question of suspension of US citizen Habeas rights. There were in fact only two such instances to my memory. Padilla and Hamdi. Were there others I’ve forgotten?
pan, let’s see if I can help ( without expressing my take on it, most here on this blog know my position on WOT).
What if you put it this way:
“Regardles of what fucking commies and other dictators did in other countries with their own population, we here in the USA , the beacon of freedom and democracy for the rest of the world, should not be complacent when our own authorities treat the constitution too “liberally” ( no pun intended).
Did I get it about right, pan?
I say Sashal, you speak goat! Well done!
Sdferr: “I think pan abandoned Gitmo in the argument a long time ago and reverted instead to the question of suspension of US citizen Habeas rights. There were in fact only two such instances to my memory. Padilla and Hamdi.”
There were two other potential instances — John Walker Lindh (pled guilty) and Gahahn(sp?), who is still at large.
I bet sashal has a “pan” WebKinz.
There you go Dread, thanks.
and they has trials, so really how strained is the “HC” argument?
had, whatever.
Pretty strained, but out of shadows monsters come.
Dread,
I don’t think we need to worry about any Habeas Corpus issues in Adam Gadahn’s case as he’s already got a treason charge lodged against him.
You folks have more kindness, patience, and understanding than I. Pan has proven to be a bad-faithed actor every single time it has commented here. You should be commended for attempting to engage its silliness. I mock.
I think alppuccino has a crush on the 1/2 man 1/2 goat AND sashal. Bolsheviks of the world, UNITE !
Mockery doesn’t mock people. People mock people.
Not cool JD.
Spiny Norman: “I don’t think we need to worry about any Habeas Corpus issues in Adam Gadahn’s case as he’s already got a treason charge lodged against him.”
and there were three…
I suppose with the pro-AQ video release showing his face, it is no longer a live issue.
But what underlies both – a lack of HC, which you guys are willing to give away because your fav political party told you it was OK.
A lack of HC underpinned the Gulag – my brain is still spinning. The entire weight of the state’s legal apparatus underpinned the Gulag, but pan thinks a little HC would have solved the problem.
I’ve bumped into idealogues in the pub, of course, who hasn’t – Trots, neo/crypto-Fascists, Marxists/Leninists/Maoists, even traded pleaantries with the Jehovah’s Witnesses when they pile out of their little car like so many well-suited clowns, but those libertarian types are the worst. Never again.
“When mockery is outlawed, only outlaws will have mocks.”
– 20 Republican Senators are back in the Congressional chamber calling for Pelosi to bring the Congress back into session.
– So far Bush has been silent.
– The Dems are calling it all a stunt.
– The Dems are going to lose on this issue. Badly I hope.
“…a lack of HC, which you guys are willing to give away…”
I would like to be on record that I don’t agree to give away citizens habeas rights to the President to nullify at whim, even in time of war. It’s a difficult question for me not satisfied yet.
I’m inclined to think citizens who are accused of making war against the US ought to be tried under treason or other existing laws. If the prosecutors haven’t the evidence to gain conviction of treason, charge what can be proved and get conviction on that basis. If the charges fail, release but surveille the guy if a court will issue a warrant. If no court will issue a warrant, release and be prepared to suffer potential depredations.
None of this is remotely to say the President was hell bent on establishing some vicious dictatorship (as the wild fears of the left would have it). His interest was to protect the nation against attack by traitorous jihadists. He did the best he could under the circumstances as I see it.
alppuccino – your man-love for the 1/2 goat and sashal is palpable. NTTAWWT.
Arrgghh! The open tag strikes again.
I suppose with the pro-AQ video release showing his face, it is no longer a live issue.A new one? When was this? I thought he was worm food.
Ooh! Now they got stripped altogether.
I think you get the point…
Always amusing to watch sashal flail away at the “neocons are BOLSHEVISTS” crap. Some serious mental/emotional issues underlying that…
Spiny Norman: “I suppose with the pro-AQ video release showing his face, it is no longer a live issue.A new one? When was this? I thought he was worm food.”
I’ll believe it when I see the charred corpse and the DNA confirmation… and even then I’d want him searched for grenades.
The reason posters here are calling you a douchenozzle, pan, is that they (and I as well) reject your assertions flat out. There will always be tension between the 3 branches of Government because they are EQUAL in rank. The differences are in what they are responsible for and what authority they have. Thats why it went to court. Argueing for the wartime power to detain war criminals who happen to be US citizens, which is what US born terrorists and non-uniformed fighters are, is decidedly NOT the same as detaining citizen dissenters at whim in Communist Gulags. Nor is GITMO anywhere close to it. Your arguements are just a flowery way to call Bush a Nazi. Also, GITMO is a Enemy Prisoner of War camp, not a US civilian jail. We held Germans and Italians for 5+ years in those camps, with less judicial review than the poor enemy POWs getting fat in GITMO. I was also at Abu Ghuraib during the worst of it, so I know the difference between what actually happened there and what the leftards asserted as fact and they bear no resemblance whatsoever. You are simply wrong and I view argueing with such the equivalent to argueing with a child who asserts that the moon is made of cheese; utterly useless and slightly amusing.
So, douchenozzel, take your Commie/Gulag = Bush/GITMO moral equivalence smear and stick it up your ass.
What an awful fucking blog…
Rob: Bolshevists intervened in other countries. Neocons advocate intervening in other countries. Hence Bolshevist = Neocon.
A little thing like inconsistency of ideals and principles be damned!
It is awful, pan. Awful the way people here challenge your premises and won’t let your sloppiness go unnoted.
What possessed you to compare the gulags with Gitmo anyway? Talk about comparing apples to hematite! If you wanted to discuss habaes corpus you got off on the wrong foot and haven’t gotten back on it yet.
Jesus, is pan still arguing?
Pan:
The problem with taking the President to task, in my humble view, is that we are governed by an adversarial system. So, one side proposes, the other disposes, authorizes, etc.
Its a beautiful system and it results in oversight, such as the SCOTUS rulings you like, it whittles away at [or inflates] things neither of us may like all that much, and it also has resulted in past rulings that might give some powers you or I may no longer want the gov’t as whole to have.
So there’s checks and balances, but also historical precedent, which gives the President enumerated, implied or whatever powers.
Surely we can agree on that?
If so, perhaps we can also agree on a simple principle: Once a gov’t. gains/grants itself a power, it virtually never lets it go. And thats true, whether it be authorization for spies and torture, or taxes and dept.’s of whatever.
For many here, we tend to look askance at those who would increase gov’t. reach, as opposed to those who exercise existent powers.
QUICK! CRANKY-D! Throw up a thread killer and launch a new Apropos of Nothing post.. This thread is too dry.. Have you ever been tooooo dry??
pan bailed. At some point, he said, “I just don’t understand.” I think that pretty much sums things up.
Pan,
I’m coming into this way late, so please forgive me for taking a few swacks at a dead horse. In regards your analogy, there appear to be two disparate issues. One is the substance of your analogy, which I will come back later, and the other is the disagreement on degree you’ve pointed out.
For the time being, I wanted to mention the disagreement of degree point that you’ve made. I would imagine it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that sufficiently large differences of degree are, functionally, differences of kind. I may make an analogy between a lighting a lighter and detonating a hydrogen bomb, being that they are both examples of using technology to initiate an exothermic reaction. However, it wouldn’t be a particularly good or – perhaps more importantly – useful analogy.
Much of the utility of an analogy lies in the fidelity of the example to the actual. If the correspondence matches on only one or two points while differing in a number of essential characteristics, then the analogy may not be particularly apt, and could even undermine the essential point that you’re driving at.
I have encountered similar arguments regards Gitmo, and have come to the conclusion that the people making the analogy in those particular cases deliberately chose an inflammatory parallel, when less inflammatory analogies which provided a much better fit between the two instances were deliberately dismissed.
If you wanted something that might be a bit closer, one could take Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, or the internment of Japanese civilians (American citizens, no less) in the US during WWII. I would submit that it might get a lot more engagement on the fundamental point you are driving at and might serve the ends of a productive dialog much more effectively.
Best regards,
BRD
– Yes, well, its a bitch when the opposition has a voice pan, can actually retort your arguments, or in your case, wash them down with a fire hose until they’re as clean and naked as a new kittens ass.
– Stick around Komrad. Believe it or not you could get use to this sort of “freedom of speech”. You know, where you’re not redacted or kicked out for talking back against the Narrative.
– It really is nice once you get the hang of it.
Pan said: “What an awful fucking blog…”
Come back when you grow up, Little One. For your sake, I hope that’s soon.
Man, what did I miss? That’ll teach me to spend the afternoon homeschooling the kids. I missed all the fun.
– Heh. Obama did a little side step and a few quick back shuffles on the oil mess today.
– One of his talking heads is on FOX “explaining” how his changes are not changes. Double heh.
“Would Obama talk to Pelosi and call for her to reconveine to get an energy bill passed?”
“Well I haven’t talked to the Senator about that, but its important we get something done.”
– McCains campaign is calling Obama the “Air guage” candidate.
– One of Obamas changes is he is know saying he would use part of the National reserve, based on the idea that we have a legitimate “emergency” that would allow its use.
– Can’t help wondering if the emergency is the 9 points he lost in the polls last week.
233, Mikey.
it is very simplistic, but just about right explanation, of course in reality there are much more common roots to both inhumane philosophies, then just intervening in other countries
It is also much fun to hear the criticism from the guys who simplified the liberal- fasict connection to sheer idiotism…
Read the book or STFU, sashal. Stop being a child, for a change.
That’ll teach me to spend the afternoon homeschooling the kids
So that’s what the youngsters are calling it these days? I still stick with a classic like “makin’ bacon”.
Carin,
Just flagellating a moribund equine. You didn’t miss much.
Bottom line, it takes a Stalinist / PC addled mind to doublethink gitmo into being a gulag…
It’s modern agitprop that only leftists true believers could buy into…
Read the book or STFU, sashal. Stop being a child, for a change.
I haven’t commented on this before because I hadn’t read the book myself.
I’m about three chapters into it at the moment and (not to my surprise) what Goldberg actually says and the caricature of Goldberg’s position by sashal and his ilk have very little in common.
sashal, as Rob says, you should read the damned book, rather than relying on the third-hand lies about it you’re getting from leftoid web sites. If you do you might be able to make intelligent critcisms, and people might take you more seriously.
To those of us who value the individual, fascism and communism have always had more similarities than differences, so it’s not surprising that Goldberg can find so many points of agreement between the two. Goldberg’s observation that fascists and communists are easily “flipped” to the “other side” is also nothing new to those of us who’ve read Eric Hoffer.
What a fuckstick that pan thing turned out to be. He shows up and basically says the analogy is silly but beats people up for not discussing the parts of the analogy that apply when what he really wants to to is discuss habeus corpus. Like they really have great habeus corpus statutes in Russia. How many U.S. citizens are being imprisoned with the left’s fallacious “forever” terminology? Kathy’s comparison should have been to North Korea, Cuba, China and other leftist paradises where they democratically elect their leaders and have freedom of the press.
– sashal has his little memorized script, and hes going to follow it. The actual contents of the book is superfluous. One of the sterling attractions of Marxism and Communism for the sashals of the world, and the American Left in particular, is you never need factual support for any contention. You just say the words, and if anyone objects shout racist, or in Bush’s case, Fascist. The rest is a piece of cake.
You’re all denounced.
Caprine. Duh. My apologies to our moribund caprine.
This blog is stupid and you are all poopyheads who refuse to acknowledge a flawed analogy as simply that. Instead, you want to make it all personal-like, and, you know, what not.
So, then. I said GOOD DAY, SIRS!
Hi Jeff. I miss the sitemeter thinger. Can you add it back maybe?
Is it fixed?
[quote]I’m inclined to think citizens who are accused of making war against the US ought to be tried under treason or other existing laws. If the prosecutors haven’t the evidence to gain conviction of treason, charge what can be proved and get conviction on that basis. If the charges fail, release but surveille the guy if a court will issue a warrant. If no court will issue a warrant, release and be prepared to suffer potential depredations.[/quote]
While I agree in most cases that actual trial for treason is the best result, it’s easy to come up with extreme examples where the formulation of a one size fits all rule leads to an absurd result.
Here’s a hypothetical example: In World War 2, the US army captures a uniformed German prisoner that has dual German – US citizenship, was living in Germany before the outbreak of war, was conscripted, and was a truck driver when captured. What to do with him? Trying him for treason seems absurd. The probable best bet for all concerned seems to be treating him as any other German POW for the duration of hostilities. Does your opinion of what to do with him change if he volunteered before the US entered the war? After the US entered the war? Does it change if he was an infantryman? An infantry officer? A Waffen-SS trooper? A Waffen-SS officer? A SS concentration camp guard? My opinion changes depending on the situation, but I can’t give a hard and fast rule as to what situations would change my opinion. Had our hypothetical prisoner not had dual citizenship, the rules of war say that all situations get treated exactly the same.
Likewise, our four US “citizens” on the wrong end of Guantanamo Bay are extreme cases. As such, there is no right answer, and I can understand if people look at the facts and come up with a different conclusion. What I cannot fathom are those, like Pan, that see one right and perfect answer to the problems posed by these sorts of cases, especially those that simply ignore historical precedent and the obvious negative repercussions of their own logic.
I can also expect that Pan will grant me the respect for my opinions if I make comparisons about how Progressives are like Fascists, but the Fascists are Progressives x100, and that any dissimilarities that can be pointed out don’t invalidate the necessary similarities between the two. Hey! We can make all sorts of fun comparisons with this!
Civilis, your German guy is an ordinary lawful German soldier POW. No problem with him as far as I can see.
Not seeing the meter thing… I think there might be new code you have to use after sitemeter did their change. I think they were supposed to email you or you have to go in under your login. Instapundit’s works as a link but he doesn’t have it showing any numbers… I think the new deal is you get to choose if it shows visitors or page views.
Civilis, I’m pretty sure your hypothetical really happened, and that they were considered lawful combatants.
In contrast, one of the saboteurs caught after landing on the beach was a US citizen. I’m pretty sure he was executed.
Hmm… I thought the US didn’t recognize dual citizenship?
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.
You can get born into dual citizenship. No signing.
“what an awful fucking blog”, says the de-pantsed clown. It’s cool, pan. Ya got trounced, at times unfairly in my estimation, but the whole thinking that there is an inkling of comparison between gitmo and a gulag was truly dumb. Hell, even sashal thought so. And then bringing the suspension of HC into it? And if you didn’t, then I apologize, but come on, the two or three dumbfucks that that actually pertains to are a blip on the very large radar. I, too, thought that they should have been accused of a crime and tried as they were unfortunately citizens. But, the CIC does have war time powers. Eventually, they were. As usual, it’s the definition of “war” that is at issue, here. A good man by the name of B Moe had a great line. Something about “follow the uterus” pertaining to libertarians. Methinks that may be the case, here, as I just can’t believe that you care that much for a couple traitorous dumbfucks who, in olden days, would be hanging from the highest yardarm as an example.
“Hi Jeff. I miss the sitemeter thinger. Can you add it back maybe?”
I miss Jeff.
Anyone else but me read that with a Ricky Ricardo accent?
“if people would just stopped trying attribute AS to left or right, please?”
Sure. Leave him out of it.
The Soviets, though, are easy to place. They’re all yours pal.
250,
hunter, my dear friend, obviously I care less about Marx theories then you(who talks about it every chance you have. Did the cold war left so much an impression?)
Though I would stipulate that I did survived the system based on this, and have no intention for another try, even if the neocons are in the good standing here with you and this blog…..
265
fuck off, idiot
Just watched the last interview with AS on the direct TV .
Cried my eyes off.
You all have no clue what this great writer went through in his life.
The greatest war, the betrayal of the closest friend, the gulags -concentration camp in his own country, when the guards are your own compatriots and assholes to boot, the exile ….
Rob and Sdferr, exactly my point. But if it happened today, Pan and co. would insist that he’s entitled to habeas corpus and so forth. He’s probably better off as a classic POW, and at any point in US history before the current events I don’t think anyone would deny that he is a POW. (That’s not to say that I wouldn’t want to hold the option of treason charges open for cases like the saboteurs, but that’s a different case). I was just putting forth the most obvious example of someone that Pan’s formula wouldn’t apply to. Like our hypothetical dual-citizen should be treated as any other German soldier, I think any US Citizen captured fighting for the Taliban should be treated as any other combatant captured for the Taliban and treated as an unlawful combatant, and I challenge Pan to tell me why he thinks any different.
Ah yes, the gulag. That’s where Russians who were trying to fly airplanes into buildings got sent to eat three squares a day and play soccer. Who would’ve thought that America, too, would have its own gulag.
Of course, there are other options. Do people on the left really want expanded use of charges of treason? I can think of a couple of prominent political advisers to a certain “hopeyness and changitude” candidate who I think fit the general description found in Article III Section 3 (“…levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort”). That “aid and comfort” can cover a multitude of sins.
PW’s gaggle of 2-second conclusion geniuses thing they’ve found fertile ground to reproduce their multi-tiered “you’re-a-douchenozzle” arguments. Harvest time must be here.
Hey, douchenozzle, they define Right and Left differently than we do, asinine ass.
No, the academics and liberals weren’t wrong so many years ago. The also weren’t ______ (enter preferred PW put-down here) wrong to dedicate a fair amount of their time and study to Marxism.
Ya fuckin’ dope, in the 1920’s the extent of authoritarian terror had not been committed by Stalin and his cronies. Edmund Wilson, et. al., had every right to think Marxism may hold promise for a better and fairer economic system than, if you too stupid to recall, the horror of the Western industrial revolution’s treatment of factory worker.
You flyng dick, you lower-IQ version of Spies, Pies and Man Cakes, try a little historicism. Fag, jackboot, buttslurper, I can do that all day long.
The Left has had it’s share a retards and nuts, so has the right, but a lot of yesteryear Lefties were smart as hell, and some wrote modern history’s most beautiful prose (Fowles, Calvino), and for some two-bit retard like you to backhand their abilities because you’re too stupid to understand the politics in day, well just fuck off. Child.
Whose retarded nut are you, thor?
“Comment by sashal on 8/4 @ 7:24 pm #
You all have no clue what this great writer went through in his life.”
Well, yeah, we do.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of “went through.”
“Ivan Denisovich” is one of the greatest books ever written.
“Hey, douchenozzle, they define Right and Left differently than we do, asinine ass.”
You’re correct.
Stalin called his leftist German ideological relatives, the Nazis, right wing.
Comment by thor on 8/4 @ 8:12 pm #
Wow, thor, you’re like really fucked up, aren’t you?
Don’t know history, don’t know ideology.
Do know scatological putdowns of imagined enemies, however.
THat Lenin was one smart motherfucker, all right. But the heap of bodies that can be laid at his doorstep would stack up to would extend fairly far out of the sensible atmospher.
So: smart has little to do with it
“So: smart has little to do with it”
Well, it does make the murder ever so much more efficient.
Except when you’re starving class enemies to death in Siberia.
On the plus side, you can work them to death in gold mines and such.
atmosphere, even. Still, I’m far behind our friend pan in spelling fuckups. Plus, I have the excuse that this blog pushes the IE6 lefthand margin clean off the page.
Rob Crawford: “In contrast, one of the saboteurs caught after landing on the beach was a US citizen. I’m pretty sure he was executed.”
IIRC, the US citizen was the one who ratted them out and was one of the two who were spared execution. I’ll dig out the incident from my histories, if anyone is seriously interested.
Civilis: “In World War 2, the US army captures a uniformed German prisoner that has dual German – US citizenship, was living in Germany before the outbreak of war, was conscripted, and was a truck driver when captured. What to do with him? Trying him for treason seems absurd. The probable best bet for all concerned seems to be treating him as any other German POW for the duration of hostilities. Does your opinion of what to do with him change if he volunteered before the US entered the war? After the US entered the war? Does it change if he was an infantryman? An infantry officer? A Waffen-SS trooper? A Waffen-SS officer? A SS concentration camp guard?”
Again, if I recall my history, were they an OKW / Wehrmacht soldier at the start of the war, they might be able to get out from under, regardless of infantryman or truck-driver. Those who volunteered *after* being taken prisoner would be liable for treason charges, as was the case of the one documented case I could find. There was no real effort to trace and locate the surviving volunteers in the George Washington Brigade following the war, as compared the effort the British put into tracking down the survivors of the Britishes FreiKorps / Legion of St George.
N.O’Brain: “Stalin called his leftist German ideological relatives, the Nazis, right wing.”
The schism in Socialism came in the years leading up to the First World War, when some subscribed to the international ethic, whilst others, most notably Mussolini (actually, a fairly influencial individual in world socialism at that point, editor of one of the major socialist papers) subscribed to a more nationalist world-view. So, yes, Hitler was, by European reckoning, to the right of Stalin, but if one actually looks at Hitler’s economic policy and rhetoric, he is not what we in the United States would call “right of center.” This trope arose, generally speaking, because “progressives” didn’t want his tab being added to the rest of the balance that world socialism accrued, what with Lenin / Stalin and other failed efforts.
thor, my dear thor, I love you, but in 1920th
the totalitarian nature of the communism had already demonstrated itself.
First they went after the class enemies. Stalin went after the enemies(imagined mostly) in his own party after Lenin had cleaned the field.
That the left leaning philosophers, thinkers and politicians from the West were supportive of the USSR is unfortunately a fact of history.
What I do think and actually am sure about,- many were duped by the beautiful rhetoric and Utopian fantasies, just like many RWingers here are duped by the neoconservative crap.
What I can bet that if the Western intellectuals knew what price is paid for those Marxist fantasies in human lives, they would never supported it or change their views on the nature of the Utopian crap like communism right away, and many actually did, history knows those guys….
Sorry I am so incoherent , Already had my medicine-red wine, in three doses…
I love thor, too, but probably for different reasons.
thor is what we call a living caricature. It’s a rare thing, and to be cherished.
Sashal: “What I can bet that if the Western intellectuals knew what price is paid for those Marxist fantasies in human lives, they would never supported it or change their views on the nature of the Utopian crap like communism right away, and many actually did, history knows those guys…”
What makes you think that they didn’t know, SashaL?
I know for a fact that some of them knew, such as Duranty, unless you’d care to argue that he managed not to see the engineered famine in the Ukraine.
Dread, 284
just the fact that information was not readily available like it is now, dread.
USSR was one big fucking Potemkin Village, and many westerners, even while visiting , saw only the beauty of the front gates, some parts of Moscow, the artificial communistic paradise created for the Western consumption….
sashal: “USSR was one big fucking Potemkin Village, and many westerners, even while visiting , saw only the beauty of the front gates, some parts of Moscow, the artificial communistic paradise created for the Western consumption….”
Doesn’t scan, at least in Duranty’s (and, by extension, anyone who was reading his fairy tales), due to the “story creep” involved, starting with:
“There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be.” (–New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1)
through to:
“Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin’s program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding.” (New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6)
straight into:
“There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.” (New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13)
It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines.
When called on it at the time by another reporter who was literally phoning his story into the NY office, per Duranty’s own memoir, there is this little gem:
“Nothing. What are a few million dead Russians in a situation like this? Quite unimportant. This is just an incident in the sweeping historical changes here. I think the entire matter is exaggerated.”
Spoken like a true believer, as opposed to someone who didn’t know better, sashal.
(H/T the Weekly Standard for the references and quotes)
Hell, we might just elect one President.
Yannow what’s great is to see Thor making a meaningful contribution to yet another thread here. Warms the heart it does.
What was also heartwarming was to see timb wanking around at commentsfromleftfield braking bad on PW. The little poodle was also at nomoremisterniceblog and each of the other lefty blogs linked from here. He can’t cut the umbilical cord.
Hi all. What crap, huh?
So, thor, this thread was effectively over at #180, you silly boozing cunt. And I actually thought you showed promise on that other thread. Amazingly, the one that wasn’t somehow about you and all the apparitions.
Also late to the party, I’d like to point a few things out:
One, pan pissed me off, too, but you guys actually did “put words in his mouth” a few times, so to speak. And reacted in a knee-jerk fashion. And didn’t engage with him in exactly the way he wanted.
That’s not to say that he wasn’t a big long skreeeeeetch of fingernails on the chalkboard. Because he was. He was assuming that the tenuous similarity of “lack of due process” between the two situations (Gulag and Guantánamo) was worth talking about, and that it was at least as worthy of discussion as the immense degree of difference between the two situations.
First off, Gulag clearly states that there WAS due process:
• Your neighbor, who hates your guts, denounces you.
• You are arrested in the dead of night, then forced to sign a confession.
• Then you are hauled off to the Gulag, and you’re never heard from again.
See, the difference of degree isn’t the only flaw in the analogy; pan (and the rest of y’all, I’m afraid), missed the difference of kind between the two situations. To wit,
• The Soviets sent people to the Gulag to salve the increasing paranoia of a narcissistic megalomaniac; terrorist go to Gitmo to stop them from blowing up more people.
• The Soviets created the Gulag as a way to warehouse dissidents and potential dissidents. That is, people who were not happy with Stalin and his Worker’s Paradise; we created Gitmo to warehouse terrorists, who want to kill as many infidels as possible.
• The act of disappearing people to the Gulag was meant to terrorize the rest of the population into submission; the act of sending terrorists to Gitmo is to prevent them from terrorizing the Middle East into submission.
• The lack of due process in sending people to the Gulag resulted from naked power-lust and from the fact that no reasonable law could possibly justify what they were doing; lack of due process in the WoT is a matter of expediency, to prevent genuinely dangerous people from getting off on a technicality. Any mistakes made will eventually be remedied. No such luck for the Gulag denizens.
Furthermore, the Lefty panic about Bush’s “expansion of power” is the result partly of BDS and partly from projection. They seem to think that conservatives and Republicans are chomping at the bit to corral up all the lefties and have done with them. Remember when Lisa asked “but what are you going to do with all these bad people?”
It’s because they’d sorely love to do that to us. Before we can do it to them, that is. Always watch what your enemies accuse you of being up to: it’s a good guide for what’s going on in their furry little heads.
Dzerzinski was there in the 20s, with the Cheka which became the MVD and ultimately the KGB under Yagoda and Beria. So the foundationn was already there, in the Leninist formulation of a bourgeois (actually more aristocratic vanguard) which he ripped off from Plato, but what can you do. It took an non Russian Stalin, just like the Corsican Napoleon, or the Austrian Hitler or more
pertinently the Hadramauti/Alawi Bin Laden, to bring the machinery up to full bore. That’s why Zdanov, Trotsky, and Bukharin’s protestations run somewhat hollow. They along with John Reed, had a hand in the machinery that crushed them; and millions of other.
A more eschatological view of Soviet tyranny is seen in Tim Power’s supernatural spy story Declare. A multi
generational tale of British operatives of the Great Game in Arabia that involves both Philbys, his sort of
brother, the other members of the Cambridge 5 in a search that leads from war torn Europe to the Middle East and back to the real evil behind Soviet communism; and why it fell apart beginning with Kim Philby’s death. Interesting it all begins in the Rub’al Khali “Empty Quarter” not far from where Wahhabism our current plague began
thor used to amuse me. Used to. Now, not so much. I wish Karl was still here with us.
Karl? Gone? I am sorry to hear that. Karl and I didn’t agree but I like his indepth analysis as I like thor’s real knowledge of Russia.
Which is deeper than any of you know…..the Russians remember the economic “shock” that the West (America) forced upon them with greater pain than anything Stalin did to them. Life spans went down massively especially for the many unemployed men while the US forced the Russians to buy American products with the insubstantial ‘aid’ we gave them. Tyson Chickens were sent in order to help while the Tyson company got paid by the US and Russians for sending frozen chickens instead of letting the Russians grow their own chickens. Of course the chickens never made it much further than the big cities ..but it was far worse out in the smaller cities and villes, ‘disaster capitalism’ said that most employment in state enterprises needed to be shuttered. giving the men mostly nothing to do but drink. Of course hunger was rampant, but instead of food there was vodka. Yeltsin’s vodka everywhere. Men started a death spiral with few reaching 50. At least during the Great War, men died with a purpose.
The Time of the Oligarchs (with Yeltsin and the West’s blessing): A few in usually in Moscow ‘privatized’ those shuttered vessels of employment and stripped ’em bare and sold ’em to interested parties at pennies on the dollar. And then bought Swiss chateaus, diamonds, etc. While in Moscow, the Oligarchs and mafia would pay men to fight each other to the death for amusement. Thousands of Russian beauties were sold into sex slavery. The proud Russian people gave the US an olive branch and we gave them a kick in the teeth.
Thanks, Thor for bring reality to the discussion, more than just ‘books’.
(And how reprehensible of the so-called ‘capitalists’ who revere and support the Chinese Communist productive Factory with their dollars and capital flowing there, while ignoring the Russian’s who did what we wanted them to do, and suffered greatly for that.)
At least Jeffry Sacks knows that his advice to the Russian govt. was a disaster and he’s been showing compassion for his sins ever since. But the Bush’s (and Clinton) never showed any compassion, ever.
As for a killing machine, the West (in the form of Hitler/Hiroshima/Operation Condor/Suharto/CIA) eclipsed the Stalin in numbers and efficiency. Note, the House of Evil has no smoke stacks for frying flesh nor cattle cars, the KGB did their executions mano y mano…but the West perfected schemes of elimination of a city of woman and children in a flash, or well oiled killing machines ala SS which could liquidate thousands of commies, liberals and Jews in a day. The effectiveness of evil continued in Argentina and Brazil with Republican Kissenger’s blessing, or the 600,000 Chinese in Indonesia within context of the Vietnam war era. There may be more dead from combined Mao and Stalin…but the figures are exaggerated by the American Right to support their own dirty history.
And how does Dan find these obscure blogs? I’ll admit I do use PW to find other blogs. so what?
don’t forget “Sidney Reilly” Perhaps, Russia would still have a czar if he succeeded in his mission?
Karl is with us, but in spirit only.
He got paid in coupons, like a Russian.
Banned-in-Colorado, thanks for the kind words. I’m surprised to see you posted what you posted, frankly. Thanks.
For Americans to understand what’s wrong is rare. They get taught what’s right! America is right! That settles that!
You can’t really talk to many of Americans openly and honestly, well, unless you want to be called names.
Yes, the games of death. I have the best story about that. I would never have believed if it, by sheer chance, didn’t appear before my eyes in my apartment in Moscow.
Powerful people force the meek to kill each other for the sake of betting games. It’s mad.
Tyson makes a breaded chicken finger that is ready in 15 minutes and adds protein and taste to any garden salad. Try the ranch. Scrumptious.
Thor, when douchebag dave is your only fan, you got problems.
So both of you, fuck off.
Dread,
I wasn’t aware of any actual cases, but I’ll do more research. Thanks! I’m curious to what people’s opinions of what should be done should something similar happen in the present day, shaped by changes in opinion, and what different people’s criteria for judgment are. I’m especially interested in Pan’s opinion, as he seems to have some bizarre certainty that he’s been enlightened by the one true truth.
Top of the morning to ya, Rob.
Here’s a sprinkle of Fuck Off to add to your coffee.
Oh my freaking lord, I have to work today, but will someone please address this pile of shit from Dataless:
Honestly, I’ve never seen the backward compliment that Stalin was an inefficient killer.
…a lot of yesteryear Lefties were smart as hell, and some wrote modern history’s most beautiful prose…
Pretty much says it all that needs said about thor, I think.
Rob, Karl tried to use that same argument. I called thor on saving something a little off color…semi racist bulltwattle that he was just joking about and Karl took it as a defense of him and a split in the mighty ‘leftist’ front at PW. Using my poorly wrote fumigations to attack a mild mannered and entertaining thor who’s being humorous. If I recall Karl wanted thor banned and when it didn’t happen, Karl threatened to leave. Perhaps he did in a “huff”? My agreements with thor are based on reading more than Goldstein/Goldberg (as entertaining and well written as they are). Obviously, thor and I don’t drink all the Left wing cool aid but take in a lot of different ideas. So we refuse to buy all the conservative ideology? Is that so bad? I am part of a small minority in a small pool of thinkers and comics at PW. A very small minority. And really I don’t want to embarrass thor further.
My compliments to Jeff and Dan for allowing diverse opinions to be expressed here. Karl? Get over your self. Whether I am banned or not? Oh, well. I am not going to kiss ass either.
I get in trouble occasionally defending Bush et al from the most extreme criticisms with my ‘liberal’ friends. Bush isn’t the Devil, that’s for sure. Devil’s don’t exist. Humanity? They tell me it’s ’cause I read conservative blogs. I think not, but then……devil’s advocacy is a good practice for keeping the head clear. Try it sometime, Rob and JD. At least Dan said something nice about Obama awhile’s back. I’ve always thought Bush has a good sense of humor. That’s enough asskissing for now.
I was just thinking about Nixon and why the US tool industry went to Taiwan in one fell swoope….thus opening up Chinese hegemony in certain industries. Ha, ‘certain industries’! (I LOL myself.)
just ‘saying’.
carin, going to work at the Newspeak propaganda machine?
A veritable avalance of idiocy there, dd.
What do you call it when all of the world’s conspiracy theories are gathered into one giant Gordian knot of deceit, murder, and power-lust?
Maybe if Spielberg made a movie about the horrors that existed inside the Soviet Union these sorts of comparisons would cease to be made, at least for a little while. Which leads me to a question, why haven’t we had a movie about the Gulags or the Ukrainian famine or the non-personing of Trotsky or the Show Trials? It’s not as if these topics wouldn’t make good film.
#292
Dan could ban Thor, but would Karl return? Maybe, but maybe not.
There’s alternatives to the ban stick, though.
Confusing opinions of people and literature with political preferences is the ultimate dumb.
As in, BMoe, sniff Ronald Reagan’s sock, good boy, fetch! Look at this tail wag! Good boy!
Is that all there is to your scope? Find out what political persuasion someone is and if they’re that other party then all they can be is the butt of jokes. They can’t write book worth reading, hell no, they couldn’t possibly do anything!
Mixing opinions and classifying everything by political affiliations is so freaking retarded. It’s a Pavlovian disease.
Yeah, BMoe, lot’s of authors of liberal political persuasion are known as some of the finest men of letters. “Shocka!” As Karl would say.
BiC: “As for a killing machine, the West (in the form of Hitler/Hiroshima/Operation Condor/Suharto/CIA) eclipsed the Stalin in numbers and efficiency.”
A couple of flaws here, right off the bat. First of all, you label a mismatched collection of items “The West,” seemingly fairly arbitrarily. They span decades and geography, include periods of war and peace and, generally speaking, have little enough to do with one another.
One the other hand, we have the Soviet Union under Stalin — a single entity under the control of a single individual. We have the engineered famine in the Ukraine, the Gulags, the Purges, the massacre in the Katyn forest, the NKVD, the KGB et al and ad nauseum. Your not really comparing apples to apples, BiC.
To use your argument style, I could lump in Mao, Pol Pot, the construction of the Great Wall and Mongol Horde, declare the East to produce the most profligiate murderers and be just as accurate.
BiC: ” Note, the House of Evil has no smoke stacks for frying flesh nor cattle cars, the KGB did their executions mano y mano…”
Not really — sometimes the powers that be simply organized an artificial scarcity. And to make machinegunning unarmed opponents sound like a life and death struggle is too cute by half — it is not that hard to go “mano y mano” when your opponent is disarmed and half-starved.
BiC: “There may be more dead from combined Mao and Stalin…but the figures are exaggerated by the American Right to support their own dirty history.”
And undercounted by the American Left to support their own infatuation with Socialism and totalitarian power.
I’m really trying to get the idea that Suharto was of the West, but it just isn’t working.
Wow. datadave comes here to defend Stalin. Just like old school Communists in the 20s-30s who were organized into revolutionary cells and took orders from the KGB. thor too, comes to claim that, because “intellectuals” supported Communism, we can’t criticise them. Or that we’re dumb. Or something. I also like thor blaming the west for what happened to Russians etc after the USSRs collapse. As if totalitarian Communism was just OK for the Russians. I suppose he thinks the USA is to blame for suffering Germans in the aftermath of WW2.
This falls under things so stupid only an intellectual would believe. Like datadave trotting out old KGB moral equivalence propaganda to smear the USA and the free western nations. But, I bet he isn’t so eager to move to one of the workers paradises. No, he is content to gorge at the cornucopia of capitalist domocracies while insulting the chef and reviling the host. Just like a typical useful idiot.
“To use your argument style”
Psychosis?
thor do you really think that because allegedly smart people beleived the twaddle that is Communism, that it was OK? There plenty of smart people that opposed Communism. They don’t count?
But, for real, we already knew this. Which makes it incomprehensible that so many current intellectuals support variations of Marxism to this day, given what we know it produces. Because, back then, there were also plenty of prominant folks and intellectuals that supported the Nazis. But, one doesn’t see much defense of their political choices. Because when one is considered “smart” one expects that they won’t support stupid ideas, like Communism, in the face of what it produces. For allegedly smart people, that’s pretty stupid really.
Which is why we bash those who come here to equivocate between such horrors and the USA; its patently dumb. Really. Datadave should be ashamed of himself trying to equate the USSR and the USA. Truly stupid. Like, intellectual-grade stupid.
Sorry Dataless. I work, once a week, at one of those evil small businesses that keep our country going. You know the ones who the Democrat Jenny Granholm is taxing out of existence here in Michigan.
“instead of letting the Russians grow their own chickens.”
Beware the dreaded Russian chicken growing police! Almost as feared as the Obama tire pressure police.
No one expects the Russian chicken growing police!
Is someone trying to make the case that the U.S. came to manage their formerly managed economy? Sounds like complete and utter twaddle to me.
Daleyrocks — the true irony of the chickens complaint is that, had the US not sent food, we’d be attacked for letting Russians starve. It’s one of those wonderful Catch-22’s leftards like to set up.
As with your comrades, much of the issue with your theories — aside from the self-evident, smoldering ruins of dataless’s masterful take on equivalency — may lie in that lovely inability to establish motive, desire, aim, intent and stuff like that. As in condemning the US on organizational principle and collective personal morality for the intentional wreckage wrought by frozen chickens from Arkansas or wherever. You know, because mom and apple pie maim and destroy, damn them, and they do so my malice aforethought.
Not making the distinction between intensive cause and loose effect effect kinda dilutes all that bubbling sanctimony, that bubbling sanctimony seen only through that particular hue of rose-colored glasses. Likewise the US war engine. Surely mounting a just national defense constitutes an arbitrary drop on, say, Nagasaki, thereby personally impugning all the apple pie-bakers in Nebraska and war-time riveters in California. Because of the grocery stores. That also vend frozen chicken.
And, yes, so is influenced the blinding light uniquely seen by each and every apostle of and for leftist literature. See, thor, if there was some there there, some principle that actually led by consistent example or elegance of theory or even works on the ground, well, then that premise might just go places.
Meanwhile, while the Russian people suffered and suffer (and while the American people suffered and suffer in their own way under an entirely different brand of somewhat runaway government, one anyone could point out is so radically different than the Soviet machine that comparisons really are laughable) the point isn’t really limited to the motives of ‘Merika arrayed against all the world’s peasants, now is it? Because, like, it can’t be and hold water.
Does the average American breathe fire against non-Americans? Do leftist authors expose a bright new alternative path by way of their integrity, the purposefulness of their theories, and the sheer, unmistakable beauty of their logic and reasoning? Name one. Present their case.
You know, say, Obama’s tome on how we’ve had it wrong all these decades and how, say, a collective would set it all right just because collectives have that inevitable tendency and traceable history? Might be a tough turnip row to hoe, comrade. One no more successful than comparing two utterly different tracks of a people’s history and aim so as to drag the greater political ideal down to and beneath the lesser.
Perhaps none have been set upon more than the Russian people. By their governments. How’s that relate to frozen chickens?
As Goldberg is quoted as saying this morning over at Instapundit, “capitalism is the greatest system ever created for alleviating general human misery, and yet it breeds ingratitude.” With some, that puts it mildly.
Sorry for the bad editing. I’m not sure one can actually be bothered with this shit.
Italo Calvino.
You said to name one, he’s my favorite, but there are many others.
How’s that relate to frozen chickens? It’s more complex than the tail-wagging and name calling narratives that you’re used to. Tell you what, why don’t you bring yourself up to speed with the goings on over there and then we’ll talk. My lecturing you as to the truth, as you can see, ain’t working.
Celine supported the Nazis. That has nothing to do with his genius.
By the way, I think you need to be lifting heavy objects for a living, not drawing conclusions from texts. Ask datadave for a job.
So you can’t be bothered either, thor. To so much as cite the great successes of the collective and where in literature lie the various illuminations of its greatest lights. Imagine the fuck that.
But I see you managed to slip in a bit of that characteristic, evangelistic finger-pointing, you know, because of all the evil wreaked upon the planet by a philosophy of freedom and all the willful blindness extant today about same. Tell you what, why don’t you bring yourself up to speed with the goings on there — in freedom — and then we’ll talk.
About a democide ratio of about a hundred thousand to one. Because, seriously, and as acutely as this is going to prick you, ultimately only a principle and a people stand between that people and their own freedom.
Yeah, we’ll fucking talk. Or not as the case will likely be.
Confusing opinions of people and literature with political preferences is the ultimate dumb.
…
Is that all there is to your scope? Find out what political persuasion someone is and if they’re that other party then all they can be is the butt of jokes. They can’t write book worth reading, hell no, they couldn’t possibly do anything!</i
But that isn’t what I am implying, I am saying just because someone writes magnificent prose doesn’t mean shit in the real world. I grew up a poor little hillbilly kid, thor, we learned early not to trust smooth talking slicks from the Big City. A silver tongue is the foremost requirement of the great charlatans and hucksters of the world. I will listen to them, read their books, let them entertain me, but don’t put much creedence in them simply because of their style.
Conversely, just because someone isn’t particularly well spoken or capable of beautiful prose doesn’t mean they are incorrect about the world. Atlas Shrugged was one of the most wretchedly written books I have ever plowed through, but its message was clear and concise.
Do you not know which authors were noted for their liberal politics?
Do you need me to make you a fuckin’ list?
Who won the Nobel for Lit last year? Doris Lessing? Start with her and work your way back, nozzletwat.
So no, don’t bother me your gory, wet dreams of bleating devil-Commies or your American-propaganda-fed Slavic strawponies. I’m preparing for my fantasy football draft, OK. Which means I’m way too busy to talk down to you little yuppie warriors.
324 for 322
People of talent come from all political stripes. You feel the need to dehumanize people, call all they do shit because of their politics? Count me out. Start a business exorcising Communist devils or some shit.
Ridiculousness on steroids.
The amazing thing is the number of people who believe just the opposite. Thus, Bush’s poor public speaking ability is used as “proof” that he’s stupid, while Obama’s skill at reading a teleprompter is used as “proof” that he’s brilliant.
Does anyone know exactly who thor’s arguing against? Or what he’s arguing against? Because I don’t think he’s been involved in the same discussion the other commentors have been.
If I get the gist, the person who’s having problems separating the personal from the political is thor. Not that anyone should be surprised.
What. The. Fuck?
He’s a very moving speaker without a teleprompter. That’s why some describe him as brilliant, Genius.
By the way, I think you need to be lifting heavy objects for a living, not drawing conclusions from texts. Ask datadave for a job.
And I think you need to quit blaming the US for the inability of Russians to function in a capitalist society and pretending that “smart” equals perfect or excuses supporting genocidal dictators. If anything, being “smart” condemns them further for being willfully and morally blind to the results of their politics.
[…] presume. I have an inkling of the evil of Americanism on good authority but being something of a ingrained, instinctive rube, it may be because I’ve yet to […]
People of talent come from all political stripes. You feel the need to dehumanize people, call all they do shit because of their politics?
Okay, I am going to try this one more time. I am not calling what they do shit because of their politics, in fact it is just the opposite. I do not use their artistic ability to justify their politcs, that has to stand on its own and be supported by facts. I am fans of both Ted Nugent and Neil Young, but I neither have any influence on my political or economic beliefs. Same with writers of prose, the fact that many proggressive/liberals/Marxists/whateverists are brilliant writers does not impress in the least as far as their political views. I still read and enjoy the writing, just don’t agree with the message.
He’s a very moving speaker without a teleprompter. That’s why some describe him as brilliant, Genius.
Yea People in all 57 states think he’s brilliant I bet. Why, he will cause the oceans to recede and he just solved the oil crisis with tire guages! Brilliant!
And you might have the privilege to one day salute him as your Commander and Chief.
As a matter of fact, there’s a gentle invitation up on the front page right now, thor. For a guy with thousands and thousands of words to say about, well, whatever it is that inhabits your brainpan, it seems you could string together a single paragraph on the inherent elegance of leftism.
I know I’m genuinely interested. Guys in powdered wigs are idiots and all that.
Great literature has always made great economies in my experience, mkay, rly, just sayin for the lobotomized commie lovin’ lefties here. Gotcher back.
Aimé Césaire is remembered for his words, Dolly Parton for her tits. Put two and two together.
Do your own reading. Was John Ruskin a Right-winger or Left? Figure these things out on your own and you’ll grow a little, maybe.
Aimé Césaire is remembered for his words, Dolly Parton for her tits. Put two and two together.
If I put two and two together from that statement I must conclude you are an essentially shallow elitist poseur. Which makes your support of Obama sadly predictable in hind sight.
No, I won’t. I’m retiring this January. 5 days before the inauguration. So, I won’t be serving under President McCain.
Do your own reading. Was John Ruskin a Right-winger or Left? Figure these things out on your own and you’ll grow a little, maybe.
LOL! God I love it when morons get all pretentious.
#335, thor baby. Right back at you, so get with the theory, man. The floor is so like totally yours.
I like hillbillies that cling to their guns and Bibles while calling every one who is educated slick-tongued.
Read more, pontificate less.
Talk about not understanding. I gotta figure that was on purpose.
I would like a list of authors whose names I can drop and impress all my liberal academic friends when we are socializing. Give me some cred while I am trying to track down the actual books to read.
Ever heard of Rousseau’s Social Contract? Seems like a free American, like yourself, might display some self-responsibility for his education and wouldn’t beg me to personally educate him as if I was a nanny state.
Find a library. And.Just.Do.It.
Talk about not understanding. I gotta figure that was on purpose.
I thought so at first, now I pretty much view thor as another nishi, only with literature instead of mathmatics. He is very well read, has no idea what any of it really means, and is hopelessly antisocial.
“…John McCain is a complete and well-formed man. Barack Obama is completing himself. As he moves to fit what he perceives to be a right-of-center country, he distances himself from the simple and authentic passion of a young candidate who once pledged “Change We Can Believe In.”…”
Alex Castellanos at HuffPo, “The Molten Core of Barack: Why Obama can’t Win”
Barack “I’m not here from central casting†Obama will be the cause of his own destruction. More Obama!
Why all the dodges and name-calling, thor?
I’ve read. You know I’ve read. As have a lot of folks here. So just make your argument, state it clearly without trying to hide behind clever and weasely constructions, and people will be happy to respond.
In the meantime, you might want to lay off attacking everyone with ad homs. You may very well be the brightest bulb in this whole dang chandelier, but until you branch off and show your stuff as a single spotlight, we just won’t know.
This is your big break, boy. LIGHT UP THAT STAGE WITH YOUR BRILLIANCE!
Pontificating; is that when you go on and on and on just to hear yourself speak, thor? Or is it when you go on and on and on without connecting to anything that backs up what is actually your inability to make a point?
Or is it when you go on and on and on without connecting to anything that backs up what is actually your inability to make a point — the inherent fallacy there also being as self-evident as the lack of success of whatever it is you’re promoting that has never really promoted itself for want of basis — because there isn’t one?
Yeah, that’s all kinda convoluted but so it necessarily goes with debunking bullshit.
If you want a simpler version try this: What leftist tenents best serve humanity and how?
Dammit, I had a great comment contrasting thor’s image of Dolly Parton with the reality. She’s done a hell of a lot more for humanity in general than Aimé Césaire, and has shown more raw intelligence.
Shut up JHoward. Have you ever read Calvino in the original Italian? Why, it’s like having an angel perched on your shoulder singing God’s words into your ears — while simultaneously having three of the dancers from “In Living Color” lapping on your knob.
HOW DARE YOU DISMISS ITALO!
I just popped in to point out that “Don’t be such a dork” is one of the best put-downs I ever encountered here. It made me laugh out loud. All respect to the ever-growing science of attaching “douche” to other words, but that was simply beautiful.
Funny thing is, Jeff, that I’d consider it a luxury to read Italo in the original tongue. But where does the rubber of these lofty ideals meet the road? To be taken seriously, thor needs to expound on the philosophies as they function in the real world. Waiting.
I’ve already heard how all we need are The Right People. I’m also terribly aware of the problem of power. Guess which ideal trumps the other, thor. By history.
Civilis: “I wasn’t aware of any actual cases, but I’ll do more research. Thanks! I’m curious to what people’s opinions of what should be done should something similar happen in the present day, shaped by changes in opinion, and what different people’s criteria for judgment are. I’m especially interested in Pan’s opinion, as he seems to have some bizarre certainty that he’s been enlightened by the one true truth.”
From the Axis History Factbook:
“Second Lieutenant Martin James Monti (born 1910 in St Louis of an Italian-Swiss father and German mother) went AWOL Oct 1944, travelled from Karachi to Naples (through Cairo and Tripoli) where he stole a F-4 or F-5 photographic reconnaissance aircraft (photo recon version of the P-38) and flew to Milan. There he surrendered, or rather defected, to the Germans and worked as a propaganda broadcaster (as Martin Wiethaupt) before entering the Waffen-SS as a SS-Untersturmführer in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers. At the end of the war he went south to Italy where he surrendered to US forces (still wearing his SS uniform) claiming that he had been given the uniform by partisans. He was charged with desertion and sentenced to 15 years hard labour. This sentence was soon commuted and Monti rejoined the US Air Corps, but in 1948 he was discharged and picked up by the FBI. He was now charged with treason and sentenced to 25 years the following year. He was paroled in 1960.
Peter Delaney (aka Pierre de la Ney du Vair), a Louisiana born SS-Haupsturmführer in SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers who is believed to have served in Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF). He met Monti and probably arranged for him to enter the Waffen-SS. Delaney was killed in 1945.
At least eight American volunteers are known to have been killed during their service.
No real attempt by the US authorities to investigate the matter and trace the volunteers was made after the war, as opposed to for example the efforts by the British.”
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=310
It’s a starting place, if nothing else.
I can dig out the tale of the saboteurs — which turned on a letter from one of the saboteurs addressed to “F. B. Iers” spilling the beans of the German’s intentions…
Is the pack so badly beaten back that their egos are begging for an orgasm? I’ve no jack rabbit vibrator care packages ready to ship. Clever and weasely, I’ll settle for that, claim that as a compliment.
Microcephalic – there’s a word-of-the-day something for ya.
I really don’t have time to write “thor’s political treatise”. I’m mainstream politically. I am of the faith that none of the shills of the superiority-of-all-things Americana mantra had anything to do with this country’s formation, neither in brilliance or flaw. Want to read something politically on the level of inventive genius? I didn’t write it, nor will. Not my bag.
Persons who believe differently than my politics aren’t sinister in doing so, nor should they bare the mark of transgressions of the past-historic. Eagleton, Hobsbawm and the many other far-left literary theorists and historians are lost in their personal illusions. I’m not a fan. They are capable men of letters, though. They took a good swing at it and missed. We’re all the richer that they gave it a go.
You tell me, Jeff, should we put an asterisk after Calvino’s name the way the liberal academy does with Celine?
That’s a question for ya, because I don’t know the final answer myself. I’d lean toward “no.”
Really? Aime gave us a word. Dolly gave us glimpse of the tops of boozooms.
You might win that one on points.
I really don’t have time to write “thor’s political treatiseâ€Â.
You seem to have plenty of time to write meaningless, name-dropping bullshit.
If there’s going to be a pissing contest, I’d rather see it on YouTube.
That surely must be it. Whatever.
You mean the superiority-of-all-things Americana mantra in the fourth paragraph of #318, liar? How about all the anarchistic libertarianism about these parts?
And you can’t fucking identify it. Or you would. Something the philosophy of which both rings true and has feet on the ground proving it’s point. You’re an empty suit.
How are you on your own anti-American screeds, then, thor?
Yeah, and like that, thousands of words of it. Want to know why you’re so easy to disassemble, thor? You being an bleeding-heart intellectual and this entire forum being bumbling Appalachians and all?
Same reason your politics don’t work. You’re fundamentally dishonest about it all.
You’re the one begging me for answers, ya microcephalic shill, not the other way around.
I believe the U.S. Constitution is brilliant. Barack Obama likes it as well. Don’t pretend you authored it nor cheapen it with insulting salesmanship. Be humble enough to realize you were born under it’s protections, others weren’t, but that’s not their fault nor, for you, some birthright to genius.
Today’s America is a socialist country, by the way.
Oooh, he’s like a cypher. Muy mysterioso.
Today’s America is a socialist country, by the way.
Perhaps, but then again we still fight over whether to roll out more social programs or to roll back the ones that we have already and the outcome of that fight is not predetermined. Also, where does one draw the line between socialism and the existence of a safety net?
You may very well be the brightest bulb in this whole dang chandelier
That’s the second time this week that I’ve heard someone call thor bright, but I never got any idea of that from his writing.
Thus proving that IQ means diddly-squat if ya aint’ got common sense or a good moral compass, laddie!
EG: “Perhaps, but then again we still fight over whether to roll out more social programs or to roll back the ones that we have already and the outcome of that fight is not predetermined. Also, where does one draw the line between socialism and the existence of a safety net?”
When the programs become institutions — when you have multi-generational usage of the same program and you begin to suspect that the safety net is drifting into “hammock” territory, it is time to draw the line.
Mayhap I’m biased, but I recall the great “Welfare Mother’s strike” in Philly during the Carter years, when a group of welfare mothers wanted more money from the public purse because “you can’t do a good Christmas” whilst on welfare.
[…] follow up to my follow up to a reaction against TSI’s eulogy for Solshenitsyn, only written by Ralph Peters: The show […]
You flatter yourself (albeit not surprisingly). Actually, I’m the one helping you expose your emptiness, thor. Not the other way around.
Seriously, thor; get that condition looked at. Because it’s got you projecting full-on sense-around holography without so much as a wall outlet.
No shit. From which Obama The Strict Constitutionalist will save us all, amen.
3D Technicolor, thor, with Smell-O-Vision and ten-channel sound even THX can’t imagine. You should take that show on the road.
Dread
I completely agree. The net is supposed to be a hand up not a handout. When you compare us to other countries such as Canada or UK or Japan, then you will see that we are seemingly the only ones where the battle is not already won by the socialism expanders.
The only thing really clear about thor is that he has fully absorbed the self-absorbed nihilism common to all the Russians I’ve ever had anything to do with (which isn’t all of them by six or eight orders of magnitude, but a large enough sample that zero deviation means something).
Predisposition? Going native? Some combination? Who knows? Who cares? Godspeed, gospodin. Don’t let the door bruise your ass on the way out. Americans prefer to imagine that there’s something rather than nothing, and continue to do so even when disappointed.
Regards,
Ric
Where does Texas fit in that schema, Ric? thor?
Do it. Go to the library and seek out Socialism’s and Communism’s dead sea scrolls. It’s there. Books extolling all sorts of political theories. Discovery awaits!
Russians’ first step to understanding capitalism should come from buying tickets to whatever you’re selling. Lecture them, but do it for money, only if they pay! Off to Moscow with your empty suit wrapped in the Stars and Stripes! They need you, not I.
Pssst, I’m an American, well versed in what makes our system work while others fail. Get over it. You got the wrong whipping boy. My name isn’t Obama, nor Stalin, nor Putin.
So you don’t promote Obama then, thor?
Oh, and speaking of ignoring the past, thor, #354.
As busted as that sentence might be, it contains an incontrovertible bit of truth. No one alive today had anything to do with founding America. That includes you, thor. Everyone who did is dead, that having happened 200+ years ago. Now, do you have something to tell us that isn’t utterly fucking obvious to anyone with a couple of functioning synapses?
Wondeful. You’re the expert. ‘Splain it to us and then we’ll all be as enlightened as you. Won’t that be just ducky?
I believe the U.S. Constitution is brilliant. Barack Obama likes it as well. Don’t pretend you authored it nor cheapen it with insulting salesmanship. Be humble enough to realize you were born under it’s protections, others weren’t, but that’s not their fault nor, for you, some birthright to genius.
Today’s America is a socialist country, by the way.
You are a babbling moron, thor. Completely contradicting yourself in only three sentences. If you weren’t so hopelessly illiterate you could recite more than just the names of authors.
Idiot.
For 373 & 354
Amazon, it’s a website. By searching Calvino on Amazon you can order some of his books. Read him. Mock him unmercifully. Show him up, you being the smarter man. Sell more books than he. Prove Italo Calvino is the no-talent silly boy.
Calvino doesn’t need my interpretation. And I don’t share his politics. Channel Calvino, channel Reed, channel Rousseau, channel Fowles, and all the rest. Prove them to be men of intellectual folly and yourself the more precious man of letters and political philosophy. Break their scrotums. Foul their beds. They’re nothing but pimps of confusion, pop ecclesiasts, Tarzan-types!
There’s no contradiction there, ya fool.
Oh, so they’re types you identify with? Yes, we get that.
Well, that’s certainly cute, thor.
I’ll take it as an admission of what I already suspected, that you a fundamentally dishonest, projecting cheap suit, so tied up in your rage that there’s virtually nothing you’ll not say to, in effect, make no meaningful point whatsoever.
IOW, even you don’t know what you believe. Or why. Or if. Because you cannot itemize so much as a dime’s worth of it.
(Me, I’d even said in the very comment you list, idiot, that I’d love to read your boys in their native tongue, but like anything but what you invent from thin air, it rolled off your back like water off slime. Liar.)
That, despite whatever view you may have on my character, is the fundamental difference between us. Have a nice day, lunatic.
OMG!!!! A word!!!
So what? Robert Heinlein gave us dozens — off the top of my head, there’s “grok”, “waldo”, and “free-fall”. By your criteria, that makes Heinlein many times more important than Aime, and the only French I can recall from Heinlein’s works is soixante-noif.
Look into Parton’s “Imagination Library”. It distributes 2.5 million books a year, free to children across the US, Canada, and Great Britain. Look at the jobs and opportunities Dollywood and her other investments have brought to a formerly depressed, backwater area. All that after growing up in a one-room log cabin.
Aime has written some books, some poetry. He held a couple of political offices. What did he really accomplish to improve peoples’ lives?
In the end, would you rather live in Pigeon Forge, or Martinique?
The US Constitution is a government document; it sets up a federal republic and delegates powers to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
It really has nothing much to say about economics whether it is mercantilism, capitalism, or socialism.
And not so surprising, capitalism really has nothing to say about politics as such. It is merely an economic system, it does not try (like the US Constitution) to have all answers on all subjects.
BTW – Miss Parton came from real poverty. She is a successful singer and songwriter, and a pretty good businesswoman. She is a good example of talent and ability rising, rather than being confined by the circumstances of birth.
It really has nothing much to say about economics whether it is mercantilism, capitalism, or socialism.
If you accept that this is written in English,
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
and means what it says, in English, then the seizure and redistribution of private property for the common good by the Federal Government would be right out, I would think.
Maybe if you read Cesaire you’d know he didn’t come from mere humble beginnings, he was shot from the bleeding bowels of a furtive rump.
The absurdity of comparing a man of literary achievement with a DDD Dixie Chick, a titty-bounce yodel act.
Jeff reads a lot, a lot! Maybe he can illuminate further on this schism of preference. Cesaire or Dolly! Which artist might truly left an indelible mark on mankind.
All I know is Cesaire helped the transubstantiation of self of an illiterate people who were spit out by humanity and left to live like parasites on a rocky socket. Dolly Parton, well I’m sure some of her art will be eventually put to worthwhile use once shredded and used to fill seat cushions. But that just my opinion.
Cesaire, Comrad! Thhe poetic voice of the strangled! The ugly monster Paris could not kill! Struggle onward, “slick-tongued” one, from your Negritude!
So he wrote some books. So what? Parton’s written songs, run businesses, run charities. She’s actually improved the lives of people, not just written about them.
Which means, what, exactly?
He helped them get in touch with their inner negritudinalism.
FOR THE FUNKOCRACY!
There’s a much larger segment of a bell curve (of ordinary people) that Dolly and Dollywood helps, both economically and in the sense of providing much-needed touristy entertainment. The Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg region would not be so well off without the Parton family’s contributions (yes, there’s quite a few Partons).
Dolly’s making lots of cash, and lifting quite a few smaller craft in the process.
Why all the dodges and name-calling, thor?
good question, can you tell me why you do it, Jeff?
bann me!!
besides u lied, i only spewed outrage outta site about you due to your unfairness and after you banned me….not before as you said. I gave you 20, not ten, btw.
Intentionalism…..why don’t you write one up in wiki? And Tony C. needs a piece too. There is a serious dearth there. I know it is a LitCrit sort of thing…but still looking for a definition more than “in·ten·tion·al·ism (n-tnsh-n-lzm)
n.
The belief or assumption that the meanings of a text are determined mainly by the stated or implied intentions of the author.”
or more likely this: “intentionalism
[From Latin intentionem: mental effort, attention, purpose.]
1.
(metaphysics) The principle, common to many varieties of epistemological realism, that consciousness is always consciousness of a physical entity or some aspect of reality (and thus that “pure consciousness” does not exist).”
but you seem to take it further(?)
Hmm, the above concept seems to lead to atheism, but whether as a conservative, isn’t anti-atheism part of the mix of thought here? I don’t know…
more fluffy rabbits up the a-hole, eh? or do Armadillos wag their tails with affection?
sgt. Ted. Don’t Lie. Never said I ‘defended’ Stalin. Where did I?
I resent the fact that conservatives go into the military and live off productive citizens like myself and then defend conservative business principals while living off the govt. tit. The great contradiction of US conservatism is that they are proMilitary and antitaxes. Most ‘volunteers’ go into save themselves from the drudgery and insecurity of the Free Market. Oh, who pays your way? You’re in the most socialized ethos in America: All for one and one for all. A noble idea, but a anti-conservative idea. But here in the private sector it’s All for me and fuck the rest of you. (e.g. Privatize social security..and Dan’s right about annuities. Put your social security into the private sector and you’ll get what happened in Chile. No social security growth in funds except for those making the fees. Ask a working class Chilean as I did. He immigrated to the US to get away from such crap weasels. —a non sequitar, but consider how conservatives want to cut veteran’s benefits and raise interest rates on consumers. Got it? (Stalin’s your guy, not mine: Militarist. You Voluntarily gave up your freedom in order to suck the govt. tit. Liberals don’t have such a contradiction. Freedom has a much wider scope for us, like Freedom from want and corruption is also on the lexicon, or freedom of speech as in the Fairness Doctrine which more or less says that the Public airwaves aren’t to be used for outright propaganda and one-sided views. Reagan’s handlers knew what they were doing when they destroyed that principal. No wonder funding by Us is up for public radio. Now, thanks to people of your persuasion now the military has become a Praetorian Guard of the Republican party, I refuse to support it. No yellow ribbons for me, thank you. Now, that my tax dollars paid your training, Blackwater awaits you. More than a Praetorian Guard that. Now they are doing Drug Enforcement, stateside. At a couple thousand a day, you should do better but it’s govt tit w/o security. )
anyway, Dan. She, the blogger mentioned does have a point as in the “slippery slope” argument. If the govt. supports some torture, as at in Iraq’s prisons operated by US ‘contractors’ it is only a matter of time before it gets more common throughout the system. And the “left” has reason to worry!
the blogger mentioned does have a point as in the “slippery slope†argument. If the govt. supports some torture, as at in Iraq’s prisons operated by US ‘contractors’ it is only a matter of time before it gets more common throughout the system.
If it is inevitable then why won’t you morons shut the fuck up about it? Did it ever occur to you that the reason the slippery slope is a dumbass argument is if it were valid there would be nothing to argue about?
As for the rest of that rant. Thanks for once again reminding me that despite brief moments of apparent lucidity, you are basically a lunatic.
Most ‘volunteers’ go into save themselves from the drudgery and insecurity of the Free Market.
This is an outright lie.
Dataless is, apparently, seeking to be lowered to timmah status. Will he then stalk us or quit us? (nttawwt)
And Dan Dennett is politically a what, Dave? He tells you where he stands. Can you guess? (Hint: he’s not a conservative of any stripe.)
BiC: “I resent the fact that conservatives go into the military and live off productive citizens like myself and then defend conservative business principals while living off the govt. tit.”
ROFL!! This is so broken on so many levels I’m not sure where to start.
1) The salaries in the military are below the comparable private-sector salaries.
2) Whilst “defending conservative business principles” They are also defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
3) If you really had this attitude, you’d be in favor of the dismantling of the welfare state, since they are living off the public tit without providing *anything* in return.
BiC: “The great contradiction of US conservatism is that they are proMilitary and antitaxes.”
No, conservatism is anti-excessive taxes. There is a difference. We also believe that if you can find a good or service in the yellow pages, the government shouldn’t be in that businesss and, as such, should not be taxing society to support these unnecessary functions.
BiC: “Put your social security into the private sector and you’ll get what happened in Chile. ”
You could do far better than SSI if you put you monies in triple tax free bonds. The return rate on SSI is about 1.5% — half the rate of inflation. It’s a net loss over time. Social security is a Ponzi scheme — early investors are paid off with the “contributions” of latter investors. Congress steals the excess,claiming they’re only “borrowing” it at a rate of interest below the market rate, robbing the “contributors” blind.
BiC: “Freedom has a much wider scope for us, like Freedom from want and corruption is also on the lexicon, or freedom of speech as in the Fairness Doctrine which more or less says that the Public airwaves aren’t to be used for outright propaganda and one-sided views. ”
IOW, you are for the confiscation and redistribution of wealth. Corruption? Abscam, Keating, William Jefferson, Kwame Kilpatrick, Sharpe James, the Daleys — yeah, no corruption here…
Fairness doctrine? Will we be applying it to television and newspapers as well, or are you only worried about those information sources that aren’t leaning your way? And NPR is as one-eyed as almost anything on the AM, only it’s liberal,so that’s ok by you. And how shall we be determining compliance — government monitoring and censorship?
Whatta maroon…
“I resent the fact that conservatives go into the military and live off productive citizens like myself and then defend conservative business principals while living off the govt. tit.â€Â
I missed that one, you are an admitted tax cheat, dave. Thieves aren’t productive citizens.
interesting site that Democide one. Freedom is good and participatory democracy is the best for freedom was his conclusion thus why do Republicans persist in making voting as difficult as possible?
Dan Dennett ? sorry, I was referring to Kathy, the person Dan was communication with. This is a long thread and I haven’t read all it.
can’t you see I was joking, bmoe, Of course I pay taxes…and since you are antitax more or less why do you mind if I reduce my taxes for example.
The best way to reduce oil consumption is not just raise tire pressure but enforce speed limits so said an ‘expert’. That would immediately lower fuel consumption while off shore oil drilling would add at most 3 percent to US supply and that would happen only after 7 to 10 years.
moe, stop driving so fast! Fuel Guzzler!
BiC: “interesting site that Democide one. Freedom is good and participatory democracy is the best for freedom was his conclusion thus why do Republicans persist in making voting as difficult as possible?”
Perhaps the grand Democratic track-record of crookedness at the polls — It is,as they say, the *Chicago* way…
It means the French, in this case, chained up all these niggers and put ’em on a boat. The boat sailed thousands of miles and shit them out on an island. The niggers were whipped into laboring the sugar cane and banana crops. One day, they set free, but they were still out on the shitty little rock, in the middle of nowhere with nothing, no silver coins, no gold doubloons, no francs – not even a book to read.
They had lost their identities and their tongues, meaning even on that continent faraway they had spoke different languages, once stranded, they only knew how to speak a grunting form of French to one another.
A boy was born on the coast, raised in squalor; a piece of wood was the only bed he ever knew. They gave him tests at school and after these tests they told him he’d won. He won the greatest prize of all, a ticket to leave the island to attend a university in Paris – a scholarship, a gift from the generous people of France.
Young Aimee went to Paris and learned to survive poverty in Paris. He didn’t mind so much. At the university he learned all about language and French literature, the men of letters, the greats! Aimee thought he might like to write a poem himself one day. A poem that reflected his roots, but out of respect to all “the greats!”, he wanted his poem to rival theirs in form and Parisian literary eloquence.
Aimee wrote his poem, he did. And when they read his poem in Paris, indeed, they were astounded at the quality. It was of brilliant quality it could not be ignored by either the academy of arts nor the poor people living in the streets.
Hehehehe, that nice young lad Aimee literally crucified them all. In their tongue, he left his pencil in their necks.
Twas the greatest “You Motherfuckers!” rant ever penned.
maroon, isn’t that racist? oh, it’s Bug Bunny! Jackweed! I prefer encephalitic, pointy head cretin. Ouch, no I don’t. Stung by a yellow jacket last two days on my near shaven head.
“The salaries in the military are below the comparable private-sector salaries.’
Yeah, right chicken plucking, burger flipping, and warehousing is so grand, all the Appalachians are jamming to get to those jobs. (Opps, no more positions avail. )
stop: “You could do far better than SSI if you put you monies in triple tax free bonds. The return rate on SSI is about 1.5%  half the rate of inflation. It’s a net loss over time. Social security is a Ponzi scheme  early investors are paid off with the “contributions†of latter investors. Congress steals the excess,claiming they’re only “borrowing†it at a rate of interest below the market rate, robbing the “contributors†blind.”
you’re right on so many levels …but Chile’s govt social security is paying much better than their ‘privatized’ one. Why,? study the losses in 401K’s? It’s the hidden fees! A Roth is a better deal as transparency of fees is avail. Also, low wages can’t save up for old age due to invariables of their income. One long stretch of unemployment or our ‘consumer’ culture just wouldn’t allow them to save up enough.
You want a bunch of beggars on the street? Old, senile ones? We could give ’em vodka perhaps to make the end sooner? In many ones, Freedom from such is worth the fees, at least we know the percentage unlike the
annuity salesman’s fee.
Dread, Mayor Daley loved beating hippies and socialists over the head. He’s your kind of guy. He was evidently instrumental in losing Nixon’s first Presidential bid but it was maybe by a hundred K in the whole nation. That was like how long ago, back when Dixiecrats were Democrats? It’s totally reversed now.
Me, I love Freedom!!! And fairness! Goes together.
BiC: “maroon, isn’t that racist? oh, it’s Bug Bunny! Jackweed! I prefer encephalitic, pointy head cretin. Ouch, no I don’t. Stung by a yellow jacket last two days on my near shaven head. ”
I strive to be relatively polite, but politcal correctness is a bridge too far.
BiC: “Yeah, right chicken plucking, burger flipping, and warehousing is so grand, all the Appalachians are jamming to get to those jobs. (Opps, no more positions avail. ) ”
New supermarket down the way — $12/hr for cashiers, $16/hr for front end supervisors.
And meat-cutting used to be a decent living, not grand, but decent, prior to the quadrupling of the illegal immigrant population to keep the unskilled labor wage artificially low.
Bic: “…but Chile’s govt social security is paying much better than their ‘privatized’ one. Why,? study the losses in 401K’s? It’s the hidden fees! A Roth is a better deal as transparency of fees is avail. Also, low wages can’t save up for old age due to invariables of their income.”
That could be easily addressed with a private savings account program that would do all the things that SSI *says* it does but doesn’t. Take the same rake-off and put it in a real investment, rather than this Ponzi scheme.
As for 401K losses, YMMV, but my fees are minimal — that may change a little bit when I re-balance, but we’re talking a couple bucks a quarter. The losses have more to do with the gyrations of the market and their recent bi-polar hyper-sensitivity to world events.
BiC: “
“Dataless is, apparently, seeking to be lowered to timmah status. Will he then stalk us or quit us? (nttawwt)”
jeff says I am already there. timmah seems pretty mild mannered on other sites and says to me you all are to be feared. Is he right? Maybe it’s a glitch or something as I don’t bust in here.
jd, I don’t know all the acronyms and mimes are not my game either. That’s some newAge nebulous stuff.
BiC: “Mayor Daley loved beating hippies and socialists over the head. He’s your kind of guy. ”
1) I don’t beat socialists and hippies, save in the most metaphorical of senses… hell, I don’t even like them as sacrifices.
2) Mayor Daley’s personal proclivities doesn’t mean he didn’t facilitate the dead voting in Cook County. And if you *really* want to make a point of things, there is Tammany Hall and the Pendergast machine, Jim Crow, the poll tax, etc.
BiC: “He was evidently instrumental in losing Nixon’s first Presidential bid but it was maybe by a hundred K in the whole nation.”
So, it was only a little corruption, is that your argument?
At least you show the potential of understanding the stupidity of putting one of Boss Daley’s sons out in front of television camera trying to sell the notion of a stolen election…
BiC: ” I love Freedom!!! And fairness! Goes together.”
No, BiC, it doesn’t. Freedom is inherently “unfair.” In freedom, individuals are free to follow their dreams and make choices for themselves. Some choices are better than others and have better outcomes. Anyone who tells you that, in a free society, life is supposed to be fair, he’s probably selling something and eyeing your wallet as a resource “to do good?”
probably killed this mighty thread. Carry on, folks. gotta go to work.
Or looking to turn you, with your help Dave, into a pitiful victim to be paid and thereby a voting supporter for life. Sucker.
So what? How many jobs did he create? How many lives did he make better?
Who’s making voting difficult? Are you talking about asking people to prove they’re eligible to vote? Why is that a problem?
Seriously — if you truly care about the validity of an election, shouldn’t you take the effort to ensure all the votes are from eligible voters? Indiana has casinos; Ohio doesn’t. There’s a ballot initiative to allow a couple of casinos in Ohio — would it be a fair or valid election if people from Indiana crossed the border and voted against it, in order to preserve Indiana’s advantage?
Shouldn’t we make sure people only vote once? Would an election be valid if you could just get back in line and vote again? If so, why not just run the election based on who can manufacture the most votes?
For the last eight years the left’s been bleating about “stolen elections” and whining about the validity of votes. If it’s so damned important, why not compromise and adopt some of the right’s desired vote reforms in order to get some of yours passed? Or is there something sacrosanct about vote fraud? Is there some reason the left doesn’t want to make sure that one-man-one-vote is the rule?
Aimee wrote his poem, he did. And when they read his poem in Paris, indeed, they were astounded at the quality. It was of brilliant quality it could not be ignored by either the academy of arts nor the poor people living in the streets.
Hehehehe, that nice young lad Aimee literally crucified them all. In their tongue, he left his pencil in their necks.
Twas the greatest “You Motherfuckers!†rant ever penned.
You left off the ending…
Then they hugged and cried and wallowed in their own victimhood and guilt and shit and piss and they all existed miserably ever after.
Vive le victime!