Mark Steyn on Islam and the West. From “It’s the demography, stupid,” The New Criterion [reprinted in OJ]:
[…] The challenge for those who reckon western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the west.
One obstacle to doing that is the fact that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the west are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of societyâ€â€government health care, government day care (which Canada’s thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain’s just introduced). We’ve prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith, and, most basic of all, reproductive activityâ€â€Ã¢â‚¬Å“Go forth and multiply,†because if you don’t you won’t be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare. Americans sometimes don’t understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don’t think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health & Human Services.
The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birth rate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyper-rationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a twenty-first-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could only increase their numbers by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengthsâ€â€or, at any rate, virtuesâ€â€and that’s why they’re proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.
Speaking of which, if we are at warâ€â€and half the American people and significantly higher percentages in Britain, Canada, and Europe don’t accept that propositionâ€â€than what exactly is the war about?
We know it’s not really a “war on terror.†Nor is it, at heart, a war against Islam, or even “radical Islam.†The Muslim faith, whatever its merits for the believers, is a problematic business for the rest of us. There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it’s easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in “Palestine,†Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally.
Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it’s not what this thing’s about. Radical Islam is an opportunist infection, like AIDS: it’s not the HIV that kills you, it’s the pneumonia you get when your body’s too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the U.S. military, they loseâ€â€as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there’s an excellent chance they can drag things out until western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default.
I’d say this latest kerfuffle over the NSA program pretty closely approximates the divide between what Steyn calls a secondary-impulse society (the liberal left, aided in this case by civil libertarian absolutists) and those of us who believe we are actually at war, and that our way of life is being attacked each time we grant legitimacy—or bestow expansive “rights” upon—terrorists and their enablers. Which is to say, many critics of the NSA program exhibit a fundamental unseriousness about protecting our national sovereignty, all while they simultaneously claim the moral high ground with regard to protecting the liberties that define us as a nation.
Steyn is right to point out that to those who push such an agenda, the legal and moral largesse they advocate for is understood, oftentimes (though most self-righteously) as a virtue—as precisely what separates us from those who we fight against. But such a view carries with it the underlying assumption that we as a society are incapable of making the kinds of fine, reasoned distinctions that we need make in order to survive (and leads people like me to invoke the oft quoted admonition that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”). For instance, identifying a terrorist as a terrorist and establishing the legal means to extricate that terrorist from a concommitant legal category, US citizen, in order to protect ourselves against a loophole in our system that allows terrorists to assume protections we can’t afford to give, is precisely the kind of thing we need to do if we’re going to survive the threat from an enemy whose strategy is to take advantage of our liberties. That is not lawlessness; that is common sense—and thus far, the courts have concurred (which is why US Citizens who are working with al Qaeda can be understood as foreign agents, and—once they are understood as such, can and should lose some of the protections granted US citizens with regard to intelligence gathering).
For some war critics, however, the secondary impulse—endless debating over the loss of civil liberties in the abstract, for example, even as a very real threat promises to take away our civil liberties permanently—has become more important than protecting the socially contractual artifice of nationhood under which these secondary impulses hold their force in the first place.
We are a nation of laws. But laws that constrain our ability to protect ourselves are laws that need to be revisited and which, Constitutionally, cannot be permitted to stand. Which is why FISA simply cannot be argued as a constraint on national security in a time of war—and why it was never intended to constrain the President’s Article II powers.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
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See also related posts by the Anchoress , Captain Ed, All Things Beautiful, Ace, ShrinkWrapped, Kobayashi Maru, Dr Sanity, and strata-sphere.
Also, Attila Girl has thoughts of her own.
Doesn’t every criminal have a strategy of taking advantage of the liberties our system provides? We don’t “extricate” their citizenship, or whatever the hell you mean, when they advance their interests via vigorous litigation.
But maybe what you want is ‘fine reasoned’ decisionmaking. Nuance, in a word. Nuance about who will or will not have their US’ness ‘extricated.’ Maybe nuance is more common sensical than superlative pronouncements of some politicians. Its not a new arguement to me.
I just posted on a previous thread the claim that criminal investigators and prosecutors would scream their heads off that FISA style restrictions applied to them would be completely unworkable.
In regard to criminal investigation a legal wiretap on one person (eg crime boss) allows monitoring of calls between him and other parties (for whom there is no warrant). The moonbat notion that a call from Al Qaeda in Pakistan to Atta should have more privacy rights than a call from Lefty Icepick to the local crime boss is just crackpot lunacy.
Actus,
In two paragraphs you have confimred everything Jeff said. “Doesn’t every criminal have a strategy of taking advantage of the liberties our system provides.” You say, thus providing clear evidence that terrorism to you, is sort of like robbery, a societal problem that must be fought on several fronts…but not vigorously on any one. I wish that sort of reasoning was the result simply of cowardice, for even cowardice begins to wane when it becomes clear that your enemy wishes you dead no matter how abjectly you crawl. But I fear that’s not the case here. I begin to think that great numbers of us, like lobsters, are to damned stupid to realize they’re in boiling water. They really feel that terrorism, like crime, is something that only happens to a certain class of people in certain types of neighborhoods. I shudder knowing these people vote.
Indeed, actus, your comment demonstrates the exact mentality that is completely wrong in the war on terror and has already gotten too many people killed.
Steyn’s article is mostly reactionary mumbo jumbo, but he’s right when he says birth rates are dropping in the advanced democracies and increasing in third world countries.
He’s wrong when he says that the destruction of the West is going to naturally follow just because of differing birth rates.
Does no know the reason for high birth rates in poorer countries? That’s not rocket science either.
Birth rates are high in the third world countries because the infant mortailiy rate is high. Much higher than in the (supposedly decadent) West. In third-world countries you need a lot of births in order to be certain that at least a few infants will survive to adulthood.
You don’t need a lot of children in the West. Your infants will mostly likely all survive to adulthood;–largely because of the same social and public health infrastructure Steyn says is somehow sapping the West.
Low infant mortality translates into smaller families. It’s simple, but somehow Steyn doesn’t get it.
Face it, Steyn’s no fool, he simply got some other agenda. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with limiting a woman’s reproductive freedom.
In much the same way it’s done in traditional Islamic countries.
I wonder if Steyn has any idea of exactly what he’s saying….
Thanks for the link Jeff.
Steyn again hits the nail on the head with an excellent essay on cultural self extinction.
How true. Today, much of western Europe and roughly half of this country have drank the koolaid. And here we have the leftie democrats and the MSM to serve it to us in recyclable cups!
Steyn talks of secondary impulses of society. The rabid anti-Bush/Republican/conservative/take your pick derangement of much of the modern left in this country is an excellent illustration of that impulse run amok.
The hard left in this country, in their unrelenting war against this administration refuse to even acknowledge that we are in a long term struggle for our very cultural survival. They will cynically use this war for furtherance of their political agenda, which is to take this country down the socialist path that western Europe has taken. If you think that’s over the top, I suggest you spend some time on campus these days.
Many on the left view the islamist threat as an ally in this endeavour. Much of our mainstream media is allied with those who would have us retreat and slowly surrender in this conflict. And we thought the Nazi-Soviet pact was cynical.
One aspect that Steyn doesn’t discuss in his essay is how China and India, the two most populous countries in the world and the potential economic juggernauts of the 21st century, are or will deal with this same threat because it faces them too.
We saw how China dealt with their own dissidents in Tienamin Square. I suspect that they will not sit by idly. There will be no will to cultural self extinction on their part or India’s I suspect.
The sad thing is that western Europe, may well succumb and the US will have to shoulder the burden alone in the west and become weakened as a result of a prolonged conflict, much as Britain was after WWI. China is not likely to help us and India may not be able to.
Ultimately the democratic freedoms we so take for granted may be casualties too. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. The choice is ours.
Steyn is always great, but that’s one of his better essays. READ THE WHOLE THING, PEOPLE.
And Carl, could you please remove your DNA from the gene pool by, I don’t know, racing a train to a crossing, or something? Anybody who can read a trenchant analysis like that and call it “reactionary mumbo-jumbo” has been drinking the PC kool-aid for way too long. God, I hope you don’t actually vote.
Ah, yes, the liberal left, aided in this case by civil libertarian absolutists: George Will, William Safire, Warren Rudman, Arlen Spector, Richard Lugar, Bob Novak, Lindsey Graham, James Comey, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, etc., etc.
It’s the Constitution, stupid, and no amount of tortured legalisms and ad hominem smears will change that.
Uh. not really. I’m saying that Jeff’s formulation applies to both—and that’s problematic, because I think jeff wants to make that distinction but hasn’t. It doesn’t really have to do with the silly point you’re making. Of course terrorism has to be fought on several fronts: Drain the swamp, fight the financing, let SCIRI and other religious islamists win elections in Iraq, etc…
Like what? Manhattan and Birmingham, AL? those ‘kinds’ of places?
Um Carl, are you serious?
Carl? How do you explain the exploding populations in the third world? Is that reactionary mumbo-jumbo too?
Carl, for you to miss the point so widely you must either be stupid, stoned or dyslexic. I suspect all three.
Let’s look at Steyn’s main assumption, shall we?
The following is pretty self-explanatory.
Go back and read the article. If you can.
Jim,
Please explain how listening in on Al Qaeda conversations phoned into this country from abroad violates the constitution. I’m interested to know.
Actus,
If you’re saying you don’t believe that terrorism is a criminal problem please make it clear. You haven’t yet. As a matter of fact, at the moment you seem to be backtracking, pretty inartfully. Is terrorism a legal problem. Is America in a war or not?
And I quoted you verbatim. Perhaps its the quote that’s silly, not the argument.
Oh, Carl,
You “suspect it has something to do with limiting a woman’s reproductive freedom”?
What a fucking crock of paranoid leftwing bullshit.
Do you plan on showing your ass every single day of ‘06?
So far you’re 2 for 2.
Carl should not let his ideas get loose in “public”.
Um, jim? I think you replied to the wrong post. It’s a really good reply tho’, I’m sure no one’s ever experienced an argument like yours before. I recommend you make sure to cut and paste the whole message over on the Plans [UPDATED} post.
Uh…Carl…Birth rates are high in the third world countries because the infant mortailiy rate is high.
Funny thing, that. The REAL problem about Europe, though, is the fact that second and third generation immigrants to a number of European nations are MAINTAINING their 3rd World birth rates, in spite of excellent care and health.
Within 50 years, in some places much sooner, native Europeans will be the MINORITY groups in their own countries.
Terrorists are quite clearly criminals and the tools and practices of law enforcement are obviously relevant to fighting terrorists. Its not all tanks and missles and infantry squad tactics. Its detective work and even giuliani’s ‘broken windows’ type of theories too. Why be stuck on one way to fight this?
The problem isn’t with what you quoted, but with what you wrote. What’s up with you telling me that I think terrorism only happens to certain kinds of people? What kinds of people could I have in mind? Large East coast liberal cities? Little black girls in a Birmingham church? Shiites praying in a mosque?
Jim is evidently so clueless about the debates ongoing, that he doesn’t even realize that the Supreme Court decades ago found that the kind of surveillance at issue with the NSA program was found not to require warrants of any kind with respect to the Fourth Amendment.
Actus, we are not stuck on one way to fight terrorism. Those who like you insist on applying only criminal justice standards are the ones who are stuck.
Actus,
Is it a war or not?
And while we’re at it Actus. You tell me what is terrorism. Is it an act of war or is it a violation of some international statute? Who does it happen to? How should it be fought? Are we in a war or not. So far, it seems that you haven’t seriously thought about any of these questions. Either that, or you just don’t want to answer them.
The issue is about perspective, Carl—apparently your’s is from Detroit. Where I come from, parents pay their kid’s way into the world, and I suspect that’s still the majority practice.
Where did I say anything like that? I said its not all ‘tanks and missles’ which means those are included. I think instead of reading what I wrote, you categorize me and respond to that.
Forever.
I categorize you based on all of your writings, actus. Even the ones you wish to pretend didn’t exist.
So which ones make you think you were correct and not just reacting to something made up in your head when you wrote: “Those who like you insist on applying only criminal justice standards are the ones who are stuck.”
Specially when it contradicts what I just wrote?
6Gun: The issue is about perspective, Carlâ€â€apparently your’s is from Detroit. Where I come from, parents pay their kid’s way into the world, and I suspect that’s still the majority practice.
Never mind about Carl. This is the kind of crap that’s being taught in college these days. He gave an A+ answer for a Sociology 101 class. In the Big Classroom of the REAL world, however, his answer is a straightforward F. He seems to be unaware that the nice little theory he quoted was disproved more than 20 years ago when 3rd World immigrants to other nations continued their 3rd World birth rates.
With birth rates the way they are now, Russia will be the first to go under, with native Russians becoming the minority. France is next, then Germany. The UK may be after that, but there’s still some home that they’ll come to their senses before it’s too late.
What a load of crap.
And I’m surprised to see conservatives seeming to warm to it. Western civilization is not going to end by attrition with Islamist jihadism, at least not in the next few centuries. Somehow, what I think with all these demographics before that comment is that he’s thinking that people of color will overwhelm the US in numbers and that this shift in population will somehow weaken the ‘geist’ of “Western” Civilization.
There are many things eating at this civilization, the notion that systematically mining all incoming and outgoing international calls being a ‘kerfuffle’ is, IMHO, one of them.
Terrorism is a threat in that some cultic zanies could very well get hold of some deadly bioweapon or a nuke or a dirty bomb and really wreak havoc. It is essential and progressive to stop them—something that will never really happen, I have been pointing out since about 1989, until we abolish the communication taboos about underground reality in our civilization, or what some people have called “letting the sunshine in”.
(I had for years before 1990 or so been advocating letting the sunshine in so that all the underground repression of authentic progressive lefties—those people here more or less despise, like myself—in particular can be held accountable, from damage to persons to infiltration and manipulation. But it is also the ONLY way that terrorism will ever be defeated.)
As for jihadism being the end of Western Civilization, that should be read as the effete nonsense that it is. If our civilization collapses, it will be for our own decay from within—the decline of civility in favor of servility, the mix of tyranny and corruption at the top and media-cultivated anomie at the bottom, the destruction of the middle class for the sake of short-term profits, and the wholesale wrecking of the environment and the creation of massive dependency resulting from that destruction. For a picture of a dystopian vision of a future of our civilization, where Tory-horses&*% in its untrammeled form has taken over, see: “Respondez! Respondez!” by Walt Whitman, a 6 page poem that says more than 100 volumes of social theory.
Carl,
Steyn’s article specifically talked of actual numbers: in 20 years there will be more Muslims than Westerners, for the first time in history. That is significant.
Population size controls, to some extent, historical trends like expansionism. When Europe’s population was burgeoning, explorers ventured out and conquered the Americas, Asia and Africa. When the native populations caught up due to the benefits of colonialism (yes, there were some benefits) they ousted their colonial masters.
Only people who believe in the future have babies. The boomers didn’t: we were fed a steady diet of enviro scariness, ZPG, the carefully designed life. I would say that radical Muslims have more faith in their culture than we do in ours–and a population boom is only one additional indicator of that.
Essential and progressive? Interesting that those 3000 or so in NYC didn’t measure up as victims of really wreaked havoc.
TW: miss, as in I probably missed how unimportant they were
Cloudy, have you met Carl yet?
That was undoubtedly your most twisted, verbose, silly, and just plain wrong spiel to date. I’m thinking you and Carl must have experienced some sort of mind meld over the weekend. First you completely miss Steyn’s point, and then you compound the confusion with 4 paragraphs of drivel aptly entitled “what a load of crap” in big bold letters.
Why not just boil it down to “I hate Bush, I hate Republicans, I have no clue about the history of Western Civilization, demographics,or what the word “attrition” means. And even though I don’t know my ass from shinola when it comes to history, I agree with Carl that it’s all probably a plot to limit wymyns’ reproductive rights.
Jesus Cloudy, there have been one or two times when you’ve sounded somewhat reasonable. This isn’t one of those.
I think you spent your weekend at Carl’s “church” of the shiny skullcap.
Cloudy, is that you, Actus?
My main beef with the whole NSA debacle is not so much about the spying per se, but the lack of oversight. (You know what they say about absolute power.) What’s to keep ol’ King George from using his little secret spies to listen in on his political enemies? Apparently nothing right now. To the extent that we have become a Police State, we have already surrendered.
I thought you conservatives were big, bad, tough guys. Then a handful of people carry out 9/11 and you all want to run screaming to Big Daddy Government to protect you. This isn’t WWII; Al Qaeda’s capabilities are much more limited. So make King George have some oversight on this (yes, let him do it), but let’s not let him create a Totalitarian government with our blessing. Think of it this way – would you trust Clinton with that much power? ‘Didn’t think so.
Damn. Only January the second and we already have the most amazing missing of the point:
the most incomprehensible bit of drivel:
and the most cliched bit of paranoid lefty boilerplate:
that we are likely to have all year.
I have nothing to look forward too.
Except learning the correct usage of the various forms of the word that sounds like 2.
Clinton had the power, moron. That’s the way it is. Hint: to stop the power you must either impeach and convict the President, or stage a coup. The path is clear. Now go ahead on with your bad self. I’m not holding my breath.
I see B Moe, I guess all you want is an echo chamber.
Well Tillman/Psyb, you are just fundamentally wrong about the world-historical situation.
We did trust Clinton with that much power, for 8 years. He fucked this situation up completely, but he did knock off quite a few pieces of ass.
You don’t have a clue what AQ’s capabilities are, but you’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt while minimizing the threat they pose. Maybe you don’t consider yourself or your family worth protecting from nukes, biologics, tritonal, or just plain head-chopping but the majority of people in this country do. And that’s what the savages are angling for, no matter what clueless, God-conflicted, patriotism-challenged doofi like you think.
And the only people I hear are doing under-the-table oppo research are democrats, the most notable recent examples being Clinton with the FBI files, and now Chuck “would you buy a used car from this man” Schumer and his merry band of scamps digging up financial info on republican candidates.
The difference you miss between the two competing worldviews in the present setting is that one of the sides is out of power, and that fact has driven them insane. They will feed weak minded people any dark conspiracy line they can concoct as long as it keeps them doubting the president and the country that they were born in.
Another great article by Steyn, and I think it offers one possible answer to a question I’ve had for a couple of years: Where does George Galloway think he’s going by cuddling up to the Muslim fundies in Britain? Maybe he’s just chosen his horse according to the figures Steyn cites.
Actually, in a perfect world, we’d prefer giant, privately-held military corporations with long, scary names to protect us with genetically-engineered SuperSoldiers and Robot Warriors, since government tends not to be efficient enough to even deliver the mail on time… but government will have to do, since the tree-hugging, pantywaist leftians would sooner eat meat than let an honest corporation like GloboMiliMegaCorp earn a dollar.
Cloudy orbited by long enough to chirp out:
Of course, but we undoubtedly differ as to why this will be. I know it’ll be because Western civizilation simply won’t tolerate fragmented, sporadic jihadism, and fortunately, has the balls you do not.
Yep, again agreed: The “servility” of socialism will indeed end this Republic. That writing’s been on the wall for a hundred years and more.
Right again, and not to come across as smartassed, but consider who’s ox is being gored every four / eight years, Cloudy, before pointing fingers. The socialising of America typically comes at the hands of the, well, socialists, likely implicating many more Clintons than Bushes, although the Bushes are no shining example of limited domestic government, not that 43 has Kingly powers or anything.
Never thought I’d agree this much, Cloudy…
Utterly laughable … and you were on a roll too. The destruction of the middle class is a tax-based phenomenon supported by the numbers.
Horseshit, at least as far as the US goes. Need an example? The Great Lakes. Fouled to death 20 years ago, today too clean for their own good, and all of that process was manmade. Ditto air conditions.
No, the creation of massive dependency resulting from the socialization of entire urban areas.
You were so close too.
RickInst, on what authority do you have the AQ has nukes? I seriously doubt that they do. Why haven’t they used them then?
Clinton never used the NSA that way. You’re wrong about that. (He may have “had the power” I suppose, but it was never abused that way.)
Wow, Tillman / Psyberian AND Cloudy both right on the same night? And in the same thread?!
tw: Miss. Yeah, miss!
Carl and Cloudy, you are missing the basic math. Democracy runs on numbers, so the demographics do matter. Muslims in Europe have far greater birthrates than Europeans, so the numbers will eventually run to the Muslims’ favor.
As Steyn said, but both of you must have skipped, if this new Muslim majority adopts the best of Western values, then there will be no problem. This risk for the West is that Islam as a religion has features within it that seem to “firewall” off outside influences pretty well.
No, you don’t see at all. If you were half as clever as you think you are you would grasp the ridiculous nature of your response. You see, I mocked you for spouting the same leftist cliches one would hear in a leftist echo chamber, which a reasonably intelligent person would interpret as meaning I do not like echo chambers. Your little red book of cliches is probably not going to have a response for this situation, try not to strain yourself coming up with something original.
Tillman –
What I said was “that’s what the savages are angling for”. Even you can’t dispute that they’re at the very least interested in getting hold of nukes or one of the other horrors of science floating around out there.
And I guess you may be right about Clinton and NSA. Listening to the various post-mortems of 9/11 it kind of sounds like he didn’t really use them at all. Using the IRS and FBI to harrass his political opponents was more important to the Clintons than keeping an eye on the loons who want to kill the people Clinton swore to protect.
Try to keep up guy.
Did you get this clueless in school, or were you “born” that way?
B Moe, rather than argue the points, you just want to hurl insults?
Are those goalposts heavy? Or are they, like, styrofoam?
And as Jeff pointed out a couple days ago, even if Clinton had used NSA in the exact same fashion, the media just would’ve just spun it as a “no-warrant spy-hunting identification procedure.”
Pysbian just knows that Clinton didn’t “abuse” the same claimed power with respect to the NSA …
I’m just stunned that Psybian thinks that’s a coherent statement. Stunned.
I haven’t really seen your point yet, might help if you took your hat off. In the meantime,yeah, hurling insults is kinda fun.
You guys (Except Rickinst) honestly think that Clinton did the same thing with the NSA? If so, you are hopelessly deluded.
Tillman/Psbwhatever,
Might be time to consider another name change. I don’t think this latest one’s done your reputation as a deep thinker much good.
If you’d like, I’m sure we can gather helpful suggestions from the folks here.
It must have been “hard” being the dumbest kid in history class.
Well, B Moe, you’re not worth any of my time or effort then, are you?
FISA is unConstitutional because it usurps the President’s authority to wage war. It improperly replaces his judgement in gathering intelligence with that of a panel of judges who do not share his Constitutional duty to protect the country against its enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Right again. That’s twice.
Leftism is a mental disorder. Any mindset that intentionally practices political lies and the theft of money, property, and freedoms and then takes a wholely appearances-centric higher ground when caught with its dick out is sick. And I want to hurl.
You honestly think you’re being forthright about Clinton and national security? You keep getting called on it and you just keep pedalling.
Where I come from that’s called lying.
Feel free to move along then. Don’t let us stop you or anything.
Sheesh. I didn’t know martyr complexes were on after X-mas sale at Walmart.
If you guys on the right can’t do any better than insult people you disagree with, then the republicans in this country are in worse shape than I thought. Pitiful.
Door –> thataway…
ScienceMike, your actually encouraging me to stay. Some of you need serious help.
I’ll bite. What is to keep him from doing something like that? What about this program makes you think he either is or is not using his little secret spies to listen in on his political enemies? What could convince you that he isn’t doing or wouldn’t do that?
Here is the thing that bugs me about the Clinton question. What you are asking is this: Would you trust someone you don’t trust as President to have this power? Which is a ridiculous construct, because if you don’t trust someone to hold the office, you don’t trust him with any Presidential power.
And what I believe you are saying is: I don’t trust anything George Bush does, and I don’t trust him doing this.
Which does nothing to address the legality of the program.
A curious inversion of the Groucho Marx theorem of club membership to put it mildly.
BTW, ‘you’re’, not ‘your’.
tw: pay. No charge for that one…
Maybee, my point is that eventually there will be another President who you don’t trust. If they have the ability to make their own secret rules about surveillance, then don’t you see how that power can be abused? Now I’m not claiming that Bush is just being evil – he probably does have good intentions about our security and just took it a little too far.
If there is some kind of oversight, like the FISA court for example, then at least it will be some kind of system of “checks and balances†here. That’s all I’m saying – it isn’t really too radical at all.
Cute, ScienceMike. Are you the gatekeeper of the blog here or something? I’m not a troll, just a dissenter.
The system of checks and balances *already* exists. It’s spelled the C-O-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-I-O-N.
Just because *you* feel uncomfortable, Tillman, doesn’t mean we throw the existing system out the window. It’s why we have elections, amendments, etc. and if you aren’t willing to abide by the results, well tough.
You mean for like pathological lying?
Chuckle. Light really *does* bend around you…
tw: I’ll say…
Only if they are double-super-secret rules and they are like totally uncool about who gets decoder rings.
Yes, but you see ScienceMike, the Constitution is what is in question here. There are a lot of checks and balances in our government. To me, that is what makes our form of government less prone to corruption.
I forget, what are you’re ages here? I’m over 40, so I don’t get my shits and giggles from put downs. But if most of you are say, 18 or something, maybe I’d be more understanding about it.
I can’t seem to get your/you’re right tonight.
We all realize that proving negatives isn’t valid, right? There’s nothing stopping Tillman running down to the corner store buck naked except the law. And the last time anybody checked, intelligence was, um, secret.
Sure, I realize the temptation is there to be skeptical about government power. We have a long history of distrust of central power; it’s what makes us what we are as a nation. And it’s kinda understandable you refuse to admit it, given your boy was the cause.
But come on, man.
Your, not you’re. Still no charge.
Keep up the good work, Sparky, and read up on the President’s Article II powers before you step on your crank yet again.
tw: theres. Oh, there’s a slow learner in the room and he isn’t catching on…
ScienceMike, your mental age I’d say is about 2 and a half.
Gawd, but you’re pedantic…
…and wooden…
…and arrogant yet oddly magnanimous.
Anyway, I’m pushing 50 and I think you’re a liar.
tw: because
well again, psyberian (couldn’t you have changed to something actually spellable?)
Everybody has the ability to make their own secret rules.
But the question is is it legal to make such rules and is it legal to follow them and is it legal to disclose them if you don’t like them. Oh, and is it legal to try to keep another branch of government from using its powers.
If it isn’t legal, that’s one issue. If it is legal and you would like that changed, that’s another issue.
But it isn’t about deciding how much we trust each individual president and devising some mathematically proportional formulation to determine which of their presidential powers they get and which ones they don’t get.
Bush is at 52% approval and gets 52% of his powers.
It isn’t outrageous to want checks and balances but
a)that doesn’t mean the checks and balances are at the line-item level. The President has some powers that are all his and
b)going to the NYTs is not a legitimate check and offers no room to change a program, only to destroy it and
c)that won’t convince you that GWB isn’t tapping Howard Dean’s phone line even as we speak. Which is the kind of thing I’m hearing a lot of.
Damn, now I feel kinda bad, I thought I was just having fun with some naive little college twerp. Knowing your almost as old as I am makes me feel like I have been picking on a retard.
*you’re* Dammit, now you got me doing it.
I’m sort of missing Actus…
Hey, if it helps you sleep through the night…
tw: But you’re still missing the point…
Maybee, I came up with that name partly because I was a psych major and another reason is that I own Siberian Huskies. Cool dogs.
I have to admit that maybe I deserved several of these insults since my first comment was offensive to some of you I’m sure. But Jeez, too many of you are just rabid. Oh well, maybe I do need to go to another site where people are to the left of Attila the Hun. Actus, I suspect that a lot of these folks here are just plain incorrigible.
Well, FWIW, I made my point and it’s getting late where I am. I so tired I can’t even keep your/you’re straight either.
Tillman, please feel free to find another place and people to enlighten with your copious reservoir of wisdom. We are not worthy.
come on, Psyberian. The rules are simple and you are old enough to know them. You start with the King George is secretly spying on political opponents crap, and you’re going to be spanked.
But you should feel lucky. B Moe et al provide the best, most creative and downright hilarious abuse offered on the ‘net.
And rickinstl with this line to cloudy?
4 paragraphs of drivel aptly entitled “what a load of crap†in big bold letters.
You canNOT tell me that didn’t crack you up.
You should thank them for noticing you.
So *this* thread is where all the action is.
I was wondering why I was able to post three times unmolested in “”Iran: Europe wanted to complete Holocaust.”
Who, or what, is TW?
Actus hits it out of the park!
Let’s get this straight: One side is willing to let GWBush name anyone he wants a “terrorist” and strip them of their civil liberties without any recourse to courts or a defense – an annhilation of habeas corpus, due process and everything else that protects individuals from being swallowed up by Leviathan, never to be heard from again.
The other group says: “If you think someone is a terrorist, go ahead and keep your eye on that person. When you choose to do this, document why you think that person is a terrorist, and when you get around to it – within 72 hours after you’ve commenced surveillance – bring your scrap of evidence to the nearest FISA court, and we’ll have them rubber stamp it. Just show up with a shred of evidence.”
And you call this an “absolutist” position on civil liberties? Ha.
Boylesbian:
Now I’m not claiming that Bush is just being evil – he probably does have good intentions about our security and just took it a little too far.
Sorry if I got you’re name wrong, I’m lysdexic.
This is an interesting accusation. Can you support it with proof? Did the King’s men break into you’re house right after you hung up with yore good friend in Germany where you went on for 2 hours about how you hate America and your going to hold yer breath until there are some drastic changes made to eeyore country?
I love dissent as long as it comes in the form of rational thought and not in the form of hysterical LSD-induced psycho conspiracy theories designed by the Serfs living inside the hellhole of Socialism. Who have, by the way, been systematically destroying our Constitution through their court-controlled supreme ACLU for the past three decades. First they take away our free speech by imposing speech codes, then our religion by banning public display, then our private property all for greater taxation, all the while taking away our right to defend ourselves by attempting to prevent our right to own guns and declaring civil rights for our enemy but they will NEVER take our Liberty!
And Psyberian, I am a 44 year old female who is Liberated from the constraining tyranny of NOW, ANSWER, George Soros, DNC, The NY Times, Amy Goodmans’Democracy Now’ scam, The Tides Foundation, NPR and The Fooking Koz Kids. Hear Me Roar…. my brothers and sisters of our Republic are not putting up with your major psych insanity anymore!
Would it be too much to expect an honest debate on Steyn’s thesis?
Some, left, right, and center, are agog about Kurzweil’s vision “The Singularity is Near” which is basically a utopian faith that technology will magically solve all the world’s problems. But ask them just who exactly is going to be wiping their butts when they are in a nursing home and it becomes clear that they have never really thought about the meaning of the demographic time bomb. Its pretty clear that the person wiping your butt, if it gets wiped at all, will statistically more likely be an immigrant! To many boomer butts to wipe! Get the point? Steyn is talking about the obvious problems the EU faces with regard to cultural survival but we are not that far behind.
Psyberian,
There is nothing to stop anyone from making secret rules and secretly doing whatever they want. As long as they can keep it secret.
You could secretly do whatever you want, and for all I know you already secretly tap my phones. How would I know? You do it secretly! Heck, you probably already made secret rules where you get authorization from your dogs.
Anyway, if King George is secretly tapping my phones (after secretly crowning himself apparently), it doesn’t matter much to me if he made secret rules allowing himself to do it, or if he does it secretly without secretly giving himself permission. I only care if he’s tapping my phones. And he probably is, since I don’t live in the US. Bummer.
But don’t worry, you get used to it!
I hear that the mighty “screw them” Markos Moulitsas has proclaimed a new meme for the Left…namely that the GWOT is just a manifestation of Republican cowardice.
It is absurd of course and does not deserve a reply. But since we are likely to hear this meme endlessly repeated by the moonbats, here goes: nobody I know actually fears death from a terrorist attack. What I fear and I think most fear is the potential chaos that may well follow another major attack, not to mention the damage to our economy and political institutions (including no doubt REAL loss of civil liberties).
Exactly Maor…poor King George couldn’t even keep this piddling program of international surveillance secret…but of course according to the deranged moonbats that is just cover for a really secret program run by Rove to monitor their lives by remote control of the NSA.
Come to think of it……I rembember in November ott-4 I was talking to my wife and telling her that I wasn’t sure how I was going to vote on the gay marriage thing when all of a sudden my phone rang and a recorded message:
Howdy….
This here is King George tellin’ you that you’d better rope them steers and corral them queers iffn’ you want your blessed little ones to grow up in a country that makes Jesus happy as a pig in shinola.
Just picture two guys with hairy butts rollin’ around in between the sheets. That’ll help swing your vote heh heh heh heh heh. Remember – a man ain’t a man unless he likes Bush. heh heh heh heh.
HE’S WATCHING US!!!!
Well Noah, those are legitimate fears about the terrorists – I’m with you on that one!
The only problem I have with terrorists is finding them so I can shoot them.
They must all die.
Ooo fuckin’ RAH, boy-chik.
SB: room
padded
I had noticed that one popping up and wondered at it’s origins. It is a wonderful bit of double-think: when confronted with a bully only a coward is afraid to take a beating and fights back.
Psyberian,
You’re a psych major. What are the illegitimate fears about terrorists?
Ironic, isn’t it? Wooden, unaware, parsing, and pessimistic while alternating between neurotic and disordered views.
Yawn. This is mindless to all of us I’m sure and another reason is that it’s mindless.
More confusion and irrationality from the left, the political hive of falsehood, victimization, and dependency.
tw: Upon further thought.
Did you ever wonder how tough it might be for Wonder Woman to have a meaningful relationship?
I mean, think about it; how could she take any guy seriously when she can see through all the b.s. with her magic “lasso of truth?” On the other hand, if she didn’t use it would she really be true to herself?
WW: I just want to be sure you’re in it for the long haul. I’m tired of games.
Regular Guy: Damn straight, babe. I’m here for ya…tonight, tomorrow, forever.
WW: Then you don’t mind?
Regular Guy: Yeaaaahhh, some kinky rope action! Hell no, I don’t mind.
That’s pretty much as far as it would ever go.
Really, I feel kind of sorry for her.
Clinton did worse, with the FBI. He illegally obtained, and handed to a political operative, the security checks of people who had served in the Bush (#41) administration. That’s not a case of a national security program that might be abused, but of blatantly political abuse of power.
Reaction from the left when this news broke: utter silence.
Maybe so Robert,
But I have it on good authority that Clinton actually sent Sandy Berger into the archives with those same security checks rolled up and hidden in his bunghole for the purpose of putting them back. He just stuffed those other documents into his all-togethers to throw the federalies off the scent.
Samuel Berger is a great American!
Robert Crawford:
Just goes to show that partsanship is everywhere…even in those precincts that are supposedly above such things. Leaving aside the supposed merits just look at how the courts behave…Florida Supreme court in 2000, ditto SCOTUS in 2000, New Jersey Supreme re Lautenberg candidacy, Washington Supreme Court in last years governors race, Massachusetts Supreme Court re same sex marriage.
If someone can point out a case where the political did not “miraculously” align itself with the outcome in a case decided by a Supreme court of whatever jurisdiction please do.
Shorthand…answer the question “whose ox is being gored?” and you will know the response of the various factions.
If I had more ambition, I would compare what Steyn says about Europe and our thoughts on what this means in the US vs Japan.
Japan is also suffering a declining birthrate, but is not particularly…. amenable to using immigration to counteract the future population decline. It is also a very cohesive society, with a strong desire for national identity and national and individual security. As an outsider, the choices made on civil liberties vs. security (both national and individual) are very different than we see in the west. I’m here on a visa, I could be deported for even minor drug or (I’ve heard) traffic infractions.
When robberies happened in my neighborhood last year, the police posted signs when the band of FOREIGN theives had been caught.
When AlQaeda suspects were found here two years ago, they were sent out for trial and the fine of overstaying one’s visa went up to $27,000.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few decades.
I sense something… foul… about Adam’s take on the subject.
…replace “GWBush” with “the NSA’s computer system”. As other commenters have posted a dozen times before, this isn’t a political leader requesting FBI files on rivals, this is a politically neutral government branch automatically coming up with names.
…provided you define “anyone” as “anyone who receives phone calls from phones known to be associated with Al Quaeda members”.
…if you define “stip them of their civil liberties” as “noting that they got six calls from a phone belonging to an Al Quaeda member”
…Not that they’d have any recourse if the request went through FISA. Also not that any of this would be admissible in a criminal trial.
…if this were being gathered as evidence for trial, the trial itself would still be public.
If this was one warrant, you might have a case. If this is one of hundreds of warrants that need to be prepared on Monday morning just so we can check to see if one phone call went to a Dearborn, Michigan Pizza Hut at 4:30 Friday. The government is desperate for anyone with a security clearence right now. How many lawyers with security clearence are sitting on the NSA payroll just to fill paperwork for computerized record checks?
Personally, I like Tbogg’s shorter Steyn – should we fuck more or commit genocide? The part I don’t get is the “or”. He does go on to say the both would be best.
Ok, I think there is some confusion on the part of the radical right as to which is the dick and which is the gun, but surely that can’t be true for all of you. I am sure that in large part, it is “fuck more AND commit genocide”.
Although to fuck and to shoot can be confused as well.
Say, did you read the other Tbogg about Roger Simon? It’s great.
“Now I may not be as “emotionally or morally sophisticated” as Roger L Simon, but then I didn’t spend the afternoon of 9/11 flushing away my beliefs and convictions in a piddle-stained panic. So please spare me the “cojones” and “cowardice” locker room speech from the man who is one car backfire away from turning into a fedora floating in a puddle of pee.”
Gawd, you just gotta love the creativity of every left of the radical right.
Jake
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