Ah, yes, the left's littany comes out: `El Salvadore... Guatemala... Nicaragua'. Do you actually have a complaint about US actions in any of these countries? Faced with a totalitarian regime in Nicaragua which was oppressing its own people and staging guerilla raids into neighboring countries, we helped fund an already-existing local insurgency which fought for and won democratic elections while helping the neighboring countries defend themselves. This bothers you why, exactly?
As for your false arrest scenario, this is a risk any time we allow the police to make arrests, and is why they are required to present an indictment within 48 hours for criminal cases. So unless you are suggesting that we never arrest anyone, this is a risk we will have to face.
Now, if you have any evidence at all that the FBI is arresting people who it does not believe it has a credible case against, go ahead and present it. You haven't done so yet, however.
OK, let's go through what you're saying here, shall we:
Um... letmecheckno. The Gov't is only supposed to arrest people it has in good faith can be successfully prosecuted. Otherwise, it's abuse. -- Do you have any evidence that the government did not believe it had ample evidence to convict in these cases, or are you just spreading FUD?
Um... you mean up until he was given to the Navy and put in Solitary Confinement, right? -- under the precedent established in Ex Parte Quirin, and with judicial review of each stage. Even as we speak, his lawyer is filing a motion in a Manhattan courtroom to reverse his being deemed an enemy combatant. As long as he is an enemy combatant, however, he is subject to military jurisdiction.
Take a note for future reference, that wasn't a piece of journalism -- It was an editorial. -- and what, exactly? As long as it was an editorial it doesn't have to get it's facts right? Sorry, I'm not buying that...
I just love how you left out the word "arrested". -- Um, huh? You mean the seventh word of the bit you pasted from my post? Doesn't look `left out' to me, but the larger point still stands: what does some statement which may have been made by an unnamed official of a state school have to do with the Bush administration? Anything? And do you have any reason to believe that someone disrupting any other event at Ohio state would not be expelled or arrested?
Actually, it's an article about what should be classified and what shouldn't. And it's not even about that, it about whether he can take the matter to court. -- did you read the article? Again, this is a contract law question. Mr. Stillman signed a contract when he went to work for Los Alamos. He later decided to violate that contract. The courts ruled that he could. None of this has anything to do with `censorship'.
Fucking beautiful. Replace "unnamed" with Jessylin A. Radack, and replace "not-very-specific 'concern'" with "coerced confession" It's in the "article". -- no, what's in the emails attached to the article is a discussion of what procedure should be taken in interviewing Mr. Lindh. There is no suggestion of a `coerced confession' at all.
You should go look up the credentials of the author -- Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe. -- I'm very familiar with Mr. Tribe's credentials -- namely that he is a partisan hack who has famously made such convoluted arguments as the claim that not favoring certain races in college admissions would be a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth ammendment.
At any rate, were he familiar with Quirin, he would know that among other things, the SCOTUS found:
Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent does not
relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency which is unlawful
because in violation of the law of war. Citizens who associate
themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its
aid, [317 U.S. 1, 38] guidance and direction enter this country bent
on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague
Convention and the law of war. Cf. Gates v. Goodloe, 101 U.S. 612, 615,
617 S., 618. It is as an enemy belligerent that petitioner Haupt is
charged with entering the United States, and unlawful belligerency is
the gravamen of the offense of which he is accused.
and
petitioners here, upon the conceded facts, were plainly
within those boundaries, and were held in good faith for trial by
military commission, charged with being enemies who, with the purpose
of destroying war materials and utilities, entered or after entry
remained in our territory without uniform-an offense against the law
of war. We hold only that those particular acts constitute an offense
against the law of war which the Constitution authorizes to be tried
by military commission.
So, again, if these are the only claims you can find against the current administration, I'd say they're doing pretty damn well.
What's your point? Is anyone forcing them to take taxpayer dollars? Do you think they have some god-given right to receive federal funding? There are a hundred areas in which the government sets standards for bodies which wish to receive taxpayer bodies. Until overturned, this was merely one more, and a perfectly reasonable one at that.
The problem with your point is that being `non-mainstream' is morally neutral. Kicking puppies is non-mainstream just as much as standing up to injustice is -- it is the content of an act, not whether or not it is `mainstream' which makes it good or bad. If all you can find to say about Mr. Chomsky is that he is `non-mainstream', I fear you are damning him with faint praise.
Here's what I have to say about Mr. Chomsky: he's a nutjob who makes outrageous claims (such as his claim that the US killed 7 million people in Afghanistan (hint: even the Taliban only claimed about two thousand), or his claim that `there is nothing anti-semitic about denying the holocaust'), and then attacks anyone who questions him instead of backing up his claims.
Or maybe it's a demonstration that as poll after poll has shown, the overwhelming majority of Americans support Mr. Bush's foreign policy -- and with good reason.
Americans believe in self defense. We believe in not letting September 11 happen again, especially given that a next attack, with the aid of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, could be much more deadly.
What we don't believe in is knee-jerk anti-Americanism and appeasement of those who believe that mass murder is acceptable. If you do believe in these things, then fine. But don't take it as a sign of anything but how few agree with you that the majority of Americans do not.
60 of 98 FBI Terrorism Cases were thrown out because of lack of evidence -- isn't the key phrase there `thrown out'? Isn't this, in fact, an example of the system working as it is supposed to?
Village Voice Analysis [villagevoice.com] - It's the Village Voice, take it with a grain of salt. -- or a lot of salt as the case may be. The Voice is, of course, the premier voice of the Chomsky/Mailer new left. Even though it has mellowed somewhat with old age and new management, it's hardly a voice of journalistic integrity...
Business Week Article discussing the various infringement of civil rights [businessweek.com] -- the columnist seems completely unaware of many of the details of the case (such as the fact that Muhajir has had a lawyer at every stage of the process), and of the supreme court precedent (Ex Parte Quirin). He does manage to fill in some general paranoia for a lack of knowledge of the case, but that hardly makes good journalism, now does it?
NYTime Editorial on naming an American citizen as an illegal combatant [nytimes.com] -- more or less the same. But of course, we know the NY Times editorial page's stance on the matter.
Ohio State graduates threatened with expulsion/arrest if they "demonstrate or heckle" during Bush's speech [yahoo.com] -- expulsion from the event, of course, but that makes rather less exciting a story, now doesn't it. Anyhow, what an unnamed official of a state school has to do with the Bush administration is unclear.
Federal Courts strike down Bush Administrations attempt to prevent people from challenging censorship laws. -- while I'm a big fan of the RMN, and especially of Dave Kopel, this seems little more than an tendentious headline about what is essentially a contract law dispute, no? At any rate, didn't the court strike down this action, and rule that even though Mr. Stillman had signed a contract not to, he would be allowed to publish?
Justice Department raising questions about case on John Lindh -- but nothing in this article alleges any lawbreaking, merely that some unnamed officials are alleged to have had not-very-specific `concerns'.
Another NYTimes article on illegally detaining American Citizens [nytimes.com] -- this is no different from the other Times piece. It's amazing how many pundits are willing to declare something `unconstitutional' without bothering to read the constitutional law precedent which the administration has very clearly pointed to (Ex Parte Quirin).
IOW, there are a lot of tendentious claims here, but little backup for any of them.
Re:Donations from individual listeners are HUGE
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 1
Though elsewhere their site suggests that much of this is in the form of underwriting by local companies. Still, this is much higher than the national networks (PBS and NPR in television and radio respectively, plus others), and I'm happy to see that.
"USA Patriot Act" mean anything to you? Did you bother to check the tap and trace provisions in that? No, because if you're like many of the reps who voted for it, you didn't read the legislation.
On the contrary, having actually read the USA Patriot act, I would point out that it does nothing more than extend actions which were already ruled constitutional forty years ago when JFK applied them to the Mafia to organized terror groups. Not as exciting as the fiction some people here on/. are trying to build up, I know, but hey, fact is rarely as exciting as paranoia...
How about indefinite detention of US citizens without charge or trial (now happening, see the Padilla case).
Mr. Muhajir (ne Padilla) was, in reality, picked up on a material witness warrant, and had access to a lawyer at every stageof the process, under procedures upheld by the 1942 supreme court case Ex Parte Quirin. He is currently contesting said transfer in a court in New York, as is his right.
None of this sets a new precedent in any way.
Again, not as exciting as your version, but then, again, reality rarely is.
I have read it. All it does is extend the tactics which were already ruled constitutional 40 years ago when JFK applied them to the mafia to organized terror networks. Not as scary as some of the claims being made about it here, I know, but hey, sometimes fact isn't as exciting as fiction...
... now that this turns out to be an unsubstantiated rumor passed on by someone at securityfocus who couldn't be bothered to show a little journalistic integrity, is there any chance we'll see an apology from the nutjobs who come out of the woodwork to shout `See! The US is bad and stuff! The administration is just like the Nazis, dude' whenever a rumor like this comes along will apologize?
No, I guess not. For people that far out on the fringe, there is little hope of something like the actual facts of the situation interfering with their rants...
Of course, this is only true in a roundabout sense -- grants from the CPB, which is
almost entirely federally funded, are not counted by NPR as federal funds.
Re:Donations from individual listeners are HUGE
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
·
· Score: 1
With due respect, talk to any local network affiliate if you want to confirm that individual donors are a miniscule part of their financials. And a look at PBS, who put
their financials online, confirm that their
total income from member stations is only 45% of their operating expenses, with the rest coming from grants from the Department of Education (7%) (about 20% comes from federal sources in total), sales of merchandise (17%), and so forth.
CPB, which is one of the largest single funders (11%) of PBS, also puts their financials online -- they receive almost the entirety of their funding from the federal government.
So, again, by their own numbers, almost 20% of PBS' funding comes from the federal government. What was your point again?
Re:Non-thinkers call the thoughtful center "biased
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I'd say you give the game away when you pick Noam Chomsky, who is at the
rabid fringe of the left as your example of a mainstream liberal. Certainly, most actual liberals would contest any characterization of Mr. Chomsky's inanities as `mainstream'.
As for bias in the media, I would like to point out that on a normal evening on Fox I can see representatives from a wide range of left and right groups debating the issues, while CNN (and much more so ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not seek to provide such balance. Indeed,if you tried to describe the broadcast networks as `center' or `mainstream' to most Americans, they would laugh at you -- there's a reason Bernard Goldberg's book Bias is a nationwide best-seller while the broadcast networks are losing viewers hand-over-fist to Fox.
Re:Donations from individual listeners are HUGE
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
·
· Score: 1
At least here (New York), the standard answer is that donations from foundations and local businesses are a big part of the budget, but individual memberships are nearly negligible as a source of income. I would certainly be interested to see numbers suggesting that this is different in Minnesota or other markets, but you'll need to provide a cite.
If NPR, CPB, PBS, etc. can continue to function without government funding (and you certainly seem to suggest that they could), I'm all for that. They have no less right to do so than any other network, but I certainly find it grating to find a chunk of my tax dollars (a little directly, and more via foundations) to fund a broadcast network pushing an editorial line which is pretty far out of touch with the majority of Americans.
With due respect, most of these sites require credit cards because (wait for it...) they want to make money. Remember that as with 1-900 numbers, `my under-18 child billed this by mistake' is a valid argument to dispute the charge with many credit card companies. Others feel that they can avoid questions about the propriety or legality of their content by avoiding access by minors, even though the courts have repeatedly ruled that they don't have to.
Anyway, box or no box, the argument that site operators choosing to restrict access to their sites is `censorship' is nonsense. And no, you don't get points for `thinking outside the box' -- an argument has to stand or fall on its own, it doesn't become more right just by being `different'.
With due respect, this only works if `the listeners' means `foundation grants and sponsoring businesses'. As any local public broadcaster will tell you, donations from individual listeners are a miniscule part of the budget.
Um, what? NPR provides the same soft-left line which is found in the New York Times, the LA Times or the Washington Post, or in a watered-down form in CBS, NBC, and ABC, or in more or less the same form on CNN, MSNBC, or CNBC. Only Fox provides any break from the uniformity of liberal opinion on the teevee, by having the nerve to try to show both sides of issues instead of parroting whatever the Washington Post editorial page said that morning.
Um, yeah, okay. Except for one minor point -- the US Constitution lists a set of specific duties of the federal government. Providing for a strong national defense is one of them. As far as I can tell, funding niche media outlets isn't. So I'd say there's rather some difference there, no?
Or better yet, don't. His brand of
histrionic, contentless anti-Americanism has become so empty and repetitive that even the left doesn't take him seriously any more.
No, you're quite right -- I didn't look past the post you replied to and note that the original post was from the same poster. My bad.
We certainly need to have due process and normal protection of law in place. When the trial is over, then we shoot the kiddie-porn merchants -- and for their actions, not their (repulsive, but necessarily legal) opinions.:-P
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, the left's littany comes out: `El Salvadore ... Guatemala ... Nicaragua'. Do you actually have a complaint about US actions in any of these countries? Faced with a totalitarian regime in Nicaragua which was oppressing its own people and staging guerilla raids into neighboring countries, we helped fund an already-existing local insurgency which fought for and won democratic elections while helping the neighboring countries defend themselves. This bothers you why, exactly?
As for your false arrest scenario, this is a risk any time we allow the police to make arrests, and is why they are required to present an indictment within 48 hours for criminal cases. So unless you are suggesting that we never arrest anyone, this is a risk we will have to face.
Now, if you have any evidence at all that the FBI is arresting people who it does not believe it has a credible case against, go ahead and present it. You haven't done so yet, however.
OK, let's go through what you're saying here, shall we:
- Um... letmecheckno. The Gov't is only supposed to arrest people it has in good faith can be successfully prosecuted. Otherwise, it's abuse. -- Do you have any evidence that the government did not believe it had ample evidence to convict in these cases, or are you just spreading FUD?
- Um... you mean up until he was given to the Navy and put in Solitary Confinement, right? -- under the precedent established in Ex Parte Quirin, and with judicial review of each stage. Even as we speak, his lawyer is filing a motion in a Manhattan courtroom to reverse his being deemed an enemy combatant. As long as he is an enemy combatant, however, he is subject to military jurisdiction.
- Take a note for future reference, that wasn't a piece of journalism -- It was an editorial. -- and what, exactly? As long as it was an editorial it doesn't have to get it's facts right? Sorry, I'm not buying that...
- I just love how you left out the word "arrested". -- Um, huh? You mean the seventh word of the bit you pasted from my post? Doesn't look `left out' to me, but the larger point still stands: what does some statement which may have been made by an unnamed official of a state school have to do with the Bush administration? Anything? And do you have any reason to believe that someone disrupting any other event at Ohio state would not be expelled or arrested?
- Actually, it's an article about what should be classified and what shouldn't. And it's not even about that, it about whether he can take the matter to court. -- did you read the article? Again, this is a contract law question. Mr. Stillman signed a contract when he went to work for Los Alamos. He later decided to violate that contract. The courts ruled that he could. None of this has anything to do with `censorship'.
- Fucking beautiful. Replace "unnamed" with Jessylin A. Radack, and replace "not-very-specific 'concern'" with "coerced confession" It's in the "article". -- no, what's in the emails attached to the article is a discussion of what procedure should be taken in interviewing Mr. Lindh. There is no suggestion of a `coerced confession' at all.
- You should go look up the credentials of the author -- Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe. -- I'm very familiar with Mr. Tribe's credentials -- namely that he is a partisan hack who has famously made such convoluted arguments as the claim that not favoring certain races in college admissions would be a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth ammendment.
So, again, if these are the only claims you can find against the current administration, I'd say they're doing pretty damn well.At any rate, were he familiar with Quirin, he would know that among other things, the SCOTUS found: and
What's your point? Is anyone forcing them to take taxpayer dollars? Do you think they have some god-given right to receive federal funding? There are a hundred areas in which the government sets standards for bodies which wish to receive taxpayer bodies. Until overturned, this was merely one more, and a perfectly reasonable one at that.
Here's what I have to say about Mr. Chomsky: he's a nutjob who makes outrageous claims (such as his claim that the US killed 7 million people in Afghanistan (hint: even the Taliban only claimed about two thousand), or his claim that `there is nothing anti-semitic about denying the holocaust'), and then attacks anyone who questions him instead of backing up his claims.
Or maybe it's a demonstration that as poll after poll has shown, the overwhelming majority of Americans support Mr. Bush's foreign policy -- and with good reason.
Americans believe in self defense. We believe in not letting September 11 happen again, especially given that a next attack, with the aid of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, could be much more deadly.
What we don't believe in is knee-jerk anti-Americanism and appeasement of those who believe that mass murder is acceptable. If you do believe in these things, then fine. But don't take it as a sign of anything but how few agree with you that the majority of Americans do not.
OK, let's look at those, shall we?
- 60 of 98 FBI Terrorism Cases were thrown out because of lack of evidence -- isn't the key phrase there `thrown out'? Isn't this, in fact, an example of the system working as it is supposed to?
- Village Voice Analysis [villagevoice.com] - It's the Village Voice, take it with a grain of salt. -- or a lot of salt as the case may be. The Voice is, of course, the premier voice of the Chomsky/Mailer new left. Even though it has mellowed somewhat with old age and new management, it's hardly a voice of journalistic integrity...
- Business Week Article discussing the various infringement of civil rights [businessweek.com] -- the columnist seems completely unaware of many of the details of the case (such as the fact that Muhajir has had a lawyer at every stage of the process), and of the supreme court precedent (Ex Parte Quirin). He does manage to fill in some general paranoia for a lack of knowledge of the case, but that hardly makes good journalism, now does it?
- NYTime Editorial on naming an American citizen as an illegal combatant [nytimes.com] -- more or less the same. But of course, we know the NY Times editorial page's stance on the matter.
- Ohio State graduates threatened with expulsion/arrest if they "demonstrate or heckle" during Bush's speech [yahoo.com] -- expulsion from the event, of course, but that makes rather less exciting a story, now doesn't it. Anyhow, what an unnamed official of a state school has to do with the Bush administration is unclear.
- Federal Courts strike down Bush Administrations attempt to prevent people from challenging censorship laws. -- while I'm a big fan of the RMN, and especially of Dave Kopel, this seems little more than an tendentious headline about what is essentially a contract law dispute, no? At any rate, didn't the court strike down this action, and rule that even though Mr. Stillman had signed a contract not to, he would be allowed to publish?
- Justice Department raising questions about case on John Lindh -- but nothing in this article alleges any lawbreaking, merely that some unnamed officials are alleged to have had not-very-specific `concerns'.
- Another NYTimes article on illegally detaining American Citizens [nytimes.com] -- this is no different from the other Times piece. It's amazing how many pundits are willing to declare something `unconstitutional' without bothering to read the constitutional law precedent which the administration has very clearly pointed to (Ex Parte Quirin).
IOW, there are a lot of tendentious claims here, but little backup for any of them.See here.
Though elsewhere their site suggests that much of this is in the form of underwriting by local companies. Still, this is much higher than the national networks (PBS and NPR in television and radio respectively, plus others), and I'm happy to see that.
"USA Patriot Act" mean anything to you? Did you bother to check the tap and trace provisions in that? No, because if you're like many of the reps who voted for it, you didn't read the legislation.
On the contrary, having actually read the USA Patriot act, I would point out that it does nothing more than extend actions which were already ruled constitutional forty years ago when JFK applied them to the Mafia to organized terror groups. Not as exciting as the fiction some people here on /. are trying to build up, I know, but hey, fact is rarely as exciting as paranoia...
How about indefinite detention of US citizens without charge or trial (now happening, see the Padilla case).
Mr. Muhajir (ne Padilla) was, in reality, picked up on a material witness warrant, and had access to a lawyer at every stageof the process, under procedures upheld by the 1942 supreme court case Ex Parte Quirin. He is currently contesting said transfer in a court in New York, as is his right. None of this sets a new precedent in any way.
Again, not as exciting as your version, but then, again, reality rarely is.
I have read it. All it does is extend the tactics which were already ruled constitutional 40 years ago when JFK applied them to the mafia to organized terror networks. Not as scary as some of the claims being made about it here, I know, but hey, sometimes fact isn't as exciting as fiction...
the increasing disregard for liberty the "war" on terrorism is breeding
Can you provide any evidence of such a disregard?
No, I guess not. For people that far out on the fringe, there is little hope of something like the actual facts of the situation interfering with their rants...
Um, yeah. Except that unlike the rest of the world, we're not trying anything of the sort.
Um, yeah, except that as it turns out, it was the article's author who was on crack.
Um, yeah, ok, except that nothing of the sort has happened. Care to provide credible cites to anything like that?
Of course, this is only true in a roundabout sense -- grants from the CPB, which is almost entirely federally funded, are not counted by NPR as federal funds.
CPB, which is one of the largest single funders (11%) of PBS, also puts their financials online -- they receive almost the entirety of their funding from the federal government.
So, again, by their own numbers, almost 20% of PBS' funding comes from the federal government. What was your point again?
I'd say you give the game away when you pick Noam Chomsky, who is at the rabid fringe of the left as your example of a mainstream liberal. Certainly, most actual liberals would contest any characterization of Mr. Chomsky's inanities as `mainstream'.
As for bias in the media, I would like to point out that on a normal evening on Fox I can see representatives from a wide range of left and right groups debating the issues, while CNN (and much more so ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not seek to provide such balance. Indeed,if you tried to describe the broadcast networks as `center' or `mainstream' to most Americans, they would laugh at you -- there's a reason Bernard Goldberg's book Bias is a nationwide best-seller while the broadcast networks are losing viewers hand-over-fist to Fox.
At least here (New York), the standard answer is that donations from foundations and local businesses are a big part of the budget, but individual memberships are nearly negligible as a source of income. I would certainly be interested to see numbers suggesting that this is different in Minnesota or other markets, but you'll need to provide a cite.
If NPR, CPB, PBS, etc. can continue to function without government funding (and you certainly seem to suggest that they could), I'm all for that. They have no less right to do so than any other network, but I certainly find it grating to find a chunk of my tax dollars (a little directly, and more via foundations) to fund a broadcast network pushing an editorial line which is pretty far out of touch with the majority of Americans.
Anyway, box or no box, the argument that site operators choosing to restrict access to their sites is `censorship' is nonsense. And no, you don't get points for `thinking outside the box' -- an argument has to stand or fall on its own, it doesn't become more right just by being `different'.
With due respect, this only works if `the listeners' means `foundation grants and sponsoring businesses'. As any local public broadcaster will tell you, donations from individual listeners are a miniscule part of the budget.
So just how is NPR an `alternative'?
Um, yeah, okay. Except for one minor point -- the US Constitution lists a set of specific duties of the federal government. Providing for a strong national defense is one of them. As far as I can tell, funding niche media outlets isn't. So I'd say there's rather some difference there, no?
Or better yet, don't. His brand of histrionic, contentless anti-Americanism has become so empty and repetitive that even the left doesn't take him seriously any more.
No, you're quite right -- I didn't look past the post you replied to and note that the original post was from the same poster. My bad.
We certainly need to have due process and normal protection of law in place. When the trial is over, then we shoot the kiddie-porn merchants -- and for their actions, not their (repulsive, but necessarily legal) opinions. :-P