Putting this in front of the court will let the average American know that his rights are being curtailed? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the average American following the Supreme Court closely, not unless the TV press gives it big coverage. And since the TV press is owned by the media corporations, well, I think you see where this is going. Unless people start watching PBS or begin reading a free-thinking newspaper, nobody's going to care.
Good point. I'll concede that terrorist leaders are no doubt less enthusiastic about martrydom than their followers; however, I get the feeling that they're more accepting of death (especially if it will greatly advance their cause) than a non-radical leader. For instance, bin Laden, I think, is less concerned about his own hide than the more moderate (heads of state) Musharaf or even Hussein (insane despotic killer, but he is a religious moderate).
Note that I am in no way implying that bin Laden's relative willingness to die in any way imbues him with any sense of honor or virtue. I've actually been accussed of this before for making a similar point. Seems like a non-sequitor to me, but in these "you're with us [The Bush Administration] or you're with the terrorists" times it seems people are quick to paint each other as terrorist sympathizers.
Many of these terrorist leaders would welcome martyrdom in exchange for having their movements grow by the thousands. Perhaps before calling people who disagree with you fools, you should try and understand the culture of the enemy. These are not rational people, and fundamentalists of any stripe do not always follow their own logical self-interests.
Incidentally, while some leaders might be dying, I'd venture to say that Islamic Fundamentalism as a movement has only grown stronger during Bush's "war on terror". Anti-American sentiment worldwide (not just amongst people who "hate freedom") has grown much stronger as well, and this does little to make me feel safer.
You know, we're not the only free nation on Earth--there's a lot of other democracies. Why do you think they hate us more than they hate anybody else? Why is there no mission to destroy Canada? Because Canada has socialized medicine? I doubt it . ..
If you thought about it a little bit, I think you'd realize your view of the world is tinted through neoconservative glasses.
So you won't call them all war criminals. If you can't or won't call them all war criminals then you've just admitted that you have a double standard because he's John Kerry. And don't give me that "extra scrutiny b/c he's running for office" BS--you just hate his politics and wish to engage in character assasination.
Note that John Kerry never said he was a war criminal, he said he participated in atrocities, like THOUSANDS of other of OUR (I'm assuming you're an American) soldiers over there. So what would you have had him do? Disobey orders? If he'd done that and gotten a dishonorable discharge as a result, you'd be all over for him that, too.
You hate John Kerry and his politics, and that's why you call him a war criminal. Incidentally, even John O' Neill, who made himself famous as Nixon's stooge attack dog, never made the accusation that Kerry was a war criminal, and there is LITTLE love lost between those two.
Sick things happen in war--always have. To deny that is to be beyond naive, and that level of naivete leads to politicians leading us into war because they think it'll be easy. I'm betting that if Fallujah is invaded and massive civillian casualties are incurred that, thirty years from now, you'd blame the foot soldier who took part in the invasion instead of George W. Bush. Oh, wait, but only if that foot soldier is a Democrat running for office. Otherwise, I'm sure you're all about "supporting the troops".
The facts do not bother me. Your spin on the facts bother me. And you never answered my question as to whether you consider every soldier who participated in free fire zones a war criminal.
Because it wasn't just Kerry out there burning down villages.
Thanks for not bothering to read anything in my post. If your uid weren't so low I'd suspect you a troll, but obviously you're just incapable of critical thought--much like most people who attack Kerry's war record. (hint: there are MANY valid things to attack Kerry about--I'm not a blanket apologist).
And taking a man's words out of context and then saying he's an admitted war criminal when he said no such thing, yea, that's pretty dishonorable. I mean, honestly, do you believe EVERYTHING the Swift Boat veterans feed you?
The two candidates got to say what they wanted, but it was very clear that one of them was prepared, articulate, and in total command. The other was ridiculously unprepared, looked nervous, kept demanding to speak out of turn, etc. I won't even say which was which, because if you actually watched the debates, you'd know.
For the truly open-minded, this debate revealed a lot about the two candidates.
So now you're against every single Vietnam Veteran who took part in free-fire zones? Like these men weren't patriots?
To give your sig context:
There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.
All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.
I agree with John Kerry, the men who followed their orders committed atrocities, but the men who gave these orders are the war criminals.
We're going to stand up to you, you know. All the lies and the slandering will be answered back tenfold with the most powerful weapon we have: the truth.
Our soldiers, as a collective, who fought in Vietnam were honorable men, and I won't let you dishonor their memory by dragging one of their number through the mud. So come on, strike back with something pithy about how maybe John Kerry wasn't injured with enough shrapnel for your taste or how maybe he looks a little too French to you. It just makes you look ridiculous. And dishonorable.
I saw the exact same episode of The Daily Show. When I saw this headline on/., I immediately scoured the comments to see who was the first person to notice. Proof once more that The Daily Show is the best news there is on tv:)
And, no, I don't get all my news from TV--if I were that uninformed I'd think Bush actually won the debate that he just stumbled his way through.
How could you tell grandparent was a Republican from what he wrote there? Do you go through the posting history of everyone you reply to for their political affiliation? That seems like a bit much.
No, AC, I didn't miss his point at all. Reading between the lines, it seemed to me that he was muddying up the waters to the point where he was saying "people shouldn't complain about the election of GWB, because Clinton's was also illegitmate".
If there's one thing I HATE it's when spin is used to create a draw where one side should clearly be the loser. Comparing the legitimatices of BC's and GWB's respective elections seemed to me be practically shouting with this kind of spin. I could be wrong, however, and if the parent had no such agenda, then I apologize to him, and to you as well.
Interestingly, no one talks about how unfair it was that Clinton got elected.
It's true, Clinton didn't win an absolute majority, but you neglect to mention that he did win the plurality. Nobody was bitching about it then because he still got more votes than any other individual candidate, something which GWB cannot claim.
That's what the system has become, but was it originally designed that way? That's the question the grandparent was asking. My recollection of civics tells me that there was no formal structuring at the inception of our political process that gave rise to the two-party system, but I'll be happy to be corrected:)
Hey, somebody finally mentioned Altercation! I could do without the music reviews, but I enjoy the political commentary.
On the less intellectual side of the liberal blogs, I enjoy reading bartcop. His mindless anger can be fun for the disenfranchised liberal (the conservatives can bitch all they want, but we liberals really have fuck-all for political power these days), but he also has a good roundup of links from mainstream news sources.
I second the font issue. I made the switch from aim to gaim about two weeks ago, and the fonts are painful. I had to turn on "ignore font faces" to decipher some of the IMs from friends/family who used cutesy fonts that were simply unreadable at the size gaim rendered them (yes, they were quite readable on aim). As an additional note, even with the "ignore font faces" option turned on, the fonts are quite small, and you wouldn't be able to read them unless you had good eyes.
I'm sticking with gaim, because I like the open nature of it (and the powerful logging features are quite handy), but I can't recommend it to everyone I know until the fonts are easier to read. Non-power users love their eye-candy fonts, and besides that some of the folks I know are far-sighted.
I have no sig. That was my closing comment. Any irony was intentional.
:)
Sorry, so many people use that one that I immediately thought it was your sig. Of course, since now I know you put it there on purpose, I haven't the slightest idea whether you believe the reasoning you used or not.
You realize that it was the Times that broke the Whitewater story when Clinton was president.
AC makes a good point. The NYT was also the paper that unscrupulously backed every single one of the White House's faulty reasons for invading Iraq during the runup to the war.
Leftist paper. Sure. The truth is the mainstream media has been guilty of mindlessly parroting White House talking points ever since 9/11.
I'm not certain whether I agree or disagree with you, but the irony of your sig with regards to your reasoning is too interesting to let go.
Reasoning: Someone searching for the simplest possible consistent laws will have to say that murder is the killing of a human, that embryos are human, and thus abortion is murder.
Sig: "For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
Slashdot Mirror
Putting this in front of the court will let the average American know that his rights are being curtailed? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the average American following the Supreme Court closely, not unless the TV press gives it big coverage. And since the TV press is owned by the media corporations, well, I think you see where this is going. Unless people start watching PBS or begin reading a free-thinking newspaper, nobody's going to care.
Good point. I'll concede that terrorist leaders are no doubt less enthusiastic about martrydom than their followers; however, I get the feeling that they're more accepting of death (especially if it will greatly advance their cause) than a non-radical leader. For instance, bin Laden, I think, is less concerned about his own hide than the more moderate (heads of state) Musharaf or even Hussein (insane despotic killer, but he is a religious moderate).
Note that I am in no way implying that bin Laden's relative willingness to die in any way imbues him with any sense of honor or virtue. I've actually been accussed of this before for making a similar point. Seems like a non-sequitor to me, but in these "you're with us [The Bush Administration] or you're with the terrorists" times it seems people are quick to paint each other as terrorist sympathizers.
Many of these terrorist leaders would welcome martyrdom in exchange for having their movements grow by the thousands. Perhaps before calling people who disagree with you fools, you should try and understand the culture of the enemy. These are not rational people, and fundamentalists of any stripe do not always follow their own logical self-interests.
Incidentally, while some leaders might be dying, I'd venture to say that Islamic Fundamentalism as a movement has only grown stronger during Bush's "war on terror". Anti-American sentiment worldwide (not just amongst people who "hate freedom") has grown much stronger as well, and this does little to make me feel safer.
You know, we're not the only free nation on Earth--there's a lot of other democracies. Why do you think they hate us more than they hate anybody else? Why is there no mission to destroy Canada? Because Canada has socialized medicine? I doubt it . . .
If you thought about it a little bit, I think you'd realize your view of the world is tinted through neoconservative glasses.
I see you've gotten rid of your sig. You've conceded the debate, then ;)
So you won't call them all war criminals. If you can't or won't call them all war criminals then you've just admitted that you have a double standard because he's John Kerry. And don't give me that "extra scrutiny b/c he's running for office" BS--you just hate his politics and wish to engage in character assasination.
Note that John Kerry never said he was a war criminal, he said he participated in atrocities, like THOUSANDS of other of OUR (I'm assuming you're an American) soldiers over there. So what would you have had him do? Disobey orders? If he'd done that and gotten a dishonorable discharge as a result, you'd be all over for him that, too.
You hate John Kerry and his politics, and that's why you call him a war criminal. Incidentally, even John O' Neill, who made himself famous as Nixon's stooge attack dog, never made the accusation that Kerry was a war criminal, and there is LITTLE love lost between those two.
Sick things happen in war--always have. To deny that is to be beyond naive, and that level of naivete leads to politicians leading us into war because they think it'll be easy. I'm betting that if Fallujah is invaded and massive civillian casualties are incurred that, thirty years from now, you'd blame the foot soldier who took part in the invasion instead of George W. Bush. Oh, wait, but only if that foot soldier is a Democrat running for office. Otherwise, I'm sure you're all about "supporting the troops".
I'd pick Kerry over Bush on this one. He's tall, got a long reach. Plus, skinny guys fight 'till they're burger ;)
The facts do not bother me. Your spin on the facts bother me. And you never answered my question as to whether you consider every soldier who participated in free fire zones a war criminal. Because it wasn't just Kerry out there burning down villages.
Thanks for not bothering to read anything in my post. If your uid weren't so low I'd suspect you a troll, but obviously you're just incapable of critical thought--much like most people who attack Kerry's war record. (hint: there are MANY valid things to attack Kerry about--I'm not a blanket apologist).
And taking a man's words out of context and then saying he's an admitted war criminal when he said no such thing, yea, that's pretty dishonorable. I mean, honestly, do you believe EVERYTHING the Swift Boat veterans feed you?
If you're calling American soldiers Nazis, then fine. I don't see it that way, but you're entitled to your opinion.
Ask and ye shall receive.
full debate rules
Just to warn you, it's a 32 page PDF--might take awhile to load.
The two candidates got to say what they wanted, but it was very clear that one of them was prepared, articulate, and in total command. The other was ridiculously unprepared, looked nervous, kept demanding to speak out of turn, etc. I won't even say which was which, because if you actually watched the debates, you'd know.
For the truly open-minded, this debate revealed a lot about the two candidates.
What the fuck was he thinking? That maybe the law of the land applies to you even if your surname happens to be "Bush"? Frothing partisan indeed.
So now you're against every single Vietnam Veteran who took part in free-fire zones? Like these men weren't patriots?
To give your sig context:
There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.
All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.
I agree with John Kerry, the men who followed their orders committed atrocities, but the men who gave these orders are the war criminals.
We're going to stand up to you, you know. All the lies and the slandering will be answered back tenfold with the most powerful weapon we have: the truth.
Our soldiers, as a collective, who fought in Vietnam were honorable men, and I won't let you dishonor their memory by dragging one of their number through the mud. So come on, strike back with something pithy about how maybe John Kerry wasn't injured with enough shrapnel for your taste or how maybe he looks a little too French to you. It just makes you look ridiculous. And dishonorable.
I saw the exact same episode of The Daily Show. When I saw this headline on /., I immediately scoured the comments to see who was the first person to notice. Proof once more that The Daily Show is the best news there is on tv :)
And, no, I don't get all my news from TV--if I were that uninformed I'd think Bush actually won the debate that he just stumbled his way through.
How could you tell grandparent was a Republican from what he wrote there? Do you go through the posting history of everyone you reply to for their political affiliation? That seems like a bit much.
No, AC, I didn't miss his point at all. Reading between the lines, it seemed to me that he was muddying up the waters to the point where he was saying "people shouldn't complain about the election of GWB, because Clinton's was also illegitmate". If there's one thing I HATE it's when spin is used to create a draw where one side should clearly be the loser. Comparing the legitimatices of BC's and GWB's respective elections seemed to me be practically shouting with this kind of spin. I could be wrong, however, and if the parent had no such agenda, then I apologize to him, and to you as well.
Interestingly, no one talks about how unfair it was that Clinton got elected.
It's true, Clinton didn't win an absolute majority, but you neglect to mention that he did win the plurality. Nobody was bitching about it then because he still got more votes than any other individual candidate, something which GWB cannot claim.
That's what the system has become, but was it originally designed that way? That's the question the grandparent was asking. My recollection of civics tells me that there was no formal structuring at the inception of our political process that gave rise to the two-party system, but I'll be happy to be corrected :)
Oh, sonuva, I really messed up that link.
Hey, somebody finally mentioned Altercation! I could do without the music reviews, but I enjoy the political commentary.
On the less intellectual side of the liberal blogs, I enjoy reading bartcop. His mindless anger can be fun for the disenfranchised liberal (the conservatives can bitch all they want, but we liberals really have fuck-all for political power these days), but he also has a good roundup of links from mainstream news sources.
I second the font issue. I made the switch from aim to gaim about two weeks ago, and the fonts are painful. I had to turn on "ignore font faces" to decipher some of the IMs from friends/family who used cutesy fonts that were simply unreadable at the size gaim rendered them (yes, they were quite readable on aim). As an additional note, even with the "ignore font faces" option turned on, the fonts are quite small, and you wouldn't be able to read them unless you had good eyes.
I'm sticking with gaim, because I like the open nature of it (and the powerful logging features are quite handy), but I can't recommend it to everyone I know until the fonts are easier to read. Non-power users love their eye-candy fonts, and besides that some of the folks I know are far-sighted.
I have no sig. That was my closing comment. Any irony was intentional.
:)
Sorry, so many people use that one that I immediately thought it was your sig. Of course, since now I know you put it there on purpose, I haven't the slightest idea whether you believe the reasoning you used or not.
You realize that it was the Times that broke the Whitewater story when Clinton was president.
AC makes a good point. The NYT was also the paper that unscrupulously backed every single one of the White House's faulty reasons for invading Iraq during the runup to the war.
Leftist paper. Sure. The truth is the mainstream media has been guilty of mindlessly parroting White House talking points ever since 9/11.
I'm not certain whether I agree or disagree with you, but the irony of your sig with regards to your reasoning is too interesting to let go.
Reasoning:
Someone searching for the simplest possible consistent laws will have to say that murder is the killing of a human, that embryos are human, and thus abortion is murder.
Sig:
"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken