I am walkabout in the American Dreamtime, I accept the concept of natural rights without proof as axiomatic to the US Government. By setting up a class of natural rights, the founders effectively restrained government's reach, because a natural right is possessed by humans. This concept of personal liberty is in large measure what makes America a fine country. Natural rights have another important quality which is sadly lost on most present Americans; their applicability is universal, and is not a quality of nationality, for if they are only a right of American citizens, they are not preeminent, but freedoms that a magnanimous state has proffered to is citizens, and they would no longer be secure, possessed by the people.
This is what is in threat of being lost. Habeas Corpus is the bedrock into which natural rights are grounded, and this congressional act of tyranny must be resisted.
If the detainees had never been unlawfully stripped of their Geneva Protections, this issue would not even be germane, but once they were yanked out as non POWs, the constitution's due process protections kick in.
I am too much of a Jeffersonian to accept that this is incompatible with the country's survival, and instead loudly state, that without it, America is lost.
I was mistaken, the term 'criminal combatant' is not used officially by the Bush Administration, but your refutation is disingenuous, and even more error ridden than my misstatement.
Instead of 'criminal combatant' the Bush Administration seems to prefer "unlawful enemy combatant", which also carries the implication that these humans are held as criminal actors, does it not? They are certainly defined by more than your truncated "enemy combatant", because that would not in any way distinguish them from POWs, and the Administration created an unconstitutional third class, attempting to place these humans outside the reach of the rule of law.
"They are unlawful combatants who seek to destroy our country and our way of life. And if I determine that it is in the national security interest of our great land to try by military commission those who make war on America, then we will do so."
Mr. Bush's sole legitimising force is the US Constitution, and he has now twice solemnly sworn to uphold and protect it, yet works to destroy it by claiming a President can lawfully act outside of its constraints. The American President is not above the Supreme Law of the land. Bush engages in tyranny when claiming this.
"...the Geneva Convention was written in a very different era, following world war -- to apply to the war on terrorism, where people don't wear uniforms, they are unlawful combatants and they come from 30 different nations, not any one recognized nation with whom the United States is fighting a war."
It still does not matter if this is indeed a different era, or just a time of an incompetent executive, The US Constitution Article VI; clause 2 guides:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Clearly the Geneva Conventions are the Supreme Law of the Land, and since under the Conventions a High Contracting Party is restrained from withdrawing from them during a time of war, Bush violated the Constitution in his detainee determination. I will address that issue later.
The US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, speaking at Chatham House in London on February 20, 2002, clearly defined them as criminal actors, then went on to claim that Due Process of Law does not apply to them:
"The members of al Qaida fail to meet the criteria to be lawful combatants under the law of war. In choosing to violate these laws and customs of war and engage in hostilities, they become unlawful combatants. And their conduct, in intentionally targeting and killing civilians in a time of international armed conflict, constitute war crimes. As we have repeatedly stated, these were not ordinary domestic crimes, and the perpetrators cannot and should not be deemed to be ordinary 'common criminals.'
Unlawful combatants by their nature forfeit special benefits and privileges accorded by the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. If captured, they are apprehended for their criminal activity and not as prisoners of war as envisioned by the Geneva Convention."
Las Vegas is constantly adjusting their pitches and hooks. It's how they stay profitable. They love to call new angles in their agressive marketing techniques, "Reinventing Las Vegas". What a load of hype, nothing has been truly reinvented, it's sill all about you, Loser.
The early nineties overt push for families has been on the whole discredited, and the official Vegas spin is no long, "Please bring the kids", it instead has morphed to, "Uh, ok, If you bring the kids".
After several years overtly seeking families as a primary source of visitors, the mid-nineties saw most major properties (Mandalay Bay Properties [formerly Circus Circus] execpted) backing away from it. After several years of market studies and analysis, Gaming Corporations realised that if you bring you kids to Vegas, both your maximum allowable gambling time, and your maximum acceptable losses in the casino are significantly reduced. I guess one needs a 4 year University degree in marketing to be able to drag out the self-evident for so long.
Major Gaming Corporations which operate in Nevada are not opposed to internet gambling, as long as it is a free market, and they are allowed to enter into it. If lawfully enabled to do so, the corporations could scale up their net resources instantly, and almost overnight have top class enterprise gaming web site which could easily compete with pre-existing sites.
The Vegas gaming corporations have discovered that California tribal gambling didn't turn out to be the goose neck-breaker many were predicting. It has affected Reno negatively. In Las Vegas, the tribal casinos have served to greatly broaden the base of potential visitors to the city, and at the same time operate as a trap for low-end players Vegas would be just as happy without. It seems that P.T. Barnum vastly underestimated the statical frequency, and it's more like, 'one born every second'.
Vegas does agressiveley market conventions still, and even though the atendees, as a broad group gamble less than the average visitor, their consumption of other high profit-margin hotel offerings can sometimes exceed cash flow projections had the rooms been filled with non-business visitors.
We are not supposed to torture, not in some Faustian quid pro quo bargain to protect our troops, but because it is the high ground, and we are supposed to walk the high ground.
Contemporary Conservatives have driven America into the septic pit of situationalism. They judge America's acts using murderous foreign dictators as the referent standard. They justify the unconstitutional acts of a grossly overreaching president by citing as precedent, acts of the symbolic antithesis to conservatism, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They claim themselves motivated only by the higher goal of expanding democratic processess worldwide when rationalising an immoral war, but switch their toga of justice for a jacket of realism when rationalising Bush's past obscene alliance with the Butcher of Andijon, Islam Karimov, kleptocratic dictator of Uzbekistan.
Now in a partisan effort, Congress seeks to abrogate habeas corpus, and apply this legislation retroactively, which is by itself a violation of the US Constitution
The Dreamtime American is being Destroyed by cowards who have solemnly sworn to Defend and Uphold the US Constitution, but fear our Judicial System.
They're called 'Criminal Combatants' by the president when he rips away their Geneva Conventions Protections without first properly having a determination of their status made through a valid tribunal process. Does this not imply that they are being held as 'criminal' actors by the US government and not as POWs?
The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution begins with; "In All Criminal Prosecutions..." The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitutional states that No Person shall have life, liberty or property taken from them by the government without due process of law.
These humans are being held in violation of the US Constitution, and instead of correcting this grevious harm, Congress has worked tirelessly to abrogate habeas corpus.
Again I ask, America has a Bill of Rights?
Originalise this:
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,--entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;...freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,--these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation." -- Thomas Jefferson
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - Thomas Paine
"Does the law really work in such a way where you can be supeonaed based on what link you clicked on? Shouldn't you arrest the person who created the link?
You do realise we're discussing the Bush Administration don't you? They consider "evidence" to be an obscene word, which is improper to use in a public discussion. They seem to be a primary source of the American Government's Rampant Intelligence Failures. It's not the first time they have been working ass backwards on a problem. Consider:
"We created the Terrorist Surveillance Program to monitor the communications between al Qaeda commanders abroad and terrorist operatives within our borders. If al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, we need to know why, in order to stop attacks"
"I need people in Washington, D.C. who are willing to give those who are responsible for protecting America all the tools they need -- tools such as the Patriot Act; tools such as programs that say if al Qaeda is calling into the United States, we want to why, in order to protect the United States of America."
"I've also been clear about the fact that we do not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval, and that this government will continue to guard the privacy of the American people. But if al Qaeda is calling into the United States, we want to know, and we want to know why."
"It seemed to make sense to me that if somebody associated with the enemy is making a call inside the country, that it would be helpful to know why, in order to protect the American people. Lawyers came back and said, you got the authority, Mr. President.
I then went and said, well, gosh, if we do go forward, I know there's going to be some consternation in the halls of the United States Congress. So we briefed people responsible for intelligence and the leadership in both bodies, in both political parties. Just like my buddy in Texas said, if you're trying to pull one over on them, why are you briefing the Congress? (Laughter.) If you're doing something illegal, why did you call the Congress in and lay it for them to fully understand what we're doing to protect the American people?
I wanted to share that with you. I think it's important for you to know why I make decisions. I'm confident what I'm doing. The decision I made is the right decision. If al Qaeda is calling in the United States, we want to know why."
"The Congress passed the authorization to use military force against al Qaeda after September the 11th, and the Supreme Court, in a recent opinion, ruled that the President -- the Congress gave me the authority to use what's called the "fundamental incidents of war." In other words, Congress authorized me t
Sometimes it isn't the high frequency edits that need to be watched out for. I am aware of a wikiStub which is a good example. I proffer this one because of its extreme volatility, I have an axe to grind with proponents of both sides of the issue, have not edited any of the mentioned pages, and I have not made up my mind as to the veracity of the claims. (i did mention this page to a contact involved with wikipedia, who had previously asked that i message this sort of thing to an email box)
The stub is Walid Phares, a terrorism expert, and professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University.
On March 21, 2006, an edit appeared, which lasted 7 hours, and the rationale for revert was simply, 'nonsense'. The edit claimed that Phares had past ties to the Guardians of the Cedar, but wasn't sourced. This is a serious allegation, and truly warranted a move to the talk page of the stub.
The Phares talk page does have some interesting ravings on it, which are also unsourced, and less than the truth. It also has a pervasive sense of threat, easily chilling discussion. Maybe this sort of content is why many are unwilling to point to their objective instances of objection, as it tends to further tag them.
For the Record, Royer did publish an article alleging the Phares ties, but it is extremely unlikely that he is in anyway responsible for these edits, as he is serving twenty years for violationg a weapons export ban by running weapons to Pakistan. Royer's statement to the court at his sentencing also expressed both his guilt and remorse. He's a ass, and convicted gun runner, but is probably underserving of his depiction on the talk page, which uses extremely biased hot button terminology.
The two edits on the Phares stub I mentioned here, as well as the latest on the talk page from a user, 'Jihadwatch', all seem to be members of the new classSchema for some wikiContributors, the Single purpose account. (First edit - - revert - - jihadwatch)
As I mentioned earlier, I wish to apply a cluestick to almost everyone involved with editing this article, but I'd prefer an honest reach for the truth instead...
Be angry at the sun for setting If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn, They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors. This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating, Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth Hunts in no pack. "Be Angry at the Sun" - Robinson Jeffers
Whoa partner, much of my previous post was laced with sarcasm, but thanks for some Howard insight.
The convict quip was meant as a compare/contrast to America's religious fanatics and political dissidents collective history. Few Americans can trace their lineage back that far, most being immigrants with a 4 or less generation history as Americans, but it still plays on the collective self-image. Is it not a bit of the same in Australia? At least you aren't Kiwi, so i didn't offend with any silly 'Aussies with a fetish for the Queen's English' joke, or something like that. They seem to have a serious complex at times. (and yes, i can usually tell the difference almost instantly, i like to tease)
The first Australians i ever met was a very long time ago, in a city formerly known as Saigon, and they were Special Forces, so maybe my ideas of Australians are a bit distorted, but they did have a pleasant sense of humour that remained even in the darkness, and an ability to consume vast quantities of beer... Still this is better than many Yanks image of Australians, which consists of mixing The Crocodile Hunter with Crocodile Dundee, and adding a bit of Mel Gibson into it...
I recently completed a bit of web collaboration on a site where the most approachable superAdmin is an Aussie, and we've engaged in a bit of dialogue. I also keep a few Australian papers' RSS feeds active in my newsreader, trying to avoid Murdoch overload, which can easily occur if not careful. I have to admit that the Sydney Morning Herald is the one I browse the most though. There are a few other current Australian pointers/contacts of mine that i don't care to express here.
I am vaguely aware of your illegal immigrant problem, and the housing issue (don't fence me in). I can't really criticise, given the US illegal attitude presently. As for Howard's adamant alliance with the US, truthfully, i for one say thanks, even though i thought the Iraq war was wrong from day one. It's good to have friends, and i'll try to keep this in other countrypersons' consciousness in the future.
Oh yeah, if it was up to me, i would have shipped Hicks back home a long time ago, and let you deal with the moron...
Apologies mate, I assumed you were a fellow Yank. The media coverage blitz was harmful the fair trial process in the OJ murder case. What troubles me in the analysis of the effect is that it always seems to ignore the effect of obviously dishonest testimony given by prosecutorial witnesses, and the almost total lack of faith that many in poor LA metro areas have in their Police force. Nothing has been done to mitigate this.
I am not sure how evidence acquired illegaly in a warrantless search is treated in Australian ciminal processes. In America, if evidence was acquired by the government illegally, it is considered to be inadmissable. How does a society which possesses a collective history of convict, yet magaed to separate from the Empire peacefully, resolve this issue?
And how do you rate the job performance of America's foreign minister to Australia, Mr. Howard?
If the US had similar laws the OJ trial might have not turned into a complete circus.
But that would not have mitigated the underlying issue which made the OJ case difficult to prosecute: The LAPD has too many officers who are cowboys, and believe that it is righteous for them to practise antinomianism.
They are not above the law, and they most certainly do not have the right to lie under oath giving testimony in a criminal case.
Reasonable doubt was hurled into the trial the moment Van Adder, a principle investigative officer at the murder scene, swore that the reason they had gone over the wall at OJ's residence warrantless was because they were worried about his well-being, and that he wasn't a suspect in the double murder.
When an estranged wife and male companion are brutally murdered in the wife's residence, the separated husband is number one on the suspect list. How long does it take to wake up the on-call judge and get him to OK a warrant for the estranged husband's house in a double-murder case anyway? Less than 1/2 hour would be my guess. OJ could have been on the moon at the time of the murder, and they would have been looking for evidence of a contract hit. He callously disregarded the Fourth Amendment, and then lied at the criminal case to keep the evidence from being dismissed.
Add to that Furhman, the complete absence of any chain of evidence exercised over OJ's Bronco, less than fully qualified crime-techs at the scene, the fact that many minority groups in LA view the LAPD as mercenary enforcers, not community protectors, as well as the high-end attorneys working for the defense, and reasonable doubt had crept into the prosecution of the case.
It is a great pity there is a high probability that OJ got away with murder. It is an outrage that LAPD never shouldered their responsibility in the trial process' souring. There was no application of a painful clue-stick to aid in behaviour modification, so there is also a high probability that many on the force still consciously engage in constitutional violations and the subsequent giving of dishonest fourth amendment related testimony. They may pay a little more attention to wealthy suspects' rights these days though.
I would really prefer the government stop spying on all Americans in a mostly futile effort to catch a relatively small number of Muslim extremists.
Yes, ever so much easier to follow the trail of debris and body parts, eh? Yes, they are small in percentage and number, but they do mega-death and damage. I prioritize for proaction, not reaction.
The government has been damn effective securing convictions against muslim men using due process of law, too.
The sad case of Sami al-Hussayen should be a warning to all. After the jury acquited on all terror charges and hung on a few immigration violations, the prosecutiong US attorney admitted that the case was extremely weak, but that justice had been served.
This is why Guantanamo Bay should not be tolerated. If they cannot secure convictions against these humans, in a tribunal which adheres to due process of law in an open courtroom, then it is inhumane, UnAmerican, and Unconstitutional to deprive them of life, liberty and/or property.
Didn't we have a revolution because some other guy named George was doing this crap?
For depriving humans, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting humans beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
No, Nixon's Southern strategy was intended to get the racist to vote Republican, and it's still considered a valid tactic in the GOP. It's why Zel Miller made it all the way up North to Cincinatti with Bush in '04, but got his ticket home before heading up into Akron and Cleveland.
You resorted to this ditto Byrd screed? How effin original. Byrd was indeed a racist, as well as a KKK member throughout most of the forties, but I mentioned Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968.
From Wikipedia:
In the NAACP's Congressional Report Card for the 108th Congress (spanning the 2003-2004 congressional session), Byrd was awarded with an approval rating of 100% for favoring the NAACP's position in all 33 bills presented to the United States Senate regarding issues of their concern. Only 16 other Senators of the same session matched this approval rating. In June 2005, Byrd proposed an additional $10 million in federal funding for the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington, DC, remarking that "With the passage of time, we have come to learn that his Dream was the American Dream, and few ever expressed it more eloquently."
From a 2005 Washington Post Book Review:
James Tolbert, president of the West Virginia chapter of the NAACP and an occasional critic of the senator, said Byrd transcended his past by gradually embracing more enlightened social views and by simply owning up to his past mistakes. "He doesn't try to lie his way out of things," Tolbert said. "If he's wrong, he'll say he's wrong."
[. ..]
Still, says Ken Hechler, 90, a liberal Democratic former U.S. House member from West Virginia who served with Byrd in Congress, "It's impossible for anyone to try to whitewash the KKK and its overall symbolism."
"But at the same time," he added, "we honor those people who publicly admit the error of their ways."
Last week, Byrd said: "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times . . . and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."
The KKK charges at Byrd are an ad hominem attack attempting to downplay his eloquent antiwar sppeches upon the Senate floor, by a grouping of the usual suspects for disinformation's right-sided insertion, most notably in this case Malkin and Horowitz. Horowitz's traitorous past makes him an extremely reprehensible hypocrite in this regard. They cannot refute his antiwar, and instead play an evil game.
Byrd has admitted his mistakes, many times. Horowitz just blames the left for his newlefty evilness. Who is the better man.
and damn you, retarded modder, for tagging my bitch-slapping of a cowardly posting of rightardedness as trolling. al Qaida is actually a growing force in International news providers, that allows an incredibly divergent spectrum of ideas to be proferred on their talk segments. Much broader than seen of the so called terrorist loving liberal news networks, and exponentially more expansive than the fare of the FREEPing lamers of the right who are now advocating their dire need of affirmative action since as Steven Colbert told the DC journalist, "facts have a liberal bias".
Once again I hear Contemporary Conservatism's tinny cry of moral equivalence, as it continues its long plunging fall from grace into the fetid pit of situationalism.
Are you implying that two wrongs make-up a righty's rationalisation for liberty's theft?
Why did you just skip over the Nixon darkevil, when discussing unlawful executive acts of surveilling past? Why did you play the ugly card of moral relevancy by pulling it out from inside of your sleeve?
You also just hopped over any comparisons of scope and degree of implementation.
A clear difference between Republicans and Democrats is that when Democrats sodomise you, they honestly believe they're doing it for the higher good, will use a bit of lubrication, and lie the next morning, telling you they still care. Republicans, being stark realists, are not enamored by such silly notions, sodomise you only for their own personal agrandisement, and experience intense pleasure from their wielding of illegitimate force.
Or so Dubya Dim and his Admin would have us believe when rationalising the unconstitutional imprisonement of humans at Guantanamo Bay, but all legitimate authority to govern in America is grounded within the Constitution, and a quick read from the Bill of Rights can be extremely illuminating:
The 13th Amendment to The US Constitution
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Guantanamo Bay is certainly within the set of places defined as "any place subject to" the US Government's juristiction. Mr. Bush himself changed these humans' designation from POW to "criminal detainee". By his own edict, he admits that he believes they are criminal actors, and yet has callously disregarded clear strictures that compel due proces of law be given, by the very document which is the source of legitimacy for his political office, and which he has now twice solemnly sworn in public to protect and uphold.
This is American Tyranny.
Please someone give GW a BJ, so the Republican majority can discover a reason to impeach him.
Until the state can secure a prosecution which follows due process of law, the accused retains the right to a timely and public trial decided by a jury, in which the defendant possesses the right that no compelled testimony of his will be used; possesses the right to challenge the witnesses and evidence used by the state in their prosecution; retains the right to acquire witnesses and evidence for his defense; and the right to a competent counsel reperesenting him, who is dedicated to his defense. These rights are universal in their bar to the State's power of imprisonment, were completely removed from the State's lawful reach, and placed in the category: "Natural Rights", which are possessed by All Humans. There is No terrorism exemption, and these are Not rights which are only conferred by US citizenship, for to argue that they are is to argue that they are not natural rights, but a gift of a generous state to its citizens.
Cowards, thieves and partisan hacks equivocate, and pimp out the rights of humans for pocket change. A constitutionally illiterate and acquiescent citizenry quakes in fear contemplating the destruction that twenty maniacs were able to cause, because the person and his administration who were tasked with the duty of our country's defense, were so arrogant, ignorant and derelict, they were fast asleep upon the watchtowers.
This stopped being true in 1968, when the Republican Party sold out their soul and pimped out the Party of Lincoln to Richard Milhouse Nixon, who played his 'southern strategy', causing the southern racists to switch parties into the welcoming arms of the Morally Relativistic RNC.
No REAL conservative would ever ground the basis for an argument of theirs
in a positivist comparison to any act word or deed of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Bullshit, there are ways to wage war without selling out America's soul, without destroying the Dreamtime America. War is immoral, and a big lie often told to soldiers is that honour can be found on the battlefield. It cannot, and when the shooting is finished, when the soldiers return home, there is only the honour that remains.
Am I to understand that you're down with the unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment of humans who have never been convicted of anything in a fair and open trial?
To believe that America should take the high road, even when engaging in war is Anti-American?
To say that my government is engaging in illegitimate tyranny when they secretly imprison humans; when they unlawfully strip away their natural liberties, without first obeying the constitution, and securing a conviction against them in a tribunal that follows a constitionally validated due process of law is antiwar?
No, I am a guy who believes GW turned America away from the righteous fight in Afghanistan, up north of the Khyber Pass in Tora Bora, and let America's true enemy walk, so he coulds assuage his Oedipal Desires against Saddam Hussein, the truth notwithstanding..
Barkeep, serve this man another Official Abu Ghraib Interrogator's Model
Chemical Light stick of GOP Enlightenment®,
and make sure a Bush Man_Date inserts it properly.
It seems his mind still resides in the darkness...
"Hizb ut-Tahrir (which is so radical that is has been banned in many countries, including Britain and Germany)"
And your post which this was cited from mentioned nothing about
"its extremist nature and dissemination of hate speech"
which would have made it extremely difficuilt to read, regardless of my educational level.
But your angrily reactionary response has piqued my curiosity, so I calling your hand.
Proffer some credible citations which directly reference Hizb ut-Tahrir's:
radicalism
extremeist acts
hate speech
or admit you were bluffing with the big talk,
whilst knowing only rightarded crock.
BTW, i have a large part of the Hizb ut-Tahrir's UK website from about a year ago burned onto a DVD, from when I was doing some research into the org. There was nothing in the way of hate speech on it that i recall, but I do seem to recall that the UK government's treatment of Hizb ut-Tahrir drew some complaints and questions regarding fairness from the British papers.
"Hizb ut-Tahrir (which is so radical that is has been banned in many countries, including Britain and Germany)"
Please cite for me one, and I repeat for emphasis, just one act of terrorism that has been attributed to Hizb ut-Tahrir, but one stipulation first:
any claims made by former Bush ally, Islam 'butcher of Andijon' Karimov, or his kleptocratic regime, Uzbekistan, doesn't count.
Even The Nixon Center's Cent.Asia wonk, Zeyno Baran, who I consider to be one of the most knowledgeable tankers regarding them, admits they aren't violent, even though he offers many valid cautions:
Zeyno Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, The Nixon Center, December 2004
I am always interested in data about Hizb ut-Tahrir, please give up citations to the literature which led you to believe that Hizb ut-Tahrir is dangerously radical.
(i cited a Nixon realist to counter trotskyite dialectic from neoconservatives. i am going out of my mind...)
You oppose torture, because if allowed, it might lead to your own offsprings' torture? Did your ethics development end before you became a teen? This speaks to the immorality, and the willful disregard of the Dreamtime America that has affected Contemporary Conservatism, at its core.
There was once a time in America, when Conservatives had honour. This was when they truly valued liberty, and would sacrifice any and all available political capital for its defense. Even in disagreement, a honest and honourable person held Conservatives in high regards, because they were unafraid to hold to their positions, even in times of adversity. They were immutable.
This was a long time ago.
Now, Contemporary Conservatives defend two-bit political whores from SE Texas with the defense of an eight year old:
"But BillyJeff, the Arkansa Hillbilly Does it..."
These preachers of the righteousness of Original Intent, have now gone so far as to strip the rights of humans away, positing that they are not natural rights at all, but gifts of a generous state to its citizenry.
I am an American
I hold myself, my country and my fellow citizens to higher standards of conduct, than what I expect from the rest of the world. Why? Because I am an American.
Americans DO NOT Torture POWs.
Americans DO NOT utilise the injust practise of secret tribunals.
In ALL Criminal prosecutions, the accused remains in possession of minimally the following rights:
the right to a timely judicial resolution
the right of adjudication by a jury that understands the burden of proof rests entirely upon the state
an open and public disclosure by the state delineating the nature and causes of the accusation
the right to confront witnesses against the accused
the right to challenge prosecutorial evidence used
the right to obtain evidencce and witnesses for the defense
the right to competent counsel dedicated to defense of the accused
American possess honour, and persons of honour respect the dictates of previous agreements entered into on their behalf by their past representatives.
All persons have the natural right of free devotional exercise to whatever they perceive as the force of creation.
The state possesses only the powers explicitly granted to it in a public constitution.
When America engages in conflict, it will publicly state to the world the injurious cause for the conflict's engagement before the the government's beginning of the conflict, and will not revise these claims after the government's intitiation of conflict.
The American Military will fight using the highest standards of conduct, and even if this means we must fight with one hand tied behind our back, we will still hold to our standards of conduct, because we are Americans; we will still kick the enemies' butts, and we will return home still in possession of our honour.
These things, and many more not listed above, we do as Americans, and are not predicated in anyway upon the actions of others.
"At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow.
As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world.
As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.
What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.
By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan's freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals.
Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to 'read" than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the 'reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow."
Slashdot Mirror
I am walkabout in the American Dreamtime, I accept the concept of natural rights without proof as axiomatic to the US Government. By setting up a class of natural rights, the founders effectively restrained government's reach, because a natural right is possessed by humans. This concept of personal liberty is in large measure what makes America a fine country. Natural rights have another important quality which is sadly lost on most present Americans; their applicability is universal, and is not a quality of nationality, for if they are only a right of American citizens, they are not preeminent, but freedoms that a magnanimous state has proffered to is citizens, and they would no longer be secure, possessed by the people.
This is what is in threat of being lost. Habeas Corpus is the bedrock into which natural rights are grounded, and this congressional act of tyranny must be resisted.
If the detainees had never been unlawfully stripped of their Geneva Protections, this issue would not even be germane, but once they were yanked out as non POWs, the constitution's due process protections kick in.
I am too much of a Jeffersonian to accept that this is incompatible with the country's survival, and instead loudly state, that without it, America is lost.
I was mistaken, the term 'criminal combatant' is not used officially by the Bush Administration, but your refutation is disingenuous, and even more error ridden than my misstatement.
Instead of 'criminal combatant' the Bush Administration seems to prefer "unlawful enemy combatant", which also carries the implication that these humans are held as criminal actors, does it not? They are certainly defined by more than your truncated "enemy combatant", because that would not in any way distinguish them from POWs, and the Administration created an unconstitutional third class, attempting to place these humans outside the reach of the rule of law.
On November 29, 2001, Mr. Bush, speaking at the U.S. Attorneys Conference, clearly stated that these individuals are criminal actors, and then posits that he, of and by himself, has the ability to abrogate their natural rights:
Mr. Bush's sole legitimising force is the US Constitution, and he has now twice solemnly sworn to uphold and protect it, yet works to destroy it by claiming a President can lawfully act outside of its constraints. The American President is not above the Supreme Law of the land. Bush engages in tyranny when claiming this.
Ari Fleischer danced a situationalist jig during a White House Press Briefing on January 28, 2002:
It still does not matter if this is indeed a different era, or just a time of an incompetent executive, The US Constitution Article VI; clause 2 guides:
Clearly the Geneva Conventions are the Supreme Law of the Land, and since under the Conventions a High Contracting Party is restrained from withdrawing from them during a time of war, Bush violated the Constitution in his detainee determination. I will address that issue later.
The US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, speaking at Chatham House in London on February 20, 2002, clearly defined them as criminal actors, then went on to claim that Due Process of Law does not apply to them:
Been a while since you spent time in Vegas?
Las Vegas is constantly adjusting their pitches and hooks. It's how they stay profitable. They love to call new angles in their agressive marketing techniques, "Reinventing Las Vegas". What a load of hype, nothing has been truly reinvented, it's sill all about you, Loser.
The early nineties overt push for families has been on the whole discredited, and the official Vegas spin is no long, "Please bring the kids", it instead has morphed to, "Uh, ok, If you bring the kids".
After several years overtly seeking families as a primary source of visitors, the mid-nineties saw most major properties (Mandalay Bay Properties [formerly Circus Circus] execpted) backing away from it. After several years of market studies and analysis, Gaming Corporations realised that if you bring you kids to Vegas, both your maximum allowable gambling time, and your maximum acceptable losses in the casino are significantly reduced. I guess one needs a 4 year University degree in marketing to be able to drag out the self-evident for so long.
Major Gaming Corporations which operate in Nevada are not opposed to internet gambling, as long as it is a free market, and they are allowed to enter into it. If lawfully enabled to do so, the corporations could scale up their net resources instantly, and almost overnight have top class enterprise gaming web site which could easily compete with pre-existing sites.
The Vegas gaming corporations have discovered that California tribal gambling didn't turn out to be the goose neck-breaker many were predicting. It has affected Reno negatively. In Las Vegas, the tribal casinos have served to greatly broaden the base of potential visitors to the city, and at the same time operate as a trap for low-end players Vegas would be just as happy without. It seems that P.T. Barnum vastly underestimated the statical frequency, and it's more like, 'one born every second'.
Vegas does agressiveley market conventions still, and even though the atendees, as a broad group gamble less than the average visitor, their consumption of other high profit-margin hotel offerings can sometimes exceed cash flow projections had the rooms been filled with non-business visitors.
We are not supposed to torture, not in some Faustian quid pro quo bargain to protect our troops, but because it is the high ground, and we are supposed to walk the high ground.
Contemporary Conservatives have driven America into the septic pit of situationalism. They judge America's acts using murderous foreign dictators as the referent standard. They justify the unconstitutional acts of a grossly overreaching president by citing as precedent, acts of the symbolic antithesis to conservatism, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They claim themselves motivated only by the higher goal of expanding democratic processess worldwide when rationalising an immoral war, but switch their toga of justice for a jacket of realism when rationalising Bush's past obscene alliance with the Butcher of Andijon, Islam Karimov, kleptocratic dictator of Uzbekistan.
Now in a partisan effort, Congress seeks to abrogate habeas corpus, and apply this legislation retroactively, which is by itself a violation of the US Constitution
The Dreamtime American is being Destroyed by cowards who have solemnly sworn to Defend and Uphold the US Constitution, but fear our Judicial System.
This Must Cease
They're called 'Criminal Combatants' by the president when he rips away their Geneva Conventions Protections without first properly having a determination of their status made through a valid tribunal process. Does this not imply that they are being held as 'criminal' actors by the US government and not as POWs?
The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution begins with; "In All Criminal Prosecutions..." The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitutional states that No Person shall have life, liberty or property taken from them by the government without due process of law.
These humans are being held in violation of the US Constitution, and instead of correcting this grevious harm, Congress has worked tirelessly to abrogate habeas corpus.
Again I ask, America has a Bill of Rights?
Originalise this:
You do realise we're discussing the Bush Administration don't you? They consider "evidence" to be an obscene word, which is improper to use in a public discussion. They seem to be a primary source of the American Government's Rampant Intelligence Failures. It's not the first time they have been working ass backwards on a problem. Consider:
Sometimes it isn't the high frequency edits that need to be watched out for. I am aware of a wikiStub which is a good example. I proffer this one because of its extreme volatility, I have an axe to grind with proponents of both sides of the issue, have not edited any of the mentioned pages, and I have not made up my mind as to the veracity of the claims. (i did mention this page to a contact involved with wikipedia, who had previously asked that i message this sort of thing to an email box)
The stub is Walid Phares, a terrorism expert, and professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University.
On March 21, 2006, an edit appeared, which lasted 7 hours, and the rationale for revert was simply, 'nonsense'. The edit claimed that Phares had past ties to the Guardians of the Cedar, but wasn't sourced. This is a serious allegation, and truly warranted a move to the talk page of the stub.
The Phares talk page does have some interesting ravings on it, which are also unsourced, and less than the truth. It also has a pervasive sense of threat, easily chilling discussion. Maybe this sort of content is why many are unwilling to point to their objective instances of objection, as it tends to further tag them.
For the Record, Royer did publish an article alleging the Phares ties, but it is extremely unlikely that he is in anyway responsible for these edits, as he is serving twenty years for violationg a weapons export ban by running weapons to Pakistan. Royer's statement to the court at his sentencing also expressed both his guilt and remorse. He's a ass, and convicted gun runner, but is probably underserving of his depiction on the talk page, which uses extremely biased hot button terminology.
The two edits on the Phares stub I mentioned here, as well as the latest on the talk page from a user, 'Jihadwatch', all seem to be members of the new classSchema for some wikiContributors, the Single purpose account. (First edit - - revert - - jihadwatch)
As I mentioned earlier, I wish to apply a cluestick to almost everyone involved with editing this article, but I'd prefer an honest reach for the truth instead...
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.
Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel,
these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down.
The gang serves lies,
the passionate Man plays his part;
the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.
"Be Angry at the Sun" - Robinson Jeffers
Whoa partner, much of my previous post was laced with sarcasm, but thanks for some Howard insight.
The convict quip was meant as a compare/contrast to America's religious fanatics and political dissidents collective history. Few Americans can trace their lineage back that far, most being immigrants with a 4 or less generation history as Americans, but it still plays on the collective self-image. Is it not a bit of the same in Australia? At least you aren't Kiwi, so i didn't offend with any silly 'Aussies with a fetish for the Queen's English' joke, or something like that. They seem to have a serious complex at times. (and yes, i can usually tell the difference almost instantly, i like to tease)
The first Australians i ever met was a very long time ago, in a city formerly known as Saigon, and they were Special Forces, so maybe my ideas of Australians are a bit distorted, but they did have a pleasant sense of humour that remained even in the darkness, and an ability to consume vast quantities of beer... Still this is better than many Yanks image of Australians, which consists of mixing The Crocodile Hunter with Crocodile Dundee, and adding a bit of Mel Gibson into it...
I recently completed a bit of web collaboration on a site where the most approachable superAdmin is an Aussie, and we've engaged in a bit of dialogue. I also keep a few Australian papers' RSS feeds active in my newsreader, trying to avoid Murdoch overload, which can easily occur if not careful. I have to admit that the Sydney Morning Herald is the one I browse the most though. There are a few other current Australian pointers/contacts of mine that i don't care to express here.
I am vaguely aware of your illegal immigrant problem, and the housing issue (don't fence me in). I can't really criticise, given the US illegal attitude presently. As for Howard's adamant alliance with the US, truthfully, i for one say thanks, even though i thought the Iraq war was wrong from day one. It's good to have friends, and i'll try to keep this in other countrypersons' consciousness in the future.
Oh yeah, if it was up to me, i would have shipped Hicks back home a long time ago, and let you deal with the moron...
cheers
Apologies mate, I assumed you were a fellow Yank. The media coverage blitz was harmful the fair trial process in the OJ murder case. What troubles me in the analysis of the effect is that it always seems to ignore the effect of obviously dishonest testimony given by prosecutorial witnesses, and the almost total lack of faith that many in poor LA metro areas have in their Police force. Nothing has been done to mitigate this.
I am not sure how evidence acquired illegaly in a warrantless search is treated in Australian ciminal processes. In America, if evidence was acquired by the government illegally, it is considered to be inadmissable. How does a society which possesses a collective history of convict, yet magaed to separate from the Empire peacefully, resolve this issue?
And how do you rate the job performance of America's foreign minister to Australia, Mr. Howard?
But that would not have mitigated the underlying issue which made the OJ case difficult to prosecute: The LAPD has too many officers who are cowboys, and believe that it is righteous for them to practise antinomianism.
They are not above the law, and they most certainly do not have the right to lie under oath giving testimony in a criminal case.
Reasonable doubt was hurled into the trial the moment Van Adder, a principle investigative officer at the murder scene, swore that the reason they had gone over the wall at OJ's residence warrantless was because they were worried about his well-being, and that he wasn't a suspect in the double murder.
When an estranged wife and male companion are brutally murdered in the wife's residence, the separated husband is number one on the suspect list. How long does it take to wake up the on-call judge and get him to OK a warrant for the estranged husband's house in a double-murder case anyway? Less than 1/2 hour would be my guess. OJ could have been on the moon at the time of the murder, and they would have been looking for evidence of a contract hit. He callously disregarded the Fourth Amendment, and then lied at the criminal case to keep the evidence from being dismissed.
Add to that Furhman, the complete absence of any chain of evidence exercised over OJ's Bronco, less than fully qualified crime-techs at the scene, the fact that many minority groups in LA view the LAPD as mercenary enforcers, not community protectors, as well as the high-end attorneys working for the defense, and reasonable doubt had crept into the prosecution of the case.
It is a great pity there is a high probability that OJ got away with murder. It is an outrage that LAPD never shouldered their responsibility in the trial process' souring. There was no application of a painful clue-stick to aid in behaviour modification, so there is also a high probability that many on the force still consciously engage in constitutional violations and the subsequent giving of dishonest fourth amendment related testimony. They may pay a little more attention to wealthy suspects' rights these days though.
The government has been damn effective securing convictions against muslim men using due process of law, too.
The sad case of Sami al-Hussayen should be a warning to all. After the jury acquited on all terror charges and hung on a few immigration violations, the prosecutiong US attorney admitted that the case was extremely weak, but that justice had been served.
This is why Guantanamo Bay should not be tolerated. If they cannot secure convictions against these humans, in a tribunal which adheres to due process of law in an open courtroom, then it is inhumane, UnAmerican, and Unconstitutional to deprive them of life, liberty and/or property.
Didn't we have a revolution because some other guy named George was doing this crap?
No, Nixon's Southern strategy was intended to get the racist to vote Republican, and it's still considered a valid tactic in the GOP. It's why Zel Miller made it all the way up North to Cincinatti with Bush in '04, but got his ticket home before heading up into Akron and Cleveland.
You resorted to this ditto Byrd screed? How effin original. Byrd was indeed a racist, as well as a KKK member throughout most of the forties, but I mentioned Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968.
From Wikipedia:
From a 2005 Washington Post Book Review:
The KKK charges at Byrd are an ad hominem attack attempting to downplay his eloquent antiwar sppeches upon the Senate floor, by a grouping of the usual suspects for disinformation's right-sided insertion, most notably in this case Malkin and Horowitz. Horowitz's traitorous past makes him an extremely reprehensible hypocrite in this regard. They cannot refute his antiwar, and instead play an evil game.
Byrd has admitted his mistakes, many times. Horowitz just blames the left for his newlefty evilness. Who is the better man.
and damn you, retarded modder, for tagging my bitch-slapping of a cowardly posting of rightardedness as trolling. al Qaida is actually a growing force in International news providers, that allows an incredibly divergent spectrum of ideas to be proferred on their talk segments. Much broader than seen of the so called terrorist loving liberal news networks, and exponentially more expansive than the fare of the FREEPing lamers of the right who are now advocating their dire need of affirmative action since as Steven Colbert told the DC journalist, "facts have a liberal bias".
please don't take being anal to the extreme,
and wipe your ass with the Bill of rights.
- - - -
- - - -
Once again I hear Contemporary Conservatism's tinny cry of moral equivalence, as it continues its long plunging fall from grace into the fetid pit of situationalism.
Are you implying that two wrongs make-up a righty's rationalisation for liberty's theft?
Why did you just skip over the Nixon d ark e vil, when discussing unlawful executive acts of surveilling past? Why did you play the ugly card of moral relevancy by pulling it out from inside of your sleeve?
You also just hopped over any comparisons of scope and degree of implementation.
A clear difference between Republicans and Democrats is that when Democrats sodomise you, they honestly believe they're doing it for the higher good, will use a bit of lubrication, and lie the next morning, telling you they still care. Republicans, being stark realists, are not enamored by such silly notions, sodomise you only for their own personal agrandisement, and experience intense pleasure from their wielding of illegitimate force.
Or so Dubya Dim and his Admin would have us believe when rationalising the unconstitutional imprisonement of humans at Guantanamo Bay, but all legitimate authority to govern in America is grounded within the Constitution, and a quick read from the Bill of Rights can be extremely illuminating:
Guantanamo Bay is certainly within the set of places defined as "any place subject to" the US Government's juristiction. Mr. Bush himself changed these humans' designation from POW to "criminal detainee". By his own edict, he admits that he believes they are criminal actors, and yet has callously disregarded clear strictures that compel due proces of law be given, by the very document which is the source of legitimacy for his political office, and which he has now twice solemnly sworn in public to protect and uphold.
This is American Tyranny.
Please someone give GW a BJ, so the Republican majority can discover a reason to impeach him.
Until the state can secure a prosecution which follows due process of law, the accused retains the right to a timely and public trial decided by a jury, in which the defendant possesses the right that no compelled testimony of his will be used; possesses the right to challenge the witnesses and evidence used by the state in their prosecution; retains the right to acquire witnesses and evidence for his defense; and the right to a competent counsel reperesenting him, who is dedicated to his defense. These rights are universal in their bar to the State's power of imprisonment, were completely removed from the State's lawful reach, and placed in the category: "Natural Rights", which are possessed by All Humans. There is No terrorism exemption, and these are Not rights which are only conferred by US citizenship, for to argue that they are is to argue that they are not natural rights, but a gift of a generous state to its citizens.
Cowards, thieves and partisan hacks equivocate, and pimp out the rights of humans for pocket change. A constitutionally illiterate and acquiescent citizenry quakes in fear contemplating the destruction that twenty maniacs were able to cause, because the person and his administration who were tasked with the duty of our country's defense, were so arrogant, ignorant and derelict, they were fast asleep upon the watchtowers.
The Dreamtime America is fast fading away.>/p>
This stopped being true in 1968, when the Republican Party sold out their soul and pimped out the Party of Lincoln to Richard Milhouse Nixon, who played his 'southern strategy', causing the southern racists to switch parties into the welcoming arms of the Morally Relativistic RNC.
No REAL conservative would ever ground the basis for an argument of theirs in a positivist comparison to any act word or deed of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Bullshit, there are ways to wage war without selling out America's soul, without destroying the Dreamtime America. War is immoral, and a big lie often told to soldiers is that honour can be found on the battlefield. It cannot, and when the shooting is finished, when the soldiers return home, there is only the honour that remains.
Am I to understand that you're down with the unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment of humans who have never been convicted of anything in a fair and open trial?
You're a real patriot. Such a shame you were refused a chance to fight; failing your enlistment physical. That liberal slant has affected even the military, hasn't it? How dare they say that your uncontrollable bowel syndrome, and incontinence made you unsuitale to serve? You'd even pay for your supply of Depends© out of pocket, wouldn't you. Even so, you'd still have to mitigate your alabaster-hued liver, and jaundiced belly. The nym you chose to post under speaks for you.
To believe that America should take the high road, even when engaging in war is Anti-American?
To say that my government is engaging in illegitimate tyranny when they secretly imprison humans; when they unlawfully strip away their natural liberties, without first obeying the constitution, and securing a conviction against them in a tribunal that follows a constitionally validated due process of law is antiwar?
No, I am a guy who believes GW turned America away from the righteous fight in Afghanistan, up north of the Khyber Pass in Tora Bora, and let America's true enemy walk, so he coulds assuage his Oedipal Desires against Saddam Hussein, the truth notwithstanding..
Barkeep, serve this man another
Official Abu Ghraib Interrogator's Model
Chemical Light stick of GOP Enlightenment®,
and make sure a Bush Man_Date inserts it properly.
It seems his mind still resides in the darkness...
Your news source of choice is what, Newswmax>
Do you still blame liberal media for your pitiful babelessness existence?
(a long running ad on Newsmax)
Testy, and less than forthcoming.
OK then, chief::
I previously cited your quote:And your post which this was cited from mentioned nothing about
which would have made it extremely difficuilt to read, regardless of my educational level.
But your angrily reactionary response has piqued my curiosity, so I calling your hand.
Proffer some credible citations which directly reference Hizb ut-Tahrir's:
or admit you were bluffing with the big talk,
whilst knowing only rightarded crock.
BTW, i have a large part of the Hizb ut-Tahrir's UK website from about a year ago burned onto a DVD, from when I was doing some research into the org. There was nothing in the way of hate speech on it that i recall, but I do seem to recall that the UK government's treatment of Hizb ut-Tahrir drew some complaints and questions regarding fairness from the British papers.
I anxiously await your enlightening citations...
Well the editor, Frank Salvato, seems to be a content thief. The flying pig logo he uses on his "The Fifth Column", looks awful familiar to me.
But maybe Salvato is just a dupe and got the graphic from the talentless - Propagandizing PhotoHacktress - thieving - disrespecter of a Navy Corpsman, Linda Eddy, who has No Shame, and is listed as a contributor on the site.
(yeah, it's personsal, i was a lotterywinner_and_conscriptDoc)
Please cite for me one, and I repeat for emphasis, just one act of terrorism that has been attributed to Hizb ut-Tahrir, but one stipulation first: any claims made by former Bush ally, Islam 'butcher of Andijon' Karimov, or his kleptocratic regime, Uzbekistan, doesn't count.
Even The Nixon Center's Cent.Asia wonk, Zeyno Baran, who I consider to be one of the most knowledgeable tankers regarding them, admits they aren't violent, even though he offers many valid cautions:
I am always interested in data about Hizb ut-Tahrir, please give up citations to the literature which led you to believe that Hizb ut-Tahrir is dangerously radical.
(i cited a Nixon realist to counter trotskyite dialectic from neoconservatives. i am going out of my mind...)
You oppose torture, because if allowed, it might lead to your own offsprings' torture? Did your ethics development end before you became a teen? This speaks to the immorality, and the willful disregard of the Dreamtime America that has affected Contemporary Conservatism, at its core.
There was once a time in America, when Conservatives had honour. This was when they truly valued liberty, and would sacrifice any and all available political capital for its defense. Even in disagreement, a honest and honourable person held Conservatives in high regards, because they were unafraid to hold to their positions, even in times of adversity. They were immutable.
This was a long time ago.
Now, Contemporary Conservatives defend two-bit political whores from SE Texas with the defense of an eight year old:
These preachers of the righteousness of Original Intent, have now gone so far as to strip the rights of humans away, positing that they are not natural rights at all, but gifts of a generous state to its citizenry.