# Godwin for the gander - Senator Durbin shoots his fucking mouth off... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593 "2005-06-16T18:55:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/21 "2005-06-16T19:39:10Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > [“Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American.”](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/international/09SOLD.html?ex=1119067200&en=f9b3f0a00a26cea4&ei=5070&ex=1087358400&en=fcdcebb72b746d21&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE&oref=login) Clearly he hates America and was trained to lie. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/22 "2005-06-16T19:40:07Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > What the fuck does that have to do with anything. I’m not disagreeing with Durbin’s comment, but saying “Did the Nazis do worse, or just do more?” is pretty fucking retarded since I’m pretty sure that, yes, they did do worse. A lot worse. I guess that the point that I am making is that we are getting so caught up in how we talk about this, worrying about if this is as evil as things that have happened historically and that sort of nitpicking that we are utterly failing the basic gut-check that should tell any moral person that what is happening here is evil, being done in our name, destroying our credibility for probably generations and will come with a pretty fucking hefty bill sooner or later. Realize that I am not really singling you out for my sarcasm. I don’t really have any recollection of your opinions on this matter one way or another. If anything, I was really just using your post as a straight line. Sorry to offend. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/23 "2005-06-16T19:40:28Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been mass gassings at Gitmo, with the bodies being dumped into large ovens. Is being gassed to death and burned worse then being beaten to death and burried? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/24 "2005-06-16T19:41:00Z")
I actually have a buddy who is now stationed as a prison guard at Gitmo. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, though, he was sent there only about two months ago. The main reason I think the comparison is invalid is because, to me a concentration camp has generally inhumane conditions, meaning pretty much the whole camp and all the prisoners are abused and treated unjustly just from the way the camp as a a whole is run. I get the impression that the mistreatment at Gitmo is more isolated. I would agree that even one prisoner does not deserve to be mistreated anad abused, but I just am not sure I buy the concentration camp compariosn. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/25 "2005-06-16T19:44:38Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > Is being gassed to death and burned worse then being beaten to death and burried? Is being beaten to death and buried part of an official, top-down campaign of genocide? Or is it the natural by-product of an environment where torture has been accepted as use and discipline has completely broken down? And we won’t get into the whole, forced labor on restricted rations with the deliberate objective of starving people to death thing. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/26 "2005-06-16T19:46:48Z")
I figured there would be a contribution from someone on the right on this pretty soon. Kos (at [dailykos.com](http://dailykos.com)) and others had their finger in the wind on this one. Apparently it is sweeping across the right-wing, who must be salivating for some good news these days. > **[The latest moronic Right-Wing smear attack](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/6/15/122293/-)** > > TalkLeft first alerted us to the latest cause célèbre of the Right Wing Media Borg -- the effort to defend torture at all costs. And caught in the crosshairs is Sen. Durbin, who had the unmitigate... > [@](#): > > **The latest moronic Right-Wing smear attack** > […]To the pea brains on the Right, incapable of reading the English language in its most basic, unuanced form, they claim Durbin is calling our troops Nazis. The Wingnutosphere is making that claim. Rush is making that claim. Hannity is making that claim. Drudge is making that claim. Look to Fox News to jump on the bandwagon tomorrow. > Of course, what Durbin is saying is that such torture – undisputed, by the way, and read from an FBI report – is more at home in a place like Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany than in a modern Democracy. Now, typically I would not lump **Mr. Moto** in among a group labeled “pea brains.” Surely he can see the difference between equating a political group with Nazis (a fairly broad and likely inaccurate comparison designed to demonize the other group ) and equating our specific torture behaviors with specific torture behavior committed by others (designed to get the behaviors to stop). I hope? ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/27 "2005-06-16T19:47:04Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > I guess that the point that I am making is that we are getting so caught up in how we talk about this, worrying about if this is as evil as things that have happened historically and that sort of nitpicking that we are utterly failing the basic gut-check that should tell any moral person that what is happening here is evil, being done in our name, destroying our credibility for probably generations and will come with a pretty fucking hefty bill sooner or later. I agree, but it’s being done by both sides. Durbin’s comment was regarding an isolated instance and gave lots of different comparisons with a general point. Mindless comments like “Did the Nazis do worse, or just more?” is just moronic sloganeering that only helps the people who would rather divert attention away from the basic point that what has gone on at Gitmo is a complete and total disgrace and a total betrayal of every ideal that our country was supposedly founded on. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/28 "2005-06-16T19:48:50Z")
**TYM:** _Mr. Moto is going to be so disappointed to come back to this thread and find that his bandwagon has been stripped of not only all four wheels but also the calliope._ Eh, he might just figure we’re a bunch of gutless liberals/Democrats clinging to a flagrant double standard. I hope he does address the questions raised, though, because I’m genuinely puzzled about the grounds for objecting to Durbin’s remark and comparing it to Santorum’s. If somebody thinks I’m being a gutless double-standard liberal here, they need to explain to me why, because I frankly confess that so far I’m not seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/29 "2005-06-16T19:51:12Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Is being beaten to death and buried part of an official, top-down campaign of genocide? I’m not comparing it to genocide. That’s why I said that they did more in the quip that you quoted. > [@Neurotik](#): > > Or is it the natural by-product of an environment where torture has been accepted as use and discipline has completely broken down? When you have people at the very top of the administration doing their best to legally justify torture, I think you have a situation a HELL of a lot more rotten then broken-down discipline. > [@](#): > > And we won’t get into the whole, forced labor on restricted rations with the deliberate objective of starving people to death thing. Only if we don’t get into the whole “flying people to other countries so they can be tortured” thing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/30 "2005-06-16T19:55:33Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > Is being gassed to death and burned worse then being beaten to death and burried? I was under the impression that none of the detainees has died at Guantanimo. Is that incorrect? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/31 "2005-06-16T19:58:02Z")
Don’t know. Would they tell us? ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/32 "2005-06-16T20:00:43Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Is that incorrect? The only torture-related deaths caused by Americans that I know of happened in Afghanistan. I don’t think the distinction makes a difference (I made that comment in response to **Guin** , who was broadly commenting on our human rights standards, not just those in Guantanimo). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/33 "2005-06-16T20:11:12Z")
Well, we’ve heard about other detainee deaths in US custody, in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, although I’m not optimistic that the current allegations about Gitmo will all be proved false, I think it’s reasonable to believe that none of the detainees there have died. And I think locale does make somewhat of a difference. Torturing prisoners and/or enemy combatants to death in a war zone like Afghanistan is horrific, barbaric, brutal, and un-American, no question. But doing the same **in a completely secure facility thousands of miles from the region of conflict** would be worse, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/34 "2005-06-16T20:18:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But doing the same **in a completely secure facility thousands of miles from the region of conflict** would be worse, IMO. Gotta disagree. The people doing the interrogation and torture aren’t in any immediate danger when they’re doing it. These events are occuring inside secure facilities. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/35 "2005-06-16T20:36:02Z")
Moto, my man, I don’t think you’re reading the situation correctly. It seems to me you have inappropriate taken that first paragraph in the WaPo story at face value. The actual facts and quotes in remainder of the article don’t in any way support that first paragraph declaration. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/36 "2005-06-16T20:36:08Z")
Durbin is an idiot. Soley for the fact that he let a completely valid point be drowned out by the choice of the word Nazi. I suggest that all politicians be outfitted with shock collars on their genitalia. And whenever they make a comparison to Naziism, they get a nice solid jolt. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/37 "2005-06-16T20:40:52Z")
You just keep thinking, **Butch**. It’s what you’re good at. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/38 "2005-06-16T20:43:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, if I heard a general statement about guards “chaining detainees to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures”, I probably would tend to think that it was describing events under some abusive repressive regime. You would be right, too. It’s just the name of the regime that would be elusive. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/39 "2005-06-16T20:51:40Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > …I suggest that all politicians be outfitted with shock collars on their genitalia. And whenever they make a comparison to Naziism, they get a nice solid jolt. I totally agree, however I would like to run with the idea a bit. I think that what we should instead do is hook it up to a cell phone that people can call to “vote” for a genital shock. After a certain number of positive votes: ZAP!. I further propose that the threshold for how may votes are needed be surprisingly low (I am thinking like 100). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/40 "2005-06-16T20:56:27Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > Moto, my man, I don’t think you’re reading the situation correctly. It seems to me you have inappropriate taken that first paragraph in the WaPo story at face value. The actual facts and quotes in remainder of the article don’t in any way support that first paragraph declaration. I disagree. The quote is: > [@](#): > > “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime \_ Pol Pot or others \_ that had no concern for human beings,” Durbin said. How is that NOT (per the first paragraph): > [@](#): > > …comparing the actions of American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Soviet gulags and a “mad regime” like Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s in Cambodia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=3)