# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/81 "2005-06-17T01:26:57Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Were you shackled to the floor and denied food and water for days? Did you have the option of leaving? Were you allowed to go to the bathroom? Were you denied any communication with your family for months or years? Get the fuck out of my face with this bullshit. Seriously. This is weak. Did I make a poorly constructed, hyperbolic argument? Was my comparison less than ingenuous? OK- I can admit it. Can you? ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/82 "2005-06-17T01:28:51Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > Get serious I am. I really have not heard. What are they? ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/83 "2005-06-17T01:31:05Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > I am. I really have not heard. What are they? Well, for one thing I the prisoners were forced to wear white shoes before Memorial Day. Also, they were forced to wear a brown belt with white shoes, so you know that’s no good. ---
**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 17, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/84 "2005-06-17T01:32:15Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > “Absolutely nothing” surely isn’t accurate. But if you want to evoke the image of the Gulag or of Nazi concentration camps, you better have millions of deaths as your comparison base. Otherwise, you’re grandstanding. Sure, and a comparison of Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy is similarly unfair. Further, Ted Bundy never buried bodies in the crawlspace of his house. Likewise, it is unfair to compare Gacy to Jeffrey Dahmer, because Gacy didn’t eat any of his victims. Similarly, a comparison of Richard Ramirez to Gacy is unfair because Ramirez didn’t dress up like a clown. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/85 "2005-06-17T01:34:55Z")
Little thought experiment: what SHOULD we be comparing the activities at Gitmo to? “All that torture and mistreatment: it’s like a Girl Scout camp!” nope, that ain’t it … “All that brutal interrogation – it’s like a church social!” Close, but somehow not quite right … “All that chaining people in the floor in their own excrement – it’s like a high school pep rally!” Still not quite right … maybe Durbin used the examples he did because they’re what’s generally associated in people’s minds with brutal torture and maltreatment??? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/86 "2005-06-17T01:35:53Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > So if we do not get the results we want we ratchet up the rhetoric until we fan the flames enough for something, anything to happen? And damn the results around the world? It worked for the republicans when they did their little WMD song and dance. At least in **this** case we have solid evidence that bad things are being done at Guantanomo and elsewhere. Is ratcheting up the rhetoric a tactic reserved only for the administration? ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/87 "2005-06-17T01:37:24Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > Sure, and a comparison of Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy is similarly unfair. > > Further, Ted Bundy never buried bodies in the crawlspace of his house. Likewise, it is unfair to compare Gacy to Jeffrey Dahmer, because Gacy didn’t eat any of his victims. Similarly, a comparison of Richard Ramirez to Gacy is unfair because Ramirez didn’t dress up like a clown. So you are saying the Durbin comparisin is invald? ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/88 "2005-06-17T01:39:39Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > Well, for one thing I the prisoners were forced to wear white shoes before Memorial Day. Also, they were forced to wear a brown belt with white shoes, so you know that’s no good. Egads! I thought they were simply chained up and forced to poop their pants! ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/89 "2005-06-17T01:41:45Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > Egads! I thought they were simply chained up and forced to poop their pants! Yeah. Clearly the Filthy Liberals™ are overacting again. Go back to sleep. We are still the shiny city on the hill and the beacon for freedom and democrazy. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/90 "2005-06-17T01:48:05Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > Yeah. Clearly the Filthy Liberals™ are overacting again. Go back to sleep. We are still the shiny city on the hill and the beacon for freedom and democrazy. OK- Kidding aside. What torture techniques are we using? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/91 "2005-06-17T01:49:30Z")
Obviously the problem lay in comparing American crimes to those of previous regimes. That’s just backwards thinking and defeatism. It’s downright un-American! So, I will state, for the record, that the way American ‘happy fun time gathering camps’ abuse prisoners is not like any previous regime’s actions. Oh no. This isn’t any musty dusty historical atrocity. This is modern space-age-a-go-go inhumane treatment. Now I hope all those American hating libruls will stop comparing our actions to previous actions, and just say “In the future, this will simply be labled the period of American tyrany.” That should solve everything, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/92 "2005-06-17T01:55:00Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > OK- Kidding aside. What torture techniques are we using? OK, in just a little bit I will try to dig up cites for this. Before I do, however, I would request that you assure me that this is a sincere question, and not some preamble to a point you are making that the particular methods that we have been using are not technically torture. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/93 "2005-06-17T01:59:46Z")
All right, let’s take a closer look at this quote, shall we? > [@](#): > > “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” Cut it down to: “If I did not tell you that it was Americans, you would believe [they were] Nazis, Soviets, or some mad regime that had no concern for human beings.” There’s some politique wording here, but basically: These Americans look like Nazis. No, he’s not saying they _are_ Nazis, merely that they _look like_ Nazis. I understand that there is a difference. I agree that Guantanamo is bad on multiple levels, but where is the genocide? Believe it or not, I could not see anything like Guantanamo happening in Nazi Germany- there, it would have been at least ten times worse. Sitting in uncomfortable positions in uncomfortable temperature is just too, well, mild to be Nazi-caused. For regular Germans, it was usually just normal prison conditions; for the “lesser” groups, it was extermination camps and slave labour. Lack of due process? It’s not like America’s forgotten McCarthy, though not as many will remember that Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus. Actually, I would say that Guantanamo Bay is best compared to a cross between the internment of the Japanese by America and Canada during WW2 and the American treatment of Loyalists during the American Revolution. So yeah, **newcrasher** , you weren’t specifically talking to me, but the comparison is invalid. Useless, too, if this thread is any indicator. Would any Doper who decided to oppose Guantanamo specifically because of this thread and the quote in question step forward, please? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/94 "2005-06-17T01:59:55Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Were you denied any communication with your family for months or years? . Nor are the prisoners at Gitmo, the ICRC collects and sends thousands of messages from there to and fro family. The Red Cross is allowed access and full inspection rights at Gitmo, you know. Just as the Geneva Conventions require. Not that it’s a playground by any means. It appears to be quite unpleasant. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/95 "2005-06-17T02:01:23Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Little thought experiment: what SHOULD we be comparing the activities at Gitmo to? [The way they treat traffic offenders in New York](http://www.coreylevitan.com/storedweb/beerjail.html), may be? ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/96 "2005-06-17T02:03:41Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > OK, in just a little bit I will try to dig up cites for this. Before I do, however, I would request that you assure me that this is a sincere question, and not some preamble to a point you are making that the particular methods that we have been using are not technically torture. Well, if you come up with cites that say we are holding them down and tickling their feet with feathers, I may call bullshit. But it is a sincere question. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/97 "2005-06-17T02:03:50Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > From the Washington Times today" > > After making the comparisons to HitStalPot… > > "Mr. Durbin said. “I believe the torture techniques that have been used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other places fall into that same category.” > > Can anyone tell me what the torture techniques at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are? [Abuse at Abu Ghraib](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse) > [@](#): > > - Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet. > - Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees. > - Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing. > - Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time. > - Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear. > - Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. > - Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them. > - Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture. > > A detainee forced to stand on boxes > Enlarge > A detainee forced to stand on boxes > > ``` > * Writing "I am a Rapest" [sic] on the leg of a detainee alleged to have raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked. > * Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture. > * A male MP guard raping a female detainee. > * Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees and MPs posing with cheerful looks. > * Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees. > * Threatening detainees with a loaded 9mm pistol. > * Pouring cold water on naked detainees. > * Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair. > * Threatening male detainees with rape. > * Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell. > * Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. > * Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting and severely injuring a detainee. > > ``` Remember, the government itself has admitted that as many as 90% of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were innocent civilians. These are people we were supposedly “liberating.” The abuses at Guantanamo Bay include frequent beatings, mysterious deaths, similar techniques of sexual humilaiation, the above-mentioned shackling in extreme conditions of heat or cold without food or water, “stress positioning,” which is the shackling of the victim in excruciatingly painful physical positions for prolonged lengths of time, various kinds of verbal and psychological abuse including the now confirmed desecration of Korans, and of course, the cruelest torture of all, the indefinite and ongoing deprivation of any contact with family members now stretching into years without any charges being made against them, without any access to counsel and without any opportunity to prove their own innocence. > [@](#): > > Did I make a poorly constructed, hyperbolic argument? Was my comparison less than ingenuous? > > OK- I can admit it. > > Can you? Nope. I haven’t done that and neither did Durbin. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/98 "2005-06-17T02:12:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nor are the prisoners at Gitmo, the ICRC collects and sends thousands of messages from there to and fro family. > > The Red Cross is allowed access and full inspection rights at Gitmo, you know. Just as the Geneva Conventions require. > > Not that it’s a playground by any means. It appears to be quite unpleasant. How many prisoners have actually been allowed to see their family members in person or talk to them on the phone? I don’t consider mail to be meaningful or acceptable contact, especially since none of these people have been accused of any crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/99 "2005-06-17T02:12:49Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > Well, if you come up with cites that say we are holding them down and tickling their feet with feathers, I may call bullshit. > > But it is a sincere question. Well, got called away but I see that friend Diogenes the Cynic covered this so I will let it stand at that. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/100 "2005-06-17T02:25:07Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > The problem at Gitmo is not that prisoners were abused or that someone kicked a Koran. Things like this happen in every prison in the world. There is simply no way you can operate a prison and not have some abuse, just like you cannot execute a war w/o harming some civilians. > > The problem at Gitmo is that there is no legal structure to process the inmates-- to determine who the guitly are and to punish them, and to determine who the innocent are and to let them go. > > I saw an interview with the guy from Time magazine yesterday on Hardball. I think he was the one responsible for the cover story on Gitom this week. He said that his e-mail is overwhelmingly from people saying we’re too soft on the detainees. I just don’t see Americans, as a whole, being all that upset about the “outrages” at Gitmo (Abu Ghraib is another story). But I do think people understand that there should be a process to try the detainees and that we shouldn’t just “hold them forever” as some adminstration officials seem to be advocating. I assure you sir, there may be times when people are not “nice” to prisoners, there are also times when someone hurts them maliciously. However, I can also assure you that abuse is handled swiftly in U.S. prisons. My husband works at a facility and it is NOT tolerated there. My husband fired an officer for simply putting on gloves as he approached an inmate and saying “do you want to go?”. “Abuse” occurs, but nothing like sleep deprivation, longterm interrogation, permanent isolation, flushing Korans or other abuses we have heard about. If they do, the individuals are FIRED, not protected under the system. Do NOT insult the brave men and women who staff our domestic prisons by comparing them to the tyrants of these camps. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=6)