I Used to Privately Snicker at the Dems

The BBQ Pit
181

[QUOTE=jayjay]
Well, I didn’t think Giuliani was worthy of scorn, anyway, until he agreed to do ads for Santorum. Now…meh.
[/QUOTE]

Fair to some degree, but Rudy was disliked by the party powers as way to liberal.
He needs to build some bridges within the party if he has any hopes of seeking further offices. Tell me the name of a candidate that has not played some party politics. I do not like Santorum, but on the scale of bad people to stump for, he is far better than Ted Stevens as an example. Rudy has many other defects, but he is for me a better candidate than John Kerry* was.

Jim

  • I voted for Kerry to try and get Bush out of office before you go on the attack.
182

[QUOTE=Bricker]
In your view, apparently, the decision to remove habeas review from among the judicial review options the unlawful combatant detainees have available to them is on par with this instance of sexual predation: completely morally wrong, utterly and obviously indefensible.

I don’t agree. I think there are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides, and a person of decency and fair-mindedness can support the decision or oppose it without losing the imprimateur of fair-mindedness.
[/quote]
I never made a direct equation between this incident and those others that you mention.

I merely disagreed with your characterization of this situation, your notion that, apart from this one incident, the Republicans indeed can lay claim to being defenders of law and morality.

I conceded—in fact, i’ve already conceded in this thread—that genuine political differences are at issue here. But if you’re claiming that those other issues are ones on which fair-minded people can disagree, i submit that it is also possible for fair-minded people to disagree that the Republicans are the party of “law and morality.” And that, disagreeing with such a formulation as i do, it’s perfectly reasonable for me and others to criticize the your characterization of the current situation as a lonely example of Republican immorality.

As for this particular incident, in my opinion the only thing that makes it “completely morally wrong, utterly and obviously indefensible” is the fact that it occurred in the workplace, where issues of power and infuence over subordinates make sexual advances completely inappropriate. And, for those Republicans who can’t help bringing Clinton into this debate, i’ve already said that i was critical of him for exactly the same reason.

All the accusations of child molestation or whatever that are circulating around this issue are, in my opinion, irrelevant, at least based on my current understanding of age of consent in the District of Columbia, where this incident occurred. As far as i’ve been able to determine, the age of consent in DC is 16, an age that i feel is perfectly appropriate, and that is the age of consent in many parts of the western world, including many American states.

Admittedly, the DC age of consent only applies specifically to male/female sex, and as far as i can tel there is no specific age of consent for homosexual sex. But the against homosexual sex in DC have been repealed, so i think it’s reasonable to apply the same age of consent to gay sex and straight sex.

If my understanding of the DC age of consent is incorrect, i’m happy to be corrected by someone with greater knowledge. And even if the DC age of consent turns out to be different from my understanding of it, i still maintain that 16 is a reasonable age of consent in any society that claims to call itself modern.

183

What I wonder about is when do these guys put important stuff on paper?

Congressmen Biehner, Reynolds and Alexander all claim they told Hastert a long while ago about the outrageous behavior of Foley.

Didn’t one of them bang out a memo to Hastert if for no other reason but to cover his ass? Foley is the only aone, it seems, who has left a trail — the IMs and emails.

184

A party that routinely says the sky is blue at times and places when it is in fact red, is no defender of law and morality, apart from Foleygate.

You can claim, for instance, that staying the course in Iraq v. figuring out how to get out of there is a difference of opinion, and it is. But you cannot say that about the GOP’s perpetually rosy prognoses of the situation on the ground. That has been nothing but lies in service of an agenda.

These are not good people, never have been. Maybe the GOP was once a better party (I think so; I was once a Republican), but it is not the party it once was, and the people who were running a GOP with somewhat more integrity 20-30 years ago are not the people who are running it today.

185

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
It is remarkable how clearly you can see that sin in other people, and yet can’t look at your own posts in this very thread.

Daniel
[/QUOTE]

Really?

Here is the post that led Polycarp to attack me -

See Lissa’s post for examples of other attacks, all aimed at Republicans.

You really are a dolt, aren’t you?

I don’t know if it is “necessarily”. It just seems to work out that way on the SDMB.

I wouldn’t know about that. Neither, clearly, would you.

If, as I suspect, you mean “does Shodan hate Bush and the Republicans with the requisite irrational passion to fit in with morons like me”, then no.

Or maybe I did and the concepts were too advanced for you.

Actually, I do find the concept of sexual harassment disgusting in a visceral way. Gay sex, too.

Of course, I have not defended Foley in any way. I have asked some questions (of those who I think might retain a degree of rationality on the subject - yourself obviously excluded). But my offense is much as I described it - I am not joining in the Hate.

No, more like making up some shit, assigning it to someone else, and then attacking them for saying it.

Par for the course, really.

Regards,
Shodan

186

[QUOTE=Bricker]
In your view, apparently, the decision to remove habeas review from among the judicial review options the unlawful combatant detainees have available to them is on par with this instance of sexual predation: completely morally wrong, utterly and obviously indefensible.
[/QUOTE]

Just to add to what **mhendo **said in response to this, can you clarify what you meant by “law and morality” in the OP? And do you honestly think that this scandal is the only stain on the record of the Republican party in the last, say, 6 years? Aslo, what would the Democrats have to do to become the party of law and morality in your view? It wasn’t clear from the OP whether you thought they were or not, but the implication seemed to be that they were not.

187

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I wouldn’t know about that. Neither, clearly, would you.
If, as I suspect, you mean “does Shodan hate Bush and the Republicans with the requisite irrational passion to fit in with morons like me”, then no.

Or maybe I did and the concepts were too advanced for you.
[/quote]

Your pretense that I am as partisan as you are is feeble and ridiculous; you actually complimented me once on my balanced approach to politics. I make no secret of my political affiliation, but as many people have said, I’m not abjectly partisan and I certainly do not write people off for having the wrong politics, and I know that’s true precisely because people around here have told me so so many times. Including yourself. So what this actually amounts to is an attempt to deflect - you are unable or unwilling to contribute to reasoned discussion and you try to hide that by dropping contemptuous little shits into threads. But what you don’t realize is that, whatever you may think it looks like, everyone else can tell when you’ve just shit yourself in public.

So go on. Pretend that the reason I dislike you is because you don’t hate Bush enough. Try to explain, then, why Bricker is one of my favorite posters around here, and why I give just as many compliments to people on the opposite side of the aisle from me. Is it because of Bricker’s slavering Bush-hatred that I like him so much? Sorry, looks like your deflection isn’t working, Shodan.

Perfect - you can join the more morally bankrupt of the righty pundits and treat the two issues as identical. Looks like you’ve already given up any pretense of rationality or morality - I guess that means you’re with Katherine Harris and Rush Limbaugh on this one.

Ahh, such a martyr!

The funny part of this is that the people who really do get treated unfairly don’t whine about it the way you, or duffer, or Ryan_Liam, or RedFury, or Der Trihs do. In fact, Bricker really does get a lot of shit for his opinions, and that’s not something that I think is fair or right. (This thread has a few examples of that, though not as many as you have claimed.) And yet he never seems to whine about it. That’s probably an artifact of his ability to reason and argue like an adult.

You are nothing but a partisan fool, Shodan. Bricker has clearly stated that he is disgusted by the GOP’s handling of this affair. You have not; instead, you bitch at the Democrats in order to take the real issue off the radar. Congratulations. You are a mindless partisan shill. I am not. That, frankly, makes me better than you.

188

[QUOTE=mhendo]
I merely disagreed with your characterization of this situation, your notion that, apart from this one incident, the Republicans indeed can lay claim to being defenders of law and morality.

I conceded—in fact, i’ve already conceded in this thread—that genuine political differences are at issue here. But if you’re claiming that those other issues are ones on which fair-minded people can disagree, i submit that it is also possible for fair-minded people to disagree that the Republicans are the party of “law and morality.” And that, disagreeing with such a formulation as i do, it’s perfectly reasonable for me and others to criticize the your characterization of the current situation as a lonely example of Republican immorality.

[/quote]

OK, fair enough.

I think, as between the Dems and the Repubs, the Republicans DO try to characterize themselves as the “law and morality” crowd. They paint the Dems as liberals soft on crime. And they certainly are the party that tries to identify with what much of the country would call “traditional” morality.

Yes?

189

My personal opinion, Bricker, is that removing pre-trial access to habeas corpus is in fact a serious dimunition of “rule by law” in favor of “rule by might” – as the slightest familiarity with English history might show you. While I’m not thrilled about the concept, I can agree that regular abuse of the writ by “jailhouse lawyers” might make it appropriate to make post-conviction access discretionary.

If I have one complaint about your stance on matters legal, it would be that you tend to focus on the preservation of minor procedural technicalities to the exclusion of greater substantive injuries which do not meet your precisionistic legal-term system of interpretation. The purpose of law is justice – if it dispenses injustice, no matter how carefully it adheres to the proper legal usages, it’s failing. (Look up the origins of equity someday.)

Now, I am grateful that you have recognized how venal much of the House leadership and many of the publicists who presume to speak in their behalfs have become. I submit to you that the point about “naivete” others have made is in failing to recognize the games they’ve played before this, because they were giving lip service to some ideals which you as a forthright conservative Republican American of integrity do believe in – when in fact they were using that lip service to disguise their own self-serving assault on those ideals. I do think you may deserve another apology for the extent you have been castigated for holding to those ideals.

And Shodan? Just checked my lips – not one fleck of foam. An expression of disgust that you have abdicated your stance for some high-minded values in favor of a Coulterian “all Republicans are saints/all liberals are scum” view. As I’ve said before. You used to be very worth reading. Now, it’s like you’re running the Republican National Committee P.R. account for the Dope.

190

[QUOTE=Bricker]
OK, fair enough.

I think, as between the Dems and the Repubs, the Republicans DO try to characterize themselves as the “law and morality” crowd. They paint the Dems as liberals soft on crime. And they certainly are the party that tries to identify with what much of the country would call “traditional” morality.

Yes?
[/QUOTE]
This is remarkably evasive. John Mace asked what the Democrats would have to do to earn the mantle of the “law and morality” party. From this, it would seem that all the Democrats would have to do would be to paint themselves as the “law and morality” party and the Republicans as not that. I have a hard time believing that, were they to do so, you’d give your support to them, or that you make decisions based on such a simplistic criterion as what the party says they do versus what they say the other party does.

But maybe you do, and that might explain the exceptional naivete of the OP and might explain the Brickey Shuffle of yore.

191

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
My personal opinion, Bricker, is that removing pre-trial access to habeas corpus is in fact a serious dimunition of “rule by law” in favor of “rule by might” – as the slightest familiarity with English history might show you. While I’m not thrilled about the concept, I can agree that regular abuse of the writ by “jailhouse lawyers” might make it appropriate to make post-conviction access discretionary.
[/quote]

This thread is probably not the bext place to sally into substantive argument on this point. My position has simply been that you’re discussing rights and procedures historically available to persons accused of criminal wrong-doing by their own governments; English history does not show me examples of French soldiers or Scottish guerilla warfare practioners captured during war given much access to The Great Writ.

For this thread, it’s enough to acknowledge your stance is a reasonable one, and while you may feel mine is highly unwise, I hope you concede that it’s held in good faith and not offered in service to The Dark Lord.

192

[QUOTE=Bricker]

I’ll agree with that, however note that being a party of tradition is not necessarily a good thing. Argumentum ad antiquitatem takes the form “this is the way we’ve always done it, therefore it must be right”.

193

[QUOTE=Bricker]

So, too, with other issues we’ve debated here.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not just about fundamental differences of opinion on the issues; it goes right to the heart and meat of your OP – the Republican party’s “tactics”. And those are quite freqently not lawful or moral. By way of example, see the Medicare scandal, wherein this administration lied to Congress and then threatened and bullied at least one Representative on the House floor in order to get their bill passed, not to mention threatening to fire the chief actuary if he dared tell Congress the truth. And of course your “moral” representatives refused to cooperate in allowing a full investigation to even take place. [

](http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/1513.html) Then of course there’s the wire tapping issue – not whether “reasonable people” can differ as to whether or not it’s necessary, but how this administration went about doing it under a cloud of subterfuge and lies.

And yeah, it would’ve been nice had these lawful and moral people bothered to fully inform the American public about their true motivations for invading Iraq and the lack of solid evidence to support the lie they led us in there with. You want to hold that the toppling of Saddam Hussein was still a good enough reason to invade? Have at it. But when many, if not most, of the support this administration garnered was only because people bought the lie they trotted Colin Powell out to feed us about WMDs, and wouldn’t, like you, have agreed that Saddam’s ouster was enough, no “reasonable person” should agree that their methods for getting us into this fucking mess were moral.

I could go on citing examples, but sadly, I’m not ready to believe it would be anything other than a waste of keystrokes with you. I doubt you’ll ever “get it.” This Foley scandal is only the most recent in a string of lies and cover-ups perpetrated by this administration. And it’s men like you who support this government, who give them the idea that they’re right and moral to just keep right on doing what they’ve been doing. Ultimately, these “tactics” are destroying the entire fabric of our democracy. And I blame you.

On preview:
[QUOTE=Bricker]

I think, as between the Dems and the Repubs, the Republicans DO try to characterize themselves as the “law and morality” crowd. They paint the Dems as liberals soft on crime. And they certainly are the party that tries to identify with what much of the country would call “traditional” morality.

Yes?
[/QUOTE]
NO! That’s just plain bullshit. You do not have a corner on morality! Get over yourself!

194

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
This is remarkably evasive. John Mace asked what the Democrats would have to do to earn the mantle of the “law and morality” party. From this, it would seem that all the Democrats would have to do would be to paint themselves as the “law and morality” party and the Republicans as not that. I have a hard time believing that, were they to do so, you’d give your support to them, or that you make decisions based on such a simplistic criterion as what the party says they do versus what they say the other party does.

But maybe you do, and that might explain the exceptional naivete of the OP and might explain the Brickey Shuffle of yore.
[/QUOTE]

I was answering mhendo’s question. It’s hard to see how I could be evasive as to John Mace’s question.

The Democrats would have to change their stance on some basic things. In general, Democrats have been soft on what I would call “personal responsibility” for crime – arguing for legalization of drugs, alternative sentencing for criminals, and the like. Not that these are monolithically-held positions of the party… but when they are espoused, it’s generally going to be a Democrat espousing them instead of a Republican.

Morality, too – the Republicans are the party I can count on to persue obscenity charges against “Toilet Man 6.” I support that stance. The Democrats - not so much. In our recent thread about TM6, it was acknowledged that the Dems would not likely make such prosecutions any sort of priority.

These are examples of what I meant.

195

[QUOTE=Shayna]
That’s just plain bullshit. You do not have a corner on morality! Get over yourself!
[/QUOTE]

Nor did I claim that either I, or the GOP, had a corner on morality. But with respect to public policy decisions that relate to morality, I believe the GOP more closely aligns its priorities with what I’d like to see from government.

196

[QUOTE=Bricker]
But with respect to public policy decisions that relate to morality, I believe the GOP more closely aligns its priorities with what I’d like to see from government.
[/QUOTE]
But based on what we have seen recently, it is all lip service. No wonder the social conservatives are disgusted with him.

197

[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
But based on what we have seen recently, it is all lip service. No wonder the social conservatives are disgusted with him.
[/QUOTE]

It was certainly all lip service from Foley. If it turns out, as the preliminary evidence suggests, that Hastert knew and did nothing, then it was lip service from him as well.

Does that make it lip service from the entire coterie of elected Republican officials, though?

198

[QUOTE=Clothahump]
There is also no denying that the Dems have sat on the knowledge of it for more than a year, waiting until just before the election to roll it out so they could make maximum political hay from it.
[/QUOTE]

You know, even if this were true (which it ain’t, since the leaker was a Republican), so fucking what?

So what if the Dems had kept the information close to their vests until such time as they could make the most political damage out of it? The Pubs could have released the information themselves, or taken care of it quietly and discreetly, at any time, instead of waiting 'til now to do so. That they didn’t is their own damn fault.

Claiming that the Democrats knew about it a long time ago and have been sitting on the info just means that the Republicans are either arrogant, hypocritical assholes (who knew about the situation and did nothing to right or resolve it), or are completely inept (and therefore had no clue that this was going on). Either situation is a good reason to oust the Pubs responsible. Pointing fingers at the Democrats is just a shallow, transparent attempt to try to lessen their own blame.

199

Oh, by the way, Bricker, good on ya. Welcome to the dark side. :slight_smile:

200

[QUOTE=Bricker]
The Democrats would have to change their stance on some basic things. In general, Democrats have been soft on what I would call “personal responsibility” for crime – arguing for legalization of drugs, alternative sentencing for criminals, and the like. Not that these are monolithically-held positions of the party… but when they are espoused, it’s generally going to be a Democrat espousing them instead of a Republican.
[/quote]

But aren’t those perfect examples of positions that reasonable people can agree or disagree on? And Dems are not so much in favor of legalizing drugs, although they might prefer different sentencing optoins for users as opposed to pushers-- which I frankly think is a damn good idea. It’s unclear to me how this is an issue of being the party of “law”.

OK, but I think it’s important to note that the morality you’re talking about is your own personal sense of morality. Even if it might also be shared by many Americans, it is not shared by many others. In that sense I can’t see how holding an opposing view could be said to be not favoring morality. Let’s take the issue of the death penalty, which is certainly a more weighty moral issue than “dirty words”, no? Which party is more likely to take the “moral” high road on that issue?