So you admit that ‘purveyors of fishy emails’ is a more accurate tem than neighbors?
Nope, your consistent use of the term ‘neighbors’ to characterize what even you admit is a far more diverse group group is evidence of dishonesty on your part. Shall we now call terrorists and murderers ‘neighbors’ because some of them may live right next door? I think not, but that is the essence of what you are insisting on doing here. Doing so doesn’t do a thing for your credibility.
No one’s been asked to inform on anyone by the president, they’ve been asked to forward examples of the lies and distortions they get through their email.
Is it your take that lies and distortions should somehow be above rebuttal just because they might come from neighbors or organizations, or the Republican party?
That’s absurd.
Lies are being spread, but they have to survive within the marketplace of ideas, just like the truth does. Granting them special status as you seem to wish serves no one’s good but the liars and bamboozlers.
That’s exactly the sort of double standard this thread was started to investigate.
I got to thinking about why I’m passionate about the issue of informing on people because you don’t agree with their ideas. I realized it’s because of my grandmother.
After World War II, my grandmother Dorothea was involved with a group smuggling people out from behind the Iron Curtain. She said sometimes she would go in, and some of the people she was going to smuggle out wouldn’t be there. She said if that happened, she aborted the mission immediately. I asked her why. The conversation went something like this:
“The secret police took them away. They put them in jail or they killed them. We were afraid that they had been tortured and might have revealed the escape plan.”
“Why would the police do that? How would they know?”
“Oh, usually it was because their neighbors turned them in”.
“Turned them in? For what?”
“Usually for saying that they didn’t like the policies of the government. Sometimes even their own kids turned them in for saying something against whatever the government was doing.”
“But what did they do to get arrested?”
“They just said they didn’t like what the government was doing.”
As a kid, I couldn’t believe that. How could anyone tell the government what their neighbors said if they knew they’d be taken away and jailed or tortured or killed? How could you get killed if you said something wrong? I couldn’t get that through my kidlike brain, it was scary, for a while I was careful about what I said.
Now, please don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that Obama is planning on doing this. I’m not saying that’s happening in America. That’s paranoid fantasy.
However, Bush certainly put people in jail for things they’d said, and Ashcroft will likely go to trial, and may actually go to jail for jailing people with no evidence, in part just because of things they’d written or said. And we know that a host of governments around the world routinely ask people to be their informants, to report the slightest statement against the government. So it can easily happen, it’s not uncommon worldwide.
My grandmother’s experience is the reason that we have laws against spying on people. It’s the reason that asking people to inform on their neighbors, asking people to give someone’s names and their “fishy” thoughts to the government, is anathema to civilized governments everywhere. Because we’ve seen what can happen when it is OK to report people’s statements to the government. Because it is a slippery slope from where we are, to Bush, to the Iron Curtain.
Again, let me say that I don’t think Obama is on that slope … but that’s Obama. Me, I don’t want to be anywhere near that slope. I do not want to establish that it’s OK to turn anyone’s name and “thought crimes” into the government, no matter what the excuse, no matter how pure the motive, no matter what the circumstances. It is not OK under any circumstances. It is an act which is commonplace in totalitarian states. I don’t want Obama’s name associated with anything like that, and I don’t want to take even the tiniest step down that path.
Yes, I know that’s not Obama’s intention. Yes, I know he’s not looking to lock people up for thought crimes. I just don’t want to take the smallest step down that slope … and asking people to forward anyone’s emails to the government is a step in that direction.
Hmmm … yeah, I can see that point of view. People don’t want me to use “neighbor” because it sounds so sinister. Or not sinister enough. Or something.
I can also see the point of view that you want me to use bland, noble sounding words to make it all sound oh so reasonable, to foster the impression that asking people to send anyone’s name and “fishy” ideas to the government does not set a dangerous precedent, it’s just a patriotic act.
I fear I call them like I see them, as do you. You don’t want to call it “informing” … well, let’s see what the dictionary says:
“Informing: To disclose confidential or incriminating information to an authority”
Hmmm … emails are confidential, I’d be very angry if you forwarded mine, yep, that fits.
So, you’re free to call it something like “nobly performing my honest civic duty by merely alerting the proper authorities that Mr. X is sending fishy information and lies in a perverted attempt to undermine the wonderful health care plan proposed by our wonderful and blameless government”. I promise I won’t stop you.
On the other hand, I will continue to call forwarding someone’s name and their ideas to the government “informing on them” … because that’s exactly what it is.
You’re still confused, or at least I hope it’s only confusion. Using terms like “spy” or “inform” or “turn in” or “thought crimes” implies that the “turned-in” people are in danger from retaliation by the authorities because the authorities want to punish them for what they did.
If you yourself really do not believe that Obama actually intends to retaliate against people who disagree with his health care reform plans in email messages, then it is inaccurate and misleading of you to assert that he is asking his supporters to “spy” or “inform on” or “turn in” people who disagree with him.
Now, as I have repeatedly acknowledged, it’s perfectly reasonable to point out that Obama’s phrasing could possibly be twisted to suggest or insinuate that he wants to hunt down opponents for “thought crimes”.
But there’s a significant difference between saying “That phrasing sounds as though Obama’s asking people to spy on their neighbors and turn them in for thought crimes, although I personally don’t believe that that’s what he intends”, and saying “Obama’s asking people to spy on their neighbors and turn them in for thought crimes”.
Your resolute insistence on ignoring that crucial difference suggests that either (1) you’ve been carried away by the rhetorical opportunity to make melodramatic analogies with Cold War totalitarian secret police, to the point of indulging in ridiculously sloppy reasoning; or else (2) as I said, you’re deliberately choosing to encourage and reinforce an alarmist, paranoid view of Obama’s motives that you yourself claim not to believe.
Not really. The fact that you’d be angry if an email was forwarded doesn’t grant you the protection of confidentiality. In fact, the vast majority of email disinformation is freely distributed and is expected to be distributed far and wide otherwise it wouldn’t serve its purpose. The disinformation within is meant to become viral and it can only do that if people keep forwarding it and repeating it. Kind of like how you’re doing in this very thread.
So, where’s the incrimination? There’s no law against spreading disinformation. Nobody’s going to jail for sending their stupid political glurge. The administration obviously feels that the disinformation is so pervasive, people who are interested in learning the truth might be inclined to ask the administration to clarify some “fishy” claims they heard by email. The administration is only too happy it seems to take its message to the very individuals that may be willing to listen to a rational explanation. That sounds like a good idea, even though I’m skeptical it will do anything to turn the tide away from the overwhelming amount bullshit we’re wading through.
You simply can’t conceive of anyone forwarding an email glurge that talks about something equivalent to death panels and asking the administration to explain whether there was any merit to the rumor and what it’s based upon. Nope. Because you’re too busy whinging on that Obama is really hunting snipes and they are your neighbors(!). You say you don’t believe it, but you continue to so unceasingly misrepresent Obama’s intent, it’s rather hard to understand what makes you such a zealous devil’s advocate. If it’s not a complete and utter distrust of politicians in general along with a generous heaping of tinfoil hat porn, I’m not really sure what it is.
Tin foil hat porn. Cue the funky guitar wah-wah pedal riff
“I’m not saying X is like Y, I’m just saying X is like Y.” How about you stop being a devil’s advocate and actually argue the side you support? Oh wait, you’re already doing that.
Dear friends, I get it. You see nothing wrong with Obama asking people to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities. Why? Because you believe that the authorities will not use the information in any but honorable ways.
I also believe that the current authorities will not use the information in any but honorable ways. However, to me that’s not the point. The point is that we should not be asked to forward email addresses and private communications to the authorities. It has nothing to do with Obama. I hold that it is wrong to ask that, no matter who is president, no matter how honorable they are, no matter what they say they will do with the information.
What I find curious is that nobody has explained to me the difference between Obama doing this, and Bush asking people to send him email addresses and private communications of people who opposed the Iraq War. What’s the difference? Do any of you actually believe that it would have been right for Bush to do that?
One person said it would be OK for Bush to do it if people were lying about him … but obviously, that doesn’t work. That’s just the kid’s defence of “Mommy, I punched him in the eye him because he was lying about me”. That’s nonsense, it doesn’t excuse the act.
So explain to me why Bush would be wrong to do it, but it’s OK for Obama?
What you are espousing is “situational ethics”, where what is right or wrong depends on the situation and the cast of characters. Me, I’m not into that. I believe that if it is wrong for Bush, it’s wrong for Obama, as it would be wrong for any president. In fact, our whole legal system is based on that idea.
So if you would stop attacking me because you fantasize that I’m some slack-jawed drooling Glen Beck listener (I’ve never read a word the man ever wrote, never seen him on TV), and answer the question that I have asked a number of times, we might be able to elucidate the difference in our points of view.
Why would Bush be wrong to do it, and yet it’s OK for Obama?
PS - an unrelated question … why is it not OK to question anything Obama does? I supported him, I voted for him, I think he’s a good, decent, honorable man. I also think that in addition to a bunch of good men and women, he has surrounded himself with buffoons, tax cheats, and a variety of losers. That’s no surprise, it’s every president’s fate. As a result, I think some of what his administration has done is inspired, some is insipid, and some is just plain wrong.
I’m an Obama supporter, not an Obama sycophant. Do you think that because we have enemies, we should not criticize what we see as errors in our own ranks? Do you think that an Obama supporter should not criticize him in any way? Because I’m of the opposite mind. It is more important for us to find and identify the errors in what we do precisely because we are surrounded by enemies … and if we don’t find the errors and fix them, they will be more than happy to use them against us.
I agree with intention on one point: It seems that Obama does indeed lack the political charisma/knowhow to deal with the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging hysterical morons that are now comprising a larger and larger percent of the Republican party.
He possibly could have handled it differently, before it all exploded in a mushroom cloud of stupidity.
On the other hand, I don’t think any human can go four years without “tripping up” and somehow triggering the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging hysterical morons that are dead sent against him/her and paranoid about his/her every move.
But the point is that I’m fine with you doing that; you don’t change anything by inserting a word that was already encompassed. If I tell you I’ve seen every movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture, then I’m telling you I’ve seen THE GODFATHER as surely as I’m telling you I’ve seen ANNIE HALL. If I tell you I don’t own any guns, then I’m telling you I don’t own any pistols sure as I’m telling you I don’t own any rifles. It’s just true, is all.
Look, switch gears for a moment and imagine I say everyone should have the right to a speedy and public trial with double-jeopardy protection in cases of prosecution for murder. Yes, that includes terrorists and traitors and child molestors. Yes, that also includes your neighbor and your doctor and your brother. It’s both obvious and accurate to say that my proposal would apply to your neighbor.
And I’m fine with spelling out stuff that’s (a) perfectly obvious and (b) entirely accurate: that the Obama administration was encouraging you to forward fishy e-mails whether you get them from an upstanding neighbor or some family member halfway across the country; it doesn’t matter, because you’re encouraged to forward such e-mails whether they’re from a child molestor you’ve never met or from the law-abiding doctor you’ve known for years.
Oh, which brings me to Squink’s point:
See, that’s the same idea: we’ve been told to forward e-mail that seems fishy, and Squink refers to such e-mailers as “deceptive persons and organizations. Are your neighbors that bad that they’re all liars and cheats?” And yet not everything that seems fishy turns out to be deceptive; surely we can grant that some of the forwarded e-mails will turn out to be neither inaccurate nor misleading in their content?
If someone who has not read about this subject saw your phrasing above, don’t you think that they will think that the government specifically asked people to forward email addresses?
Yes, if people forward emails, and they are not careful about deleting extraneous stuff (which most aren’t), they will invariable also forward the email address.
But that is very different to saying that we are being asked to forward email addresses.
I agree with most of what you say above. I would add though that, in fact Democrats are more willing to criticize their own, whereas Republicans present a much more united front and rarely if ever criticize their own people in power, which puts Democrats at a large disadvantage politically. But I agree that ideally, if someone on your side messes up, you (the general you) should be willing to criticize it.
This is ridiculous. Nobody here has said that it’s “not OK to question anything Obama does” or that “an Obama supporter should not criticize him in any way.” Personally, my problem with your performance in this thread is that I think your arguments to support your criticism don’t hold water, not that you’re criticizing Obama in general. I think there are plenty of reasons to criticize Obama, but I think this is a stupid one and you haven’t produced a good enough argument to convince me (and apparently a lot of other people) differently. Part of the problem with your debating tactics is illustrated by the sentences I quoted above - you restate what people are saying in an inaccurate manner and then argue against that, instead of addressing the actual words people have put forth.
intention, thanks for the “thoughts”. They did not change the lesson plan because they misspoke. It was a perfectly reasonable and innocuous lesson plan.
They changed it because the right purposely misinterpreted it and then people like you screamed about it until they changed it into something that was more difficult to intentionally misconstrue.
Predictably, the people who bullied them into changing it are now pointing to the change as evidence of misspeaking or worse.
We have not been asked to forward email addresses - please stop saying that and it would help your position here. And it’s also disingenuous to call these email spam messages “private communications.”
I’ll grant that in an ideal world the President would have said “send us what those emails are saying (and please delete the sender’s info)…”
Again, you’re disingenuously setting up a straw man of what I said. I did NOT imply that my situation hinges on the idea that people were lying about him, I set up a situation where President Bush had explained his need to find out the word on the street and ask for help. And yes, I think I and most others here would have thought that it was OK for Bush to do something similar in a similar enough situation. It’s not a difference in how much we trust Bush vs. Obama; in a similar situation both of them would be justified in asking that we forward them what people were saying.
All ethics are situational; there’s nothing wrong with that. But we’re not in this case saying the difference has anything to do with which President is asking for the info.
Seriously. It’s like having an SO who, when you tell them they look great in those jeans, fly into a rage because you just said they look ugly in other clothing they wear, only 100 times more psychotic.
More on topic, I’ve got to wonder, how is what the administration is asking any different than what, say, Snopes and Factcheck ask for?
Say what? Read what I’ve written. I’ve described them in a variety of ways, none of them pleasant. Yes, some of them lie. Yes, some of them are out to get Obama by fair means or foul. Yes, some of them are willing to use any tactic to achieve their ends. I’ve said all that before.
And some of them are just like my father-in-law, an old man who is fearful of change. He doesn’t do any of those things, he’s just worried about how he is going to survive in an uncertain world …
What’s your point? That if some of our opponents are immoral liars, that we should not keep our own house in order?
You’ll have to say more about this, I have no idea what you’re trying to get across.
No, that since many of our opponents are either unscrupulous liars or directed by them, that we shouldn’t treat them as rational human beings who can be persuaded by the appropriate argument.
There really isn’t any “if” to be discussed. The not-debatable fact is that the opposition wants to twist the words and actions of the Obama administration. Another, corollary fact, also non-debatable, is that the opposition is going to twist the words and actions of the Obama administration, no matter what the Obama administration says or does. There comes a point where “watch[ing] what you say and do”, far from being common sense, is a mug’s game, and that point has arrived. The only way to make it impossible for the opposition to twist the Obama administration’s words and actions is for the administration to not say anything, and to not do anything.
And I’m sure that the nitpickers of the SDMB will argue that even THAT is no guarantee.
Now, perhaps you disagree with me about the “non-debatability” of the facts I have asserted above. I would be delighted to hear your case, if you have one. But anything with the tenor of “They changed a detail of their behavior, that PROVES they were wrong.” is not going to make your case for you.
Funny, if they don’t say something exculpatory (delete the sender’s information), it means that the exculpatory explanation (they’re after the body of the email, not the header information) isn’t true, but if they don’t say something self-incriminating (they want citizens to inform on their neighbors) it means that the incriminating thing is true? That looks an awful lot like what S. Palin once called “making up things.”
Try this. Tell me exactly how many different arguments, legitimate and illegitimate, against the health care reform proposals, are currently circulating thorugh cyberspace. Be comprehensive, by which I mean, I’d like every argument and every permutiation, and tell me how you know that you have identified them all.
The Obama administration have not been demonstrated to be doing wrong things, whether with pure or impure motives.
Your assertion that is it wrong, per se, is erroneous.
Well, since you don’t have your email address in your profile, I’d have had a hard time doing it, but for the sake of your hypothetical, let’s say I’m your neighbor, and I have your email address (come to think of it, I don’t have the email addresses of any of my neighbors – but I digress), and I had sent an anti-war email to you. Learning that you had forwarded it to the White House would lead me to say, “Why the fuck do you think they’re going to be interested in what I have to say about why they’re wrong? Well, good luck with that.” Because the ONLY thing that would have led me to choose to not send it to them myself would be my certainty that they wouldn’t give a shit about what I had to say.
I’m not going to take that distrust seriously, and I’m not going to advocate that the Administration take it seriously, until he has EARNED the distrust, in the way the the Bush earned his.
I’m frankly unprepared to speak to this assertion, except to say that I have not yet begun to believe that Obama has earned Bush-levels of distrust.
And as far as the Pubbies are concerned, anything that Bush did that was A-OK with them should also make Obama A-OK with them, if he’s continuing it.
. . . but . . . but… in post #73, you said you don’t trust him much. How does “I don’t trust him much” find itself compatible with “I generally trust Obama”? Does “generally” mean the same as “not much” out there in the South Pacific?
Please state your case for distrusting Bush. Then state their case[s] for not trusting Obama. Imagine showing both of the cases to a visitor from another planet, and try to predict which one the visitor will regard as the more rational and justified.
That won’t be good enough. The distrust precedes the supposition, making the argument circular.
You haven’t made your case that the program is useless. In fact, I got one of those emails today, and I think I’ll forward it to the program, just in case they don’t already have it. Because I (and every right-thinking American) think email forwards with header information are obnoxious, I will, of course be deleting everything except the text.
You mention that you haven’t gotten any of them yourself. If you want to see it, send me your email add’y and I’ll [del]cc:[/del] bcc: you on it.
