This is just the most recent instance of these shenanigans.
Now, I’m not singling out Sevastopol because I’m pissed off at him per se, but the ridiculousness of the type of statement he made there. You want to know why the parties can’t cooperate to get anything done? Because they ascribe the basest of motives to each other. It’s not enough that they have differing opinions that, from a certain point of view, have equal validity. No, there’s this constant demonization where one party is the guardian of truth and light and the other party is composed of the forces of darkness.
This is not the only reason why things can’t get done, but it’s definitely high on the list. If someone spends all their time calling you an asshole, would you be inclined to cooperate with them, assist them in getting stuff done, or even pretend to be civil to them? Probably not. It happens with our policy makers all the time, and it’s sickening. It has long since trickled down to the masses, and it’s equally sickening when I see it here.
Now, if you want to call a spade a spade and refer to specific legislators or public persons as assholes, have at it. All I’m saying is that as a conservative member of the military I am told time and again what a scumbag I am by inference. “All” this, and “all” that. It’s dishonest, it’s credulous, and it’s just plain wrong. Not all Democrats are bad. Some are. Not all Republicans are bad. Some are. This generalization stuff is simply stupid. And it gets old. Quickly.
Since we are supposed to be the smart people on the Internet, can we try to remember this in the future and not make baseless generalizations in the future?
Thank you in advance for allowing me to waste the last 20 minutes composing my thoughts so they can be summarily ignored. I just wanted to speak my mind on this, and I have for a long time.
It’s a nice sentiment, and I agree with you, but I’m afraid you’re spitting in the wind here. There are some people out there, who, either because they believe it or they just like rhetoric, say that everybody who disagrees with them is evil, and always acting with the basest motives. And, if you call them on it, it just proves you’re evil too. The thing to do, I think, is to ignore people like that, and enter into debate with rational people.
There are posters with whom it is futile to try to reason and to convince, and who exist only to spew bile and raise hackles. Correct their loonier allegations, but it’s best to avoid being drawn into arguments with people whose mental apparatus seems geared only to chanting “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.”
If Sevastopol’s quotes are typical of what you had in mind for demonization, then you have a very delicate constitution.
Perhaps a slightly more diplomatic way of expressing what Sevastopol may be saying is that this Administration and many of its supporters have little to no respect for the UN, as evidenced by the appointment of John Bolton as UN ambassador. Further several notable conservatives and Bush supporters have questioned the existence, let alone the importance, of international law as LAW, as evidenced by AG Gonzales’ infamous memo referring to the Geneva Conventions as “quaint” and “obsolete” and advocating that the US withdraw from the Conventions.
While Sevastopol may have been stretching things a bit much in saying that the entire point of US foreign policy is to thumb the US’s nose at the rest of the world, that statement is hardly demonization given the inconsistencies and irrationality that all too often comprises US foreign policy.
Mr. Doors is right on target! He is a conservative with the military. I am a liberal Democrat that leans way to the left. Vague generalizations about motivation serve no purpose.
I believe that the current White House Administration has committed heinous acts that are destructive to our country and the people of this earth. Maybe Mr. Doors agrees with me at least a little. I don’t know if we will ever fully know the motives behind all of it.
This myth of inter-party inability to cooperate keeps cropping up again and again, with virtually no basis in fact, especially over the past few years.
Over that time, the Democrats have been extraordinarily accommodating of virtually everything the White House wants, from war to the Patriot Act to tax cuts. Sure, some Democrats have fought against such measures, but Washington has, by and large, been a place of far too much consensus over the past half-decade.
It’s only since the Administration has fucked up so badly that it can’t be ignored that Democrats have finally started to rediscover their testicles.
Hell, even before George Bush ascended to the Presidency, there was far too much consensus among the mainstream of the Democratic and Republican parties, in my opinion. Far too much for the good of the nation anyway, although probably just the right amount to ensure that those on top stayed there.
His saying “The entire point” is an exaggeration, but damned if our current Administration hasn’t built up quite a track record of violating such norms.
Which is the real obstacle - the track record and those who are responsible for it, or the occasional exaggeration in describing it?
It doesn’t help putting this in the pit, because he avoids pittings, but I wouldn’t worry too much about stinky little insects like him, Airman Doors, USAF.
I wonder what he meant by that? Certainly, it’s a provocative statement, but it seems that nobody followed up on it. Perhaps it’s as plain as it appears, but it would be nice to know for sure before condemning it.
As to the OP: yeah, all generalizations are bad. I agree, with your essential point, AD and I’m guilty of assuming fairly base motivations for people’s behavior. Whether I’m just naturally a cynic, or whether it is because working in therapy with people, it ends up being the case more often than not, I don’t know. I would point out that we have to generalize to even be able to assign people to Republican or Democratic categories - or even to assign ourselves to such categories. (We have to generalize to make it successfully through the day, but that’s another discussion.)
It follows that one would tend to choose the category that shares the most overlap with qualities that they like, or at least reject self-assignment to categories they dislike. I know that some engage in a process of supporting one group with zeal or rejecting the other groups with the same level of zeal in part to reify their group membership. My point is that there must be a spectrum of ascribing motives by political association, and that to some point on that spectrum, such behavior is useful and accurate.
We just had a thread on why everybody should be outraged over Ann Coulter. Why would anybody be concerned about that shrill harpy? Because PEOPLE LISTEN TO HER. We had a thread over in GD a while back titled “Have conservatives given up on democracy?” No, they haven’t. But the fact that someone thought that they had, and started the thread with this statement:
is indicative of what I’m talking about.
Further, we have the constant use of the acronym “IOKIARDI”, which is ridiculous on its own, and even more so when you stop to think that the door swings both ways so in a few years there will be people saying the same things about the Democrats and it will be equally unwarranted then.
These are just examples off the top of my head. This is not a case of rampant hyperbole. This is a case of outright belief in some cause, almost as if the parties represent some sort of religion. And it’s stupid.
If you read the actual memo, you can see that he never called the GC quaint. His point, with which I and many others here agree, is that al Qaeda fighters needn’t be classified as POWs. Further, that although we could opt to treat al Qaeda as POWs, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing so since the GC is, for good reason, extremely restrictive wrt interrogation of prisoners. It’s certanly valild to question the administrations willingness to engage in torture as an interrogation technique, but plenty of interrogation techniques that fall well short of torture would still be illegal per the GC’s treatment of POWs req’ts. Thos req’ts are desinged to ensure POWs do not in any way shape or form have to reveal war strategies or tactics of their own militaries. Now, why would we want to grant that privlege to al Qaeda fighters?
The “quaint” reference was simply a way of illustrating the absurdity that could arise from treating cpatured al Qaeda as POWs: “In my judgement this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitation on questioning enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemies be afforded such things as commissary privleges, scrip (ie, advances of monthly pay), athletic unifors and scientific instruments.” Emphasis added.
And I didn’t see where he called for the US to withdraw from the GC. Can you quote that section? Some of that PDF is hard to read, so maybe I missed what you were referring to.
Why should the US respect the UN? Respect is earned, and the UN has not done a good job of earning it.
What’s wrong with questioning? Perhaps we can come up with something better?
For instance, on the second page of the memo, Gonzales notes that some of the language in the GPW is undefined; he also points out that this type of warfare was not considered when the GPW was drawn up in 1949. And you’re misrepresenting Gonzales’ use of the word ‘obselete’. Here’s the actual text:
In short, you’ve picked up on two words and ignored the rest.
Unfortunately, in turning its back on the UN, the United States has engaged in actions that are orders of magnitude worse than anything they could possibly accuse the UN of. In doing so, it has managed to squander the massive amount of international respect and sympathy that it had in the period immediately following the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Goodwill towards and empathy for America and its people was at historically high levels in late 2001. That world opinion has declined so far since then, even among the citizens of friendly nations, is a damning indictment of US selfishness, unilateralism, and disdain for the opinions of others.
As far as withdrawing from the GPW, you’re absolutely right. There isn’t any mention of this in the January 25, 2002 memo or any of the other publically released Justice memos that I could find. I likely read that somewhere on a leftist blog or something.
In your quotation, however, you neglected to include the part where Gonzales refers to restrictions on interrogating enemy prisoners as “obsolete.” While of course providing television sets and a full gym to prisoners at Gitmo or elsewhere would be absurd, Gonzales paints with a far broader brush in arguing who should not be afforded POW status. For instance, the Justice Department lumped both Al Queda and Taliban prisoners together in determining that they are both not eligible for POW status.
Despite the Taliban being the de facto ruling government of most of Afghanistan, Justice argued that Afghanistan was a “failed state.” Thus, members of the Taliban were no longer afforded the same Gevena Convention rights guaranteed to other signatory nation-state actors since Afghanistan effectively lost its status as a nation-state. While the Taliban government may not have been recognized internationally aside from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, never before has a country been deemed no longer a nation-state simply because it is chaotic and the ruling party does not have effective control over all of the country. This also raises all sorts of issues as to how and where the U.S. gets the power to decide what countries can still be considered nation-states and which can’t be.
As for whether Al Queda prisoners can be deemed POWs or not, the GPW states:
Only in 2004, after Hamdi v. Rumsfeld did the Administration convene any sort of tribunals at all to determine the status of prisoners. Even then, it is questionable whether they meet the standard of a competent tribunal given numerous procedural problems and limitations on prisoners to challenge any evidence against them or mount anything more than a perfunctory defense.
Please forgive the horrible coding in my previous post.
If we fight a war largely on the pretext of enforcing and supporting UN Security Council resolutions, then we should at least pretend we think the UN serves a semi-important function other than rubber-stamping military/political decisions that have already been made. The danger of having an independent institution is that it is independent and therefore not subserviant to the will of a particular country.
The problem is, Gonzales’ memo was shortly after the Bybee memo which prevaricated on what could be considered torture, stating that an act will be deemed to be torture when it involves severe pain. “Where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure.” The memo also stated that the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers made him exempt from the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment as implemented under US law.
While this memo was formally renounced in 2004, it is disconcerting to say the least that an Administration whose understanding of Executive power (particularly in wartime) to be incredibly, mind-blowinly broad, should cherry-pick torture to only include something as severe as killing someone or causing their organs to fail.