No. The decision was made by a court, the decision was executed by means of an armed “attack.” If you want to wait on appellate decisions then you might as well give Elian up because he’d be 18 by the time all the various appeal opportunities are exhausted. The court decided. The decision was acted upon. That’s all there is to it.
RE: Injuries in the Elian debacle
This is a red herring at best. The usage of “in particular” and “perhaps in an effort to limit the news coverage” indicates you are putting forth the hypothesis that the agents were engaging in illegal activity. You should retract this or provide some sort of evidence that there was wrongdoing on the part of the agents.
RE: Number-doctoring
I didn’t see any disagreement on principle. I only saw a disagreement on magnitude. This could have been stated without the false numbers you presented. What you tried to do was reinforce the credibility of your position with statistics. When the statistics are pulled out of thin air they are not credible. That was my point.
In a discussion of Ashcroft’s fitness for the position of Attorney General, I believe any of his actions would be up for discussion. We are talking about actions by Ashcroft which infringe on Civil Rights. The action he took with regards to the Oregon law would qualify.
I would also posit he exceeded his authority by stepping into the area of government reserved to the Judicial Branch by determining that this law should apply in ways the Congress never intended it to. His interpretation is different than the intention of the lawmakers and the representatives of the people of the US, the Congress, have had their intentions twisted. Laws and the rules of language which apply to bills are fairly precise for a reason. Ashcroft subverted the intent of the representative body of the citizens of the US to suit his own agenda. It should not be tolerated.
My position on these issues is irrelevant to the discussion. It appears you are attempting to set up either an ad hominen attack, red herring, or straw man with this statement.
Um, Guin, camera men were injured when the agents knocked their cameras over so they wouldn’t take pictures.
I think it was reasonable to return Elian to Cuba, but not because of unhealthy environment. Elian’s environment in Florida, with all its flaws, sure beats Cuba. At least we don’t use government-mandated child prostitution as a means of getting hard currency. :eek:
However, my objection is to the procedure that was followed, not the outcome. We civil liberties buffs all are concerned with proper procedure, aren’t we?
Well, here’s another accusation of inconsistent principles – an ad hominem attack, if you like.
Would you apply the above principle to the death penalty? If you want to wait on appellate decisions then you might as well give up because he’d die on death row by the time all the various appeal opportunities are exhausted. The court decided. The man was executed. That’s all there is to it. :eek:
For that matter, there are plenty aliens in America who have been ordered to be deported, but who are appealing. Should they all be deprived of the right of appeal? I don’t think so.
You still haven’t proven the intent of the agents in knocking down the cameramen was to stop them recording some illegal activity. My memory of those incidents was that the cameramen deliberately imposed themselves in the path of the agents in order to get good footage. The agents activities in removing the cameramen from their path may have damaged the cameras but Occam’s Razor would suggest this to be incidental to the primary activity, which was getting them to move. Do you have evidence or are you going to admit it’s a red herring?
**
Given that definition, or another definition that you provide a cite for, please tell me which part of the post you referenced was an attack on you? You as in the poster called december not the rhetorical “you” which was the subject in the section you quoted.
This is a straw man. Since you’ve proven yourself ignorant of what an ad hominem fallacy is, it’s concievable that you are ignorant of the straw man fallacy as well. I’ll enlighten you again.
From http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#strawman
Now back to your assertions. Oh look, another straw man
Again, irrelevant. I have no doubt that there is injustice occuring in some of these situations(lengthy delays in deportation, decisions to deport based on improper/lost paperwork, etc), but it is still irrelevant when discussing the situation of Elian Gonzales. Those straw men are really easy to knock down aren’t they?
I’d ask you to deal with the actual issue but it would simply hijack the thread even more. This is supposed to be about Ashcroft not Reno. Even if it were on-topic I’d hesitate. Given your posting history and your behavior in this thread so far I doubt you’d answer with anything that would serve to advance the disucssion in any meaningful way. More red herrings, straw men and ad hominem fallacies are not useful. I’m tired of spending my time pointing out your errors. Not that I care if you actually learn anything from this, but there may be a lurker who avoids emulating your rhetorical style in the future because they see how it’s not tolerated. Debates full of such logical fallacies are not convincing. Please stop wasting the hamster’s time.
You are correct that I have no evidence as to motivation. Really, nobody has evidence the other way, because if the agents were intentionally knocking over cameras, one would expect them to not admit it. Regardless of motivation, I thank you for supporting my refutation of Guinastasia’s assertion that “the reason people were injured when Elian was rescued was because they were throwing rocks and starting fires all over the street.”
The government mandated child prostitution to obtain foreign exchange comes from IIRC the book Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot, by Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Alvaro varga Llosa, Michaela Lajda Ames (Translator), Alvaro Vargas Llosa. Alvaro Vargas Llosa is the son of the famous novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who also wrote the introduction. Despite the cutesy name, this is a serious book with a lot of facts, and it’s pretty readible. It was a best-seller in Latin America. I recommend it.
BTW I entered “cuba child prostitution” into google and got lots of hits here. It’s not a secret. but much of our media tends to filter out negative stuff about the Castro regime, for some reason.
However, I do agree with you that the thread is supposed to be about Ashcroft, so all this discussion of Elian is a pretty much of a hijack. (although one might argue that Ashcroft is a good AG by the standards of his predecessor. That might or might not be correct, but at least it would be somewhat relevant.)
Your assertion about the agent’s motivation originally was “There were several injuries, in particular to some news people who the agents attacked, perhaps in an effort to limit the news coverage.” When asked to provide evidence for the assertion of misconduct or the agents having something to hide, you said you have no proof, but continued to hold the position “camera men were injured when the agents knocked their cameras over so they wouldn’t take pictures.” You have been called on this thrice now and you continue to assert the proposition. You can re-phrase it as an opinion and it will be given the proper weight in the debate(which is none btw), you can provide evidence from a credible source(internal memos saying “knock the rat bastards with the cameras down and bust them up so they don’t record us raping the women and planting cocaine” would do nicely, signed by Reno herself would be a plus, but the official letterhead and department seal would suffice), or you can withdraw it as a point of debate.
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I have no doubt there were injuries because of the actions Guinastasia mentioned. I didn’t address them because they were not relevant to the injuries in question, meaning the injuries caused by agents and sustained by camera crews. I tend to hold pretty tightly to the points under debate and try to keep non-sequitors to a minimum. Guin’s point was only tangentally relevant in that it illustrated the dangerous nature of the situation. This should be considered as background evidence because if you’re alleging the agents used unncessary force to retrieve Elian then it should be noted they had reasonable cause to feel threatened and used a level of force appropriate to the situation and the rapid accomplishment of their mission.
FWIW I consider Guinastasia’s comment to be a non-sequitor and don’t believe it added much value to the discussion. But then again I also consider my seemingly endless corrections of your debating style irrelevant to the discussion as well, so we’re in the same boat.
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I did see some interesting things in those searches that I would be willing to address in another thread(but probably not this week because I’m swamped at work) but I won’t comment here on this issue.
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No. Let’s get the facts straight on what happened in this thread. You made a statement "The number of Americans whose civil liberties have been infringed by Ashcroft may be about 30 to 300. "
I responded that Ashcroft’s actions had abridged the civil rights of far more people. My actual words were “I would have sworn there were more people in Oregon than that. Their right to help determine the course of their own state’s legal system(through the use of their voting for laws they want passed or voting down laws they do not want passed), as defined by the “reserved powers” clause of the US Constitution, has been abridged.”
This is where we part ways and where you start commiting your fallacies. You took my stated position on Ashcroft’s actions and tried to deduce my ethical thought processes from it. You, having come to your conclusions as to how I decide if something is right or wrong, then decided to apply your version of my ethical processes to other issues. The resulting statements of position on the issues of “Roe v. Wade, Social Security, and federal civil rights laws” WERE COMPLETELY FABRICATED BY YOU. Then, somehow, you conclude that I am inconsistent with my ethical thought processes? Your actions in this thread would be excellent examples of the logical fallacies of straw man and ad hominem. For the last time, and real big so you can see it.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PUT WORDS IN YOUR OPPNENT’S MOUTH AND THEN ATTACK THEM BASED ON YOUR FABRICATED STATEMENTS OF THEIR POSITION
Thank you, but I feel almost completely the opposite. I feel dirty. I feel that I have been trying to force you to come to the debate table with something that resembles a logically sound debate. I HATE having to do that. I would much rather have spent our time in this thread saying things like “Ashcroft is bad because he did [cite] and said he did it because [cite]. I think this means he is a mean bastard with a small penis.” To be responded to by “Ashcroft also did this [cite] and said [cite] this is why. To me this would indicate that your original conclusion was wrong and that he’s not hung like an insect. I draw no conclusions as to his temperment, parentage, or the actual size of his member, but I believe my evidence shows that it’s larger than you posited.”
I said it was irrelevant because we were debating the microcosm of this one action of Reno’s. Was it right to handle the situation of Elian Gonzales the way Reno handled it. Period. We weren’t talking about the rules which are applied to all immigrants. We were trying to determine if justice had been served in this one case. Once that was established, we would then be free to examine the macrocosm of how all deportations(and I’m not sure this is the right word, Elian was sent back to Cuba, but I’m not sure if deportation is the actual legal process that was followed or not. I’m using the word simply to mean “sent back to his native country.” Just fending off potential nitpickers :)) are handled and if justice is served across the board. We might come to some sad conclusions, but that debate is not the one we were engaging in.
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No. As I stated above, what you really did was INVENT a position for me to take and then say I was inconsistent when you compare a position I DID take with the position you INVENTED. This is not allowed and you WILL be called on it. In fact it’s so not allowed that there’s an official name for it when someone does this. Guess what it’s called? Straw man.
I put forth the assertion that if you replied again it would be more off-topic, fallacious statements. This was not an invalid assertion. In the future it is likely to be more productive if you keep your side of the arguement free of fallacies.
Now I’m done here. If you don’t see the error of your debating tactics after this post then I’m going to have to mark it up to willful ignorance and rank your future comments accordingly.
Mtgman, I will move on from the “you said, I said,” and simply list some points.[ol][]I have agreed with you that the discussion of Elian and Janet Reno is a hijack.[]Although I disagreed with Ashcroft’s actions in Oregon, ISTM that alleged violations of states’ rights are normally not referred to as “civil liberties violations.” The label could be justified. However, if one includes health care issues in that category, one should also include other federal infringements on states rights, such as Medicare.I didn’t think I had put words in your mouth. Could you please quote where you think I did so?[/ol]
Sure, it’s easier to misrepresent someone when you don’t have to bother with that whole “preserving what they actually said” thing anyway. Knock yourself out.
[quote]
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[ol][li]I have agreed with you that the discussion of Elian and Janet Reno is a hijack.**[/li][/quote]
And still no retraction of your accusations of illicit motives on the part of the agents. Actions which you contend were designed to limit the freedom of the press to observe their actions. An allegation that the former attorney general, upon whose direct orders the agents were acting, ordered the suppression of news coverage is a pretty big live grenade for you just to toss and then ignore. Thankfully it’s pretty clear to any lurker by now that you simply hold this as an opinion and have no evidence, or even hints of evidence.
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And again I have to point out that you have no evidence of my position on “other federal infringements on states rights” and are simply fabricating a position you believe I might take for the sake of bolstering your own arguement. I have presented two points.
[li]The right thing was done and due process was served in returning Elian Gonzales to Cuba in the custody of his father.[/li][li]Ashcroft did the wrong thing, and exceeded his authority, in extending a law in a manner it was not intended to apply to situations of Euthanasia. [/li]**
[quote]
[li]I didn’t think I had put words in your mouth. Could you please quote where you think I did so?[/ol] **[/li][/QUOTE]
Anywhere you claim I was inconsistent. I have made the above two assertions which are unrelated. You fabricated a position on other issues of Federal law versus State’s Rights by saying
I have made no statements of position on any of these issues, or Medicare. You have accused me of “inconsistency of principles” when comparing my disapproving position on the issue of Ashcroft’s action and the position of supporting “Roe v. Wade, Social Security, and federal civil rights laws” and now “Medicare”.
YOU DON’T KNOW IF I SUPPORT ROE V. WADE, SOCIAL SECURITY, FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS, AND MEDICARE OR IF I DO NOT SUPPORT THEM. YOU HAVE MADE A HUGE ASSUMPTION TO ATTEMPT TO DESCREDIT ME AS A PERSON WITHOUT INTEGRITY.
I don’t know how to state it more plainly. You have no data on my position on anything but the two points I outlined above. They are not inconsistent with each other because they are entirely different situations with very few parallels(they only thing they seem to share is that an Attorney General was directly involved). Yet you continue to assert I hold inconsistent principles. Your evidence for this assertion is fabricated and the assertion is an attack upon my credibility as a logically consistent being. You are being a jerk.
Just for my own curiosity, is anyone else still reading this thread?
Mix it together until you’ve got a sticky and slimy paste that runs down your arm and it’s a little closer. I really thought I was done lecturing people on logical fallacies and jumping to conclusions for dramatic effect when I left high school debate class behind me.
It’s taking longer than I thought.
Enjoy,
Steven
PS. Read some archives a while back on a debate on prostitution that you participated in wring. I have great respect for you as a debater from those. Your applause honors me.
We are not having a Constitutional state of emergency. :. Ashcroft cannot detain American citizens without charging them…which certainly does violate the Constitution.
An expansive view? I was under the impression that the Federal Courts were the only arbiters of who may and may not take such views.
He has detained citizens without charging them for far longer than he is allowed by law.
I will reiterate: december, it is not true that the Cuban government has ever mandated child prostitution. It is a very grave insult to the Cuban people and you should retract it unless you can support it.
I do not consider the US government to be impartial with respect to Cuba. Rather, I consider it to be very biased against the Cuban government and yet, the US government has never accused the Cuban government of endorsing, much less mandating, child prostitution. In a report issued by the Department of State it says, just is passing,
Well, no shit. Like the US has no domestic violence or racial discrimination. I guess it’s time to overthrow the government.
So “child prostitution is a problem”? What does this mean exactly? It means the US has no evidence against the Cuban government of any kind. It means country in such poverty is going to have a certain amount of child prostitution because when people are desperate they do desperate things but child prostitution is certainly not condoned or promoted by the government and things are much, much worse in other countries with which the US has very friendly relations.
In Florida you have the most rabid and fanatical anti-Castro people and yet I have never heard this accusation from them. The Dept. of State report on Human rights has to be taken with a boatload of salt because it turns every prison riot and every protest into an indictment of the Cuban government. I could write exactly the same thing about any government. Or are there no prison riots and street protests in the USA?
Things like “Prison officials regularly denied prisoners other rights, such as the right to correspondence” are laughable if you take into account that the USA has, on Cuban soil, right now, large numbers of prisoners whose human rights are being violated by order of the subject of this thread, Mr Ashcroft. Yes, many human rights abuses are taking place in the island of Cuba today but a large part of them are not the responsibility of Mr. Castro but of Mr. Ascort.
For over 40 years now the Cuban government has been threatened by the US in a very real way. They have taken measures to defend themselves from those who seriously threaten their very survival and yet, the US, who has taken similar measures under a much lesser threat, sees fit to criticise the Cuban government for doing the same thing.
I have nothing good to say about the Cuban government. It is an abomination and should be ended but spreading lies only serves to discredit you and your side of the argument. The Cuban government never has condoned, much less mandated. child prostitution.
december the ball is in your court now. Retract what you said or show proof. What edict mandated child prostitution in Cuba? When was it issued and by who? When did it start? How many children were abducted for this purpose? How was it done? What was the organization? Were there any parents who protested? If it was going on years ago, some of those children would be adults now and at least some would have left the country. Where are they?
Don’t give me a book title, give me supported facts which answer my questions.
I gave my source, which was a best-selling book in Latin America. It has now been translated into English. You seem to be requestin that I type the relevant chapters into this Board. That’s too much to ask.
My questions can be answered very shortly with no need to type longer posts than you already type so the answer is you have no answer to my questions. No dates, no names, no concrete facts. Just a book title. A book you like can contradict the rest of the evidence of the entire world but you will still believe it. Do you know how many books are out there claiming Jews are evil? Many more than those that claim the Cuban government forces children into prostitution.
Anyway, I am done with you on this topic. The readers can make up their minds on who is more credible on this issue. I have a feeling not many are coming down on your side on this particular issue.
I addressed december’s allegations of “mandated child prostitution” in the pit. I’d rather not hijack this thread with discussions of this red herring.
Anyway. John Ashcroft has done some good things, but he has an attitude I simply can not stomach in a government official of his position. Ashcroft seems to believe that government should shepherd the citizens(c.f. expanded wiretapping rights in bills he has pushed for). Conversely, I believe the citizens should shepherd the government. The framers of the constitution seem to agree with me(c.f. the first ten ammendments to the constitution).