I mean, seriously, Scylla. Are you that much of a coward that one attack by terrorists is enough for you to chuck 200 years of a tradition of growing civil liberty? Are you that afraid that Al Qaeda is going to suddenly decide that the farmland of Pennsylvania is worthy of its attention? If the population of the areas of this nation most in danger of terrorist attack (you know, NYC, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, etc.) are confident enough to vote against the Homeland-Security Republicans consistently, why are you so afraid? Is it worth it to throw our nation’s whole reason for being into the Void so we won’t ever see that 0.0001% chance of someone crashing a plane into Pottstown? C’mon!
This should make you feel a little better.
You know that does make me feel a little better.
Thank you.
Jim
I think Scylla is just a stupid fascist bastard myself.
It makes me feel a bit better. Maybe SOME of our politicians haven’t lost all of their sanity (yet).
Many of us were in the miltiary. I was, even though through dumb luck, I never got shot at. Didn’t that oath we took say ummm something about defending the Constitution? When did it become a personal loyalty oath to preserve and defend the men who spit on the Constitution AND America? (Hint: Bush and Cheney). It’s a sad day when the loyalty to a party trumps loyalty to country. Before I forget, did I mention that people like Scylla are exactly what is wrong with this country?
I had a long long rebuttal for him specifically, but the gremlins ate it. Maybe later I will try again.
See, I don’t. He hasn’t been in the past. Yes, he’s always been a conservative, and yes, when the war began he was firmly in Bush’s pocket, but he was willing to listen to the other side’s arguments when made politely before. Lately, though, he’s just been insane about it. I miss the old Scylla, of the Nazi Groundhogs and the Blimps.
I’ll tell you my exact honest opinion.
I think the left, as an entity, is a bunch of directionless revisionists who play the game of politics for its own sake. I think they are two-faced, disloyal and they lie constantly. I think the leaders of the left like Kennedy, Kerry, and Dean are truly despicable human beings.
I think the left manufactures scandal and outrage as a product. For five years, the left has been two-faced and traitorous. After two votes to authorize war, repeating the very same things Bush said, and seeing the same intelligence, they now blame him, and pretend that they never supported the war.
After a bipartisan senate intelligence committee has concluded that there was no falsification of intelligence data, they still insist that Bush falsified data to mislead us into war. They play games with the locked door session and such. Dean talks about hating Republicans, Kennedy lies outright. Kerry himself during his campaign debates with Bush said that he would have invaded Iraq, just done it better.
Now he pretends he didn’t. It’s the same “I voted against it, before I voted for it,” tripe.
They pretend it was all about WMDs when in fact it was many issues.
I have no problem with finding mistakes and correcting them, but this is not what is happening in today’s environment. These things are not the loyal opposition correcting and pointing out failings. These are simply attacks made for their own sake.
The left has lost sight of the fact that we are at war and are in this together. They are playing a power game, and are more concerned about petty rights violations (Yes I said “petty” rights violations, and they are fucking petty compared to having our cities blown up) than they are about the fact that there is an entire fucking society out there trying to kill us.
THey lie constantly, they manufacture scandals, and they say what they say for political effect, not for their actual job, which is to guide the country I don’t trust them or their motivations and I find them to be misguided and morally reprehensible.
As for cowardice. Yes I’m a coward. Al Quaeda is an enemy that frightens me. It is an enemy that I think can bring us down. They get ridiculed because they are poor and desperate and we are such a juggernaut. They are tough motherfuckers and they are highly pragmatic and focussed and willing to sacrifice. We are fat and lazy and smug and eating ourselves from the inside out.
They could take us down. They’ve been getting better at their brand of warfare for thirty years. Laugh all you want about “nuclear anthrax” and call it paranoid, but technologies progression inevitably leads to devastating damage being cheap and readily available to those willing to use it.
Bush would be a better president if he didn’t have half the fucking government working against him. The left should know this. Clinton would have been better if he wasn’t being fucked over.
Turnabout may be fair play, but it doesn’t make it right.
So, generally I think the left has gone far out there and are a bunch of rabid liars with their heads up their asses with no sense of priority or discretion. Y’know, your basic scum of the earth. I think they pander to minorities, and pretend at civil rights concerns.
Take gay rights. Doma came under Clinton. Kerry was anti-gay marriage. Apparently though there was some theory that he was secretly pro-gay marriage, but had to say he was anti for political reasons.
So, am I to understand that this support of gay marriage is founded on a secret stance underlying a dishonest one?
I don’t think the democrats stand for anything, I don’t think they mean anything. I think their protests and vapid empty headed concern over real and percieved civil rights and “freedom” issues is false and hypocritical. They only beleieve it so much as they think it can hurt the right and help them win an election.
I simply cannot respect a party without ideals and goals.
So, I think you suck, your arguments suck, your a hypocrite and basically full of shit.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve renounced my Republicanism. I think Republicans suck. This is not my father’s Republican party. It is not my Republican party. Bush is conservative in the one meaning of the word I strongly disaprove of… socially. Social conservatives are evangelical ignorant hate-mongering scum that deserve to look into the mirror of radical fundamentalist Islam.
Fiscally, I think Bush may end up being disastrous unless we get very very lucky. I think the thinly veiled neocon dream of global supremacy is a true kick in the face to our legitimate role of global leadership… by example.
So, I don’t really agree with anybody any more. If you guys weren’t such incompetant lying hypocritical opportunist assholes I could be a Democrat. Stop the fucking whining and the faux outrage for opportunism and get your fucking act together and save the fucking country.
I could not give less of a shit about Guantanamo detainees. I could not give less of a shit about secret prisons. I hope we torture people (secretly of course) when the stakes are high enough that we can’t afford not to.
I don’t want us to be a nice guy. I don’t care about your “we’re creating more terrorists” meme. It’s false, hypocritical and self-serving. I think you’re full of shit with it. It tells me you have your head up your ass if you beleive any such thing.
The one thing I like about Bush is that he is unwavering. He has a fucking goal and it’s a good goal vis a vis terror. He doesn’t do giant 180 degree turns for political effect. He wants to win, and y’all are too stupid to realize that he’s not playing populist games.
He would win quicker and cleaner with support.
But silly me. You’re not afraid of terrorists. You’re not afraid of car bombs and skyscrapers falling and subways being blown up. You’re afraid of who wants to see what you checked on your library card. You’re afraid Joe Blow in Guantanamo might not be getting a square shake.
I just want to win so that we can be a good and gentle society again.
I miss Wring, Spiritus Mundi, DavidB, the old RTFirefly, Gaudere and the rest of the thoughtful and careful left, that used to cohabit this board before the assault of the Wingnuts.
I wish the fact that I think the Iraq war was a good idea and legitimate and needs to be won didn’t automatically characterize me as a fascist scumbag in Bush’s pocket.
There is not an awful lot of reasonable debate to be had here on these subjects. So, to hell with your “I long for the days when Scylla would listen.”
I long for the days when there was something worth listening to.
I think this type of empty hyperbole and rhetoric is what’s wrong with the left. It’s not that I don’t think civil rights and the constitution are important. I simply doubt your integrity and honesty and motivations.
I thing your words self-select you as a dishonest wing-nut not to be treated with respect.
Unfortunately, mine do to. It doesn’t help, but I do it.
An intelligent and caring person seeking truth with legitimate concerns, speaks carefully. They do not make big sweeping conclusions and they don’t through out blanket indictments.
I’m what’s wrong with the country?
What a carefully developed thesis that is. Why don’t you just be honest, call me a pig and dispense with the pretense of righteousness.
I know I’m better than you, and I know I have a closer and more realistic grasp of the truth.
You know how I know that?
I know I’m a hypocrite, and I know I’m full of shit 50-99% of the time.
You, on the other side of the coin, appear to beleive your own press releases.
It sure does. I don’t see what that has to do with KD’s meaningless semantic riposte.
Do you think it’s not a war unless it is officially declared as such. Personally, I think a rose by another name would smell as sweet.
No I will gladly concede that we are at war. We are as much at war as we were in Vietnam and Korea. I was being lazy and actually I was still responding to your earlier post..
If you think about it, aren’t you worried that to preserve our safety we are giving up 200 years of freedoms gained? I don’t think you are dumb or unreasonable, and I ask you, how easy will it be to recover these rights?
The FBI can now maintain records on non-criminals. They are fighting to preserve the rights to access the location data of your cell phone calls. They are getting less judicial review as their powers expand.
I think you will acknowledge these powers have been abused before.
Do you see a huge conflict of interest that Cheney’s former company Haliburton continues to get huge no-bid contracts? It is acts like this that makes me suspicious of everything this administration does.
Even if you don’t agree with me, I hope you can at least understand my position.
I served my country with the sure knowledge that we were the good guys. I would have a much harder time doing that today. I would love to stop terrorism, but we have surrendered the high ground with illegal detentions & torture. We have a VP who is trying to retain the right to torture. This flies in the face of everything we stand for and I honestly want Cheney to go before the world court as a war criminal.
I do not think you are a jerk, I just strongly disagree with your position.
Jim Franchi a patriot and not part of the left.
Okeydoke.
In those terms no. I think it’s a false proposition. I don’t think we have lost 200 years worth of freedoms all of a sudden, and I disagree with the thesis of this thread that freedom is on it’s “last legs.” I mean, if I’m to beleive the OP and subsequent posts, our wonderful Clintonian utopia has suddenly been brought to the brink by Stalin and Lenin errr, Cheney and Dubya and the country is about to fall apart, will being in an Orwellian Gulag or somesuch.
I think it’s laughable hyperbole.
I think the concerns are legitimate. I think they way they are being framed is ludicrous and laughable. Sadly, I don’t this stuff is new, and I think some of the erosion is legitimate. I don’t think we were much of a Democracy during WWII.
I don’t understand the problem with this. They have always been able to do this, haven’t they? Somebody can’t be a criminal until they’re convicted. You really can’t get a conviction until you gather data for an indictment. During the process the person is not yet been found to be a criminal. If there’s not enough info for an indictment but they still need the need info because they’re might be an indictment later or it might pertain to something else, why should they not have a file? How is this different than what happened before? WHy should I be scared of it?
I also realize that in today’s digital age, crucial information will be mined from large databases of data. Credit companies do it to evaluate risk. It works. I see no moral objection.
Maybe I’m missing something.
Again, why is this necessarily illegitimate?
I guess that’s an opinion. It might be true. I dunno.
It’s pretty much a sure bet that power doesn’t exist very long before it’s abused.
No. Though if you wish to demonstrate impropriety with rigor, I will listen. I will even support an official investigation into the facts provided it is nonpartisan. That Cheney is the former CEO and HAL gets no-bid contracts are not facts that demonstrate a conclusion. HAL got them under brother Bill, too.
Apparently you have a reasoned one. What’s not to understand?
I dunno. I kind of always suspected we tortured. I kind of always suspected we had secret detention centers. I think we’ve been doing this stuff forever and it’s nothing new.
It’s hard for me to get into a moral outrage about this. I understand it’s wrong. But, I do lots of things I know are wrong with full knowledge that the ends don’t justify means.
I also question what is torture? When I think about it, there’s a pretty big grey area between legitimate hard questioning and torture. I don’t know where the line is.
It seems to me that in all conflicts and wars all sides have tortured to some degree or another. When we are at war this is not humanity at its best.
I don’t mean to excuse war crimes, atrocities or apologize for them. I simply think that it is a falsehood to charectize the ones in this conflict as being unique in any fashion.
You’re allowed to be wrong.
Which side is the biggter bunch of liars? WHich side as shown more contempt for everything America one stood for and once was?
After the Blix report, the CIA report, and so on, the Army search also found no WMD, one of the key centerpieces of Bush’s reason for war in Iraq.
Note: Despite this speech and claims that we will not be permanently involved, several “enduring bases” have been built. There is no plan to leave, that is only feel good rhetoric for public consumption. The failure to deploy enough troops is simply a continuation of the original selling point that this war would be won quickly, easily, and cheaply.
[QUOTE=CBSNews]
‘Back-Door Draft’ Raises Questions
Today, more than a year after major combat operations were declared “over,” there are still 138,000 U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq, far more than anticipated, with the possibility of more to come.
So how is the Pentagon keeping up with demand?
One way has been to rely heavily on the National Guard and reservists, many of whom are now entering their third year of active duty.
Another has been to shift troops from one hot spot to another, including the Korean Peninsula, where despite ongoing nuclear tensions, U.S. soldiers are being shipped out to fight in Iraq.
And the Pentagon is handing out so-called “stop-loss” orders – literally stopping the loss of troops by preventing volunteer soldiers from leaving the service, even after they’ve fulfilled their obligations.
[QUOTE]
Remark: We have a military that was sent to war for a lie, is undermanned, underequipped, not allowed to go when their hitch is up, and we are denying them the care they deserve. Happy fucking Veterans Day.
Part 2 -
He is still harping on nonexistent WMD. He made noise about antiwar talk affecting military morale. He also, out of the other side of his lying mouth, says he allows criticism - recent history does NOT support that one iota. Never mind we sent a poorly prepared “fight with the army you have” military, gave them no direction on what to do after taking the country (extremely poor planning) and now keep them captive with a back door draft.
This is interesting, to say the least. The entire crux of the Bush-Cheney argument for GITMO, torture, etc, has been that these were not enemy combatants in the POW sense, but criminals and terrorists. It also shows the utter contempt the admin and their party has for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in the words of Sandra Day O’Connor, had already told Bush that war is no blank check for the president. Apparently Bush does not like that answer.
We don’t torture, even when we get caught red handed. But, we need authorization and permission to do the torturing that we are not doing. Torturing stops terror. It makes new friends. Got it? Good.
I suppose this pro-corporation and ahti-worker move is part of the war on terror too.
There is one tiny ray of hope on the horizon. The broad misinterpretation of eminent domain is finally coming under scrutiny.
I’m tired of underlining the most salient points. Look for the rest yourself. Then you tell me why the fuck I should cut any slack for Bush or the people who cheerfully support him. He does not care about freedom, duty, justice, or anything else as far as I can tell. Read the above, and see how he really acts, and how that translates into anything worthy of respect.
Thanks, I thought no one remembered. 
Considering that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have a combined military career of Bush’s questionable Guard service, I would think no one would surprised by how badly they are treating the service members and how badly they have executed this war.
I am still dumbfounded the country re-elected these scary low-lifes and that the Dem’s failed to produce a viable candidate that could appeal the the moderates.
Jim
I would have kept going, but there are limits to how much I can carm in at one time. Not only did people elect him, they re-elected him, and deliberately ignore everything he is doing (doing to them too). Not only that, but anyone who calls Bush on anything is…
Liberal
Commie
Traitor
Terrorist sympathizer or Terrorist sympathizing putz
dishonest wing-nut
or CHOKEONATURDLEFTWINGCUTESYSEMANTICBITCH!!!
The man these people elected disgusts me. What they’ve been doing to this country disgusts me. It is my fondest Christmas wish that Fitzgerald could somehow find a way to send all their sorry asses to some maximum security hard time federal prison, for the rest of their miserable lives. Hard labor, and bread and water, forever would be good too.
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me.”
President Bush, for once saying something I agree with about the war on terror: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world…”
Do you think that our treatment of Guantanamo Bay detainees has an affect on the image of the United States to the rest of the World? Do you think the United States is not judged by how it treats those who are at its mercy? Do you think that stomping on the rights of those detainees makes terror more or less acceptable to the enemies you’re so terrified of?
How many freedoms are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of your fear, anyway? Habeus corpus for detainees? Habeus corpus for yourself?
And if the war on terror ends about as promptly as the war on drugs, i.e. not at all…what then? How long are you willing to tolerate not being a “good and gentle” society, in the name of security?
I’m down with that. I hope whatever God approves of terrorism suffers as much as it can.
Oh, I disagree.
Good question. Answer: No.
What does have an affect on the image of the United States to the rest of the world is how are treatment of Gitmo prisoners is portrayed and perceived. I don’t beleive that it is portrayed accurately. I beleive that truly disgusting and reprehensible individuals such as yourself make false portrayals for political and rhetorical gain without regards to how it damages the US, and without regards to the truth. I don’t think the left has any credibility. You can only falsify so much. Koran flushing, Dan Rather’s documents, pretending you didn’t vote for the war, etc, etc, before it is only reasonalbe to conclude that you are a bunch of scumbags playing games for political gain who are not to be trusted. The very casualness with which you make such accusations demonstrates your lack of commitment to the truth.
You would like to hold the President accountable. The fact is that you are accountable for the damage to our Nation for false and irresponsible accusations.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that Bush lied. He stated for a certainty that Iraq had WMDs when in fact he was not certain. I think it is a serious and egregious lapse. Nonetheless it pales in comparison to the fact that I don’t trust anything that the left says. Time and time again we have lies and deception from the top on down. False and damaging accusations made irresponsibly simply for political gain, without regard to the consequences that those accusations entail. There’s a lot that I hate about the right and Republicans right now. But, it’s not for our Iraq policy. I’m behind that. I think the failings of the right and Republicans are domestic and a matter of open policy.
The left though is simply inscrutable. I don’t even know what they stand for except for criticizing the right. There’s plenty to criticize, there’s plenty to help and correct with. I just don’t fucking understand how such a large percentage of the country can act like petulant children. I don’t understand how you can make up shit with such facility.
I remember being pissed at Whitewater. I remember defending Clinton on this board about Whitewater. I remember being commended by left-leaning posters for my commitment to truth and openmindedness. The fact is that later on these same assholes were giving me hell because I took issue with the fact that Clinton perjured himself.
You act as if I give a shit what you think of me. For that to matter, I have to respect you. I don’t. You have to have a commitment to the truth. You have to demonstrate restraint and a commitment to accuracy. You have to be circumspect in your accusations and conclusions. In short, you have to be worthy of respect be your opinion of me matters.
When I read these hyperbolous OPs about how freedom is on its last legs and about to collapse and the union is about to fall apart and it’s all Bush and Cheney’s fault, it is clear to me that you are a bunch of stupid dishonest yahoos unworthy of respect and consideration.
It’s just fucking stupid. And, if you do anything but ridicule such stupid sentiments you put yourself in the same boat as the rest of the wingnuts. When you make irresponsible, damaging and unproven statements and draw large conclusions from disputable and fragmentary evidence, you demonstrate that you are not to be trusted.
Wake up. I am unhappy with the way the government is being run. I am not a Republican syncophant. Nonetheless you’re politics and mine will not agree 100% If you are anything but the total idiot you have portrayed yourself in this thread to be you will realize that doesn’t make us enemies.
If you or anybody else on the left has any fucking intelligence whatsoever you will realize that the nonevangelical right, the progressives, the Goldwater conservatives are potential allies. ALL you have to do is abandon the bullshit, the sweeping generalizations, the lies, the dishonesty…
and our country will again become what it was regardless of what party is in power. We will have a loyal opposition.
It makes no difference that this rabid partisanship was conceived during the Clinton years by Republicans. It was perfected by the Democrats as righteous revenge. It is a mistake. We need a loyal opposition.
We would have a better presidency and a better country for it.
The left’s penchant for hyperbole and falsehood and rhetoric is not even self-serving any more. It is the whining of a loser who’s about to become irrelevant.
There have been enough lies and false accusations by the left… enough ugly disloyalty that the right will win if this is fought out to its ultimate conclusion.
That would be a bad thing.
I think you’re a loser and a dishonest asshole for attempting to frame it as such.
I have no sympathy whatsoever. I think you’ve framed it wrong. I don’t trust your conclusions, and I think your arguments are dismissable from the way you make them.
These are not US citizens and they are not enemy combatants of a sovereign nation signatory to the Geneva convention. These are terrorists who have evolved as a methodology a way for waging combatant that takes advantage of the fact that they are neither. Since they respect neither, it does not apply to them. Their methodology is dependant upon us following rules that they will not follow. We are under know moral compulsion to follow a standard that they do not respect. The brutal fact is that warfare (and debate for the matter) must be waged at the lowest common denominator. If they do not respect the rights of noncombatments, and they do not follow the Geneva conventions, and they depend on us to follow them in order for their strategy to work, it is no longer incumbent upon us to follow those conventions ourselves. In fact, it is foolish. It is regrettable and sad, but the fact that they have chosen to wage war at such a level and thereby compelled us to do so as well, and the fact that innocents suffer because of it, lies on their shoulders, not ours.
It’s a good question though you meant it rhetorically. The answer is, not as long as you can. The sad fact of the matter is that war is ugly and horrible. Wars need to end. For them to end there needs to be a winner and a loser. We need to win, and we need to do what it takes to win. We cannot end up like Israel which has been forced to limit itself in response to aggression. Israel’s problems have been going on for decades because they have never been allowed to win… or to lose. A misguided sense of justice has meant that Israel’s conflicts have become generational. If they had been alllowed to win… or lose. The problems would be over. Instead we have forced Israel and the Palestinians to wage a decades long low level conflict that has caused millions to suffer over decades.
War is ugly. You can’t change that. This particular brand of war is especially ugly. It needs to be fought aggressively and won, and then it needs to be over.
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he become a monster.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.”
Wow… so even without the “Koran flushing”, you think all the instances of torture murder and rape that’ve occured in our prisons don’t matter?
Fallacy of hasty generaliztion much?
Besides, I thought Rather simply didn’t perform due dilligence with the ‘evidence’ of Bush’s nat’ guard service, and that the Koran story was based on the word of detainees which turned out to be incorrect. am I mis-re-membering?
Also, on the issue of the war, IIRC the resolution authorized the use of force if it was necessary. Bush was claiming that there was a way to avoid the war, when he was lying all the time and planned on forcing the nation into war even if they ahd to distort intel in order to do it.
Honestly, do you believe this?
What, Abu Graib is a summer camp and it’s just those Damn Libruls who’re making a big stink about it?
Seriously Scylla, I’ve generally found you to be a thoughtful and articulare conservative Doper, but this shit is just nuts.
And would attacking all of “the left” be consistent with those things Scylla?
Draw large conclusions from disputable and fragmentary evidence?
Isn’t that something like that fallacy of hasty generalization?
And what of all the innocents we’ve captured and tortured?
Come on Scylla, this is absurd.
Yes, we are.
Because we’re Americans, and that’s supposed to mean something.
We should not lower ourselves to the level of whatever scum we’re fighting.
Besides, torture is not effective and does, indeed, help unite our enemies against us.
No.
Nobody has compelled us to do anything.
We have chosen, of our own free will, to, in several ways, become the thing we said we were fighting.
Can we win hearts and minds by making those same hearts and mind fill up with hate for us? Why champion a pyrrhic victory?
How could Israel have ‘won’ its war, other than genocide?
“They make a desert and call it peace”