I believe completely in the right to a fair and speedy trial, and i also have a complete commitment to the idea that someone is legally innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, i also believe that, even if a person clearly did the crime, they should be found not guilty and released if the evidence against them was gathered illegally or if there are other irregularities on the part of law enforcement or the prosecution.
But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t crooks out there wandering the streets. Our legal system is imperfect, both in its design and in its implementation, and just because someone hasn’t been found guilty in a court of law doesn’t mean that we have any obligation, on a personal level, to concur with that outcome.
I believe that OJ Simpson is a crook who killed his wife. I consider this a reasonable belief given the information that i have read about the case, despite the fact that Simpson was found Not Guilty by the jury.
Mark Russell? Mark Fucking Bland-as-Tapioca Russell!!? Aaaaaaarrrgh! What did I ever do to you?
I am deeply suspicious of bow-tied persons, I think it reflects a desire to be seen as individualistic without being seen as weird, as mild an eccentricity as the dull are willing to risk. Feh!
Myself, I own exactly one tie, for weddings, funerals, and bail hearings.
Don’t be stupid, Bricker. No-one was talking about Delay’s legal rights, and you bloody well know this. Saying that one is certain of somebody’s guilt is a far cry from saying courts should punish them regardless of the outcome of a trial.
And the old liberal-bashing, conservative-whining, and misjudged accusation of hypocrisy? Fuck me, I really thought you’d grown out of this. I actually had to check the post date just now to see if this was a zombie thread and I was looking at a Bricker blast-from-the-past.
But I meant no offense. It’s just that I could see you standing at a piano singing out clever politically oriented ditties.
But if you prefer something edgier, then I’ll revise my comments: elucidator, I think you may be vying for a spot in America’s Most Beloved Political Comedy Troupe, The Capitol Steps!
He is right. Some people capitalize on unemployment and “want” to stay unemployed. But the far right is so revolted by the idea of a person taking advantage of government assistance, they would be equally against it if it really only was one person talking advantage. Because he shouldn’t get away with it dammit!
Did I call for him to hang? No.
Did I say we should hold a kangaroo court? No.
Did I say I think he’s a crook? YES.
OK, I call him a crook. That does NOT abridge any of his rights. Not one. On the other hand, I am NOT required to take him seriously as any sort of wise man or great teacher of truths.
Eh? The thread title was almost a direct quote from Delay’s interview. The OP just quoted the bit from the interview and added “nice”. I can hardly see how that’s misleading. Unless your pissed off at the sarcasm implicit in the word “nice” when the OP did not actually think it was very nice.
While I don’t agree with **Shodan **on this, Delay didn’t say what the title says he did. I think if you read that exchange fairly, his comment about “well, its the truth…” referred to what he has said earlier-- that people stay unemployed longer, by choice, if they get benefits for a longer time.
He made the mistake of accepting the interviewer’s question as though it was an accurate summation of what he had just said, which it wasn’t.
Anyway, Delay left enough ambiguity in there that he set himself up for being perceived as having said that. He should know better.
Misleading how? Maybe if you have poor reading comprehension - I quoted directly from the interview.
I didn’t quote the whole thing, because I assume people are capable of reading for themselves. It seems fairly clear that Delay thinks that being unemployed is the fault of the person.
Do some people abuse unemployment? I am sure they do. I would bet that this is a small minority though.
When some Republican politician says something incredibly stupid or waives the “I’m all right Jack, screw you” banner too vigorously and is called on it on these boards we can be pretty sure that the Usual Suspects will emerge to proclaim that (1) the burden of proof rules in criminal trials are being wilfully ignored and therefore the particular politician must be regarded as innocent of all misfeasance until a verdict is actually entered and the appeal process completed, and (2) that the whole thing is a lie. We have not been disappointed.
For what its worth here is the Huffington Post’s rendition of the former Majority leaders comments:
“You know,” Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.
Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that’s a hard sell, isn’t it?
Delay: it’s the truth.
Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?
Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.
It is hard for me (the universal reasonable man) not to read that as the late Representative DeLay saying anything other than that unemployed people are lazy mooches.
When I last got unemployment, I did take a part-time retail job. It didn’t even pay as much as unemployment–unemployment coughed up the difference!
So that was interesting. I could not work at all and get $400 a week (or so–maybe a little less, I don’t remember). Or I could work the retail job, make $135, and collect…whatever the difference was.
That’s really not an incentive to do the work. (Except that I find the occasional retail gig kind of fun.) But it does help, so as a job-seeker you don’t have to settle for just anything.
Hilarity, when I was on unemployment, they kicked in the difference when you worked, as long as you didn’t put in 40 hours. If you put in 40 hours, you were “employed full time”, and then it didn’t matter how much less it was than unemployment.
A court of law must presume the innocence of the accused, but the court of public opinion, which this is, has no such obligation, as you know, you intellectually dishonest fuckhead.