South Park Republicans
South Park Republicans are true Republicans, though they do not look or act like Pat Robertson. They believe in liberty, not conformity. They can enjoy watching The Sopranos even if they are New Jersey Italians. They can appreciate the tight abs of Britney Spears or Brad Pitt without worrying about the nation’s decaying moral fiber. They strongly believe in liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, and free markets. However, they do not live by the edicts of political correctness.
The South Park Republicans are an incredibly diverse group encompassing a variety of nontraditional conservatives, such as the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bruce Willis supported Republicans because of their commitment to lower taxes and fiscal discipline. Rap artist and movie actor LL Cool J recently endorsed NY governor George Pataki.
If he were alive today, John F. Kennedy could very well be a South Park Republican. He rightly proclaimed, “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget-just as it will never produce enough jobs or profits.” You read that right. JFK was a supply-side tax cutter. His alleged private exploits would place him squarely within the South Park wing of the Republican Party.
That got my hackles up. It sounded like a thinly disguised "kill em all’. How many were charged with anything, or tried? How about that US soldier who was beaten so bad by his own people that he has fits, as part of a “training exercise”? IF any of the prisoners are guilty, then charge them, try them, and THEN deal with them as harshly as they deserve.
Neurotik, who I rarely agree with, pegged it.
He said it straightforward, clean, elegant and pure. But if the White House says or does anything at all, then it’s A-OK isn’t it?
It isn’t that I don’t like you, I don’t like what you said. Deal with it. Now instead of a war which MIGHT actually end some day, we have an open-ended “struggle”. It was built on lies. The lies were covered by more lies. And now, we are being “conditioned” to accept that it may never end. We are locking “enemy combatants” up with no bother to file charges. Our people are accused of committing atrocities (with video for Chrissake). Shouldn’t some of your outrage be reserved for that?
In that other thread, you were all hopped up about OLD NEWS about Air America, that was already dealt with. Here, you are hunky dory with REAL obscenities, conducted by our own country.
It’s good the administration waited until after the election to roll this out. I mean who could run as a struggle-time president? I suppose “war” has outlived it’s usefulness.
I believe that you may be mistaken, Mr. Moto. It is my understanding that the Pentagon is proceeding to prepare for military trials based on the recent ruling of a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If I am the one who is mistaken, then please provide a cite.
The Chief Justice himself has spoken out about the dangers of rushing into such military trials as were held for the Germans during the Roosevelt years. So have other former Supreme Court Justices.
Why were so many detainees released when their cases were reviewed? Who had ordered the administrative review process and for what purpose? Why did the Pentagon want it overturned?
What was the decision of the Supreme Court about giving the detainees access to our court system? Did the Pentagon act as quickly on that decision as they seem to be on the District Court’s decision on military trials?
Will these military trials be secret? Will the detainees be allowed to call whatever witnesses they want in their own defense? Will they be able to have their own attorneys?
Why don’t the Pentagon and the President trust our justice system?
Will the detainees be given Prisoner of Struggle status now?
Exactly. So that means that when the Administration habitually used the term “war” in this context, it was just sheer opportunistic jingoism, wasn’t it?
Now that the Bush “war model” isn’t selling so well any longer, he drops it in favor of a more Kerry-esque “nuanced” term like “struggle”, without even bothering to admit that the earlier term was misleading and inadequate, and that the liberals had a point when we objected to it. Why yes, that does annoy me.
That “article” or editorial also completely ignores something else. After 9/11, the country was united in support of Bush (me included) and his promise to go into Afghanistan, catch Bin Laden, crush Al Queda, and topple the Taliban which had been supporting and sheltering them (that sounded great to most of us, including me). That was every liberal, Democrat, damn near everyone. What did we do? We toppled the Taliban (good), let everyone else get away(bad), and then farmed it out to the local warlords (stupid) and went on a “side adventure” (Iraq). Even that was met with some support until it started to go sour - none of the claims made as justification ever panned out. That’s when people started to turn away. It has nothing to do with what you call it - war, invasion, crush, smash, destroy, whatever. It has all to do with what is being seen more and more as blatant manipulation for no discernable logical reason other than personal ambition and ego. So, now the change in phraseology is being perceived as just another manipulation.
Are you saying that you think enemy combatants should be treated like ordinary criminals? And be afforded all the legal rights someone enjoys as a citizen?
I wish you would have answered my questions. It helps the debate when both sides have an accurate understanding the other’s position. To those ends…
If you take a ruling by SCOTUS as a sign to stop thinking, that’s you’re right. I don’t. I think that the ruling was a huge mistake. (There were actual multiple rulings, so I don’t know which one in particular, if any, you are referring to.) But, as a rule, I would say that any foreigner captured on the field of battle or is suspected of terrorism, and anyone classified as an enemy combatant, has no claim to the legal protections of the U.S. Constitution. Dealing with such people is one of the reasons military tribunals exist.
If we afforded the right to a trial to every one of the enemy, can you imagine how much that would handcuff our war efforts? (Which might be your goal, I don’t know.)We’d need almost as many lawyers as medical personnel, if not more. And even if we could make the trial system for these people efficient, it puts the U.S. in a very awkward position. For those guilty of certain crimes, we’d be seeking the death penalty and no doubt be swimming in years of appeals. For those not found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”, we’d have to let them go and risk the very real possibility that they weren’t fully innocent and would rejoin the fight against us.
We shouldn’t allow the enemy to turn our Constitution into a weapon to be used against us. This is suicide by poliictal correctness.
In addition to the questions pending I’d ask you to anwer one more: Do you defer to SCOTUS on all matters that come before it, or do you consider this one special?
It is no longer a war, get with the program. (Forgot to mention that the economy is not yet on war footing, no formal declarition of war, no taxes to beat the axis, etc.)
The founding fathers would like to have a word with you. Also, the avoidance of basic checks is likely what got us the war in Iraq. The New Yorker recently revealed that the FALSE connection of Saddam to Al-qaeda came from the torture of an Al-qaeda man that was rendered to other torture country just to avoid even the current military codes of dealing with the enemy. With that record, yes, we should face that awkward position, we are strong and have the capability to do what it takes to show the rest of the world that we can do the right thing. Positions that claim the current status to be peachy keen are actually acknowledging that we are weak.
Fuck you. First off, I hardly think that you’re the first one to notice the irony in that post, but if you’d like a gold-star, feel free to put one on your forehead for the rest of the day.
Now that I have some more time, I will address some of the other posts:
As far as Kimstu’s “substantiative” post, all she really expressed was annoyance because a politician she disagreed with failed to prostrate himself upon the ground, exclaim, “I was wrong, I was wrong!” and pat her on the head for being right all along. This isn’t even a policy change, this is a “name change” derived from quote mining by the Daily Show because they didn’t have anything better for the show in a particular night.
From mack:
Here’s the crux of the issue. 95% of this board have taken position A (including myself) while the Bush administration has taken position B. The Bush administration begins to align themselves more closely with position A, and this garners them a pit thread, making a number of fools in the process.
I’m for homeland security (who isn’t).
I’m for law enforcement (as opposed to extrajudicial military tribunals).
I’m for international diplomacy (as opposed to general Bush foreign policy of “all ya’ll’s can go fuck yourselves”).
I’m against using the military to “fight terrorism” in Iraq.
My guess is that you are as well. And yet, when conservatives start talking in a similar manner, everyone gets all full of shit because it might just contradict their long-standing belief that Repugs, Tighty-Righties, RW-Nut jobs, etc. might not be inherently evil. Actually having to judge a statement or idea based upon it’s content as opposed to it’s originator? “The horror, the horror.”
The Roosevelt administration didn’t err, the situations just aren’t really comparable.
For those not familiar with the men Mr Moto is naming they were saboteurs the Germans landed in the United States in 1942. Eight men were sent to destroy american industrial plants making war materiel. The entire 8 were captured before undertaking any sabotage, and other then 2 of them who gave away the others, they were all executed as spies. As foreign nationals working for a nation that had declared war on the US they were tried by military commission but it was pretty much a formality as there was no doubt they were guilty as charged.
It is internationally recognised that spies and saboteurs who enter a country in civilian clothes in wartime are illegal combatants and are not subject to the protection that legal combatants are due. They are traditionally sentenced to death without much fanfare. Therefore in their case trial by military commission was legal and appropriate.
By contrast this issue of legal vs illegal combatants is a very hot potato at the crux of the Guantanamo detainees case. It’s pretty clear that by previously accepted standards many of them should be classed as legal combatants. Furthermore the fact that many detainees have been released as they were found not to be combatants of any type, should give anyone pause for thought.
