As stated, there is no other possible interpretation of what you did say, nor have you taken the opportunity to even try.
We are all familiar with your particular use of “tortured logic”, having seen you stretch it much farther, for instance in your repeated condemnations of Europeans in general for “supporting” Palestinian terror. And this is just the most egregious example.
That’s stupid. It’s pretty obvious there ARE other possible intepretations, given that someone else has apparently interpreted it differently, and given that he quite obviously DOESN’T accuse anyone of treason and in fact specifically said the opposite. There are many things to criticize him for; why you’d make stuff up is a little puzzling. But that’s an old story.
That did it. This whole argument has been done to death and it’s nothing more than a product of the “boomers” that started in the sixties and the hair shirts are stinking to high hell by now.
Every single enemy of the US from Ho and Che’ to bin Laden,Hussein and this latest asshole have the weakness of the American people as one of their basic strategies. If they can just endure long enough the “whiners” will win out ala Vietnam. Surely it’s your right and surely you’re going to do it and fuck the consequences. The “ME” generation in all it’s glory. Yep,let’s ban december for even suggesting treason.
You might want to ponder on the fact that december himself was one of those “whiners” who allowed the communists to win in Vietnam. I’m tempted to start calling him JaneFonda.
For the record, I am not in favor of banning december, it wouldn’t be the same place without him.
I had no idea, sorry 'bout thaat december. Didn’t know it might be offensive in American slang. And ftr, I have no idea whether it is here or not . . . never come across it in that context. Anyway, how about Hanoi Tarzan ? No ? okay . . .
Well I don’t know about december. I haven’t been around long enough, or haven’t paid enough attention to posters to know what everybody stands for, but I do know that I was just called a Nazi in a thread started by december – and it was not by december. Screw you MC Master of Silly Ceremonies. I’m quite capable of stating my own political position – and it’s certainly not Nazism. And you might think it great debating to throw insults at people with different opinions; personally I think it just shows you off as an ape. You might also be interested in reading about Godwin’s law.
First, I apologize for continuing Debaser’s Hijack of this thread with respect to the “How easy do you want this war to be?” thread.
I actually considered long and hard before posting anything to that thread because it seemed obvious that my statements would be mischaracterized and vilified. But I did anyways (more fool me perhaps). This was my post following Dinsdale’s OP:
**
I personally don’t see the above as calling for anyone’s death, but rather engaging in a quasi-historical thought experiment.
**Shodan[\b] took exception to my first sentence with the following. (I cannot tell if he read past the first sentence of my post from what he wrote thereafter). He wrote:
**
While I was somewhat taken aback by this in depth and to the point rebuttal, I persevered in an attempt to clarify my position:
Are **Debaser[\b]'s summary or his excerpt from my posts an accurate portrayal of my thoughts or ideas layed out above? Or is he shrewdly uncovering my “agenda”?
I would like to note that Peggy Noonan (the prophet of Saint Ronald) took a not dissimilar point of view from mine in this column (a week or two after the above mentioned thread) http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=147 , although she calls for the US to maintain its resolve during what will be a long war as a means of putting to bed the Vietnam syndrome.
It could be argued using tortured logic that the president’s “bring 'em on” is an incitement for terrorists to kill American and coalition soldiers. He is generally given the benefit of the doubt, with this statement being considered a statement of resolve or a rhetorical flourish. ( I know that this statement was criticized by a number of posters, but the adjectives were more “stupid” and “ill-considered” rather than “murderous” or “treason”.
Then you ought to be able to explain one cogently, without simply repeating the assertion. Note that he’s done the same shit before, and I’ve even provided you some helpful links for your edification.
You mean Libertarian? Please.
Been there, done that. Scroll up, lazybones.
And it’s odd that *you[i/] of all people should be saying that. As you have shown us before, responsibility for one’s statements is not a subject about which you have much to tell the world.
Nice to see revistionist history is not limited to your dimwitted political master. Go take a look at the actual title and post you used. Gee, they don’t actually match your claims now-- just like G.W.'s post war claims don’t match his pre-war fantasies of tons of WMD’s ready to go in 45 minutes or of active nuclear programs. To answer the question you should have used (before you poisoned the debate with your despicable OP): yes.
G.W. Bush and his cronies repeatedly made false and unsupported statements regarding Iraq which have led us into an unsupported war and occupation (unlike the first Gulf War) and an ongoing international relations disaster among Islamic nations.
BTW: While your later backpedaling does show that, belatedly, you understand the large pile of crap you stepped in, your Clinton-esc attempts at word parsing and victimhood are not gaining much traction outside of the usual suspects (aka the Three Stooges).
Also, don’t flatter yourself. You currently have nopolitical adversaries. Given your predeliction towards posting and running, and then ducking any serious reponses you have neither started nor engaged in any serious political debate in quite a while. Lately you seemed to have slipped dangerously close to the foaming mouth partisan ranks. Maybe you have decided it is less work, or are at a loss for cogent well-supported arguments- but in any event this 4 page OP should show you how far you have fallen.
Notice Scylla and other well known conservative Dopers not getting Pitted. Wonder why? Because even though I often disagree with him on political matters, he posts well thought out and cited OPs. He may be wrong (IMHO), but his OP are backed up and not rehashed Op-Ed pieces or thinly veiled personal attacks.
In the end, its your choice. But don’t blame others if you end up the punchline to an often told joke, just like the other one-trick ponies of note in Doper history.
Pick nits if you are so inclined. I stand by my assertion that december is tarring war opponents in general with the accusations. He’s done the same thing in dozens of threads. I have always taken great care in being as fair as possible when I re-present another poster’s position. In some cases this may mean the thin veil of weasel words standing between the targets of these kinds of accusations may get stripped. The intent and major substance of the comments, the accusation of aiding/inciting enemies of the US, is preserved.
You disagree about the intent and substance, I find your interpretation less credible than mine. As support for my interpretation I note the dozens of threads december has started along the lines of the specific cases linked to by ElvisL1ves which were very similar to this one. Someone takes a position contrary to the official state line, bad guys get all excited by seeing their enemies divided and go out and do bad things. War opponents are therefore bad for getting the bad guys all excited. It is a recurring theme and I choose to see the forest instead of scrutinizing a tree. You, of course, are free to interpret it as you see fit.**
What I fail to see is how the fact that some nutcases are getting their jollies out of seeing anti-war demonstrations or speeches somehow makes the anti-war people culpable for the actions of those nutcases. december has NOT made a distinction between aiding and inciting. Or if he has, he’s made it clear that inciting is something the war opponents should apologize for and try to avoid, in which case the distinction is meaningless. Inciting as a incidental side effect of legitimate criticism is still something which should be reigned in or apologized for.
Okay, that’s pretty clear. He’s apparently talking only about “leading Democrats”. Still, he’s saying they encourage the murder of Americans. Nice.
If you don’t believe this is treason, then why bring it? Just throwing it out there (as you well know) is suggesting that a reasonable person might draw this conclusion. You are clearly fueling the flames of anger against Dems, qualifying it of course with “I don’t have that position…” Class act.
The only question here is who constitutes “others”. Based on previous posts, I don’t think it’s absurd to speculate that december considers all those who make “anti-war comments” to be guilty of “encouraging the murder of Americans”. As you’ve stated earlier, Muslims around the world will find encouragement from the great voice of dissent in America, particularly the outspoken war protestors. If that is the case, then isn’t anyone who speaks out guilty?
The actual statement by Nasrallah was “to remove Bush”, not to “elect Democrats”. Why did you put the Dems in the thread title? Just so you could attack them and draw the conclusion that “leading Dems” (who just happen to be running for President) are somehow responsible for American deaths. Yeah, that’s a reasonable way to “debate”…
And, of course, many folks here have given links and quotes to various Democratic candidates’ positions on the future of Iraq. You did not respond to any of these – didn’t take them into account, discuss them, refute them, etc. – just ignored them as you so willfully do.
But hey, this is your modus operandi on these boards. Let’s just hope more and more people are aware of that.
A lot of people seem to believe that it’s censorship to even allude to the harm that a public statement might cause. I don’t agree with that POV. Lots public statements are perfectly legal, but harmful to a greater or lesser degree. E.g., bigoted statements by political leaders might be legal, but they would damage the country. E.g., unreasonably pessimistic economic projections are certainly legal, but the projections themselves could discourage economic expansion and thus harm the economy. Statements that could harm the country oughtn’t to be made casually.
I think statements indicating foreign policy disunity tend to harm the country. Giving this Hamas leader an excuse to encourage terrorism is just one example of how this sort of statement can harm the country. You have quoted some other examples. There’s nothing new about what I’m saying. Historically this principle was recognized in the slogan, “Foreign policy ends at the water’s edge.”
That doesn’t mean it’s automatically wrong to criticize the country’s foreign policy. But, IMHO it does mean that critics should be aware of the cost. They should only make the criticism if the benefit to the country exceeds the cost to the country.
Here’s an example of legal writings that may have done some harm. The lawyer for a terrorist on trial in connection with the Bali bombing that killed 202 people “quoted from American satirist Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men and other anti-western texts.” That doesn’t prove that the books caused the bombing, of course. Still, it’s something to think about. Apparently this lawyer believes that Moore’s book and other anti-western texts provide some degree of justification for anti-western terrorism.