Great piece by Conor Friedersdorf about the kind of legal work the McCarthyites at Keep America Safe are labeling treason:
Orin Kerr, a law professor who blogs at The Volokh Conspiracy, has published a devastating take-down of Mr. McCarthy’s argument. It is worth reading in full. I’ll excerpt just one sentence: “McCarthy strangely overlooks the basic fact that much of the litigation for the Guantanamo detainees concerns whether they are in fact the enemy.” Even as an abstract argument, Professor Kerr’s point is persuasive, as are all parts of his rebuttal. But the wrongheadedness of the Cheney/Kristol/Thiessen/McCarthy view can be fully appreciated only by looking at how it played out in a particular case.
Thus Mr. al-Rabiah. It isn’t just that he was an innocent man thrown into Gitmo, or that he was held even after a CIA analyst concluded that he was innocent, or that National Security Council Staffers were aware of his innocence and actively trying to bring about a review of his detention — Mr. al-Rabiah’s case is apt because after the CIA’s 2002 determination of his innocence, he spent another seven years wrongly imprisoned, regaining his freedom and seeing his children only after retaining the help of American attorneys.
Ms. Cheney, Mr. Kristol, Mr. Thiessen and Mr. McCarthy assert that American lawyers who represent Guantanamo Bay detainees are helping the enemy in a time of war. Here is a case, however, where the Guantanamo Bay detainee was innocent, languished for years in custody without a lawyer despite official knowledge of his innocence, and ultimately achieved his freedom with legal help. Ms. Cheney, Mr. Kristol, Mr. Thiessen and Mr. McCarthy have no answer for people like Mr. al Rabiah and his attorneys — their poorly reasoned McCarthyite rhetoric is bankrupt because they are unable or unwilling to acknowledge the distinction between being accused of being an enemy of America in war time, and actually being an enemy of America.
It is because of people like Ms. Cheney, Mr. Kristol, Mr. Thiessen and Mr. McCarthy — and very particularly because of David Addington and Dick Cheney — that innocent Mr. al-Rabiah lost eight years of freedom when he should have been released much sooner. It would be one thing if these folks were regretful about the imprisonment of innocents, apologetically explaining them away as an inevitable consequence of the fog of war. But they never express regret, even about particular past cases that we’re better able to judge now that the fog has cleared. Nor is the absence of regret a sign that they are ambivalent about releasing wrongly imprisoned innocents. In maligning Gitmo lawyers, they actively attack all the attorneys who successfully proved that detainees were wrongly held!
The simple answer is that Cheney, Kristol, Thiessen, McCarthy, and the Malkinite fringe are equal parts afraid and evil.
beltane
In dog-speak the term is “shy-sharp”. It is a certain type of fearfulness that makes certain dogs far more likely to bite unexpectedly than a confident dog who’s just marking his territory. If Dick Cheney and crew were true alphas they would not engage in this kind of behavior.
ominira
Their only goal is to maintain fearfulness in the section of the American public that gets its daily dose of indoctrination from Fox News. They are succeeding at that goal, and frankly, for them, nothing else matters. We’ve seen that making that segment fearful enough makes things that would once have been unconscionable appear reasonable.
celticdragonchick
I’ll go with just Evil on their part…and I say that as a former member of the Malkin wing.
If you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, as they say, these guys are willing to burn the whole fucking kitchen down and blow up the chicken ranch where the eggs came from in the first place.
MattF
There’s the view that “selling your soul to the Devil” is just metaphor… But, you do what you’ve got to do, by whatever means are at hand.
Fern
Maybe Cheney and the rest of that lot are afraid of what is going to come to light if the detainees are tried in the light of day?
TR
Mostly evil.
I believe in a just and righteous God and I truly believe these people will burn in Hell for what they have done.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I don’t get what all the fuss is about.
This is a bellicose nation. We excuse the deaths of civilians as regrettable but unavoidable results of that “fog of war”, so why would having some guy in prison for a few years, as a result of that same fog, shock anyone?
This country appears to be a big, hapless belligerent giant afraid of its own shadow. Afraid of its own culture, for that matter. Why does this kind of thing disturb anybody?
Brien Jackson
They’re not afraid, just evil.
j.e.b.
There is a method to this madness. Cheney et al. do in fact believe that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. That’s why they’re trying to get rid of our freedoms: so the big Muslim bullies won’t hurt us.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I have something you might be interested in, for sale cheap.
NobodySpecial
No. They’re simply evil. The trick is they make the ordinary American as afraid as they are evil, and then they get power.
ricky
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Shorter version: Shit happens, (dare I say it) dude.
Daddy-O
No one–NO ONE–has weakened our nation or assisted our enemies more than the Cheney Gang.
No one has been a better al Qaeda recruiter. No one has done a better job of revealing the LIMITATIONS of our military, when before the limitations were simply unknown. No one has divided this House more. No one has had the nerve to attempt to legalize and justify torture and waterboarding. No one has spent more money trying to ‘protect’ us when ‘protecting us’ isn’t even in their job description, much less their Constitutional oath. No one in power has committed as many and varied crimes as the Cheney gang.
And no one has gone unpunished for so many crimes, ever, in our history. No one.
The day Obama chose not to prosecute or even INVESTIGATE the crimes of his predecessor was the day he lost my vote. In the PRIMARY, that is…
David in NY
Just looked at how Orin Kerr’s piece is playing among the usually benighted commentariat at Volokh. Pretty well, although there is a significant minority that thinks there’s “something to” the Cheney claim. I always feel annoyed after being over there. Fairly smart people who can’t come to grips, for example, with the idea that a lot of people at Guantanamo were not in fact combatants at all, much less unlawful combatants.
phantomist
If the only chance of ever holding these sociopaths accountable is courageous lawyers, attack courageous lawyers.
Sarcastro
I believe in a just and righteous God and I truly believe these people will burn in Hell for what they have done.
I don’t, but, just in case, I don’t think it counts as double indemnity so we can trust God to punish them and still frogmarch their asses to the Hague, try them for war crimes and, if found guilty, go ahead and give them the express ticket to perdition.
And they are afraid. Nobody is “evil” in their own mind and everyone has their own reasons. Their reason is sheer, unmitigated terror. The fact that this is patent capitulation to the terrorists seems to escape them. But, then again, the fact that undermining our system of justice is also patent capitulation also went past them like they were standing still points to a more basic conclusion; these people are fucking morons.
Brick Oven Bill
Number of people killed at Guantanamo Bay = 0
Number of people killed by women operating public transportation systems last year = dozens and dozens.
Number of people killed this year to date by women operating fork lifts = unknown, but I had a close call.
As a society, we need to keep focused on issues of importance, and not be distracted by some guys playing soccer in the Caribbean. I have been down to one of those bases. It is pretty nice down there.
I have also been to the Middle East, and it sucks. There is sewage in the streets and it smells really bad. The Guantanamo Bay guys have it pretty well off, relative to their bretheren back home. By treating them so well, perhaps we are incentivizing more terrorist attacks.
Think about it.
ricky
When you converse with this God, please ask what He/She is doing about these agents of His/Hers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@ricky:
Shit indeed happens. But it seems to happen a lot to a country that is scared shitless all the time.
The problem with me is, I am not afraid of terrorists, or of gay soldiers, or bare tits on tv, or atheists.
But I am afraid of getting sick from factory foods, and also afraid of having no health insurance.
So I am just another chickenshit I guess.
Daddy-O
Number of people killed at Guantanamo Bay = unknown
You’re a liar, Brick Oven. A goddamned fucking liar. You got nothin’ but lies. That must suck.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Damn. So near, and yet so far.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Brick Oven Bill: Perhaps you are a blithering idiot.
Think about it.
Daddy-O
I refuse to accept responsibility for what a gang of criminals did after they seized power in my government. I did EVERYTHING I could, legally, to remove them from power.
I am not the Bush administration. They ruled, but not in MY name. They alone are responsible for their crimes, and no one else–except those who hide, excuse or invent pretzel logic rationalizations that DEFEND those crimes.
Pet peeve: People saying WE did this or WE did that or OUR COUNTRY did this, when referencing George W. Bush administration criminal activity. WE are not THEM.
Ash Can
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: I personally do not give a flying fuck who does or does not believe what. Why do you find it impossible to extend the same courtesy to me, and others like me? What’s your hangup?
Chyron HR
@Brick Oven Bill:
Awesome. You be sure to tell all the members of the GOP caucus to run on the “Get women back in the kitchen” platform this year. I’m sure that will pay big dividends in November.
kay
It’s gratifying to watch, because Cheney and Kristol are cowards, so they went after the defense, assuming the defense would start apologizing.
In other words, they picked a fight with people who successfully defend alleged terrorists. They picked this fight without doing the simplest and most basic research or preparation. Talk about arrogance.
They’re completely and utterly outclassed. They’re getting slaughtered.
I think Cheney knows it, too. She’s started blatantly and pathetically lying, trying to weasel out of this battle she started.
Too late! They’re just warming up :)
Brick Oven Bill
I am intolerant of the intolerance of my intolerance of women driving fort lifts. This is because they cannot, by and large, maintain tolerances. Allowing women access to power equipment is a dangerous practice, and we, as a society, must be open minded when it comes to public safety, and efficient warehouse practices.
Let us keep our collective eyes on the ball. How many more must die?
Comrade Dread
I do not think they can ever conceive of the sheer horror of being wrongfully accused, caged for years without recourse, unable to see your family, your children, your spouse while you languish in prison praying for (at the minimum) a chance to prove your innocence.
Or they can conceive of it, and just don’t care because the person isn’t a part of our group.
I think they suffer from a smallness of soul and are diminished men and women who would be pitiable if not for the horrible evils they have wrought or championed.
celticdragonchick
@Brick Oven Bill:
BZZZZT!
Wrong!
Care to play again?
We know that at least three detainees died during interrogation…
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Ash Can:
Heh. Funny one. Apparently, you don’t extend the same courtesy to me. I think belief in a just and righteous god is just absurd, and this is a hot air blog where people express their opinions. If you don’t like that, I don’t care.
Fuck your god idea. I think the popular god is sociopathic and responsible for many of the ills we see ranted about on these pages every day. And I think my view on this is a helluva lot more rational and supportable in fact than some “just and righteous god” nonsense. But, opinions are like noses, eh?
But you know, you are welcome to your beliefs. Just as I am welcome to mine. If you want mutual courtesy, which I doubt, then it isn’t going to be on your unilateral terms, friend. You are going to have to negotiate with me.
So get off your high horse.
patrick II
The war with Al Qaeda was never going to be one in which, if Al Qaeda won, the were going to occupy the United States and marched its tanks in a parade in New York. Osama bin Laden had among his goals gettting U.S. troops out of the holy ground of Saudi Arabia — at which he succeeded. Of bleeding the U.S. economy — look around. And a third goal common to all terrorist wars — striking fear into your enemy to the point where the state overreacts and the country betrays its own democratic principals.
The Cheney’s and their acolytes have little idea of their own role in bin Laden’s success, they stab at the figure in the mirror and do not see that it is we who are bleeding.
slag
After watching Jon Stewart take down Thiessen to the point at which he was practically calling the Supreme Court the Al Qaeda 9, I would definitely add “stupid” in there as one of the parts.
numbskull
@David in NY: The fact that Kerr had to spell it out in the first place is so damning. I guess the commentariat at Volokh simply are that stupid.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Oh, and I don’t believe you. I think you only mean that if everyone shuts up.
And I also don’t believe it intellectually. I think it matters greatly who believes what. I think that the evils in the world are directly attributable to who believes what, and I think it’s important to know exactly who believes what.
So we will have to agree to disagree on that point too.
bemused
What happened to the Brick Oven from the ‘facility’? This Brick Oven is hilarious.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@bemused:
Bill has some serious mood swings. I attribute it to the gases from the brick oven.
neill
God damn Dick Cheney’s shit-filled soul to hell.
Brachiator
No, I think it’s more three parts evil and one part cynical fear mongering. They seem intent on pushing the lazy, despicable, un-American authoritarian mantra that a person detained in Gitmo must either be by definition a terrorist (why else would they be there), or equally bad, the noxious idea that “keeping America safe” is more important than the civil rights of foreigners or suspects.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio — I don’t get what all the fuss is about. This is a bellicose nation. We excuse the deaths of civilians as regrettable but unavoidable results of that “fog of war”, so why would having some guy in prison for a few years, as a result of that same fog, shock anyone?
What do you mean, “we?”
SteveinSC
@Daddy-O: Like I have said here before. I will not be satisfied until Dick Cheney is tried for war crimes, crimes against the US, taken to the gallows, hung and, with a final touch of justice, his head pops off.
UPDATE: Add his vile spawn to the gallows platform as well.
Fergus Wooster
@Brick Oven Bill:
Um, except the “asymmetric warfare” three killed during interrogation?
You know what, I really like pie too.
@beltane:
“Shy-sharp”. This observation is chock full of brilliant. Having read “The Other End of the Leash”, I plan to deploy it regularly.
Brick Oven Bill
She was gossiping below 10,000 feet.
“The flight, Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by regional air carrier Colgan Air Inc. of Manassas, was approaching Buffalo-Niagara International Airport when the twin-engine turboprop experienced an aerodynamic stall and went into a dive.”
Dead on plane = 49
Dead on ground = 1
Perhaps they hate us because we allow women to drive cars.
SGEW
An important point: The Cheneys are probably not all that frightened of actual terrorists (tho’ there is evidence that Dick Cheney did, indeed, lose his shit after the Pentagon attack); rather, they are afraid of being prosecuted for war crimes. Under this aegis, much of their rhetoric now makes a terrible amount of sense.
Also, evil.
Additionally, to remain consistent: [Insert standard formal request for banning Brick Oven Bill for repeated misogyny here]
Kevin Phillips Bong
But but but…they’re BROWN people, so they can’t really be totally innocent. They got thrown in Gitmo after all.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I just realized that we live in a country where we are having all this churn over detainees at Guantanamo, and blogs where people can say things like “I don’t care who believes what.”
Isn’t Guantanamo all about, entirely about, and only about, who believes what?
Isn’t the whole Middle East about who believes what? Isn’t half the trouble in the world about who believes what?
Sorry everybody, I live in a warlike country where a large percentage of the population thinks the earth is 6000 years old. I want to know who believes what, so that I can avoid the crazy people at all costs.
Fergus Wooster
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: A wise man once said that my obligation to respect one’s religious belief is no more or less than my obligation to respect one’s belief that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Brachiator:
Heh. You might want to go back and read 2-3 years’ worth of flame wars from these pages to get some background.
Okay, I really mean “you.” The royal you, not you specifically.
I personally believe that the easy acceptance of war as a solution to problems that seems to exist in this country is a tragic and maybe fatal flaw. It’s at the root of the issue behind this thread, if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but that never stops me.
And since I think this and the country apparently does not, then I generalize about it and bitch about it. Which seems to be the thing to do around here. Again, opinion, noses, mileage, vary. Etc.
kay
Cheney and Kristol picked a fight with people who fight back, people who love a fight, and are more than willing, even eager, to engage.
They should have stuck with beating up on the detainees, rather than going after their lawyers. They were winning when they were beating up on people who are handcuffed, and silent.
This may be more difficult.
Steve V
I think it’s all just politcs for them. Which I guess makes them evil.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@Brick Oven Bill: That’s right numbnuts, the inexperienced FO is supposed to override the captain when he reacts to inputs she may not even notice because her hands aren’t on the yoke. Plus there’s a NASA training film out there about tail stalls in icing that directs an increase in AOA (pulling back on the yoke). Both these pilots screwed the pooch in an unfortunately fatal way, but it had nothing to do with a woman gossiping below 10k. Stick to things you know something about, whatever that may be.
Geeno
@SteveinSC:
Grammar Nazi Alert!!!!
My english teacher in high school pounded it into our heads relentlessly – pictures are hung, people are HANGED.
Oddly enough, hang is a regular verb when used in the sense of the method of execution.
Ash Can
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Oh my, I hit a nerve there, didn’t I?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Fergus Wooster:
The idea that your wife is, or is not, beautiful, won’t kill boatloads of people. Hardly an apt comparison, I think.
Religion is not just another taste preference, like domestic versus imported beer. It’s a window into the way a mind works. And I don’t believe that it is something not to be talked about and kicked around like any other opinion. I think that keeping silent about it and pretending that any crazy ass idea is okay is dangerous.
It’s why we HAVE the Dick Cheneys to begin with. Because we didn’t think all this through.
me
JoeAndrew McCarthy: “TheStateJustice Department is infested withcommunistsmuslims.”The Moar You Know
@TR: I sometimes wish I did, simply so I could be reassured that people like this would, in fact, burn eternally in Hell.
As it is, when they die, hopefully at the hands of an angry mob, they’ll rot in the ground and be forgotten, just like me – and yet somehow that doesn’t seem like nearly enough punishment.
kay
@SGEW:
I agree. Because let’s not forget who they went after here. Not the defense, not really.
They went after the prosecutors. The former Vice President’s daughter went after the State. She couldn’t attack a prosecutor directly, so she took this route, but the practical effect is the same.
I assume the ultimate goal here was to force resignations.
Which is just breathtaking, if you think about it.
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Some of the “we” referenced above neither excuse the deaths of civilians nor shrug off the detention of individuals in Gitmo.
TR
@Sarcastro:
Oh, me too. I’d love to see them rot in prison for forty years and then rot in Hell for eternity. There’s no reason it can’t be both.
El Cid
For the right, there has never been such a thing as “innocent” — there is only “one of us” and “enemy”.
If you are not one of them, you are guilty, and should be punished without trial or niceties.
If you are one of them, you are not merely “innocent” but pure and among the righteous, and can be held to no consequences no matter your actions.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@patrick II: This could not be any more correct.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Ash Can:
Apparently I hit one. Good.
Now come on, make your argument about why anyone should just “courteously” accept the most profound belief systems one encounters and act as if they are just precious and personal conceits, off limits to the most outspoken exchanges? And thus refrain from expressing strong opinions about them?
Go ahead, the floor is yours.
Hey, if we want to make it illegal to express religious views in public, for or against, as it were …. make me an offer. I am interested in negotiating the point.
Bart Stupak, are you listening?
TR
@ricky:
I’m not George Bush. I don’t think God has chats with me.
But, as the prophet Woody Allen said, if Jesus came back to Earth and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.
Corner Stone
@kay:
IMO, it’s also about an attempt to inoculate themselves from any future action by these types of people/attorneys.
They’ve laid the groundwork to fearmonger and politicize all outcomes from these events, and will draw from them if the time ever comes when they find themselves actually in the crosshairs of justice.
I don’t think that day will ever come, but they are shoring their defense against it just in case.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Corner Stone:
The generalization works because as a country, we do excuse those deaths, and avert our eyes from Gitmo. Obviously, mister granitehead, that doesn’t mean that all citizens agree with these things. I am talking about the posture of the country in word and deed as seen and felt by the rest of the world.
I thought this was obvious, but around this jackal farm nothing can be taken to be obvious, obviously.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@TR:
Of course god has chats with you. It’s just that you aren’t signed into the right IM service.
Corner Stone
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
This works back and forth!
If you’re a terrorist then you belong in Gitmo.
If you’re in Gitmo then you must be a terrorist.
Mike E
@Geeno:
BoB is not hung, but needs to be hanged–this I will grant you.
Michael D.
@Chyron HR: @celticdragonchick: @Fergus Wooster: @Kevin Phillips Bong: @Daddy-O: @DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: @Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
As long as you all respond to Brick Oven Bill, he will continue to be a spoof here. If you stop acknowledging his posts, he will go away.
But you won’t. And, therefore, he won’t.
The only reasonable conclusion I seem to be able to come to is that you like to see your own names in the comments.
TR
Death at the hands of a mob is too good for them. They need to be driven out of polite society completely, becoming objects of scorn and derision, names so commonly sneered at that even children get in on the act, not even knowing the backstory.
Specifically, I’m hoping Bill Kristol winds up penniless and insane, living homeless in a world without the social safety net that bastard spawn of privilege and nepotism gleefully helped destroy, before he dies alone and unloved in an alley somewhere.
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Your framing was sloppy, jackass, and deserved to be called out.
Corner Stone
@Michael D.:
Can’t speak for all them, but that’s why I’m here.
LuciaMia
Good editorial today on just this:
I guess Cheney would call one of the founding fathers, John Adams, a terrorist sympathizer. After all he had the temerity to defend those British soldiers accused of firing on American colonists.
Michael D.
@Corner Stone: Admitting you have a problem is the first step, my friend. :-)
IM
McCarthy. Sometimes a name is your destiny.
Perhaps he will die as drunkard too.
SGEW
@kay: Not just resignations; they want to poison the public’s mind about the integrity and loyalty of Obama’s DOJ – so that, if a prosecution were to occur, they would have laid further framework to claim that it would be a purely political “witch hunt” or even an “anti-american” attack on patriots. Clever, in a way. I suppose.
[IOW, after refreshing page, what Corner Stone said, above]
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
@The Moar You Know:
Sometimes I wished I believed in God
Then I would have
Someone to apologize to
For human nature
Which seems to consist of nothing but
Agriculture and industry
And other shitty behavior
It’d be nice to have someone around
After we’ve killed ourselves
Someone to pick up the garbage
Fill some museum shelves
With our debris
The passing curiosity
Of those clever monkeys
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Michael D.:
I like Bill. He makes me look good.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@Corner Stone: I do love an elegant solution.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@Michael D.: Actually, you’re completely right. Broke one of my own rules. Sorry.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, I don’t have a really great editor like you do. So all your comments may be pluperfect, but at least I can take sole credit for my poor, miserable flawed barely intelligible ones.
Eh, asshole?
Ash Can
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: You just don’t get it, do you? You’re doing exactly what you accuse religion of doing. You’re being intolerant. I call you on your rudeness, and you fly straight into victim mode — I’m trying to shut you up, make it illegal for you to express your opinions, etc.
If I were to take the same approach to you, I’d tell you that you were stupid for not being spiritual and your reliance on reason alone was short-sided and idiotic. As I say to my 10-year-old, how would that make you feel?
But I won’t say that, because I don’t feel that way. As I said at the outset, I don’t give a flying fuck what other people believe or don’t believe. Maybe I should have spelled out clearly for you that I meant that in terms of religious belief or lack thereof. If you “believe” you’ll reach out and rap me in the mouth, don’t go being all butthurt when I respond in kind.
jibeaux
A little O/T, but we are speaking of “afraid and evil”….
Q: What do you get when you and about 20 of your teabagger buddies get together for an anti-HCR protest outside a Congressman’s office in Raleigh?
A: Absofuckinglutely schooled, that’s what. Tonight I’ll get my cameraphone pictures up, they’re not great, but you can hopefully tell that the pro-reform side outnumbered the other side by probably 12 or 15 to 1. A link is here, but you can’t tell from the angle that the pro-reform side goes back a long ways, whereas basically every teabagger there is in that picture.
SGEW
@Michael D.: Not to needlessly defend myself, I guess, but I’m afraid I’m going to put up that formal bracketed request every time he steps over the line into outright racism, homophobia, or misogyny. It’s practically traditional for me by now.
The Moar You Know
@Michael D.: I, for one, admire BoB’s intellect. Takes a special kind of guy to see things the way he does.
And by special, I do mean special.
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I try to never make the pluperfect enemy of the good.
kay
@SGEW:
Good point. If true, I think that was probably a safe political bet, looking at polling and the rank and file conservative predilection for knee-jerk “law ‘n order”.
But in terms of a fight, on the merits, I think they made a miscalculation.
They’re getting killed here. They’re reduced to explaining why the members of the Supreme Court aren’t “traitors”, for ruling on behalf of the detainees. This isn’t going well.
I think Kristol is dumb as a rock, but Cheney isn’t. She’s backing off and blathering incoherently about “transparency”.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Ash Can:
I am being intolerant of the precious idea that religion is somehow off limits to everyday back and forth, as if we have to walk carefully around it.
Fuck that. There is NO WAY that the mainstream view of god in this society can be taken to represent “just and righteous” anything. Now, if you have some secret information that supports the idea, or just want to believe it, that’s up to you.
But have the stones to stand up for what you believe without whining and telling me to shut up under the cover of “courtesy.” Fuck courtesy. Fuck it very much.
If there is one thing that religion has shown itself to be not about, it is courtesy. And even if you are the exception that proves that rule, you don’t get courtesy from me until you show courtesy for my opinions in kind.
Got it?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Corner Stone:
I think you meant “plugood.”
Heh.
SGEW
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Who goes first?
maye
It might be that Liz Cheney has trouble sleeping at night because she is worried that her father will be snatched out of his protective cacoon (inside job) and flown to The Hague (or somewhere) and charged with war crimes. And since “Ghost Writer” just opened wide, she is more paranoid than ever.
She believes the best defense is a good offense.
WereBear
I would say equal parts evil, stupid & cynical.
They don’t care about anyone of any shade or gender or creed except them and theirs.
The fact that some segment of the right is “fighting back” isn’t even a crusade for Truth, Justice, and the American way, either. It’s them seeing the sloping sides of the pit, and they are scrambling to retain a crumb of credibility.
Maybe that makes me cynical, too. But not stupid, and not evil.
The Moar You Know
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Just curious, but is your modus operandi to walk into people’s homes and take a big steaming dump on the coffee table? Sure seems like it from how you’re acting here.
At any rate, you’re disinvited from the weekly bridge game on Friday. I just got the couch cleaned.
Ash Can
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Hey, I just realized something — you’re “Brick Oven Bill,” aren’t you?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Oh really? As I said at the outset, I have a bridge to sell you. A mostly sarcastic aside at your statement, which certainly did not deserve the whiny “please be courteous” blast you came back with.
Just and righteous god? Fine, let’s get down to brass tacks, leave out the personal feelings. Just prove it. Prove that your god is just and righteous. Or at least make a coherent and honorable argument to support it.
Take all the time you need. I have been here for five years, I am nothing if not available, knowI’msayin?
Give me a few minutes to get the popcorn into the microwave and let’s go. Just and righteous! Whee dogies!
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@The Moar You Know:
Um, this is not a home, it’s a hot air blog. See the logo, idiot.
I believe in a just and righteous sea turtle. Where’s my courtesy?
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Actually I stole that one from Wilfred who brought it out in Dec 2009.
So I’ve been waiting patiently for 3 months to spring that puppy.
Kind of like tantric commenting.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@The Moar You Know:
I learned to play bridge 55 years ago. Invite me at your peril.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Corner Stone:
Good work. I will copy you and take credit for it, as usual.
Parole Officer Burke
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio, @Ash Can, etc.
Take it to the open thread, please.
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Honestly I’ve been wondering where this TZ has been for the last few months.
Finally starting to recover and feel a little feisty?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@SGEW:
He does. When I see the courtesy for my belief that a “just and righteous god” is an idiotic conceit that has done a good job of fucking up the whole world, from Mister Can, then I will reciprocate and say something courteous about the just and righteous god fantasy.
I am nothing if not fair.
:)
Corner Stone
@Parole Officer Burke: You show up at the oddest damn times.
chrome agnomen
those guys are pissed off that we are releasing innocent people. it’s not guilt or innocence, it’s the illusion of their national security cred they’re worrying over. guilt or innocence? mere hair-splitting.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Corner Stone:
If you only knew.
I might post some recent biognews on the list. You are a subscriber, aren’t you?
trollhattan
Yo yo, check out what’s up with bOb’s preferred home state senator. Fambily values, bitchez.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022804.php
kay
@WereBear:
I have trouble being generous with that, too. I’m so sick of the low bar for conservatives.
A few of them do the absolute minimum, and I’m supposed to be grateful. I’m not. I read the Ken Starr statement and I thought, “oh, big fucking deal, state the obvious”.
Ash Can
@Parole Officer Burke: I can’t speak for BoB, but not to worry about me. I’m done feeding trolls for today. I’ve got laundry to do.
R-Jud
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I don’t see why she should have to prove something she believes. Belief is different from knowledge. For instance, I believe that you’re a total rageoholic dickhead, but I also know it, because I have proof from your comments.
Have a nice day, Internet Tough Guy.
Brachiator
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
RE: What do you mean, “we?”
Oh, hell no. And not really necessary. I got a sense of your point; I just didn’t agree with it.
This country ain’t that much different from any other in this regard. We’re just the ones currently with a lot of muscle, and less brains.
But I’m not big on fatal flaws or original sins and recoil whenever someone starts to go down the path of “root issues.” And note here that I am not simply saying that you are wrong or full of it (OK, I am, but still…), but that this line of argument doesn’t resonate with me.
Cheney and his surrogates are appealing to what is worst in us, using the war and security as a pretext. If they didn’t have a war as cover, they would use something else, hell, they are using everything else, from fear of soc i alism and teh gays to abortion and creationism and health care, to push a malignant vision of who we as a nation should be.
There was a partial renunciation of this world view with Obama’s election. This in turn, has caused the other side to push back even harder, and led to the surprising rise of one of their newest proselytizers, Sarah Palin.
It would be great if we could just ignore these goons and move on, but they are insistent and malignant.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Corner Stone:
It doesn’t matter how many in our country oppose something, when our country acts it is in our name. All of us. No exceptions. I sure as hell don’t like that idea but it’s reality, ask other nations “we” have screwed over about it. When other nations look at us and wonder why “we” are nuts, just keep telling yourself that it ain’t we who are nuts. I’m sure that will make you feel better but it sure ain’t gonna help those who are suffering from our actions (or inaction).
“We” are more than willing to take the credit when our country does something good in the world, but “we” don’t have that luxury when the government does something that we (as the individual) don’t like. “We” is a Sybil-type of descriptor for any country, different faces may take over as time passes but the name carries on. If our country is nuts and attacking shadows, it’s “we” who are doing it. If we (again, the individual) fight and regain control then “we” have a new face and a hell of a lot of work to do to repair our image.
So I think the description given fits.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@R-Jud:
Nobody has to prove it. But nobody has the right to tell me what kind of comments I can make about it, either.
Get it? Religious beliefs are not somehow off limits to ordinary opinionatin’ where I come from. Which is Eastern Gofuckyourselfistan.
Parole Officer Burke
@Corner Stone: I do, don’t I?
jibeaux
All right, couldn’t wait, here we are. Maybe it’ll cheer you up just a bit. Also too? We were loud and happy.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
You mean, the part about this being a bellicose nation that basically looks away from the unpleasant side of being a bellicose nation?
Because that was my point, pretty much. So I am not sure what the area of disagreement is. I made a sweeping generalization, yes, but I am also on record as saying that all generalizations are false, including the most recent ones you made. Haha.
Shinobi
I will refrain from feeding the trolls…. though I long to feed them, (because y’know, i’m a woman, and we all just love to cook. )
Based on Theissen’s interview on TDS, I think you forgot stupid.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Whoa, Nellie! Let’s not equate the flaws of a nation with the insane idea of Original Sin.
I am talking on the practical level here. Take the Iraq war, for example. Isn’t that a classic expression of a flawed nation? I don’t see how you work around that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@SGEW:
This.
Another point: these people play the long game. Never forget that Cheney has been in and out of the US govt since the Nixon/Ford years, and the lesson he took from Watergate is never give an inch, never show weakness, and never ever hesitate to do whatever must be done to hold onto power, no matter how shameless or shocking or unprecedented it may be. And now he has trained a new generation of neocons to follow in his foul footsteps. These folks will be haunting us for the next 30 years at least, and when they get back into power they will apply every lesson they learned from 2000-2008.
Fergus Wooster
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: I think we’re closer to being on the same page than you thought. My point was that we should feel no need to respect others’ religious beliefs, or to walk on eggshells around them.
I’m happy to be silent on them when they’re not causing harm, but when they influence policy the way they do in this country, they must be called out without mercy.
SGEW
@kay:
I surely hope so. But I’ve been less than optimistic, as of late. For some reason.
[ETA: @jibeaux: Yes, actually. That does give me some cheer, speaking of failing optimism. Good work!]
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Fergus Wooster:
Amen.
Oops. ;)
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Well yeah, but worse than that, they have set the posture of this country since about 1947 when the whole Cold War scam was invented, which led directly to McCarthyism and its cousin foolishnesses. Vietnam. Blah blah blah.
Their nutty warmongering has royally fucked us over, has it not?
So I see Gitmo as just a small branch on this big toxic tree.
EconWatcher
Even in the darkest days of the Bush Admin, the remnants of our system of pluralism, checks and balances, and free press (as flawed as it is) put heavy constraints on Cheney and the crew.
I wonder what they would do if they felt completely unrestrained. I have an idea, but it would violate Godwin’s law to say it.
Annie
@Brick Oven Bill:
1. Since Club Gitmo is such a lovely spot, I recommend we send you, the Cheneys (Dick and Liz), Malkin, Kristol, Thiessen, McCarthy, etc) down there for a few years, without access to legal counsel, without the ability to talk with family members, without the capacity to leave the a small confined space…Sounds pretty good, huh? Sounds like you, all, will be better off than your bretheren back home.
2. I have been to the Middle East, too. In fact, just got back. I have to say that the Middle East smells sweeter than the US did during the Bush/Cheney years….
3. Since the US is on board, other countries can capture US soldiers, hold them for years without contact with the outside world — and if the US protests, they can just use our own rhetoric and practice against us…
4. The US is only “exceptional” when it lives up to its core values and the values embedded in the Constitution.
EconWatcher
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Okay, I gotta say it: Cold war scam? What on earth are you talking about? You don’t think Stalin was a real threat?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Fergus Wooster:
Yes, I take your point. I just don’t agree that silence is golden when it comes to religion.
I think silence is toxic. It looks and feels like tacit approval or acceptance under the false cover of “tolerance.”
I will tolerate your beliefs, but once you act on them against my interests, tolerance stops instantly. You can believe what you want, but when that starts to affect my government or my school system, put on the gloves, we are going to have a fight.
And you know, this is a political, not a group therapy, blog.
Corner Stone
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Is that because we are nominally a democracy? Are we exceptional in this regard, or do other nations’ citizens also bear the burden of the actions or inactions of their country?
SGEW
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
And there goes my optimism again. Sigh. You’re right, tho’.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re still just fighting over the Alien and Sedition Act.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@EconWatcher:
I’ve already had this conversation in here, but the short version is, the Cold War took the “threat” you are talking about and turned it into a marketing scheme in this country for all manner of dysfunctional policies, actions, and political machinations. Anticommunism was the War On Terra of its day. No different, really.
What next, a paean to Ronald Reagan for winning the Cold War?
Ugh.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Sorry fans, gotta go.
And no, I am not BOB. That would be DougJ.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Because not doing so just makes you look like a flippant asshole ala’ Hitchens (or fill in the blank with your insufferable, grating atheist of choice).
If you want to live in a culture where the verbal (and sometimes literal) equivalent of barroom insults and fistfights is the norm, then pardon some of the rest of us who believe that basic manners do have a place. You don’t have to agree, but there is no excuse for incivility over simple disagreement over religion.
wasabi gasp
Until somebody gets shot.
The Populist
The right are full of scared pussies. Ben Franklin has it right, if we have to sacrifice liberty and our ideals for the false idea of “safety” from the big bad boogie terrist, we are a lost cause.
Svensker
I think Cheney et al have internalized a toxic combination of Manicheanism and American Exceptionalism. They have, at the same time, forgotten that what made America “exceptional” in the realm of nations was the ideals that we espoused in the Constitution and the BofR, however imperfectly implemented. They have come to believe that we are exceptional because we are WE — and we can give up all our ideals and still remain the Great and Glorious We.
Because they see the world in terms of The Good (us) and The Bad (everyone else), they ARE afraid. AND their world view and resultant actions are evil. They don’t see it that way, of course, because they are always defending (they think) The Good, ergo they are always Good.
EconWatcher
No doubt some political opportunists helped whip up hysteria during the Cold War for their own purposes. Heck, that was Nixon’s original meal ticket.
But you can’t call the Cold War a scam, and putting the “threat” of Stalin in quotation marks makes it sound like you’re one of those lefties who can’t acknowledge what a monster (and genuine threat) he was. Maybe I’ve got you wrong, but that’s how it sounds.
Sharl
OT (though not so much, in the big picture):
You folks will no doubt be delighted to learn that, on public radio at this very moment, The Dick Whisperer is participating in a discussion on ethics in national politics. Awesome choice for expertise!
{Sigh. And I’m normally a fan of Kojo’s…}
The Populist
So go live there? Sorry bud, I don’t want to live in a place that puts people away without due process no matter how scuzzy their beliefs are.
We either have ideals or we don’t. If we don’t, then get your buds to end the constitution and go do the coup you a-holes are so eager to have.
Idiots.
Corner Stone
@The Populist:
I saw you using this all yesterday and I have to tell you, it’s just not working for me.
Fergus Wooster
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Sweet baby Jeebus, I never said silence was golden, or that this was a group therapy blog.
Of course this is a political blog. And given that, you’re not helping to advance your own arguments if you backhand the people who are trying to agree with you, just because they’re trying to introduce a little nuance.
Michael
OT – Get Personally Attacked by Glenn Beck. If you’ve got a facebook page, its even better.
http://beck.cnnbcvideo.com/index.html
The Moar You Know
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Very good, then. Table-shitting contest at 5pm. I’ll warn you that you’re up against some rather stiff…errr, actually loose competition, know what I’m saying?
Eh? Yeah?
Little Dreamer
@Fergus Wooster:
Is your wife planning to throw a bunch of people in a firey furnace called Hell for all eternity when we’ve all passed from this current existence?
I think you’re being disingenuous.
Tsulagi
That’s one take. I’d say more like equal parts fear pimps/sellers for personal gain/profits and pissants.
On the field, I’m all for putting holes in the bad guys as effectively and swiftly as possible. It’s the American thing to do. Justice following our rule of law is also the American thing to do. If captured then detained, whether it be bin Laden or an innocent who had a dime dropped on him by someone seeking a bounty, they should get the full measure of military or civilian justice process including counsel.
These jackasses calling for civilian or military defense attorneys to be identified presumably so they can pressured and ostracized by their chest thumping airhead teabagger brethren are way, way worse than any flag burners they can imagine. They really are McCarthyites in the worst sense.
@patrick II:
Yeah, I always imagined bin Laden having a pinup of Bush. Giving it an affectionate little pat for luck when he’d leave his Paki condo in the morning to go to work.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@EconWatcher:
There is intense debate amongst historians of the Cold War regarding how expansionist the Soviet Union was, especially prior to Stalin’s death in 1953. Some evidence suggests that Stalin was strongly opposed to North Korea launching an invasion of South Korea, and generally had little taste for what he regarded as risky and reckless foreign adventures. The expansion of Soviet influence beyond territory already occupied by the Red Army circa 1945 was for the most part reactive and risk adverse while Stalin was alive.
Not to say Stalin wasn’t a monster – but there did exist the possibility of the US and our allies resisting the expansion of Soviet influence along traditional Great Power sphere of influence and balance of power shifting lines such as had been practiced in European state politics for the previous 300-400 years. The Cold War could have been fought that way – and that would have been closer to what George Kennan orginally envisioned. We chose not to go that route for reasons which had much more to do with US domestic politics (see the “Who lost China?” debate) than geopolitical realities.
El Cid
The typical right wing forces who continually advocate for the overthrow of elected government and the crushing of any blocks to their authoritarian power may partly be fearful as well as crazy, but they are consistently and deviously evil.
The typical Latin American U.S. right wing stooge who came to power in a violent revolution typically did fear the unseemly peasants, but they mostly hated them.
Fergus Wooster
@Little Dreamer: Again, I think you misunderstood me. My point is, that as long as it is a matter of private worhip, I will not tell my mother-in-law that she is an idiot for being Catholic, even if I think so privately.
However, if she is acting on her beliefs by campaigning against Planned Parenthood or against condom distribution in Africa, then I will give no quarter. Private sphere versus policy. While I wish people would abandon ridiculous belief systems, attacking them unprovoked accomplishes little other than making one look like an asshole.
I didn’t think this was such a complicated point.
Robert Waldmann
I don’t undestand the question mark in the headline.
It is totally obvious that they hate, Hate, Hate us for our freedom.
What could Mr. Kristol, Mr. Thiessen, Mr. McCarthy, and the Cheneys possible do to make that any clearer that they hate us for our freedom ?
John O
Don’t think we should be shy about talking about anything, and to each his/her own Invisible Sky Wizard, I say.
geg6
As always seems to be the case in these matters, the Rude Dude says it better than I can:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
Fergus Wooster
@John O: This, for FSM’s sake.
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Of course, most of the U.S. intervention throughout the 3rd world had nothing to do with the Soviet Union, it had to do with controlling those nations, but they were justified as anti-Soviet measures. The U.S. didn’t massively intervene in the Italian elections of 1948 because of anti-Soviet fears, but because the foreign policy establishment didn’t want the soshulists to win.
Reagan didn’t slaughter Nicaraguan civilians because anyone really thought the Soviets would establish yet another beach-hold close to Florida or drive up through all of Central America and Mexico to invade Texas. Nor did he arm and protect Guatemalan genocidalists or help South Africans and thug forces attack Angola because of Soviet expansionism.
The Populist
@j.e.b.:
Then they can go pick a state (Texas?) and secede. If they can’t accept that the values of habeus corpus and the right to get a fair trial are not valid, go find another country to live in.
I, for one, will not sacrifice my beliefs in the beauty of due process, trial by a jury of my peers and many more exercises of a just democracy for the likes of a Republican scum bag who one side of his mouth says Obama is taking away our freedoms and on the other is willing to sell out our freedoms to fight a boogie man that his administration turned into a monster by using it to keep the populace looking over their shoulders.
El Cid
Cheney and the rest of the authoritarian right may indeed believe that Muslims / Ay-rabbs / terrorists hate the freedoms in the U.S., but not anywhere near the degree to which Cheney and the rest of the authoritarian right hate those freedoms even more.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Svensker:
Well put. I think another component that is important stems from Cheney’s ties to the oil industry. It seems to me that the way the GWOT and the invasion of Iraq were organized under Cheney’s influnce strongly suggests that he was looking down the road to a post Peak Oil endgame in which the US would dominate and control (either directly or indirectly thru puppets and proxies) much of the world’s remaining untapped reserves, providing economic benefits to both a grateful nation and his buddies in the oil industry who would make immense profits semi-monopolizing a scarce and increasingly valuable commodity. And when that day came, Americans would care more about the final result and less about what had been done in their name to bring it about, no matter how messy or distasteful.
Remember November
I think we need to have an experiment like they did in the 60’s- and have Cheneys, Thiessen,Kristol take part as guinea pigs. See how well they turn out,as well as turn on each other.
Little Dreamer
@Fergus Wooster:
Perhaps you should tell that to Sam Harris, who wrote a book called The End of Faith, where he says it’s time we start challenging the concept that intolerant religious nuts shouldn’t be tolerated anymore. We’ve given a pass to them based on the WWJD thing for years making the appearance of all Christians as pacifists, and that was all believed to be well and good, but Christians no longer seem to be equated with pacifists and quite honestly, I’m not even sure Jesus was the man people think he was (there is reason to believe he may not have been, contained within the “infallible words” of their supposedly infallible god, of course – but, I’m not going to school you on any of that right now, I just had surgery and I really don’t feel like it).
So, now we have to wait until a certain Defcon level of religious extremism occurs before we challenge them on it? Sam Harris disagrees, he actually pins the blame on the moderate Christians who refused to call their more extreme believers of the same religion to the carpet and I personally agree.
And, ummm, how long do we have to look at our extremists and not equate them with their muslim counterparts?
John O
Other than Hannity, I’ve never wanted to waterboard someone more than I do Thiessen.
What’s up with these doughy faux tough guys?
I would make them both say, “Obama is the greatest President ever.” That would neatly and cleanly pretty much DQ them from everything they’ve advocated.
How long would it take? I say seconds, not minutes.
Mark S.
I’m always glad when we can have a good theological debate about the existence of God. I for one have never heard any arguments pro or con concerning the subject (I of course live in a bubble, and Balloon Juice is my only contact to the outside world). This has been a very enlightening experience for me. I’m going to take the knowledge I have gained and apply it to my daily life (which consists of sitting here in my bubble).
Ed Drone
@EconWatcher:
Yes, but Pete Seeger wasn’t. The “Hollywood Ten” weren’t. The “scam” was that the “enemies within” needed weeding out, not that the USSR wasn’t opposing us. The results of the anti-Communist scam included all the McCarthy-HUAC-red-baiting shit that turned our domestic politics so vile, and included the “domino theory” that kept us in Viet Nam and SE Asia at such a cost, too.
If it weren’t for McCarthy and his cohorts, we wouldn’t have had Nixon and Watergate and, for that matter, Dick Cheney. Peas in a pod, they are. I’m not a believer in “guilt by associaton,” but there is something to “consider the source.”
Ed
Fergus Wooster
@Little Dreamer: I’m familiar with this. Dawkins makes the same argument (I’m a huge Dawkins fan), much more convincingly than Harris (who would be more credible if not for his pro-torture positions). And I’m sympathetic to it, and I’ve struggled with it. My take is that you have to have a more nuanced approach in bringing moderates over to your side – starting by calling them morons (again, even if it’s true) is unhelpful.
I am all for calling out extremists in our midst. We should be doing it, doing it now, and doing it loudly. I thought I made that clear. And I do consider them every bit as dangerous as their Middle Eastern equivalents. Their beliefs and their actions are detrimental to all of us, and they should be called out unmercifully and stopped.
I thought I made my position on that clear with “give no quarter”. To the pope for his anti-condom lies, to Stupak for trying to kill HCR over his fetus fetish. Fuck them and the deference I’m supposed to have for their beliefs.
geg6
@Fergus Wooster:
This.
I have no respect at all for any religion. I think they are all for scared, weak, and superstitious people. I think they are the most destructive forces on this earth and I will fight against their influence in every way. Most of the time, I try to just keep quiet about how much I detest religion and the hypocrisy inherent in them all. But its become all too pervasive in my life, from politics to my workplace. So I call it out more often than I used to and don’t feel any need to constrain myself since they have no problem not constraining themselves.
Ed Drone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.
Ed
Fergus Wooster
@Mark S.: Heh. All I tried to do was make one sly comment, and I cause a second flame war (or skirmish).
Pork pie is really good.
geg6
@EconWatcher:
In a word, no. Not to Americans, anyway.
Fergus Wooster
@geg6: Yes. Thank you – my position exactly. I must have had articulate-fail today, because I’m being called out for saying the opposite of what I meant.
Blood pressure coming back down now.
jacy
@Mark S.:
Where can I purchase one of these bubbles? I think it might do wonders for my mental health.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Dreamer: Since this whole line of comment began with someone saying that they believed in a just and merciful god in course of calling out Cheney, et al, as assholes and then being called out as a gullible idiot, Harris’s ideas on calling out moderate religious people for the actions of fanatics are not really on point, are they?
I don’t really care what someone’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are, my interest is in how those beliefs cause the person to act. If your beliefs cause you to be charitible, kind, etc., then great. If they cause you to be an ass or evil, then not so great.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mark S.:
Don’t mind me. I’ll just be over here in the corner, losing my religion.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@geg6:
Then I take it that Martin Luther King Jr. day isn’t celebrated in your household?
J. Michael Neal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
This is an important caveat. Some of us have connections with places where the Red Army was in 1945, and consider that to be dangerous expansionism all by itself. I’m not sure why some people (and I’m not saying you’re one of them; you just provided an entry to the point) think that it makes any sense to draw a line declaring that grabbing Poland, Hungary, and a number of other countries didn’t constitute expansionism. The historians that make that argument have a tendency to myopia.
That’s not to say that El Cid isn’t also correct that a lot of things the US did using the Cold War as an excuse weren’t unjustifiable, too. I’m not even going to try to argue against that. I’m just saying that the use of the Cold War to justify unjustifiable actions doesn’t mean that it was called up out of thin air.
I do disagree with your last paragraph and its implication that the Cold War was fought on radically different principles than Great Power conflict over previous centuries. Bloody proxy wars outside of Europe were always a part Great Power conflict; both Vietnam and participation in Central American civil wars would have fit in perfectly with, say, British and Russian conflict in the 19th Century. Ideological components were always a part of such conflicts; they became particularly strong after the French Revolution, but they weren’t absent prior to that, either.
The main difference was of scale, which are attributable to the advent of the 20th century, rather than a deliberate decision to behave differently. I agree that the policy that was followed wasn’t the one that Kennan advocated, but the option chosen wasn’t really that out of line with history.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
So unless I agree to “just and righteous god,” I am an atheist?
Wow, this place gets sillier every day.
I believe in a just and righteous flying spaghetti monster. And he can whip the ass of your false god any day of the week, kid.
jibeaux
dammit, JC, put up a new thread so people will pay attention to my teabagger pictures instead of this stoopid flame war.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@The Moar You Know:
I think you have milked your inapt analogy way beyond its worth, grasshopper.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Fergus Wooster:
Hey, I try to annoy everybody. It’s the egalitarian in me.
Or, is it SATAN?
I just don’t know, really.
jacy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. I personally think organized religion is a cancer that causes a lot more harm than good, but have had to take the position that if your religion makes you a better person, great! But if on the other hand, your religion makes you a worse person, then I will call it out, and quite vocally.
My S/O is a devout Catholic, so I have to put this in play every day. Most days are fine, but sometimes there are stoney silences punctuated by the sound of things being thrown. :)
J. Michael Neal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Hush, you. Allow the exercise of thoughtless bigotry in peace.
Fergus Wooster
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: The great god Atheismo, of course!
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@celticdragonchick:
Well, of course, I do, pretty much, and so do you. But the really hilarious part is that this blog was built on barroom insults. Not cat pictures, despite the CW of the day.
Any absurd blurb that can’t stand up to a barroom insult isn’t worth the liquid crystal display it is written on. Seriously.
Just and righteous god. Fuck me with a sharp stick, please.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Keep beating that strawman.
You obviously have a problem with somebody’s declared statement of religion, even thought that person was espousing a position that most of us here agree with wrt Cheney and company. Instead of gracefully ignoring his brief passage, you decided to start a flame war with your erstwhile ally just to make sure we can all see how well you are advancing in Jackassery 201 this semester.
I assume you are getting an ‘A’ at Midterm?
Great. We know you have a chip on your shoulder concerning Christian belief. Anybody else you want to shit on while you are insulting fellow progressives?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
What in the world does MLKDay have to do with the absurdity of a “just and righteous god?”
MLK may have believed in the fantasy. But I celebrate him for what he did, not for what he thought about god.
Hey, belief in JARG is a pretty common mistake.
That said, it has to be called out when it pops up. Too much JARGon isn’t good for the soul.
Little Dreamer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m sorry – the term “just and merciful” seems like an oxymoron to me. If royal assholes like Cheney exist, what is the proscription for someone like him if “G”od is only “just AND merciful”?
As for how this whole argument got started, I had surgery yesterday, I took a vicodin about 5 hours ago and TZ woke me up and showed me the flame war, and I admit I didn’t spend much time looking at what happened before it occurred.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Spending many lonely Saturday nights…?
If you have that big an anger issue that you need to start meaningless fights with strangers who were not talking to you to begin with, then you might consider talking to a counselor.
El Cid
@J. Michael Neal:
The fact that the Soviet Union existed and was in its leadership evil certainly made it easy to either consciously use it or innately and feverishly dream it as the justification for any action any where.
And the fact that the Soviets or Chinese often were involved made it easier. At times that involvement turned out to be helpful — the Cuban defeat of South African anti-Angolan forces at Cuito Cuanavale was clearly a dramatic and good turn for the Angolan people, while Cuban attempts at stirring up or supporting “foco” style rebellions in South America and even the Congo believing their own model would and should work anywhere did a lot of harm.
A sane U.S. foreign policy establishment would have shepherded its semi-colonial regimes in Central America into the sort of Rooseveltian / Western European social democracies it instead hired killers to slaughter them for.
Hell, the U.S. used Spanish iniquities to justify invading and occupying Cuba as indigenous forces were just finishing their independence war against Cuba.
It’s another reason to look back at the USSR’s leadership and say “Thanks a lot, assholes.”
SGEW
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I always thought it was more based on bathroom insults, i.e., what you would write on a public bathroom’s wall, next to the urinal or the sanitary napkin dispenser. “Skull fuck a kitten,” and all that.
But I, for one, welcome our new cat picture overlords etc. etc.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Michael D.: Knowing this as you do:
I must ask what the purpose of your admonition is, and conclude, following your logic that:
backatcha, sweetness.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
No, I have a problem with the fantasy of a just and righteous god, and especially a problem with the idea that I can’t say that this fantasy is bullshit without basically being asked to shut up. Or the suggestion that somehow I owe the fantasizer some kind of “courtesy”curtain behind which he or she can make foolish statements without adverse comment.
That’s what I have a problem with. If you want to put words in my mouth, try to get the right words, otherwise I am compelled to shove them up your ass.
Fergus Wooster
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/eric-massas-navy-files/37309/
Shudder. . .
celticdragonchick
Off to watch last weeks Caprica. Have fun throwing poo.
J. Michael Neal
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Nothing, really, but geg6 claimed that he was a scared, weak, and superstitious person.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@SGEW:
Yes, well I try to stay away from bathroom references. At my age they are ill advised.
Plus, then you have the Larry Craig thing, and all that.
First the god fantasy and then the sex police? Too much for me in one day.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Anger and violent misogynistic male fantasy imagery all rolled into one fetid sentence.
Lovely.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@J. Michael Neal:
Interesting comment, actually. I think King was a very complex man whose myth doesn’t really do him justice.
I think that a lot of what he said was an expression of working out his own fears and misgivings to find a better path for himself and thereby, for us, and that’s what endears him to me the most. The fact that he was really human and really working it all out as he went along. That took a lot of guts.
wasabi gasp
Belief is so weak, Martin chose to have a dream instead.
geg6
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Not the religious side of his message. I totally respect what he did, his leadership abilities, his martyrdom to the cause. But his religion means less than nothing to me other than he was one of the few religious leaders who actually used his religion, mostly, for good. I still don’t respect Christianity or the Baptist sect or any of the rest of it. MLK was duped like all other Christians, but I don’t care since he didn’t bring religion into my life and you didn’t have to be religious in his eyes to support him or his goals nor did he force his religion down my throat. His message was made on a humanitarian and humanistic basis just as much as it was on his standing as a minister.
And though I admire MLK quite a bit, he wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue according to his own religious tenets. So I stand by the hypocrite criticism.
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
I have a bit of a hard time with this “so many people believe it so that makes it okay” idea. I personally believe quite a few things that would get me thrown out of every place I went to if I espoused my beliefs, because quite honestly, so many people believe that God became an author and left us this perfect (yet completely imperfect) book of instructions (that contains over 600 contradictions) and I’m not allowed to believe otherwise.
Take your commonly held beliefs and wisdom and shove it where the sun don’t shine!
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@J. Michael Neal:
Interesting comment, actually. I think King was a very complex man whose myth doesn’t really do him justice.
I think that a lot of what he said was an expression of working out his own fears and misgivings to find a better path for himself and thereby, for us, and that’s what endears him to me the most.
The fact that he was just really human and really working it all out as he went along. That took a lot of guts.
geg6
@J. Michael Neal:
More than ironic, if you are a religionist. More than ironic.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@celticdragonchick:
Whatever floats your dishonest and passive aggressive boat, lady.
Fergus Wooster
@Little Dreamer: I don’t think she meant that most of us believed in a just and caring God. I think she meant that most of us would want to see Cheney et al. roasted on the barbie, or its mythological equivalent.
Just sayin’.
The Populist
@Corner Stone:
Huh? It’s fact, so what’s the problem?
Scared Animals?
Scared dickwads?
Scared A-holes?
What should I use to make you happy?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@J. Michael Neal:
Regarding this, in your spare time you might want to read the book The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt. Now Bobbitt is probably not much to the taste of a lot of folks on this blog – he is sort of a heretic outcast from the Church of Neocon. But he has some interesting ideas which he makes a pretty good case for in Shield of Achilles regarding European state politics of the last half millennium, albeit in the framework of a sort of Hegelian schema which is (like all such schemas) overly rigid and reductive and rather scholastic in flavor.
The point which comes off best in this book is that European wars have been more or less ideological in character in a very episodic fashion. They are much more ideological when there are strongly competing ideas in circulation regarding how state legitimacy is to understood and constructed, which is something that occurs from time to time, e.g. the 17th Cen. wars of religion, the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and the wars of the 20th Cen starting in 1914 and ending in 1991. But other wars between these periods of ideological ferment are more of a nature of a quarrel amongst thieves, i.e. a competition between states for resources and territory.
This is important because the strongly ideological wars are much less susceptible to being ended by negotiation and compromise and thus tend to be much more vicious, more long-lasting, and more brutally decisive in the end. The semi-rational cost-benefit calculations that come into play when states are fighting over mere resources simply don’t apply when the victory of one side invalidates the very theory of the system of govt. used by the other side to maintain state legitimacy, making it an existential contest for the loser.
As a concrete example, the most crucial mistake made by the leadership of Japan circa 1941 was to misunderstand what sort of war they were getting into. They thought they were embarking on a conventional war over colonial spoils, to which the US would apply the sort of cost-benefit analysis which made these sort of wars amenable to a negotiated settlement. What they didn’t understand is that in the broader context of WW2 they were getting into an intensely ideological war which could only end by unconditional surrender. And their entire war strategy was based on this mistaken understanding (thinking that most Americans would not care to bleed and die for some godforsaken Pacific islands that nobody had ever heard of before, and thus the US would negotiate with them after the first couple of bloody battles had been fought), which is why it was doomed from the very start.
A Ghost To Most
@Geeno:
speak for yourself .. I’m not hanged, I’m hung
/J.W. Holmes
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
Apparently you are unaware that the Don does not spend nights alone.
This is a blog, where everyone can comment on all items presented without having to wait for an invite. If you don’t like it, perhaps you should refrain from putting thoughts out here on the internets.
I thought you were going to go watch Caprica? Get to it, your assertion on that last post was ridiculous. Go do something more productive.
Brachiator
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
RE: I got a sense of your point; I just didn’t agree with it.
Yep.
No, I was pretty specific in saying that I disagree with your worldview.
RE: But I’m not big on fatal flaws or original sins
Flaws of a nation, original sin, both too reductive.
No.
And so, what are you going to do about it? Or do you just enjoy dabbling in philosophy and historical perspective?
jl
Re the title of this post: “They Hate Us For Our… Freedom?”
Well, yes in this case the reactionaries are correct, sorry to say.
They hate us for our freedom to do just exactly as we damn well please, anything or anyone else be damned.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
“The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.”
– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,” 1956
Little Dreamer
@Fergus Wooster:
So now we’ve gone from “Just and Righteous” to “Just and Merciful”, to “Just and Caring” – somehow I think we could play that Sesame Street game “one of these things is not like the other” with those terms.
TooManyJens
@SGEW: I, for one, am glad that you object. I don’t get why being a spoof is supposed to make BOB’s incessant racist, misogynist, etc remarks acceptable.
Little Dreamer
@Irrelevant,YetPoignant:
Who can say what God really thinks?
God always seems to speak exactly as the person who quotes him would want him to speak. Who is to say that God has been speaking at all?
Fergus Wooster
@Little Dreamer: I was paraphrasing. Jesus.
As I’m not a believer, I couldn’t really give enough of a crap to make sure I got the quote right.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Brachiator:
Well your pronouncements make no sense to me. Clearly in my view this country has taken a bad track and is mired along that track as we speak. But that’s another discussion.
As for what to do about it, the answer is the same one I have been giving here for five years. Work to elect better government. Get into the political wars, contribute, vote, do whatever you have to do. Outnumber the morons at the polls.
Very basic democracy stuff.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@J. Michael Neal:
anyway, to continue with my reply above (which was getting too long, so I’ve broken it up):
The part of Bobbitt’s schema which seems to me to be most relevant to understanding the Cold War is the central focus he places on ideology as a system for constructing and supporting the legitimacy of the state, and the point that during time of intense ideological conflict and competition (like the Cold War) war is only a means to an end, and the end is to destroy the legitimacy of the competing ideology while preserving one’s own system. And the way to do this is to undermine the claims which the rival state(s) make to legitimize themselves.
Which explains why the Cold War ended the way it did. The principle claim the Soviet Union and related states made to legitimize their system of govt. (as distinct from other older kinds) was the superior production of economic and social justice. The Cold War could not have been ended by the military overthrow of an invaded Russia, because doing so would have done nothing to invalidate communism’s central claim to legitimacy – indeed it might have had the reverse effect. The Cold War had to end with a collapse of the sense of legitimacy of communism as a system for producing economic and social justice within Russia, based on internal factors – just as Kennan predicted.
Fascism on the other hand had to be destroyed thru military defeat and occupation, because a claim to military superiority (and racial superiority in the case of the Germans) was the central idea used to legitimize fascism as a system of govt. Consequently a world war had to be fought to defeat fascism, whereas communism had to be contained and left to collapse from within. This becomes obvious if you conduct the thought experiment of imagining the Western democracies swapping the different strategies they used to defeat first fascism and then later communism by trying to contain fascism while invading and overthrowing communist states by main force.
Little Dreamer
@Fergus Wooster:
That wasn’t against you, per se, I was just noticing how the term keeps changing. What is Just and Righteous? Is it acts of retribution only or is it more? When someone changed it to Just and Merciful, I couldn’t see how that makes sense, if one is to believe in an ultimate heaven or hell scenario because the two seem to be oxymorons – the only thing I saw you did was to make the second term even more palatable, and I wasn’t actually pointing to any wrong doing on your part at all, sorry if you think I was.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
The true Jesus is the Jesus that cannot be paraphrased.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Bart Stupak, apparently.
Fergus Wooster
@Little Dreamer: No worries. Hackles officially down.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
You just made me spew my afternoon tea. ROFL.
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Well, also the fact that no one seemed to have much luck in invading and conquering Russia in recent centuries.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Fergus Wooster:
Excellent, my work here is done.
May God be with all of you.
Except maybe you. Yes, you.
El Cid
Jesus maybe can’t be paraphrased, but he surely could be parable-ized.
celticdragonchick
@Little Dreamer:
The “Don” is perfectly free to engage in uninvited and ill informed gratuitous insults and engage in violent male anal rape fantasies.
I am likewise free to mock him.
I just finished episode 5: There is another sky
Tamara Adama is wandering around virtual Caprica City with a machine pistol. Pissed off 16 year girls with automatic weapons is probably a bad thing.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Backatcha.
Interesting you chose to call me passive aggressive…what with all that anal rape imagery you throw around.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@celticdragonchick:
It’s just locker room talk. But I am sure that the girls’ locker room is all flowers and talk of poetry, amirite?
Yeah, I am sure that I am.
Have a nice daffodil day.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Sweetness and light to you, dearie.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
That little nugget of conventional wisdom is, as it turns out, wrong.
The Germans managed just fine in 1917-18. The key to their success was that, as it turns out, you don’t want to actually invade Russia all that much (which would have stretched the German logistics to the limit and beyond, just as it did circa 1941-44), but rather to beat the Russians you want to start a fight and then camp out on their western border for the duration of the conflict (which strained the Russian logistics to the limit and beyond) and then slug it out with them from the position of a superior logistical base until the Russian Army falls apart completely. Then after they’ve already collapsed you move in and occupy, meeting little in the way of resistance (except for a little harsh rhetoric from Trotsky while negotiating the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
That’s interesting, I know this person of whom you are speaking and I can tell you that he does not have an anal fixation at all. I think the anal rape imagery is in your own head.
Ruckus
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
I get the point that it is our country. All of us.
I also get the point that a lot of us don’t agree with what our government has done (and somewhat continues to do) and want to distance ourselves from these actions. So a lot of the people who didn’t (don’t) agree spoke up. A lot of them voted against the people in charge. A lot more of them voted for a change in that government. And they don’t want to be tarred with the responsibility because they did what they were supposed to do for opposition in a democracy. It just wasn’t enough.
And I understand that in a lot of other countries the people understand the difference between the people and the government.
Unless you feel our government is still of, for and by all of the people. Then please ignore all of the above.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Yeah, let’s review. “Shove it up your ass” is one of the most common expressions of disdain in the language, and every time you hear it, you think “anal rape?”
So, “kiss my ass” is the precursor to forbidden buttsex?
And I am the one with the fixation?
Nice try, sweetheart. You really are not very good at this.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@celticdragonchick:
Wink wink.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@El Cid:
I believed that, once upon a time.
;)
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Yes, it’s part of “conventional wisdom”, but not free of any basis. You could count the German war against Russia as a “success”, but given the latter consequences of the Bolshevik takeover of power due in no small part to the Russian government’s war policies, the eventual defeat by the USSR of Nazi invasion forces, followed later by the Soviet development of atomic weapons, there wasn’t a large time period in which leaders of the U.S., Britain or France were likely to say, ‘Hey, that went pretty well in 1917, why don’t we do that?’ [And momentarily setting aside Archangel.]
Hence the decision to in part make U.S. attacks on 3rd world governments into proxy wars with the Soviets, and to help launch a fundamentalist Islamic warlord drug dealing insurgency against the Soviet-allied Afghan government to more rapidly bleed the continually bleeding USSR.
Little Dreamer
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Oh, kiss my ass!
;)
Did it work?
SGEW
This thread went to strange places.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
I wasn’t addressing the moral or larger historical issues. If you want to get into that territory, then one of the things it points out is that the US intervention on the Western Front in WW1 was a decisive moment in 20th Cen. history. Some historians have argued cogently that Ludendorff’s quasi-dictatorship in Germany was by 1917-18 already proto-fascist in character. If the Germans had won outright in the west in 1918 (absent American reinforcements and given a few more breaks than they actually got in the March-June offensives), or had been able to merely hold off the British and French armies for another several years in the west while consolidating control over Russia in the east, then it isn’t too hard to imagine the First World War ending with an armistice cementing the victory of a German fascist (but not murderously anti-Semitic) govt dominant over all of central and eastern Europe, at just about the time that 20th Cen physics was pointing towards the coming era of atomic energy.
Brachiator
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Oddly enough, what seems to be clear to you is not that clear to me, or to the extent that your views are clear, I don’t particularly agree with them.
Here we largely agree.
Zen Jesus!
celticdragonchick
@Little Dreamer:
To wit:
Just and righteous god. Fuck me with a sharp stick, please.
If you want to put words in my mouth, try to get the right words, otherwise I am compelled to shove them up your ass.
Want to try that statement again? Care to go to any typically progressive Women’s Studies department in any university and see what they think? It won’t be pretty.
Male locker-room bullshit is still bullshit, and anal rape imagery means talking about forcing things up another person’s anal cavity without permission. It is an exclusively male territorial supremacy mode of expression.
I seem to remember a thread here that mocked El Rushbo for talking about being forced to “bend over”…
In any event, your friend introduced the phrases. Take it up with him.
celticdragonchick
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
If you say so. Of course, that automatically makes it right…right?
Does that mean I should then respond by saying I want to rip your head off and shit down your neck while gouging your eyes out and skull fucking you to death with a dildo?
I think not.
I’ve heard numerous variants of those phrases in the Army.
That is not at all germane as to whether they should ever be said in the first place. You seem to miss that point.
Michael D.
How did this turn into a “god” thread?
Mark S.
@Michael D.:
He works in mysterious ways.
celticdragonchick
@Michael D.:
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio threw a temper tantrum because somebody wished aloud that Cheney and company burn in Hell after being Divinely judged.
I rather hope so myself.
mistersnrub
Nixonianism has metastasized into Cheneysim. If it is not irradiated or excised from the body politic then the prognosis is, um, not good.
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
Oh, I see. I’m a woman, but I need a progressive women’s studies department to tell me what is a womanly attitude – NOT!
The term “shove it up your ass” has been around for ages, and it is used to say “I don’t agree with your position” – and it has absolutely nothing to do with anal rape, no matter now much the WATB’s at any progressive women’s studies departments tell you it does.
Here’s another one, I disagree with you completely (and I take this stance as a woman) so go fuck yourself!
celticdragonchick
@mistersnrub:
I’ll say it again:
The evisceration of US History and Civics in high schools will be the death of this country. How in the hell can we expect good results from a democracy when the voters have never been educated in how and why their democracy even functions to begin with?
les
@EconWatcher:
But even Eisenhower warned against letting the commie boogeyman frighten us into what we did get into. It’s pretty clear the military threat from USSR was consistently way overhyped; the cold war scam is the root of our currently spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined; it justified McCarthyism, it was used to silence dissent, it got us Nixon whose pus filled legacies still haunt us. Nobody said Stalin wasn’t a monster, who did immense damage to his own country and killed millions of his own people (and our cold war did nothing to help them); but our response to the “threat” against the US was not particularly sane, and it’s still working out.
celticdragonchick
@Little Dreamer:
Touchy, aren’t we?
Maybe you need some Earl Grey tea and soothing music.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@celticdragonchick:
Ditto that.
The problem is, how do you teach civics when at least 1/3rd of the population has already decided that anything resembling what we would regard as good civics is a vicious attack on their political beliefs?
ETA: and on the other side of the ledger, another 1/3rd or so of the population doesn’t understand or refuses to believe that there is a practical difference between skepticism and cynicism, with lasting consequences?
El Cid
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: No doubt. And it’s possible that had the Social Democrats’ MOD not thought it best to call out the Freikorps — not that there seemed to be a huge surplus of other options, from their governing perspective — to help put down the leftist and Naval anti-war rebellions in Germany, perhaps the ground wouldn’t have been so effectively lain for the “stabbed-in-the-back” dignifying of the nation fascist forces of violence. There are all sorts of ‘what if’ options.
I think I was just emphasizing that few of the most prominent within the U.S. foreign policy establishment after WWII considered it a viable option for the U.S. to invade and overthrow the USSR directly, so although yes, it was ideologically better for the Western struggle for the USSR to collapse, rather than be overthrown, it was in part due to limitations adhered to by the U.S. FPE that this result had to be the most likely conclusion.
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
I think your skin is too thin for this type of activity and in case you haven’t noticed, we do this sort of thing here on BJ.
Lighten up Frances!
By the way, if you want to continue this faulty logic of yours, I’m female and I don’t see the above statement that “shove it up your ass” is a male territorial supremacy mode of expression at all. I think you have listened to far too many feminists telling you that you are a perpetual victim of male domination in this world. While that fact is true, to a point, focusing on it and making it into the demon that these feminists would have you make it into damages the brain and makes life much less enjoyable. We women are not held in chains and forced into sexual submission by men who never allow us to earn a buck. I think your view of the world is very skewed, personally. It must suck to be you. I hear nothing but hatred of the male gender in your statements. Life is too short for that BS.
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
No, I’m just fine, thanks. I don’t need you to decide what I need.
I’m a female who doesn’t agree with your male bashing and sexual victimization. I meant it, go fuck yourself.
geg6
@Little Dreamer:
If there is anything that this particular woman thinks of when she thinks about what some “women’s studies” faculty has to say about anything, it would be “shove it up your ass.”
And that’s directly from a woman who actually fought for women’s rights. And who has no use for the assholes who make up “women’s studies” departments.
celticdragonchick
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
*sigh*
Ya got me on that one. I have no idea, since now everything imaginable has been shoved into that idiotic frakking culture war paradigm.
Tonal Crow
There once was a reprobate troll,
Who wouldn’t stay put in his hole,
But then ‘juice’s denizens,
Took their ‘pie filter’ medicines,
And the troll quit there, body and soul.
SGEW
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Worse yet, there’s the misunderstanding of the difference between cynicism and nihilism. With disastrous consequences.
celticdragonchick
@Little Dreamer:
Try to have a nice day.
El Cid
@les: The U.S. opposition to Stalin was anything but a scam, but much of if not most of the U.S. opposition to 3rd world independence and social democracy and revolutionary movements justified as anti-Soviet / anti-Chinese policies were.
The U.S.’ foreign policies didn’t turn the Guatemalan government from a mildly reformist independence-minded elected government into a sub-fascist, slaughtering hellhole for generations because of Stalin or Mao; nor did the U.S. aid the Belgians in undermining independent leadership of Congo and then back the murderous kleptocrat Mobutu for generations no matter how much they screamed about the meddling of the Chi-Coms.
I do not care if this makes me sound like an insufficiently anti-Stalin leftist to people given to inane thinking.
If anything, the U.S. would have been much, much more successful at anti-Soviet organizing had it supported real independence and reform movements throughout the world than aiming to smash or subvert them in the name of anti-Stalinism.
We should have backed governments like Jacobo Arbenz, not overthrow them for cheap business and ideological interests — imagine the weakness of Soviet encouragements of revolutionary movements throughout Latin America if there had been more positive examples of social democratic reformist governments throughout the hemisphere. This is yet another example of counter-productive pseuso-anti-Stalinism which severely undermined what the U.S. FPE claimed as its aims.
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
My day has been just fine. You’re the one who is introducing sexual victimization into this conversation, not me.
arguingwithsignposts
Wow, only on balloon juice, a thread alternating between 20th century geopolitics/war strategery and semantics about the phrase “shove it up your ass.”
Gotta love it!
Little Dreamer
@geg6:
I saw what you did there, and I liked it.
;)
Heh!
celticdragonchick
There are some male stereotypical male attitudes that I dislike. I don’t apply that to men as a whole, nor would I wish too. The two guys I am getting ready to play Warhammer with downstairs are friends of mine. Since my son is definitially male as well, I wouldn’t really want to dislike him either.
As for female victimization…I saw or became aware of some incredibly fucked up things done to women (including gang rape of a drunk and unconscious female soldier) while I was in the Army.
I acquired my attitudes for a reason.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@SGEW:
There are times when I imagine the rest of the world looking in at the boiling cauldron of fear and insanity that is US politics (and this mind you is taking place in the most powerful country in the world by any measure – economic, conventional military, WMDs) and them thinking “Dear Lord, could you please find a way to relocate those Americans to a different planet, so they can fight amongst themselves without scaring the bejeezus out of the rest of us?”.
les
@El Cid:
I think we’re just semanticizin’ here. Absolutely our actions were real and, if not disastrous, pretty fuckin’ awful for us and a lot of other countries and folks. The scam part was using the Red Menace to justify the neocon, American exceptionalism wet dream. And I notice it didn’t take long for the same assholes to come up with a new existential threat to justify the same behaviors after St. Ronnie tore down The Wall with his own hands. The War on Terror suits the Cheneys et al even better–the USSR could, and did, physicaly fall; terrorism can last for eternity.
les
@arguingwithsignposts:
Wait, I thought the women’s studies dragon said those were the same things?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Little Dreamer:
Yes.
celticdragonchick
@arguingwithsignposts:
We try to please. ;)
celticdragonchick
Off to see my glorious Reiklanders die on a futile treasure hunt in Mordheim. Have fun!
Little Dreamer
@celticdragonchick:
There are situations where women have been mistreated, I’m sure. There are also men who would never mistreat a woman at all. The idea that because you saw some horrible things done to women does not preclude that you can come here and interject sexual victimization as a womanly trait.
It’s a bullshit argument and I called you out on it. It appears you’re happy to oblige me with admitting that you view women as victims in a generalized sense. I don’t (and I am both a woman and a person who has been through some very interesting experiences that you could consider victimizing – I don’t play along with it even under those circumstances). While incidents happen, assigning special victimization rights onto a certain gender does nothing positive to further progress on the topic.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@EconWatcher:
I don’t agree with you. In the 6 plus decades that I have been watching the news, I have seen a lot of monsters go by on the screen. Stalin was just one of many. The idea that the entire world should be shaped around that butthead and his crappy dictatorship was, and is still, just a bunch of hyped crap that was employed by the establishment right in this country to entrench their power and fill their bank accounts. Whatever real threat he posed to us was surely made worse by our overreactions and bellicose posturing.
Pimping Stalin as uberbadguy who justified our nutty Cold War stance is about as realistic as justifying the Iraq war because “the world is better off without Saddam.”
Maybe the world is better off without Saddam,but it is not better off with the situation we created by getting rid of him the way we did, fucking his country and also fucking our own politics at the same time. We got a world with a weakened United States, and a ruined Iraq and empowered Iran, in the bargain. That doesn’t look like “better off” to me.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@celticdragonchick:
No, you constant liar. It just makes it what it is, a common coloful expression that nobody with a speck of mental health takes to mean anything related to “anal rape.”
Are you now going to advance the theory that the use of the term “shove it up your ass” should be eliminated from the language because it can be taken to be some kind of perverted reference to anal rape?
Because quite honestly, that is so ludicrous that I think it would serve you right to go on that crusade and endure the PC-hating crapstorm that you would bring upon yourself.
I urge you to go on that crusade. Start today. Build a new blog and create a theme around the idea. Give it all you got.
Redshirt
So, how ’bout those local sports teams? God likes them, apparently.
Little Dreamer
@Redshirt:
Define “local”. ;)
les
@Redshirt:
You’re not from Kansas City, I take it.
Mark S.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Creating a bunch of puppet states in Eastern Europe was just fine and dandy, wasn’t it? We shouldn’t have been upset at all by that?
Little Dreamer
@les:
Not even close. Ummm, where was I supposed to gain the knowledge that we were talking about KC anyway?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Mark S.:
Creating puppet states in Europe justified the grotesque 40 year Cold War and its hideous arms race and even more hideous policies?
Not to me. Nor did it justify McCarthyism, or the Vietnam war, or the sellout of our national defense to the military-industrial complex, or the obese defense budget, or the saddling of our government and politics with bellicose policies and overblown expenditures on defense and neglect of domestic issues in order to serve a fucked foreign policy, or the election of Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan, or the Contras or the bombing of Cambodia or the stockpiling of nuclear materials or the advance of Duck and Cover in the public schools, or sucking up to monsters like Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran to prop up our warped policies in their region of the world, or the zillion other stupid and destructive things we did in response to the big hairy “threat.”
Mark S.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I’m not defending everything that was done in the name of combating Communism. I’m objecting to the characterization of Stalin as nothing more than a petty tyrant who posed as little threat to American interests as Saddam Hussein.
les
@Little Dreamer:
My reply was to Redshirt; s/he was talking about god’s love for local sports teams; if god loves the KC Royals and Chiefs, s/he is indulging in (pretty typical) inscrutability. No intent or expectation that you or anyone would gain any knowledge; sorry for the confusion.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Mark S.:
I never mentioned Stalin. Or any other dictator. I was talking in rather broad terms about the Cold War as a tool of manipulation of the American Public and our politics and policies.
When I think Cold War, I think “Gulf of Tonkin” and Unitary Executive, and abandonment of the constitutional declaration of war, and I wonder if we didn’t fuck the American Experiment badly enough that we can’t fix it. Because the jury on that is still out unless I am missing something.
Mark S.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Bullshit.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Mark S.
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying. A lot of bullshit did get justified in the name of fighting Communism, just as a lot of bullshit is being justified in the name of fighting terrorism. I just don’t think minimizing Stalin is necessary to make your point.
deadrody
Hey, just wanted to point something out to you retards.
Equating the outing of SEVEN lawyers for something they volunteered to do with “McCarthyism” and that sorry episode in our nation’s history is the very essence of demagoguery.
Your almost the equivalent of a parody of the lunatic fringe left.
KenInPhilly
I propose hoisting these idiots upon their own petards. Given the powers of the unitary executive, as espoused and advocated by these troglodytes, the POTUS should round them up from the comfort of their beds and ship them off to Guantanamo. His justification: oh wait, according to them he doesn’t need one during a time of war. However, he could make the argument they are a threat to the very foundation of liberty and freedom that this country fought for in our most important war: the one against a particular unitary executive in Britain.
brantl
Deadrody, you’re one dumb f*ck, Bill, you need to get your head out of your ass. Did you hear, Bill, about how a cheating defense contractor turned over some whistleblower employees to the military to hold, and torture? THEY WERE AMERICAN CITIZENS. So, once you start torturing “brown” people, what’s to stop you from torturing people that have gotten a tan? You shitsucker.
El Cid
@deadrody: Actually, alleging that lawyers who fulfill the need in this nation to serve as defense lawyers in an oppositional court system are potentially treasonous allies of Al Qa’ida is pretty McCarthyite.
What, did the commercial need to have Andy McCarthy stand up and allege to be holding a list of several dozen Al Qa’ida-allied lawyers serving at the behest of the DOJ?