Politics As Usual

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
Be careful what you wish for, Hank strikes me as a man weak of the flesh.

yes, he is a polygamist.

[Gin Rummy]

Originally posted by Not Me
yes, as I suspected, you are mocking religion. Keep up the good work!!!!

While I admire your work here for the righteous cause of liberty, your post saddens me to the epiphany that I am but one lone voice of righteousness posting on the desolate wilderness of the internet to convince the heathaness masses to make straight for the American way.

Like Hannity amidst a forest of Colmes.

[Gin Rummy]

Originally posted by Not Me
yes, he is a polygamist.

What does that mean, two-hands?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
Where do you get this humiliation=torture?

The Convention on the Prevention of Torture defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind..."

The Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners spefically prohibits "humiliating and degrading treatment."

Given this, your suggestion that anything short of rape or murder does not violate the Geneva Convention is dead wrong. Equally dead wrong is your psycho-brethren's argument that the Geneva Convention does not apply here because the prisoners in Abu Ghraib are "illegal combatants." The Bush Administration and the US military have specifically rejected this contention as to all persons captured in Iraq, regardless of whether they were uniformed or non-uniformed.

Grinning over a dead body is not a violation of the GC, I believe. Making the body dead in the first place is. Photographing yourself with your victim tends to suggest that you did not believe that you were violating orders.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
What does that mean, two-hands?

I hate to say it -- but POTM!

That just tickled me.

S_A_M

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
Like Hannity amidst a forest of Colmes.

Hannity is fat.

[confidential to bilmore]You aren't fooling me with this sock[/confidential to bilmore]

[Gin Rummy]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
So baltassoc's clown fears may be valid? I'm sorry for mocking.

Not surprisingly, look who has the perverted child molesting (of course in some cultures having sex with children is okay and after all morality is relative) clown vote locked up:

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
What does that mean, two-hands?

No. Polygamist means he is denied equal protection under the law in Massachusetts, unlike if he were a gay. Ty says that is OK, Club says it is not OK. Go figure.

It is confusing, I know. Just like Club saying it is bad for 13 year olds to be prostitutes if they do it for food and Ty saying it is OK for the UN "peace keepers" to fuck 13 year old rape victims in exchange for cake. Lends new meaning to the phrase "Let them eat cake!" now doesn't it?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
If you are going to continue take attribute ridiculous positions to me, it's no longer worth having this discussion.

Answer me this, when you read the headlines on the front page of the NYT, does it say "X number of troops engaged in bad acts in Iraq" or does it say "the US engaged in bad acts in Iraq."

I don't know; I tend to read more than the headlines.

To be fair, it is Not Me more than you who has been suggesting that the prison abuses were just the work of a few bad apples. It was the GOP party line for a little while, but I don't particularly recall that you were espousing it.

[Gin Rummy]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Blaming America first and foremost for defending itself in a war it didn't start yada yada yada

I am reminded of the lyrics to a song, click for yourself and see a description of the face of the fanatic enemy who you are defending.

When they kick in your front door, how you gonna come, with your hands on the Geneva Convention or on the trigger of a gun.....

And then take a look at what that face looks like when it engages in torture and humiliation-not quite panties on the head now is it?

http://prophetofdoom.net/images/iraq033104c.jpg http://prophetofdoom.net/images/iraq033104b.jpg
http://prophetofdoom.net/images/iraq040104e.jpg
(spree by MR: pics of burned corpses and dead people hanging from a bridge)

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
(of course in some cultures having sex with children is okay and after all morality is relative)

It is OK with the UN, too.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gin Rummy
And then take a look at what that face looks like when it engages in torture and humiliation-not quite panties on the head now is it?

Here is another example of torture for those of you who throw that word around so carelessly:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/...2-jumper_x.htm

Can you even imagine what it would be like to throw yourself out the window of a skyscraper rather than be burned alive? Now that is torture.

http://images.usatoday.com/news/sept...-02-jumper.jpg

[Tyrone Slothrop]

If you're bothered by the pictures above, please let me know by PM. They're on the borderline of stuff that I think is troubling enough to replace with a link. As Diane Keaton will recall, there were some photos out of Fallujah that squicked me out enough that I replaced them with links. These are getting close for me, but I don't want to take them down if I'm touchier than everyone else.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If you're bothered by the pictures above, please let me know by PM. They're on the borderline of stuff that I think is troubling enough to replace with a link. As Diane Keaton will recall, there were some photos out of Fallujah that squicked me out enough that I replaced them with links. These are getting close for me, but I don't want to take them down if I'm touchier than everyone else.

OMG!!! You are such a fucking asshole and you are proving everything I always have thought about you was right!!! We have posted nothing but the truth about the enemies of America. Yet you want to censor that.

Do you see now why those of you who call the panties on the head torture are so out to lunch? Can you even look at these photos of true torture? They are sickening. Now compare them to the pictures of Abu Ghraib.

Why can Ty allow photos of US soldiers smiling over dead Iraqis but not Iraqis smiling over dead bodies of Americans? Why, Ty, why?

No need to answer. I know why.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Are you being purposely dense? My position on prostitution is that it should be legal. If find it morally wrong (on the part of the John), however, if the woman is forced to act as a prostitute in order to avoid death or similar circumstances. A poor woman in America can get a job at McDonalds. If she chooses to forgo that job and go into prostitution instead, it should be legal and I do not have a moral problem with it.

And who is coercing these women to act as prostitutes? Hint: Not the UN. What you have in the Congo is the sort of thing libertarian's rhapsodize about: Government has been down-sized to the point of non-existence. Not coincidentally, these women have been brutalized by their fellow countrymen. In this lousy situation, which is not the fault of the UN, they are surviving by prostituting themselves to the UN peacekeepers. I have nothing good to say about the UN peacekeepers here, as I've already said, but complaining about them while ignoring (a) the other problems, and (b) the fact that the UN is the only institution that's trying to help these people seems to me to lack a certain sense of proportion, especially when (c) you don't seem to have anything in mind to help these women -- certainly bashing the UN for this is not going to benefit that mission.

As for all the good PR you say the UN gets, I had no idea there were peacekeepers in the Congo until I saw this story.

I have already stated my positions on funding. If you want to continue to twist my position, I can't do anyting about that.

Your position is simple. On the margin, not one more dollar to pay for food for starving prostitutes in Africa. Someone else is going to have to give up something (e.g., the NEA) to pay for any more relief. What's the confusion?

What market forces are being interferred with? Oh, you mean those interferrences caused by the tyranical governments of these countries? This is not the case of a market failure. It is the absense of true markets that are failing these countries.

You have a true market in the Congo. I bet those women are paying nothing in taxes.

If your point is that a market can't exist without some form of government regulation, I quite agree, but once we admit that this is true then libertarianism stops being about grand principles and starts being about empirical questions.


I have done nothing of the sort. My point all along has been that the acts in Iraq are bad and these acts are bad, but that these acts won't get the coverage they are due because they were done under UN rather than US cover. [/QUOTE]