Making Baby Jesus Cry

Originally posted by baltassoc
Name a non-despot with polical prisoners.

Uh, W? Or do you think he is a despot?

[Spanky]

How many people on this board agree with dtb
that:

1) Castro is not a despot

2) He is the legitimate leader of Cuba.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Name a non-despot with polical prisoners.

Well, I think that despots who hold prisoners for political reasons don't really call them political prisoners -- they say that they are imprisoned because they pose a threat to their country/government. And we seem to have imprisoned people pretty much indefinitely without a trial or whatever because we say (or, someone somewhere in our gov't says) they pose a threat to the country/government.

However, we are keeping them outside of our country, and maybe that's a distinction that makes a difference to you.

No, I don't think that what we are doing is as bad as what many we characterize as despots do (note -- no one characterizes themselves as a despot, it's a name bestowed by others. kinda like the term political prisoner -- the imprisoner isn't going to call the prisoner that). I was really just finding it amusing that the people that we hold whom some might characterize as political prisoners are held in part in Cuba, which is the country under discussion, etc.

Originally posted by Gattigap
[ncs, I love ya and all, but please ix-nay on the arning-way. I'm actually waiting with some anticipation to hearing an anecdote that underpins this element of the Spanky Unified Theory. My guess is that his views on the Cuban people's warm embrace of an invasion derives from the time that a jarhead friend kicks the shit out of some Cuban policia defending Castro in a bar in Havana, subsequently being mobbed by delighted and thankful locals.]

Whoa. I jsut figured it out. THe simple prose, the world travels, the rich old man who no woman can tame. He is Ernest Hemingway reincarnated!

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
He is the one who threw the term out there, not I. Would you like a link to the conversation?

Spanky said "Social Cripple"? This Spanky and Spanky Show SPanky are like Apples and Oranges.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
Spanky said "Social Cripple"? This Spanky and Spanky Show SPanky are like Apples and Oranges.

Can you really trust someone who is so different in two contexts which are not really all that different from each other? I ask you.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
Spanky said "Social Cripple"? This Spanky and Spanky Show SPanky are like Apples and Oranges.

Here you go: http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...893#post166893

His social cripple post is number 2156 in that thread. The conversation between us started at post 2143 in that thread.

He is equally ernest in the PB, but in more of an assholish manner. As demonstrated with dtb today.

ETA - 2163 is a doozy too. Good times.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Well, I think that despots who hold prisoners for political reasons don't really call them political prisoners -- they say that they are imprisoned because they pose a threat to their country/government. And we seem to have imprisoned people pretty much indefinitely without a trial or whatever because we say (or, someone somewhere in our gov't says) they pose a threat to the country/government.

I agree the current administration has political prisoners for which it responsible, and the fact they are kept on the tip of Cuba is really irrelevant to me. In other words, I think Bush is despotic.

I think there could be an argument that Thatcher was not a despot, though.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I agree the current administration has political prisoners for which it responsible, and the fact they are kept on the tip of Cuba is really irrelevant to me. In other words, I think Bush is despotic.

I think there could be an argument that Thatcher was not a despot, though.

Oh gotcha. I thought you were coming from the other direction.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Spanky
How many people on this board agree with dtb
that:

1) Castro is not a despot

2) He is the legitimate leader of Cuba.

I've never been to Cuba, and have paid scant attention to Castro with the exception of the fun historical trivia (e.g., CIA assassination attempts) and the flotsam and jetsam of current events (e.g., Penske's orgiastic episode known as "Elian.")

In the absence of being educated otherwise, I am inclined to think of him as a depot (though a tin-pot despot) and one who the majority of Cubans probably would not support if given a full, fair and free election to so choose. We also have the advantage of Casto not having a Soviet sponsor these days, though to be fair I would believe that he has some degree of political and moral support from various countries who enjoy seeing someone tell America to go fuck itself.

Regardless, I have watched with considerable amusement your enthusiastic advocacy of kicking over this particular popsicle stand, based largely on humanitarian concerns that almost never serve as the true leading edge justifying a war, and based also upon a willful ignorance of both any military, economic or political restraints on our marching to Havana, and of our current little nation-building experience in Iraq.

No doubt we're learning valuable lessons in an operational sense, but the biggest lesson at the moment is that (a) we can't accurately predict resistance or insurgency, or their strength and adaptability, for shit, (b) we have a really hard time rebuilding a country with what everyone except occupants of the WH consider a substandard number of troops, and (c) we don't have any troops to spare for either invasion or occupation.

All of the above suggests to me that the Unified Theory shouldn't be pursued with quite the zest that we have since, oh, 2003. Your enthusiasm for it notwithstanding our real world restraints is touching, but smacks of Ivory Tower idealism that I thought conservatives were supposed to hold in disdain.

Gattigap

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Oh gotcha. I thought you were coming from the other direction.

You go away for six months and nobody remembers whether you're a radical or a reactionary. Hrmph. I think I'm insulted.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Here you go: http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...893#post166893

His social cripple post is number 2156 in that thread. The conversation between us started at post 2143 in that thread.

He is equally ernest in the PB, but in more of an assholish manner. As demonstrated with dtb today.

ETA - 2163 is a doozy too. Good times.

I am particularly proud of those posts. The fact that you can find those posts so quickly, and that you are still thinking about them, just reinforces my initial inclination that all is not well in NCS land.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by baltassoc
You go away for six months and nobody remembers whether you're a radical or a reactionary. Hrmph. I think I'm insulted.

Send Fringey an engraved vibrator, and any potential political misunderstandings may melt away.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by baltassoc
You go away for six months and nobody remembers whether you're a radical or a reactionary. Hrmph. I think I'm insulted.

Is your avatar Beaker?

Originally posted by Not Bob
Castro was reportedly quite a pitcher back in the day -- if the scouts had seen him throw, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and he would still be up at Cooperstown today, boring Ryne Sandberg with a pedantic hours-long lecture on how he struck out Willie Mays four times in the '62 Series.

Speaking of Ryne Sandberg, does his wife still hold the record for most players from the dugout in her nappy dugout? Palmeiro, Martinez and one guy I can't remember was quite a triple play.