Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
How quickly you pass from defending torture to what interests you even more, attacking the left.

I'll back you up on this when you develop an even-handed view and stop beating this torture story to death. Yeh, we know, Ty - the US is torturing people.

Here's a tip - It isn't a central issue in the debate over anything we're doing in the world. It's small issue liberals have glommed onto so they can give themselves a moral pedestal. It's a lot like the dumbass liberals who immediately after 9/11 started crying loudest about how we had to be careful not to become prejudiced toward foreigners.

No. Shit. Those points are implied and obvious. I don't like the torture we're using, but I'm not losing sleep over it. Nor am I cynically using it to give me platform moral gravitas the way so many liberals have.

It's a secondary issue. When you treat it with the limited attention it deserves and stop milking it, I'm sure Slave will play nice.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'll back you up on this when you develop an even-handed view and stop beating this torture story to death. Yeh, we know, Ty - the US is torturing people.

Here's a tip - It isn't a central issue in the debate over anything we're doing in the world.

Ah, but that's where you are wrong, cynical sebby with the cash register heart. We are different, and even if we haven't always lived up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we've always tried to. Or we at least had the decency to pretend to.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Ah, but that's where you are wrong, cynical sebby with the cash register heart. We are different, and even if we haven't always lived up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we've always tried to. Or we at least had the decency to pretend to.

You're killing me, you know that... I'd say you found a weak spot, but I've what - 15, 16 Achilles Heels? I have some principles, goddammit.

You're right that we do need to follow those documents, and I won't parse them to suggest some verbiage allows what we're doing, even if it did (I also won't parse them because Ty will, and I'm lazy). I think that's a lousy argument. I think the spirit of those documents, read in total, supported a lot of things we find inhuman these days (how many of the authors kept slaves?) and don't find very persuasive the suggestion they ban outright the waterboarding of an enemy combatant who aims to kill American civilians. Or waterboarding a suspect we have decent reason to believe might be involved in such acts. There's no way I can buy into that notion, and any plain language you could offer from a founder suggesting the proper way to handle enemy combatants would be woefully outdated and dealing with a style of war seen as comical since the mid-19th century.

I think the torture thing is the spot where considerations of law crumble in the face of the need to survive and succeed against an enemy. It's not right, but neither is any killing for benefit of your country over someone else. If we're going to kill a lot of people to protect ourselves, we might as well do it full bore and be over with it.

BUT, I am with you on feeling troubled that some of Bush's attitude toward foreign combatants' rights could trickle into domestic policy. So far, however, based in the John Walker Lind case, it seems the proper safeguards are working. If he's only doing 20 yrs, we're still protecting our own liberties sufficiently.

[SlaveNoMore]

by Not Bob
Ah, but that's where you are wrong, cynical sebby with the cash register heart. We are different, and even if we haven't always lived up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we've always tried to. Or we at least had the decency to pretend to.

Who are "we"?

The "we" that allow former Klansmen to be named "the heart and soul of the party"?

the "we" that elect a crazy Nation of Islam fanatic to publicly align himself with the 9/11 "Truthers" and compare the WTC bombing to the Reichstag?

The "we" that would fight tooth and nail (Bush, watch your base disappear) for amnesty - for illegals crawling over the wall?

The "we" that usurped the power of the Senate "filibuster", and now whines and complains that the GOP is using this means as a supermajority?

That "we" cannot control the media, so as much as we try to smile a Katie or another simp, or put a Franken on the airwaves, no one really cares to watch/listen to us.

---

I think I speak for most of "my" people here - pick a fiscally conservative, un-PC and militant (re foreign policy) candidate for the DNC 2008 election, and I honestly think you might get Sebby's, Club's, Less's, Bilmore's, Hank's, Temp Sock's, Penske's, Spanky's and MY vote.

You know that none of us stand by the religious wing of our party.

[And honestly, I might start debating GGG again on how his wannabe liberal faith jibes with his strict Catholism, since Atticus left and stopped busting balls]

So - here's the rub.

Where do you really want to go? A strong centrist leader like Rudy, or some leftist, defeatist simp like Hillary or Obama?

PS- People in NY should consider this equation even stronger.

[SlaveNoMore]

I'm actually watching this nonsense (and getting yelled out to go to bed by Darcy- loudly)

Anyway, here are my thoughts:

1) Cantwell (D) is far more of a conservative on foreign policy than the woman who immediately followed her Snowe (Rino), who is not only a disgrace to the GOP, but to the Senate as a whole. Her speech bordered on the odious.

2) I've always hated McCain (R) as an ostensible party leader, but as a Senator on international policy, he is a gem. And on that platform, he drops the "persona" and goes for it. And I love that.

3) After Jim Sessions (R) virulent speeches against the Shamesty law, and after his speech tonight (pro US, wary Iraqi gov't) I'm ready to cut a check.* Why can't one of our "populist" GOP leaders [see Rudy, Mitt, Fred] speak this plainly on F and D policy?

*Ty or GGG sock - Please send me a link why he's a southern racist, crook, thief, etc.?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Why the radical environmental movement will never be take seriously:

Hummer vandalized

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Who are "we"?

The "we" that allow former Klansmen to be named "the heart and soul of the party"?

the "we" that elect a crazy Nation of Islam fanatic to publicly align himself with the 9/11 "Truthers" and compare the WTC bombing to the Reichstag?

The "we" that would fight tooth and nail (Bush, watch your base disappear) for amnesty - for illegals crawling over the wall?

The "we" that usurped the power of the Senate "filibuster", and now whines and complains that the GOP is using this means as a supermajority?

That "we" cannot control the media, so as much as we try to smile a Katie or another simp, or put a Franken on the airwaves, no one really cares to watch/listen to us.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I think he's talking about the "we" who have tired of this war, with all the attendant double talk and all the little tragedies that litter not just the front page each day, but almost every page of those first two sections. As well as the "we" who never bought into the war to begin with.

As for the remaining handful (you, Penske, Hank and whatever socks you can muster) who just like to complain about straw men, whether by the name of McGovern, Kennedy or Dean, and bitch and whine endlessly, who knows what "they" really think. But you hope they're not too far from Sebby's position.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Why the radical environmental movement will never be take seriously:

Hummer vandalized

He ought to use the insurance money to make a down payment on a real truck.

Fucking munghead... Nobody who's ever owned a real truck would buy one of those overpriced pieces of shit.

As a person who's driven trucks his whole life, there is nothing I find more embarrassing than a Hummer H2. It's like wearing a great big "Tool" sign around your neck.

ETA: I was with a buddy this weekend who just bought a Lexus GS 450 hybrid. We got a little screwed up and took it for a jaunt through the woods. Amazing car. About a mile into the ride I said "Hey, I didn't know you were an environmental guy." He looked at me and said "What? I bought it because it's really fucking fast. The kick when the electric motor gives way to the gas engine is huge, and it's hell on the highway." There are good people in this country who still do things for all the right reasons... I wanted to hug him for a second.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'll back you up on this when you develop an even-handed view and stop beating this torture story to death. Yeh, we know, Ty - the US is torturing people.

Here's a tip - It isn't a central issue in the debate over anything we're doing in the world. It's small issue liberals have glommed onto so they can give themselves a moral pedestal. It's a lot like the dumbass liberals who immediately after 9/11 started crying loudest about how we had to be careful not to become prejudiced toward foreigners.

No. Shit. Those points are implied and obvious. I don't like the torture we're using, but I'm not losing sleep over it. Nor am I cynically using it to give me platform moral gravitas the way so many liberals have.

It's a secondary issue. When you treat it with the limited attention it deserves and stop milking it, I'm sure Slave will play nice.

It really offends me.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I'm actually watching this nonsense (and getting yelled out to go to bed by Darcy- loudly)

Maybe if she said "come to bed" rather than "go to bed"? It would save us all a lot of grief.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Why the radical environmental movement will never be taken seriously:

Hummer vandalized

Au contraire -- you just turned two masked guys vandalizing a car into "the radical environmental movement."

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Au contraire -- you just turned two masked guys vandalizing a car into "the radical environmental movement."

It's time to send the neighbors to Gitmo for a little "conversation".

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Au contraire -- you just turned two masked guys vandalizing a car into "the radical environmental movement."

Yes. I'm sure they are actually two Cheney thugs who were told to make it look like radical environmentalists by scratching "for the environ[ment]" into the side of the car.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
It's time to send the neighbors to Gitmo for a little "conversation".

And lock them in a cell with some minks?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It really offends me.

Fine. Then couch your posts on it in those terms.

It's when you suggest that it eclipses or is on par with all the other issues regarding our foreign policy that you lose me.

Exploiting it for moral high ground and trying to make it more than it is in the bigger picture won't make your desire to see it on the front page every day a self fulfilling prophecy. You'll just come off like a person with limited big picture arguments trying to win the debate by hammering one little hot button issue.

You realize that's exactly what Bill O'Reilly does, don't you? He never speaks generally. He grabs one little thing where he can take the moral pedestal and rams it down his opponent's throat over and over.

Engage Slave on the totality of our foreign policy. You might even get me as an ally in that debate.