Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Both. Ever have a real nasty case where its hard to get what you need, so you ask for something unreasonable and just become a real son of a bitch about things, knowing that if you make a forceful enough demand for 10, you'll get the 7 you need? Although on many levels, I loathe that behavior, I also respect the determination of such bastards. Assad didn't have to clear cut the entire neighborhood, but he knew if he didn't, he was fucked down the road. I am also comfortable with clear-cutting religious fanatics because they do nothing to move humanity forward. If we had no religion, we might not have the nonsense we have today. Organized religion speaks to man's fear of death. Nothing more, nothing less. Its a primordial defense mechanism - a conscious self-fooling. I believe in a God on the basis that something had to create the world. I don't believe in organized religion, or that there's any way to "talk" with him. My theory in that regard is just as disprovable as the "faith" these lunatics tout, but at least mine is grounded in rational thought, rather than fables. The Koran is not rational thought, and I don't respect anyone who'd believe it whole hog. Such a person should offend all rational thinking men. We're not losing any Nobel prize winners or progressive future leaders when we bulldoze a slum packed with madrasses. I say good riddance, and while I couldn't do it myself, I respect Assad's wise decision to do so. He nailed the cancer early and it hasn't been back. Nobody else has had such success.

Nothing makes a better argument than success. Assad was successful. Them's just facts.

I.e., the ends justify being mean, or, extremism in the defense of moderation is no vice.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I haven't seen it reported in print media yet, but NPR did a story today on Iraqi Gen. Amir Saadi's continued detention. [spree: see last audio link, bottom of page]

According to the story, al Saadi was the general responsible for telling the world in the months headed up to GWII that Iraq had not stockpiles of WMD.

Though events would seem to have played out in his favor, he was placed on the deck of cards, arrested, and has remained in detention since, even though his usefulness in detailing the location of hidden WMDs has probably come and gone.

The story details, among other things, that:

• The US interrogators have told him that "interrogations are over" for him;
• The US has no reason to detain him; even Bremer recommended that al Saadi be released;
• as a reflection of his (lack of) importance, al Saadi was not included on the list of prisioners that the Iraqi government had to officially charge in order to justify their continued imprisonment;
• al Saadi has been told that he won't be released before the elections because his release would be fodder for the Democrats; in any event
• The US official position is that al Saadi remains detained because he's a "security risk." No explanation forthcoming of how that's so

Let's hope that we can articulate a specific reason that this Iraqi general needs to be held in a cell for several more months, after all other traditional reasons (like interrogations) have expired, because the reason of keeping down Kerry's "bump" really sucks ass.

Gattigap

I heard that too, and was amazed. Fucking appalling. Its unreal. The monkee in charge of his current detention could only offer "security risk" as an explanation?

Fuck Bush. God, I wish somebody real would run.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I.e., the ends justify being mean, or, extremism in the defense of moderation is no vice.

We have a zero sum game on our hands. The moral textbook gets a little thinner in theose circumstances.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
We have a zero sum game on our hands. The moral textbook gets a little thinner in theose circumstances.

Come on, sebby, that's just not true. Muslims are not animals operating by instinct. People turn to radical Islam, and can turn away from it. We win the war by winning the ideological struggle, not by killing them all. Trying only to kill them, and using brutal force, plays into their hands. President Bush, to his credit, kinda gets this, but only sometimes, and the guy can't execute.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Pinochet was a Pisco Sour drinking weenie.

Commies are little girls.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Come on, sebby, that's just not true. Muslims are not animals operating by instinct. People turn to radical Islam, and can turn away from it. We win the war by winning the ideological struggle, not by killing them all. Trying only to kill them, and using brutal force, plays into their hands. President Bush, to his credit, kinda gets this, but only sometimes, and the guy can't execute.

Hey, a dialogue would be great, but that ain't going to happen. The only thing that would stop the radicals in the short term would be a very sudden influx of money and jobs, which tend to cause people to forget religious fanaticism. But the lack of eductaion and work and societal infrastructure necessary to get the radicals from tribal to modern thinking obver any period less than 50 years just isn't there. What are we to do? Experiment with trying undertsand these people while they try their damndest to kill us? I agree that understanding is necessary, but we have to be rather brutal, to make their lifestyle less attractive to younger people who may convert. A kid may think twice about joining any movement where its adherenets tend to die early and brutally.

You're arguing with people from the 13th century.

* Ahem, you wrongly accused me of calling ALL muslims brutish animals. Again, you know damn well that's not my position. Try to be more careful. I may advocate violence toward religious nuts, but I'm no bigot toward reasonable Muslims. They're just caught up in a shit storm on these issue like the rest of us.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Ahem, you wrongly accused me of calling ALL muslims brutish animals. Again, you know damn well that's not my position. Try to be more careful.

You must be new here.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Hey, a dialogue would be great, but that ain't going to happen.

Unclear who we're supposed to be killing in the meantime.

You're arguing with people from the 13th century.

I wish I could find a link to someone who said this better than me, but fundamentalism is -- counterintuitively -- a reaction to modern times, not a symptom of people living in the past. Look at what Osama does -- they know modern technology and have no problem using it against us.

* Ahem, you wrongly accused me of calling ALL muslims brutish animals. Again, you know damn well that's not my position. Try to be more careful. I may advocate violence toward religious nuts, but I'm no bigot toward reasonable Muslims. They're just caught up in a shit storm on these issue like the rest of us.

I know that you mean better than what you seemed to be implying.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

For Club:



Explanation:

• So where do the Democratic nominees really fit along the left-right spectrum? Well, you get a different answer if your calculations are based on nearly all votes cast by the candidates in their Senate careers. Using this measure, we have arrayed Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards from left to right in the above figure based on their voting history in the Senate. For comparison's sake, we also have included Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, John McCain of Arizona, and the parties' median senators. We even have scores for President Bush (from his announced positions on roll call votes while president) and Vice President Dick Cheney (based on the votes he cast when he represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives from 1979 through 1988).
  
  Assertions that the Democrats' presumptive nominees are extreme liberals fall flat. True, Mr. Kerry's voting history places him to the left of today's median Senate Democrat (Tom Daschle of South Dakota). But he is closer to the center of the Democratic Party than he is to the most liberal senators, including Mr. Kennedy. John Edwards falls just to the right of the median Democrat. In fact, he is nearly indistinguishable from Mr. Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000.
  
  On the other side of the partisan divide, Mr. Bush - like Mr. Kerry - is more extreme than his party's median senator (Richard Shelby of Alabama). He is also noticeably more conservative than his primary challenger in 2000, John McCain. So any assertion that the Democratic candidates are out of the mainstream might easily be applied to the Republicans as well. In fact, if any of the four candidates on the national party tickets this year is out of the mainstream, it is Mr. Cheney, who in his last full term in the House was on the right flank of roughly 90 percent of his Republican colleagues.

link

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
For Club:

Jesus. All that ample money and nifty technology at their fingertips, and their graphic looks like it was drawn by an intern with a ruler and a worn-down No.2 pencil.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I wish I could find a link to someone who said this better than me, but fundamentalism is -- counterintuitively -- a reaction to modern times, not a symptom of people living in the past. Look at what Osama does -- they know modern technology and have no problem using it against us.

Martin Marty has said "people who turn to fundamentalism are people who cannot tolerate paradox, contradiction, ambiguity, and choice." In a sense, the more contact you have with media, consumer markets, and modern life, the more likely you are to develop the "skill" (if that's the right term) to accomodate these things. Modernity gives fundamentalism something to reject.

The common thread to all fundamentalism (Christian, Islamic, Jewish or even non-Abrahamic) is the confluence of the beliefs that (1) God is in the business of punishing humankind for its transgressions; and (2) human history has taken a turn for the worse, or, at least, there was a Golden Age in which things were much better for God and man because we were doing what God wants. "Radical nostalgia" is one way to think about fundamentalism.

In the case of Christian fundamentalism, some of it has a anti-technological component (the Amish, for example) but far more often it does not (televangelists, for example).

However, it is a mistake to think that modernization is a cure for fundamentalism. Fundamentalists will always seek cultural or geographical enclaves.

I don't fear fundamentalism; I fear people who are unafraid of killing or dying. The way to solve that problem is to make sure that even within the context of our enemies' camps, they have something to live for that makes volunteering for death a bad option.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Jesus. All that ample money and nifty technology at their fingertips, and their graphic looks like it was drawn by an intern with a ruler and a worn-down No.2 pencil.

The computer technology that creates that effect is very, very expensive.

[Not Me]

I can't wait to watch Gore give his speech.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop

We even have scores for President Bush (from his announced positions on roll call votes while president) and Vice President Dick Cheney (based on the votes he cast when he represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives from 1979 through 1988).

So they use current voting history for everyone, but in the case of Cheney - they ignore his announced positions on roll call votes while vice-president and votes in the Senate - and instead use his votes as a lower-ranking Rep from 17-25 years ago?

This is such an obvious attempt to push the one side further out to the right and push Bush out towards it. Laughable.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So they use current voting history for everyone, but in the case of Cheney - they ignore his announced positions on roll call votes while vice-president and votes in the Senate - and instead use his votes as a lower-ranking Rep from 17-25 years ago?

This is such an obvious attempt to push the one side further out to the right and push Bush out towards it. Laughable.

I was just about to edit my earlier post to note that Nick Confessore -- not a conservative -- calls this "the most flawed piece of analysis I've seen this year." "As far as I can tell, the op-ed communicates literally no useful information on how "liberal" or "conservative" any of these politicians are."

But the graphics were cool.