Politics As Usual

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski

Fake?

"Frenchmen are smelly, cowardly, and venal" started out as a bipartisan joke. Now it has become some sort of conservative shibboleth --- a religious belief that is beyond questioning, lest we offend the sincerely held beliefs of its adherents.

I think the French=bad thing will be regarded in the distant future as an embarrassing cultural artifact, and will be taught in schools as an excellent illustration of confirmation bias. YKmMV.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
And where local residents joked that he got what he deserved for trying to steal the chain.

And where local residents sat on a jury that convicted and gave the death penalty to the criminals.

Meanwhile, how many whites were killed by blacks that same year because they were white yet we never heard about it in the news? More than one. Fox did a piece on it. There were some whites killed by a gang of blacks in south carolina or somewhere and the blacks were screaming racial epithets at the whites while they beat them to death. For some strange reason (LOL!) the NYT just missed that story. There were other cases, too, but the liberal press refuses to report these cases.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you are so stupid its funny.

Undoubtedly that's why I don't have the honor of practicing in Detroit, America's premier city.

You have now required me to post everytime there is another anti-Jewish attack.

Fine. And I'll post every anti-Jewish attack in the US. Who do you think will win?

And what will it prove? No one is denying that anti-semitism is a problem in France -- least of all the French government. The notion that such attacks by militant muslim youths support an indictment of the country or government overall is the idiotic thing.

By the way numbskull, semites include arabs, so these attackers aren't anti-semetic.

Well thank you so much for educating me, shit-for-brains. Since I invented the use of "anti-Semitic" to characterize attacks on Jews, I'll just go back a few dozen decades to correct all the people who followed my lead on that.

But I thought you thought arabs were just "towelheads". What's changed?

That the French government may want to downplay, (No tape? Atticus, would you google up the tape of the killing of Medgar Evans please) the attack is understandable. To the extent it is false, Chirac is an idiot. He went on National TV to talk about it. You of course, think we should listen to that idiot in tailoring uS foreign Policy.

So if it happened the French are lying, and if it didn't then Chirac is an idiot for condemning it? Brilliant.

There are video monitors in the train station where the attack supposedly happened. The victim claimed that her attackers ran out of the train, after assaulting her in front of multiple witnesses. Yet there is no video evidence of anyone fitting her description running from the station. And there are no witnesses.

Confronted with this, you respond "Medgar Evars." When you take your head out of your ass, do you wipe?

As for Chirac, he did the right and responsible thing by condemning the attack when he heard of it. Would you have been supportive if he had said "Well, I haven't seen all the evidence so first I'd like to check out her story"?? Give me a fucking break.

Rock and a hard place on this one Sidd.

Yes, that is an apt description of whatever is in your head. Once all the shit is removed.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
When it happens in Europe, a tight rope is walked in the name of not wanting to enflame the muslim constituencies.

That is clearly not what happened here. You should read about the reaction to the story of the subway attack.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

More on the Senate Report and Wilson. Unfogged notes that the Senate Report went out of its way to trash him, notwithstanding the lack of relevance to the issues in front of it, and also wonders everyone talks about the prosecution's burdens under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and ignores the Espionage Act, which would seem to be easier claim to bring here.

eta: It's hard to follow the Senate Report with all the redactions, but, contra what Slave has posted and I thought I agreed with, Senator Roberts acknowledges that people differ about whether Wilson was suggested by his wife:

• Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's public statements were based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador's wife that recommended him for his trip to Niger.

Via that Unfogged post. The facts that leave this open to question apparently have either been redacted or omitted.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
"Frenchmen are smelly, cowardly, and venal" started out as a bipartisan joke. Now it has become some sort of conservative shibboleth --- a religious belief that is beyond questioning, lest we offend the sincerely held beliefs of its adherents.

I think the French=bad thing will be regarded in the distant future as an embarrassing cultural artifact, and will be taught in schools as an excellent illustration of confirmation bias. YKmMV.

I might trade posts with Penske on that level. The post in the thread, however, started out as a comment on a rising tide of violence in France. It was factual and not particularly of the "hate France" variety. That I might have tried to include some colorful phrasing doesn't change the above.

Unless, you want to agree to keep all posts simply factual without the occasional turned-phrase. If you promise to stop hyperbole, i will make a similar commitment.

My most recent post you quote, which I admit is closer to a screed, comes in response to a post that tries to convey France as a light hearted place of safety for the Jews.

My post- seemingly stupid in 100 years? All violence seems so, but it was still necessary given the evil I confronted.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I don't disagree, but give my discussion with Atticus last week, I want to know how his "If your not with us, your against us" approach plays here.

Given that the FMA is doomed to failure, I suppose I'm pretty safe in saying if it passes the Senate by two votes, the Johns will have some 'splainin' to do.

However, my original thesis was that people who vote for a candidate, while crossing their fingers so their votes aren't seen as an endorsement of the candidate's tax/homeless/crime/military/whatever policy, nevertheless bear responsibility for the foreseeable results. I don't think that applies in the same way to not voting when there are others who did. If the FMA passes, you might as well blame the entire Nay-side of the FMA for not being convincing enough --- you're misdirecting the responsibility. An illustration: Only in Slave's world is the minority is responsible for the extreme actions of the majority because they didn't do a good job getting the swing voters in the middle. (It's one of the reasons I'm "responsible" for Ashcroft --- if he'd won the Senate race, he wouldn't be AG. Butterfly effect, you see. Slave's asking Dems to all fall on their swords so Bush won't appoint the GOP nutcases they defeated to cabinet-level positions.)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
My most recent post you quote, which I admit is closer to a screed, comes in response to a post that tries to convey France as a light hearted place of safety for the Jews.

Cite, please.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
However, my original thesis was that people who vote for a candidate, while crossing their fingers so their votes aren't seen as an endorsement of the candidate's tax/homeless/crime/military/whatever policy, nevertheless bear responsibility for the foreseeable results.

This is circular, isn't it? I should vote based upon, at least here, repugnance to the amendment. So I vote Dem. But I find other things the Dems do repugnant. How should I handle that? Not vote at all?

The only way to match your standard is to be a single issue voter focused on the issue for which you've set the standard.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I might trade posts with Penske on that level. The post in the thread, however, started out as a comment on a rising tide of violence in France. It was factual and not particularly of the "hate France" variety.

Penske's comment yesterday, in response to Not Me's post about the (not) attack:

"Does this surprise anyone? Of course, what is dismaying is that these are the people that the UN and the American Liberals look to for moral guidance."

Now, even Penske would not claim that American Liberals are looking to militant Muslim youths in France for moral guidance. Rather, he is attempting to equate those criminals (assuming that this incident happened) with the French government and France overall.


Your post was factual and not particularly in the "hate France" vein. And I was not responding to your post. Hank, it just isn't all about you.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Given that the FMA is doomed to failure, I suppose I'm pretty safe in saying if it passes the Senate by two votes, the Johns will have some 'splainin' to do.

When did the default expectation for senators (and, really, any elected representative) become "vote only if it matters to the ultimate outcome"?

Did you vote for McGovern?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
My most recent post you quote, which I admit is closer to a screed, comes in response to a post that tries to convey France as a light hearted place of safety for the Jews.

Jews should be safe in every country in which they live. That is beyond cavil. Anti-semitism is an evil that we had hoped was expunged by collective guilt for the Holocaust. That has proven to be a vain hope.

Partly in recognition of this, and partly because of the history of their own revolution, the French have tended toward open hostility toward all religion in some kind of socialist ideal --- the desire to make each person's religion irrelevant by making all religion irrelevant. This, I think, is also a false hope.

When one discusses religion with a Frenchman, he tends to look uncomfortable and break eye contact. This is not unusual for a place that has suffered internecine warfare over its religions, as America has not. The observed social response to hate crimes in France will always underplay the religious factor because they're trying to underplay religion in general. This, while perhaps ultimately misguided and frustrating to the victims, is not an indication of collective national hatred or distrust of Jews in particular.

Ever notice how when there's a white-on-black crime in a racially charged environment, the first to note the larger racial context is usually, as in traditionally, a black leader? Now, imagine the national response if we had collectively pledged not to notice people's race, ever. And there you have religion in France.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
When did the default expectation for senators (and, really, any elected representative) become "vote only if it matters to the ultimate outcome"?

Did you vote for McGovern?

Why does it matter if a senator shows up for every vote? Surely it's not necessarily a good indicator of senatorial competence.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Did you vote for McGovern?

another time when bilmore's absence hurts

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
This is circular, isn't it? I should vote based upon, at least here, repugnance to the amendment. So I vote Dem. But I find other things the Dems do repugnant. How should I handle that? Not vote at all?

No. I said you're responsible for the results, not that you have to be paralyzed. Vote GOP, but you get no free pass on the gay issue. And you can't say shit like "No one cares more about gay rights than me," 'cause that ain't so. Plenty of people do. A more truthful statement would be, "I believe in gay rights, but I believe tax policy is more important than gay rights." The way Bush is an environmentalist, with a pretty big fuckin' asterisk.

Oddly, even though I don't believe much about who people say they are, I do somehow believe that you voted for a gay rights ordinance in Detroit. I can somehow manage to believe this while doubting you really live in Detroit. Weird that.