I was reading one of my favorite right-wing blogs, and the latest post had this:
How to treat terrorist detainees in light of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is being debated in the Senate. Democrats and 3 Republicans (John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham) oppose the President’s plan to provide protection to detainees from torture while allowing military and other personnel to maximize the terrorists’ interrogation experience.
Yeah, we’re not torturing people, we’re merely maximizing their interrogation experience. That kind of double-talk really sets my head spinning, but I’m still against torturing people.
Even terrorists.
Being an American means that we’re going to afford our enemies the same rights we have. We know that they don’t abide by the Geneva Conventions, but we do. Why? Because we have laws that tell us that torture is immoral. It’s written into the document that created this little social experiment of ours. The founders of our country thought it wise to expressly forbid ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, and a case for trashing this hasn’t been made yet. Because of this, we respect human rights –and that those rights apply to everyone, even the slime of the earth.
We’re Americans, dammit, we’re supposed to be the good guys in this, and torturing people makes us not-so-good.
So, Amy, call a spade a spade, it’s torture not “maximizing their interrogation experience” it’s a cruel, degrading and most likely fruitless process, and surprisingly, you’re for it.
September 18th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
I thought we (the USA) were abiding by the Geneva Convention until Abu Ghraib exposed our other side. I was appalled to see pictures of prisoners who had their rights violated and I was
embarrasassed to be an American who trusted we would do right according to the law.
September 19th, 2006 at 2:44 am
First, I sort of liked my expression “maximizing their interrogation experience”. Secondly, we ARE abiding by the Geneva Convention. It’s our enemies who are not. This was true of our enemies of old; the Japanese, Germans, Vietcong….
In case you haven’t been keeping up, the Abu Ghraib thugs are at Ft. Leavenworth’s prison. See how that works? A soldier broke the law and is punished. This is old news. Interestingly enough, the offenders of Abu Ghraib were immoral liberals, not god-fearing Conservatives. Interesting.
Those prisoners who had their “rights” violated didn’t give a crap about the rights of the American soldiers they murdered. Oh, and in the news are stories about the current prisoners at Abu Ghraib preferring American soldiers guarding the prison to Iraqi guards. Wonder why??
My husband was in Iraq for a year with the 82nd ABN. His experience was always that US soldiers show extraordinary kindness to their enemies. He often visited the wounded soldiers in the CASH (Combat Army Hospital) and frequently insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists were brought in for treatment. Oh, yes, perpahs they weren’t killed by a car bomb they set off or in an attack against our troops, but they were brought in and treated quite humanely, thank you, by US medics.
Here is the ridiculous article in Time Magazine called “Inside the Interrogation of Dentainee 063″:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1071284,00.html
Here are some of the hideous ways terrorist detainees are being tortures through interrogation:
-MPs (military police) wrestled thrashing, spitting detainee to the ground after he head butted an MP.
-Detainee was told no one loved, cared for or remembered him.
smiley-face mask made from MRE box was placed over detainees face for few moments after telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was.
-interrogators made puppet show satirizing detainee’s involvement with Al-Qaeda.
-waking detainee with Christina Aguilera music (cool!)
-making him stand for the playing of American national anthem (my personal favorite)
If these heinous acts of violence against an innocent terrorist weren’t enough, Donald Rumsfeld approved 16 stronger interrogation methods due to the “resilience under pressure” by Detainee 063. Some of these drastic new measures included allowed for:
-standing for prolonged periods
-isolation for up to 30 days
-removal of clothing
-forced shaving of facial hair
-playing on “individual phobias” (such as dogs)
-”mild, non-injurious physical contact” such as grabbing, poking in the check with finger, light pushing.
-use of wet towel or dripping water to induce misperception of suffocation.
-longer interrogation sessions.
-dripping water over head to arouse from sleep.
Holy Cow, how do they stand it?
Here’s a few paragraphs from Richard Miniter’s article (which I assume you didn’t read) called “A Deadly Kindness”
I’d like know why anyone thinks our enemies will honor a US law to treat THEM better when THEY don’t even honor the Geneva Convention? This entire pro-terrorists rights movement is ridiculous and dangerous.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:41 am
I… don’t…care. I care about their rights, and that’s what makes me better than them. Do you think the German soldiers in WWII cared about the allied soldiers they murdered either? Does this justify torturing them? Secondly, there are people at Gitmo that might not be guilty, so don’t just pull out the terrorist label quite yet –or don’t you believe in the justice system either?
You do know the Nazis forcibly shaved the Jews’ beards during the Holocaust, right? How would you feel if someone ripped the crucifix off your neck and threw it on the ground?
The examples you cited of prisoners fighting the guards could be from any prison in the US, do you advocate the use of torture there?
This is, after all, what we’re talking about. Torture. You’re for it in some circumstances. I’m against it in all.
I’ll say it again. Torture. Perpetreated by Americans.
Ghastly.
I’ll remind you about the eighth ammendment again:
That is what makes us better than them.
November 8th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Just as an aside… we supposedly adhere to the Geneva Conventions… sort of. We (the U.S.) have signed but not ratified Protocol I of the Geneva Convention due to Part III Article 44, which deals with combatants and POWs who are not wearing uniforms, eg guerilla warfare types. Ditto w/ Protocol II, though I don’t know what’s behind our exception on that one.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
*ahem* Abu Ghraib?
So we *mostly* adhere to the Geneva Conventions.
November 19th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Okay, I don’t know what’s *historically* behind our exceptions to the later Protocols. Regardless, we have *formal* exceptions to certain portions of the Conventions, as indicated, for better or for worse.
November 20th, 2006 at 5:40 am
Scrape, I can agree with that.
The insurgents aren’t following the rules of war. That’s clear.
November 20th, 2006 at 6:44 am
Of course, as I/we have said before, our actions with respect to the laws of warfare (or any other laws, for that matter), should not be predicated on our opponents’ obedience or disobedience, or we do clearly lose the moral high ground.
Furthermore, it’s rather disingenuous, having lost this high ground, to then claim that we still have it because we’re fighting for our homes and lands (our opponents might argue the same), or for some loftier principles (well, we just chucked the “lower” principles, who’ll expect us to really adhere to the “loftier” ones?).
And of course, the “Golden Rule” principle isn’t “Do unto others as they do unto you,” but rather, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” so the insurgents’ failure to abide by LOAC (Law of Armed Conflict) is irrelevant.
As I see it, you’re either (a) a lawful combatant, or (b) a criminal. If you’re a lawful combatant, then you’re treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, period dot. You’re detained not because you’ve done something inherently wrong, but because this is war and you’re now “out of play.” If you’re a criminal, then all the standard concepts of jurisprudence ought to apply: fair and speedy trial, representation/council, etc. There’s not some nebulous category of “a person who we know is just inherently evil and ought to suffer X, Y, or Z because we said so.”
December 5th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Mr. Cohen,
I agree 100% with Ammy. She gave a very cogent, rational defense of properly interogating the detainees (islamo-fascist thugs) at gitmo, necessary to gain information to save American lives. Aren’t you glad that you live in a free country, the greatest on God’s green earth, where you have the freedom to express your air-head ‘touchy-feely’ liberal pablum. If it had been up to ‘noble’, liberal fools like yourself to ‘interogate’ WWII Japanese and German prisoners, you would either be a lampshade or would be speaking German! Michael Savage is dead-on when he says “liberalism is a mental disease”. What do you know about torture anyway? I venture to guess that the closest you have come to torture was missing your latte’ for a day! Besides, where does it say in the Geneva convention that we must grant it’s protections to non-conscript, rag-tag terrorist baby-killers, head-choppers and throat-slitters? And how nice of you to quote our constitutional prohibition against cruel and inhuman treatment. You know damn well (or should - maybe you don’t!) that those are protections for private American CITIZENS, from our government, not intended for external 6th century barbarians, bent upon destroying your country, family and everthing you and I hold dear (well, maybe not you). You describe yourself as a ‘programmer’ and a motorcyclist. I suggest you stick to those topics, and save your liberal delusions for your deluded liberal friends. You are obviously a 60’s retread (probably an ex SDSer) and perfectly prove the accuracy of Mr. Savage’s description of a ‘liberal’
December 5th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Just one more thought: I wonder where your noble concern for the so-called ‘rights’ of the horribly abused and ‘tortured’ islamo-fascist vermin will be, when/if their imbedded friends manage to set off one or more nukes in America? They might even get San Fran Sicko (suspect you live there).
December 11th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Jim, We didn’t torture soldiers in WWII. Get your facts straight. Didn’t even come close.
And the rest of your comments are just insults. Small minds tend to do that.
If you want to disagree, try to use thoughts and ideas and rational language as Scrape has done above. Your anger is amusing, but we have a right in this country to disagree with one another, and if you’re all for totrure , let’s have that discussion. You’ll be on the pro-torture side, and I’ll be on the human rights side. If that’s a liberal issue, then I’m a huge liberal.
The laws that make up our constitution aren’t just for Americans. It’s a code of our values and how we should treat everyone. It’s hypocritical to think differently. You know the whole inalienable rights thing? You do know what that means, right? If your argument is that because people act like barbarians, then we should too, I want no part in your society.
Yes, I’m a 60’s retread despite that even a modicum of link-clicking indicates that I graduated high school in 1994. Your insults are so erudite. They cut right to the bone because they’re so true. Oh, how do I come back with quotes from Michael Savage? He’s so monstrously smart and has such good ideas. Oh woe is me.
In a just world, ignorance would be painful, and you’d be writhing in the floor in constant agony. Keep listening to that right wing radio, they still need mouth breathers like you whipped up in a constant state of anger (demonstrated above) to make money!
Go Jim!
December 11th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Oh, one more thought Jim,
How about the people who are tortured because they were wrongly accused of terrorism? What do you say to them?
Learn about human rights and basic manners, then come back when you have a leg to stand on.
And while you’re educating yourself, read Scrape’s last comment. He is a military person who clearly understands what he’s fighting for.
December 12th, 2006 at 8:35 am
The right wing reaction:
* The detainees aren’t *really* tortured any more than we are when we travel: prolonged standing, little sleep, lack of grooming.
* Anyone who disagrees with the Bush administration and their pro-torture policy is a wuss who wouldn’t stand up to a bully who is hitting old ladies and stealing candy from children.
Seems like there is a disconnect once more between the right wing and reality. What the USA has been doing is:
* Water boarding
* Beating detainees
* Outsourcing extreme torture to third party contractors in the Middle-East, Syria, etc
* Prolonged sleep deprivation.
It is completely false to argue that the USA has not been torturing people . The intellectually honest way of presenting this is saying “Hell, yea! I am for torturing people. I do not believe in due process, Habeas Corpus, or key parts of the Bill of Rights.”
Additional point — some would argue that repeated feeding of filet O’ Fish to detainees also constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
December 12th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
If it’s filet o’ fugu, I wholeheartedly agree.
Seriously, nice post. Either you ignore what’s going on, or you admit that we torture people or at the very least show depraved indifference when we hand people over to Syria to be tortured.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
“Jim, We didn’t torture soldiers in WWII. Get your facts straight. Didn’t even come close.”
First, Cohen, I suggest you re-read my comments, and then please indicate what ‘facts’ I stated, which you claim to be wrong. What ‘facts’ am I wrong about? My statement was “If it had been up to ‘noble’, liberal fools like yourself to ‘interrogate’ WWII Japanese and German prisoners, you would either be a lampshade or would be speaking German!” This is tiresome - why must I have to explain everything to you? That is not a fact, it is simply my OPINION as to the result of allowing fools such as yourself to conduct interrogations in WWII. IN MY OPINION, the likely result would have been at best, many more allied casualties, or at worst we would have lost the war. Oh, by the way “Didn’t even come close.” is an incomplete sentence - where is the subject?
What part of that simple statement do you have such difficulty in understanding? In particular, where do I say that we ‘tortured’ them? Or is your superior, ‘noble’ liberal ‘intellect’ not able to understand the difference between ‘torture’ and application of reasonable physical discomfort and mental pressure to gather information which may be vital to saving American lives? Oh, but I forgot - liberals are more concerned about “noble pricipals’, ‘moral highground’ and protecting our ENEMIES rights and ‘feelings’ than about anything so mundane as doing the same for our own country and citizens. God save us all from marxist fools and ‘useful idiots’ such as yourself - you will get us all killed!
Secondly, your interpretation of my comments as ‘angry’ is just wrong. My comments stem not from anger, but from contempt for your airhead, liberal ideas. Of course, I am angry that our country and our culture has become so perverted by thinking such as yours - what right thinking American would not be angry!
Finally, you state that you graduated high school in 1994 - that’s very nice, I graduated HS in 1956, so I have a few years of living, and perspective, and experience on you. America was a different place then. Had thinking such as yours prevailed then, we would probably not be having this conversation. Finally, in response to your comments about Michael Savage, how many PHDs and New York Times (yuk) #1 best-seller books do YOU have sir. I stand by my original comments. Have a nice day.
February 17th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Jim,
I don’t object to reasonable pressure, I object to things like waterboarding, which was a war crime in WWII. No American GIs ever came close to torturing the enemy during that war, and the burden is upon you to prove otherwise. Find an instance where Americans used one of the methods enumerated above by Mark.
Thank you. Your grammar pedantry is greatly appreciated. I went through your post and cleaned up all the spelling errors without calling attention to them, would you prefer that I put them back? Someone who fails to spell Amy correctly really shouldn’t bring up grammar problems. Do I need to remind you of the conversational nature of blog posts?
And that opinion is based on what, exactly? Lost the war eh? Even with atomic weapons? Please, do us all a favor and don’t become a history teacher.
It must be your massive intellect and the fact that I’m such an idiot. I’m an airhead, remember? Maybe if you used smaller words I’d be able to understand. Then again, even that would confuse me (being a fool and all). Try grunting and throwing feces –hopefully that’ll get through to me.
So you believe all this because you’re afraid of the terrorists? Awesome, let’s compromise our values then! We have nothing to fear but fear itself –except for terrorists, in which case we can throw all our civil liberties in the waste basket. Jim, I beg you, pray to God to change my beliefs. I guarantee it’ll work.
How very consistent of you. And pleasantly nuanced to boot. (look, I started a sentence with ‘and’!!!)
..and I have about 50 IQ points on you, so what? Of course America was a different place in 1956. It was, from my perspective and the perspective of a great many minorities, worse then. My point was that I’m not a hippie retread as you claimed and that you don’t know what you’re talking about. You would have had to click a single link to find out that your accusation was wrong, but you didn’t even bother. Why should I trust your other opinions then? The logic of this argument doesn’t even make sense. My father was born in 1946, and by your logic has more perspective and experience than you do, yet agrees with me. Living a certain amount of time doesn’t guarantee your opinions will align a certain way, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they are more valid than mine. Otherwise, we’d all have to kowtow to the oldest person in the world.
Jim, notice how many times you’ve called me names, and notice how many times I’ve called you names. You might be older, but I’ll leave it up to the audience to decide who’s more mature.
You also might want to re-read that ’small minds’ thing above. Internalize it. Become one with it. Be the ball.
As for Michael Savage, I don’t care how many PhD’s he has, he’s still a blow-hard, and you still don’t have a leg to stand on. Having a PhD doesn’t make one infallible, especially when the degree is outside of the field of conversation. Mr. Savage has a PhD in nutritional ethnomedicine (now, that’s what we call useful) from Berkeley, yet you quote him when he speaks on politics. How is his degree relevant to that? You shouldn’t rely on others to make your case for you, stand on your own two feet and try to address any of Mark, Scrape or my points –because you haven’t even tried. You’re just so angry –sorry, full of contempt– that it clouds your thinking. You should come back when you’ve calmed down a bit and can discuss things in a rational manner.
I’m also removing the link to your commercial site. You don’t get free page rank from me. Lord knows you need it with a page rank of 2. Maybe the reason it’s so low is that Google is liberal.
Damn liberals.
P.S. You might want to work on the usability on that site. And ditch the center tags. And possibly add more tabs at the bottom of the page. And go back to 1998 and get more graphics. And try putting the products at the top of the page where they are, you know, useful. Seriously, try adding a fifth electronics category, because they’re not obtuse enough. Every web site worth its salt has at least five electronics categories (it’s called web 2.0). Amazon just put in Electronics37, you have a long way to go to catch up –better get cracking.
P.P.S. I know several of the above sentences start with ‘and’. Please don’t comment on it.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:04 am
“Islamo-fascist thugs”, of course, is hardly a technical term. It is the same sort of rhetoric as calling the Germans “dirty Huns” during WW2. As I indicated in a previous post, there seems to be little legal ground [currently] for a “tween” position between criminal and prisoner.
Virtually every country ever to wage war has claimed for itself the moral high ground in doing so. The rules of just war, considered long before the Geneva Conventions (eg Augustine), but formally continued through them, establish an external process to help ensure uniformity of conduct -despite- the dehumanizing effect that the propaganda of war tends to have on one’s enemies. Among other things, rules for the treatment of prisoners ensure that -we- remain humane towards fellow humans (created, after all, in the image of God–editorial comment, certainly nowhere in the GC) even when everything we -believe- about them causes us to view them as sub-human.
Savage is a neo-conservative, but hardly a conservative. Neo-conservatism is “conservative” only in that it -claims- that its policies will be preserving the nation. Of course, it’s willing to not “conserve” anything else (people, materiel, ethics) in its quest. Neo-conservatism is today’s Machiavellianism. (and yes, I probably spelled that wrong)
Did I miss (I may have) some evidence that you’ve presented to demonstrate that you -do- know something about torture? If you are a former military man and have undergone some form of resistance training, then I will assume you are familiar with, among other things, the story of Germany’s most effective interrogator during WW2, and his techniques.
There are two items that obliquely assist this portion of your argument. First is the question of “war.” If we’re not in a declared “war”, do the Geneva Conventions apply? Yet, that’s rather disingenuous, as it relies on the academic separation of a technical definition from its underlying reality, and rests upon the unfortunate consolidation of war-making powers in the hands of one branch of government (Gulf of Tonkin). Second, it relies on the definition of combatant. The Geneva Convention does refer to uniformed soldiers of a state, which arguably the detainees were not (although, certainly one could argue that the Taliban were soldiers of a government state, perhaps without uniforms). Either way, I would point out that consistent application of this principle across the board would have proved potentially unfortunate for the US had the Geneva Convention existed throughout our history: the British could have done with American prisoners as they wished (and perhaps they did) legally during the, by definition, illegal Revolution, as early on at least, Americans were relatively un-uniformed and certainly were not soldiers of a sovereign state. Likewise, the North with respect to the South.
The reason, of course, that those prohibitions apply only to our own citizens has a much more common-sense basis than the “us-versus-them” rationale that you offer above: our citizens are the only people over whom we have actual, physical jurisdiction. The underlying moral principles upon which the Constitution was built were outlined in the Declaration of Independence, which began referred to the universal equality of man (in a judicial sense). The Constitution was a practical outworking of said principles in the jurisdiction of a political state. We don’t apply the legal principles to people in, say, Russia, because we -can’t-, not because it would be wrong to. So to say that we oughtn’t strive to apply the same principles to others when they come -under- our jurisdiction is to validate hypocrisy.
More Machiavelli? When push comes to shove, we can sidestep moral debate by so-called pragmatism?
True. That establishes potential credibility, but not accuracy/validity.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:30 am
Hello again Cohen,
My, our snarkiness quotient is off the charts today! But then again, you wrote the book on it, huh. However, I’m starting to get a little bored with this banter. As expected, one cannot have a discussion of the facts with a ‘liberal’ - it’s like trying to nail jello to the wall! Therefore, this will be my last post to your lovely little ego-trip blog. Assuming you have the guts to post this, I have a few parting observations and comments:
1.
In my last post, I asked you to please re-read my original comments. E.g. “If it had been up to ‘noble’, liberal fools like yourself to ‘interrogate’ WWII Japanese and German prisoners, you would either be a lampshade or would be speaking German!” Your response was the non sequitur: “Jim, We didn’t torture soldiers in WWII. Get your facts straight. Didn’t even come closeâ€?
And so I responded, by asking you, ONCE AGAIN to please indicate what ‘facts’ I stated, which you claim to be wrong. And so, in true liberal fashion, once again your specious, non sequitur response was:
“I don’t object to reasonable pressure, I object to things like waterboarding, which was a war crime in WWII “ You also state: “No American GIs ever came close to torturing the enemy during that war, and the burden is upon you to prove otherwise.â€?
Well, I’m much older than you are (and significantly older than your daddy), but I don’t think alzheimer’s has set in YET. Have I forgotten something? What is your problem? Where did I state that American GIs tortured the enemy in WWII? What I did IMPLY was that todays’ cockeyed PC liberal thinking about the ‘moral high ground, and “rights of our enemies”, and “panties on heads is torture” is suicidal at best, and treasonous and seditious at worst (I lean towards the later). It is nothing but leftwing obfuscation, legalism and obstructionism, and serves only to aid and embolden our barbaric enemy, and to throw roadblocks in the path of our military. Do you suppose maybe that just might the goal of the radical left, of which you are so enamored ?
As Jack Web said in the 1960s series “Dragnet� - “just the facts, ma’am (or man), just the facts�. You’re probably too young to remember anything about that, but what ‘facts’ do I need to ‘get straight’? It looks to me like the burden of ‘proof’ is upon YOU, to simply step up to the plate like a man, answer the question and state what ‘facts’ I do not have ‘straight’!
2.
As for your snide remarks about my spelling ‘errors’, I find it noteworthy that you referred to my first post, but not my last. I must confess that you have finally succeeded in getting me to acknowledge that I was at that point (and rightfully so), angered over your support for the agenda and tactics of the radical loony left, which always seems to aid our enemies, and harm America, (how coincidental) while hiding behind our constitution.
By the way – the American Constitution is NOT a suicide pact! Nor is it, as you contend, simply a ‘statement of American values’ – what nonsense! Anyone, who portends to understand what it is about, knows that it is written legal contract, created for the purpose of constraining our GOVERNMENT against unlawful actions and abuses against AMERICAN CITIZENS. If you have any doubts about this fact, all you need to do is to spend some time reading the writings of the men who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the cause and establishment of this (formerly) free REPUBLIC (emphasis mine):
“There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights. And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights OF THE UNION (notice it does not say of the WORLD!). Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the CITIZENS in the structure and administration of the government?
Federalist Papers, #84 – Alexander Hamilton
But your socialist side refuses to accept this FACT, because liberals and socialists are citizens of the world first (except the NAZIs, who were national socialists), and citizens of America second (if at all). You are all for UNLIMITED government power and ‘democracy’ (mob rule). After all, how else can socialists force their ‘superior intellect and wisdom’ on the “common� people and the ‘masses’? Their agenda is clear, hence my anger, hence two or three TYPOS – well excuuuse me! (relax – not a typo!). Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! In particular, it is blatantly disingenuous and hypocritical of you to criticize my spelling and grammar, when God knows you have nothing to crow about in that department! A phrase comes quickly to mind, something about “the pot calling the kettle black� – hmm.
But Cohen, you’re so rational and logical – what’s YOUR excuse? Following, just a sampling from posts by you - can you find the misspellings and grammatical errors?:
“and if you’re all for totrure, let’s have that discussion.”
“I’ll say it again. Torture. Perpetreated by Americans.”
“I’ll remind you about the eighth ammendment again:”
“writhing in the floor in constant agony. (please enlighten me - how does one “writhe in the
floor?)
“Yes, I’m a 60’s retread despite that even a modicum of link-clicking indicates that I graduated high school in 1994.” (Can you say “run-on sentence?)
3)
And some of your more ridiculous statements:
“.and I have about 50 IQ points on you, so what?” (now this one is beyond the pale!):
What orifice did you pull that one from? How the h… do you know what my IQ is? Once again, in typical liberal fashion, you establish a false premise, without supporting facts, and then expand on it to absurdity. FYI, if yours is not significantly greater than 200, I’m so very sorry, but I’m afraid your wrong again!
“Of course America was a different place in 1956. It was, from my perspective and the perspective of a great many minorities, worse …”
How would you know? I LIVED it, you certainly didn’t - your daddy was only 10 years old. Oh, I forgot - the government schools, and your confused liberal upbringing taught you so! Well for your edification, we had far better race relations in 1956 than now . Thanks to the radical left and their liberal friends and ‘useful idiots’ (”be one with it - be the ball”) who have purposely radicalized and corrupted our culture, and our race relations, to wit: “Every minority group in America has been targeted for indoctrination in racial resentment by the “progressive” intelligentsia and the duplicitous media. Most of the racial tension in American life now is a product of the reactive matrix created by this racial assault.â€? Yes, right out of the Communist Manifesto – thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Anyone who has taken the time to educate themselves on the strategy and tactics of the communist movement in America, and worldwide, would know what that means. I have done my homework, having been heavily involved in anti-communist, pro-American activities and organizations since 1960. I know what I am talking about. Credits to David Horowitz, a former 60s radical and Bolshevik. He was a major player in the communist-inspired 60s ‘revolution’, which began the long road to the destruction of our American culture, morals and values. You prate on and on about American values, complaining about ‘abuse’ of enemies of America at Gitmo! Why are you not concerned about the purposeful DESTRUCTION of those same values by enemies of America, begun in the 60s and proceeding with increasing vengeance today? Most nauseating, these seditious activities are being spearheaded by the same gang today, but now they are now running the radicalized, seditious Democratic Party? David Horowitz ‘got it’, and woke up. When are YOU going to wake up?
“My father was born in 1946, and by your logic has more perspective and experience than you do, yet agrees with me”
What nonsense! What makes you think I was born later? Once again, in true liberal fashion, you come to a conclusion with no supporting information! FYI, I was born in 1938. And the fact that he ‘agrees with’ you tells me only that you were raised by, and influenced by – another confused liberal. Why am I not surprised?
“As for Michael Savage, I don’t care how many PhD’s he has, he’s still a blow-hard”
Well, far be it from me to defend Savage. I’m sure he’s more than capable of defending himself! Why don’t you step out of the safety net of your little pinko mini-blog, and tell him yourself? It IS a call in talk show, after all! Or don’t you have the guts? FYI, the number is 1 800-449-8255. If you don’t have the jewels to call, you can email him. Here is the link code to his site:
Paul Revere Society
And of course, you are not (a blow-hard) – give me a break!
It’s obvious that you’re a Democrat - what else could you be? Why else would you support their moronic, seditious leftist positions? If anyone expected anything different than this “panties-on-heads-is-torture� crap, from the DNC, now under the full control of ex 60s SDSers, radical socialists, marxists and the peace-at-any-price, America last crowd, they are seriously deluded and misinformed.
And just in case you are tempted to label me a schil for the Republicans, wrong once again. I have no use for them either. The Republican Party is now controlled by the elitist globalist, leftist Rockefeller wing of the party. They are only marginally better, with their betrayal of their conservative, Christian base, their sellout of our southern border and our culture, to invasion by millions of illegals, criminals, gangs and drug dealers from Mexico (and probably thousands of terrorists), while Bush kisses Vincente’s ass, and marches in lockstep to the CFR globalist ‘drumbeat’.
4)
“Mr. Savage has a PhD in nutritional ethnomedicine (now, that’s what we call useful) from Berkeley, yet you quote him when he speaks on politics. How is his degree relevant to that”
Once again you are very wrong, and have grievously understated and misrepresented the truth (either purposely or through ignorance), e.g.
Michael Savage holds Master’s degrees in BOTH medical botany AND medical anthropology AND earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in Epidemiology and Nutritional Science (not ‘ethnomedicine’ – no such nonsensical degree!). And he has written 18 books, with three #1 bestsellers. And FYI, he is not my hero – he doesn’t see the big picture yet. But when you minimize and distort the facts, I need to correct you. More to the point: where do you come off questioning his right to comment on matters political, when you by comparison, have only a bachelors in CS (last I checked, polysci was not a component of that course curriculum). Yet YOU have no trouble criticizing him, and proselytizing at great length on your distorted, ill-informed political views! How, may I ask, is YOUR CS degree more relevant?
5)
“I’m also removing the link to your commercial site. You don’t get free page rank from me. Lord knows you need it with a page rank of 2. Maybe the reason it’s so low is that Google is liberal�
Oh, how you wound me! Gee, I think I figured that out a while back. What makes you think I want or need a backlink from your (wow) PR 4 site? Especially since my link popularity is almost 3000, while yours is an unimpressive 381! My current site is only up about 6 months – my previous one was PR 6, with even higher link popularity than my current site. But if it makes you feel ‘superior’ – go to it, see if I care! When I pass you in PR, I’ll wave when I go by!
6)
“P.S. You might want to work on the usability on that site….� (Etc.,etc. ad nauseam.)
That’s funny – I haven’t had any complaints from any of my customers about it (how many customers do you have?). Could it possibly be that you are being somewhat petty? Why, I cannot believe that! Not someone as liberal and ‘tolerant’ as yourself! In any case, I do not feel threatened by your perverse and petty barbs. I have over 25 years of software development experience, as a Hardware Systems Diagnostic Software Engineer, Senior Software QA Engineer, Senior Software Test Engineer and Software Consultant I was employed by Potter Instrument, Anderson Jacobson, Intel, Kentrox, and other corporations. I did software QA consulting for the last ten years before my retirement in 2001 – primarily with Intel and Kentrox. I have been responsible for software program development in numerous macro and assembler languages, including: PL/M, ADA, C, Visual C, Visual C++, Pascal, QuickBASIC, VisualBASIC, Microsoft Assembler, Prime/Honeywell Assembler, C-shell, Bourne-shell, etc., in DOS, Windows, Unix BSD, XENIX, RMXII, RMXIII and Sun environments, as well as test development and engineering with MS Test, Visual Test, ATE testing, and more. So I am very comfortable in my engineering skin, thank you very much!
Finally, I find it eerily coincidental that I too am a motorcyclist, for many years. Shades of “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenanceâ€?! That’s a little scary! Almost like matter and anti-matter! Most of us are pretty conservative – you would appear to be a rare exception. But ONLY because you are a fellow rider, I’ll ignore the “grunting and throwing feces” crack, and still extend to you – a “keep the shiny side up!â€? (isn’t that big of me?).
I rest my case.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:28 am
Looks like I had an extra space in the URL for Savages’ site - here’s the correct one:
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html
February 21st, 2007 at 2:40 pm
No, but I did write a post on it. I admit, I’m pretty good at snark.
Namely where I object to reasonable pressure. I object to those things that Mark detailed above, not the things you listed. Continue to make a strawman argument, but I won’t let you get away with it.
I pointed that out because you were being pedantic about my ‘grammatical error’ –he who is without sin and all. I don’t care that you made spelling errors, but the fact that you were criticizing grammar of all things points to something about your method of debate. Have you read blogs? It’s a conversational style with loose grammar.
Which enemies are you talking about, the ones on the left, or the ones on the right? Oh right, Communists. It’s always those hidden secretive communists messing things up.
Funny, the post I’ve been working on is titled “Why I’m not a Democrat”. I don’t feel I’m adequately represented by any American political party. The Democrats are just the Republicans beholden to different special interests.
Swap the two party names and we agree on something.
I took my information from his Wikipedia page. It was a direct cut and paste, go correct it there if you wish. It did cite that reference as being taken directly from his PhD dissertation. Next time I’m at Cal, I’ll look it up and take pictures. Your claim that there is no degree falls on deaf ears. The CEO of my company made his own major at Harvard, and I fail to see why Mr. “Savage” couldn’t do the same.
Furthermore, you still haven’t touched on my argument. How are *any* of those degrees relevant to politics?
It has nothing to do with “jewels”, I don’t care about him. I don’t care what he says. He doesn’t matter to me. That was what I was illustrating above. Michael “Savage” is irrelevant.
Wow… just wow. I’m going to assume that you’re black, because if not, your opinion on race relations is useless. How can you possibly claim that? I’m going to have to disagree with that due to conversations I’ve had with many people that lived through that era, and due to the fact that Black people can sit at the same lunch counter as white people. I’d like for you to find some examples of minorities that agree with you for I have never encountered a single one, and doubt I ever will.
My mistake. You’re older than my Dad. However, my point still stands –age alone doesn’t make your opinions more valid.
Because you filled out the backlink from my site? So you know, my comment page has a PR of 4 while my main site has a PR of 6. Seriously, your new site needs usability help. Listing your qualifications really doesn’t mean anything when you have a static block of text at the top that prevents people from buying things. Go ahead and rest on your past accomplishments, but I didn’t see usability among them.
Here are some tips:
I do have about 35,000 users of my open source software, and it’s constantly praised for its high usability. In addition, I’ve worked at several big-name sites (see the resume) that were likewise praised when I was there.
I’m assuming you’re a Harley rider (and that you’re confusing Conservative with Libertarian). I have a Sporty bike, and we have a good mix of political beliefs, but I just like to ride with my riding buddies, not talk politics. Still, keep the shiny side up.
Also, care to comment on Scrape’s comment? He’s hardly a Liberal, yet seems to ‘get’ what I’m saying –and agree with it.
As for the grunting and throwing feces, you were supposed to be doing that to me, because I’m an airhead. I fail to see why that would upset you at all.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Jim,
That was a whopper of a comment, but do I understand you that you think that the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by the government applies only to American citizens?
It seems mighty hypocritical to me to have two sets of rules for those who are citizens of your country and those who are not. I prefer not to be a hypocrite when I don’t have to be.
Maybe we differ on that.