Comments Posted By busboy33
Displaying 531 To 540 Of 657 Comments
@stevebradle:
pandering to the muslims? care to elaborate?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 20.12.2007 @ 15:46
disunreconnected:
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 15.12.2007 @ 16:04
Interesting video, but I'm not sure how that's relating to the discussion.
If your question is how could the girl develop concepts of Heaven and Christian Divinity without it being "taught" to her, the video only said that her mom was an atheist, and that God was not discussed at home. Unless the girl was locked in a room her whole life, she had contact with the world -- certainly there are enough sources for her to learn from in society. Not hearing about God at home does not eliminate the subject from the environment -- only from the home environment discussions.
It really irritated my Leftie sensibilities that Krauthammer said something rational and intelligent. I've gotten so used to hating his work that I had to read the collum three times to make sure I didn't miss something. It makes being radically partisan much more difficult when there's intellignet discuorse on both sides. That damn man is going make me think!
@ Karen:
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 14.12.2007 @ 14:43
respectfully, I think you are seriously misreading the quote. The freedoms are self-evident (as ajacksonian mentioned) -- they don't come from faith. Faith allows a person to ascribe a source to the freedoms, but the freedoms exist regardless of their source.
It's like the Universe. The origin of it can be attributed to different sources (God, the "Big Bang", whatever) but nobody questions that regardless of the source, the universe does exist. Same with the fundamental freedoms.
The Founding Fathers were (for the most part) religious and men of faith -- true. But they didn't set up a government that runs on faith, or requires faith. Faith is personal -- government is not.
@Marv:
"The solution is simple….shoot them and interrogate them on the battlefield. No prisoners."Here's the problem with that:
"There have been 759 people detained in Guantanamo. According to Department of Defense data, despite public assertions to the contrary by senior Department of Defense officials, only one of the 759 detainees was alleged to have been initially captured on a battlefield by United States forces."
Quote by: Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Seton Hall Law School, Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Law,December 11, 2007, in written testimony before the Senate subcommittee.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=3052&wit_id=6816You presume that these are people that were caught in pitched gunbattles, then taken into custody. The reality seems to be these were people that bounty hunters brought in and claimed were reeeeeeeely bad terrorists. We accepted that and locked them up for six years and counting.
Does your opinion change if the people we're abusing are innocent? Or does it not matter? If the whole point is to look vicious, then it doesn't matter who we're abusing. If the point is to fight the terrorists . . . then abusing innocent people doesn't seem to have a purpose at all.
If the argument is we have to abuse and violate innocents until we randomly stumble across the possible "honest-to-God threat-to-America terrorist", I just can't agree with that, and I hope you don't either.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 12.12.2007 @ 09:39
@Marv:
"They must fear us as they try to make us fear them, it’s as simple as that."
You still haven't explained why. Let's just grant you the difference for the sake of debate -- that "the terrorists" can see us as either wimpy moralists or brass-balled savage monstrosities. Will either cause them to not attack us? No. If you believe that showing them our "Demonicly Evil" face will somehow scare them, then I respectfully suggest you're guessing, and you're guessing based on your concepts as an American, not based on the mindset of a jihadist.
If it's not going to change their behavior toward us, then the only reason I can fathom to do it is for our own personal satisfaction -- to get back that "we're the ass-kickingest mofos on the block!!" swagger we had prior to 9/11.
To me, that's not a reason to torture people, no matter how evil they are.You note that the Fighting spirit of the GIs "had an effect" on the Japaneese. What was the effect? Did they cede territory to us? Give up? Sure, they respected how fiercely we could fight . . . but they kept fighting. We respected how fierce they were . . . and we kept fighting. When the Japaneese resorted to Kamakaze attacks, we were "impressed" by how fanatical and dedicated they were . . . but we didn't turn the ships around. Even presuming the attitudes changed, what was the practical effect?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 12.12.2007 @ 02:51
If there's no practical effect, then why sacrifice our integrity?
Rick:
steve's allegation the conservatives love torture is putrageous, but Marv's allegations that the left doesn't blink an eye when people ar killed isn't?
Is it the phrasing or the sentiment that makes it acceptable?@ Marv:
"That’s what will end the war, not this namby pamby BS about whose more cruel, us or them…."you really think that people who are willing to die are going to stop because we're mean? "Gee, that Great Satan is too tough . . . guess we better quit." Really? Seems a remarkably rational approatch for remarkably irrational people.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 11.12.2007 @ 13:10
@Kyle:
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 9.12.2007 @ 00:39
Lets assume for the sake of argument that you are correct -- the the suspects are not afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention.
So we can brand them? Rape them? flog them? Rack and thumbscrews? More than we can, we should do it? The only thing that keeps America from rising to the tops of the depravity charts is that pesky GC rule? When we decried Hussein and other dictators for torturing people, our concern was they were violating international agreements, and not that they were displaying the most vulgar and sadistic traits of humanity?
It amazes me that a political faction associated with conservative, christian morality is actively advocating immorality.
@Steve:
"We have stopped many more plans to kill more Americans in the US."We have? Really? Lets see . . . there was "shoe-bomber" Reid and, uh, who else? I hope you're not including nonsense like the Miami 8. Do you actually know of "many other plots", or are you just assuming because you've been told that it must be true?
@The-destroyed-to-protect-identities-posters:
This argument puzzles me. Does this mean the the CIA is incapable of blocking faces and names from the video? I can do that with my laptop -- I sort of assumed they could too with all of their whizz-bang technology. Heck, re-record it with a big dot over the face . . . then there's absolutely no way to unmask them. Solves that problem.@The-"so-what"-posters:
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 7.12.2007 @ 23:50
Because it's against the law. You don't care about obeying the law, fine. Some Americans do. In fact, it's kind of important to us. I guess some Americans are silly like that.
Impressive post, Mr. Moran. I respect it must hsve been difficult to post, knowing the consequences in terms of the flak you would receive, but attempting to do the right thing in the face of negative repurcussions alwyas earns a golf clap from me.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 7.12.2007 @ 09:54
NIE REPORT ON IRANIAN NUKES: QUALIFIED GOOD NEWS
"He said specifically that he was just briefed about this a week ago."
yep. he sure did. His head of intelligence came up to him in August and told him there was important news about Iran they were vetting, and he said "okay". I suppose he didn't want to hear it until it was crystal clear. Let the IC vet the info properly.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 4.12.2007 @ 20:14
I wonder where all these claims of Cheney leaning on the IC to "hawk up" the NIC come from:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/12/seymour_hersh_bush_admin_has_k.php
Well, if the Administration said they didn't hear it until last week, then that settles it.
