Comments Posted By michael reynolds
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SOME SHORT NOTES ON KSM AND AMERICAN JUSTICE
Burke:
None of your remarks even is relevant to me.
The topic was whether we could try and imprison and execute KSM in the US. It has nothing to do with whether the UK was justified in its dealings with the IRA.
Nor am I characterizing people for how they aggressively attack terrorists.
Read Rick's piece and then read the comment thread before you decide I've done or said something I didn't do or say.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.11.2009 @ 20:33
New Yorkers were the direct victims of 911, not red-staters.
They behaved magnificently. They did not run and hide. The city did not empty out. Yes, they voted for Obama and my guess is if asked they'll say they have the stomach to try KSM right there in the Big Apple.
Osama bin Laden doesn't even know how to find red state America. And yet it's red-state America that seems to be delirious with fear.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.11.2009 @ 17:23
The blind sheikh, Abdel-Rahman, one of the planners of the 1993 WTC bombing has been in prison in Butner, North Carolina for 13 years.
I'm unable to find any references to terrorist attacks on Butner.
As pointed out above, the Europeans have tried, convicted and incarcerated Al Qaeda terrorists. The UK held IRA terrorists, the Spaniards held Basque terrorists.
Why can't we try and then imprison or execute KSM? Obviously we can.
So now, why are conservatives -- who are usually at such pains to convince us of their manly manlitude -- suddenly weeping with fear and advising us all to cower?
It's almost as if they were positioning themselves to profit politically from any future terrorist attack.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.11.2009 @ 16:00
We tried the Lincoln conspirators in Washington -- a city that had been very close to being lost to CSA forces on several occasions -- despite the fact that armed bands of Confederate sympathizers were still around. And despite the fact that Washington itself had a population that was in large part pro-Confederate. (And don't tell me the Confederacy didn't do terrorism.)
And then there was:
Later Sacco and Vanzetti both stood trial for murder in Dedham, Massachusetts for the South Braintree killings, with Webster Thayer again presiding. (Thayer had asked to be assigned the trial.) Well aware of the Galleanists' reputation for constructing dynamite bombs of extraordinary power, Massachusetts authorities took great pains to defend against a possible bombing attack. Workers outfitted the Dedham courtroom where the trial was to be held with cast-iron bomb shutters (painted to match the wooden ones fitted elsewhere in the building) and heavy, sliding steel doors that could protect that section of the courthouse from blast effect in the event of a bomb attack. Each day during the trial, Sacco and Vanzetti were escorted in and out of the courtroom under a heavy armed guard.
Still and all, we didn't try them in Cuba. Huh. I guess we weren't huge pussies in those days.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.11.2009 @ 14:21
How about giving the working class stiff a nice fat tax break so that he can purchase the insurance himself - make his own choices instead of bowing to your obviously superior judgment - and make him responsible for his own life?
Because:
1) This does nothing to widen the pool of insured which is necessary if we're to avoid the young and healthy staying out of the pool and then jumping in at the last minute. When people do that -- acting in their own short-term economic interests -- they avoid contributing to a system they later exploit.
2) Also, most "working class stiffs" don't pay enough in tax to pay for health insurance with a tax break. So it would have to be an earned income tax credit -- a handout. Welfare. Which Republicans would of course demagogue.
You don't understand this issue, Rick. Which is why you talk in vague abstractions and offer ideological pabulum.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 14.11.2009 @ 11:42
Freedom's Truth:
Your evasion is noted and does not surprise.
Sota:
I posed those as threshold questions. I didn't say or imply that the House bill was the only way forward. I wanted Republicans to take this out of abstract theorizing and talk about actual human consequences. Rick's post was devoid of human consequence, so I re-introduced it.
Is the House bill the best thing going? Of course not. It's the kind of stupid, half-assed thing we end up with when the bulk of the polity is lost in delusion and fantasy and resentment, playing politics rather than solving problems.
Does the right to something imply that the federal government should provide it for you? Or does the right to something only imply that the federal government cannot prevent you from pursuing it?
Your argument works as well against Medicare or VA benefits or Social Security as against insurance/health reform.
Does the right of old people to eat something other than dog food imply that the federal government should provide? Are you prepared to make the argument that we should do away with SS, Medicare and VA benefits? You're trying to move back to the abstract, back to the theoretical.
But people aren't theoretical, they're real.
In every single country in the developed world -- except ours -- people have a right to medical care.
In none of those countries to people have a right to taxi fare to the doctor's office.
Why is it that every other developed nation can do what we cannot?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 13.11.2009 @ 21:57
The schizophrenia is easily explained by the fact that Americans want their *own* burdens to be lightened by the government, but that they refuse to lift a finger to pay for relief for *anyone else*.
Exactly so. Thank you for that moment of clarity.
Take a poll of Medicare recipients and see how many think Medicare infringes their freedom. Betcha can't hit 10%. How many veterans think their benefits are an affront to freedom? Social Security recipients?
I got mine, screw you.
Are we going to let American citizens die for lack of medical care? That's the core issue.
It's so much easier -- and so utterly dishonest -- to camouflage this behind flag waving rhetoric. Because then it's all an abstraction and not about letting an American child die of cancer because his parents can't afford a marrow transplant.
Conservatives flee from the facts. Surely after all, it can't be about actual human beings, actual Americans actually dying in agony so that Rick Moran can go on pontificating about liberty. No, no, it all has to be an abstraction.
This is the cowardice at the heart of conservatism.
Maybe you could step up, Rick, and cut through the crapola about liberty and tell us straight out:
1) Is it okay with you that working people, people who put in their 40 hours plus every week, can end up living in a box under a freeway when one of their kids get sick. Is that okay, yes or no?
2) Is it okay with you that Americans have to choose between feeding their kids and getting their kids inoculated, or choose between one of their kids getting insulin and another getting asthma medication? Is that okay with you, yes or no?
Can you just for once answer questions about real people with real problems?
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 13.11.2009 @ 15:33
MORE THAN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OR VICTIMHOOD AT WORK IN FORT HOOD ATTACK
Manning:
What a shame for you that I'm a rare atheist who knows the Bible well enough to know what a load of crap you're peddling.
I don't know what denomination you belong to but no major Christian denomination dismisses GTF (God the Father.) It's the Holy Trinity, not Jesus plus one. It's not Jesus and his senile old man. It's not Jesus and his Wacky Pappy. It's God in three persons as the hymn goes, blessed Trinity.
Now, if you want to throw down on some theology I am ready to rock, my friend. You can start by showing me a single major Christian denomination that sidelines GTF as irrelevant or denies His actions.
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. That's the billing. Just like in Hollywood, the top name is the top dog.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.11.2009 @ 21:07
Sheer nonsense. Muhammed has no comparable Biblical person that has the same bloodthirsty characteristics and ultimate importance.
Au contraire: God the Father. Jehovah.
He's bloodthirsty in the extreme -- he wipes our Sodom, he demands Joshua execute women and children and even stone animals to death. He murders all the first-born children of Egypt.
Jehovah is a rage-aholic, mentally unstable mass murderer.
And he is rather central to the plot.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.11.2009 @ 20:10
OBAMA'S "CHALLENGER MOMENT" AT FORT HOOD
SS:
Your placing a futher caviot in the definition for non-combatants is your own addition.
No, it's an element in many scholarly definitions of terrorism.
The definition of terrorism is controversial because some want to exclude national liberation movements and some want to include them. The definitional fight is typically over the Maquis, the IRA and the Palestinians.
I prefer a rigorous interpretation that allows us to use different terms to define national liberation or legitimate resistance movements.
Some examples:
Tamar Meisels (2008): advocates a consistent and strict definition of terrorism, which she defines as "the intentional random murder of defenseless non-combatants, with the intent of instilling fear of mortal danger amidst a civilian population as a strategy designed to advance political ends."
Carsten Bockstette (2008): "Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols). Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states."
Daniel D. Novotny (2007): "An act is terrorist if and only if (1) it is committed by an individual or group of individuals privately, i.e. without the legitimate authority of a recognized state; (2) it is directed indiscriminately against non-combatants; (3) the goal of it is to achieve something politically relevant; (4) this goal is pursued by means of fear-provoking violence.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.11.2009 @ 09:22
