Comments Posted By pbuck
Displaying 1 To 6 Of 6 Comments
THE MORAL COWARDICE OF SARAH PALIN
Rick, your explanation for Palin's answer is ridiculous.
Just try visualizing it: "Palin is pro-life, and she kept Tigg and encouraged her daughter to keep her unborn baby, but - uh oh! she called an abortion-clinic bomber a terrorist! I can't vote for her now!"
Infantilizing nonsense.
The only bar that the avidly pro-life require is that their candidate also be pro-life. Their positions on abortion-clinic bombings are irrelevant.
If Palin didn't condemn abortion-clinic bombers strongly-enough, then you are welcome to further speculate to her reasons. Maybe she was trying to keep the interview focused on Ayers and Obama and not diffuse it onto terrorism, generally?
Just don't say that it is because she is afraid that the strongly pro-life might abandon her. You are apparently unfamiliar with the voting bloc you attempt to describe.
Comment Posted By pbuck On 25.10.2008 @ 17:07
I became a regular reader of RightWingNutHouse upon reading your October article on patriotism.
I'm happy to see you revisit the topic; your analysis remains thoughtful and considerate.
Comment Posted By pbuck On 29.06.2008 @ 20:58
THE SEDUCTIVE BUT EMPTY CAMPAIGN OF BARACK OBAMA
If Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he has few policy accomplishments and no executive experience under his belt, then (assuming he loses the nomination or general election) what kind of candidacy could he have after a few more years?
Obama might lose now, but his 2012 attempt (2016 if we vote ourselves a President Hillary) will be a juggernaught!
Comment Posted By pbuck On 28.01.2008 @ 18:00
People have made worse mistakes..."President" Dewey, anyone?
I could go on, but I'd just repeat kreiz.
Comment Posted By pbuck On 10.01.2008 @ 18:18
WAS MATTHEW MURRAY ENABLED BY THE CHRISTIAN BASHERS?
I don't think the JFK assassination is a useful example because there are so many conflicting theories surrounding it; interpreting the Warran Comm'n results as a political calculation doesn't, either.
Speculation about the Okla bombing is more distracting than helpful. Maybe far-right rhetoric affected McVeigh, but maybe not; there just isn't any way to prove causation from such tenuous contacts with far-right rhetoric, much less rank the influence of the various factors.
A better comparison is probably anti-semitic jihad rhetoric, since suicide bombing is only different from suicide gun-attacks in the choice of weaponry, and the jihad propoganda is probably directly accountable for the semi-constant suicide bombs that Isreal used to suffer.
Alternately, the racism of the early half of the twentieth century could be a useful comparison, since it clearly motivated 1000+ lynchings.
The racism and anti-semite comparisons are helpful because you could prove causation with them. People died, and their deaths can be attributed to [instert propoganda] because of: (1) the number of murders; and (2) similarities tying them together. (KKK for the one; martyr-training and videos for the other.)
Did anti-Christian hate speech influence the Colorado murders? Who knows. The Colo killer could have influenced by others, but he could have developed his pathologies himself. Either way, I'm too skeptical to accept the ramblings of a psycho killer on first impression.
Even if you suspect the former, you provide almost no more evidence that far-left hate speech contributed to the Colo killings, than Bill Clinton provided tying Okla and Rush Limbaugh.
Eight murders over eight+ years just ain’t enough, especially when the only similarities between the killings is that they occurred in a place of worship.
Comment Posted By pbuck On 12.12.2007 @ 18:33
Well said Rich, well said.
The Right hasn't completely abandoned their human-rights principles in favor of partisanship (Paul and McCain come to mind), but it distresses me how so many have jumped on the torture/stressful-interrogation bandwagon with ridiculous Jack-Boer scenarious featuring nuclear bombs in American cities, &c.
Speaking of which, even if Congress outlawed all waterboarding and soft torture techniques completely, the President still has constitutional authority to suspend habeaus corpus if home security circumstances required immediate intelligence extraction via Art. 1 Sect. 9.
It can be hard to think for yourself when the different sides are just screaming at each other. I couldn't make up my mind on waterboarding until I re-read The Gulag Archipelago. Different situations, of course, but it vividly reminded me how important restraints on government are.
Comment Posted By pbuck On 7.12.2007 @ 13:52
