Comments Posted By busboy33
Displaying 421 To 430 Of 657 Comments
@Don C:
"Nance seems like a Buddhist/ML convert who is, despite your appeal to authority fallacy, not the be-all/end-all on the subject of SERE training."
So . . . the "honorable men and women in uniform" respect you offer to our troops only goes so far as to the ones that agree with you. How very impressive of you.
Is he the be-all end-all? I doubt it. But since you've clearly never gone through SERE training, and he went through it, then tought it . . . seems like he might know a little more about it than you do."In any case, what should we do now with captive enemies with intel that could prevent another 9/11 - “The Comfy Chair!” and “The Extra Pillow!”?"
Oh, I don't know. Maybe . . . and I'm just throwing this out there for giggles . . . interrogate them? Convict them? Punish them?"you seem like a typical feminized Modern Liberal that feels displacement of your fear-based rages towards our benevolent America"
Awwwww. I'm crying. Really. Odd though that I'm the one with fear-based rages and you're the one that's both terrified of "them" and wildly casting about for some way to hurt people.
That phrase . . . I don't think it means what you think it means.p.s. -- "our benevolent America": Been reading much Socialist propaganda lately? And be sure to respond with either a snarky comment about Our Dear Leader or the MSM media -- I'd hate for you to break character.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 19.04.2009 @ 21:12
Don C:
"That argument fails, in my view because America’s enemies are bloodthirsty barbarians that would laugh at the weakness of waterboarding. No, they prefer to summarily lop off captives’ heads."
You seem like a bright guy, so I'm sure you're well aware that you're completely ignoring the point Nance was making -- that we can't act outraged at our prisoners being abused if we do it ourselves.
I directed you to Nance's post because you suggested waterboarding wasn't really torture since its used in SERE school. Nance (who has far, far more experience with SERE and waterboardinbg than either of us do) made it perfectly clear that it IS torture. Now you're arguing the dirty bastards deserve to be tortured.
Pick one. If they deserve to be tortured, then admit its torture. If you don't think its torture, then whether they deserve to be tortured is completely irrevelant.
By the way, thank goodness we would only torture the really, really bad ones. Y'know, the "cut of their heads" bad guys. I'm sure the government has never made a mistake, never misidentified a person. Hypothetically (just for giggles), what would you say if we tortured someone who wasn't a "cut their heads off" bad guy? Oops? You know they deserved whatever they got because the government told you so? Nice to know you trust the government so much."Considering America’s current enemy, I couldn’t disagree more profoundly with Mr. Nance on that one."
Fine -- disagree all you want. This is America, after all. But do you want to tell me why?"[SERE enrollees] volunteered to be “tortured”. So, why not apply such measures to our, once again, barbaric bloodthirsty enemies to whom zero laws of civilization matter?"
Because were not barbaric and bloodthirsty. Because to us laws of civilization matter. Because we're not the terrorists. I'd like to think we're better than the scum terrorists -- you want to one-up them.
SERE enrollees are tortured so they know whatto expect if they get captured but the scum. You want to take it as a model for behavior."Finally, these are non-uniformed enemy combatant terrorists that do not abide Geneva and are therefore, just like pirates on the high seas, subject to summary execution on the field of battle."
Yeah. Well, except for all the "non-uniformed enemy combatant terrorists" we've let go because they wern't (unless you think Bush let bloodthirsty sociopaths go because he was bored). The hundreds and hundreds we've released from Gitmo that wern't. That were either totally innocent, or simple insurrectionists, or completely inconsequential. That wern't captured on the field of battle.
How do you know they're all that? Oh yeah, the government told you. Man, I completely admire your faith in Big Government. Its very uplifting."And now, thanks to Obama’s disgraceful release of these top secret attorney/client privileged memos, America’s barbaric enemies will simply train their terrorist operatives in SERE.
Nice going statists, you’ve aided the enemy once again."
But . . . but . . . I thought you trusted your government completely? How strange.You decry the "feminized culture" that weakened our real man spirit to be tough and hurt people . . . then say we're not really torturing prisoners. If you're going to advocate torture, why suggest its not torture? You sound like a wife beater: "I didn't hit my wife, but let me explain how she totally deserved to get hit . . . which I didn't do."
You talk about ROI, but don't seem to give a damn whether or not we actually get or got any information (the entire purpose of interrogation). You argue that "they" deserve it. They got it coming. A bullet in the back of the head is too good for the dirty bastards.You don't want ROI. You want revenge.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 19.04.2009 @ 04:54
@ Don C.:
"If our SEALS endure it, then (a) is it *really* torture, and (b) why not apply it to the likes of barbarians like Zubaydah & KSM?"
Why don't you ask the former master instructor of SERE?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 18.04.2009 @ 03:58
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/
@scrapiron:
"Seven years without an attack on America. Enough said. Any attack in the future will be the responsibility of O’Dumbo and the Clowns, they will be held criminally liable by the people."So . . . I assume you blame Bush for 9-11? If an attack on Obama's watch is his fault, that makes an attack on W's watch his fault, doesn't it? Or do you blame Clinton?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 18.04.2009 @ 03:54
@michael:
You are exactly right as to how those two scenarios should be decided. If the only way to stop the death of others is to kill/harm one, the certainly do what has to be done. The reason you're having trouble getting over that, as others have commented, is because the scenarios that you've posited are structured to only allow for one result.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 17.04.2009 @ 17:12
Think about it this way: In the law, what you're describing is an Affirmative Defense. The most common AD is Self-Defense. If I try to attack you, you have a right to defend yourself (for example, by punching me). Now lets say that the police charge you with Assault (knowingly causing or attempting to cause physical harm to another).
The reason AD is called "Affirmative" Defense is because to offer that defense the defendant affirms that they did indeed commit the crime (you punched me intentionally causing harm to me). You are guilty. You asaulted me. With the presumption of innocence, you start the Assault trial with the presumtion that you did not Assault me. The prosecutor has to prove that. When you offer an AD, you concede that you are in fact guilty, and the prosecutor's duty to prove that is over.
Now, the burden shifts to YOU to demonstrate that although you committed the crime (Assault), the unique circumstances were such that what you did is appropriate. If you don't justify your actions, then you're guilty -- you already admitted it.
You used the example of a police officer shooting a suspect. Is it Homicide? Absolutely. Is it JUSTIFIABLE Homicide? That depends on the facts, and the officer has to present the facts excusing the killing. Imagine if a cop was standing over a suspect they shot down and said "no, trust me, it was totally necassary. I can't go into the details, but really, nothing to see here." Essentially, as a citizen you'd just be hoping that if the cop was dishonest enough to inappropriately kill someone they would at least be honest enough to admit it when asked (and when looking at life in prison as a consequence).
Can torture be justified? Put a bomb in an orphanage, minutes from killing hundreds or thousands, and an officer assaults the bomber, getting the disarm code in the nick of time. No jury on the planet would convict them. Does that mean that officers should beat suspects? If you take away the bomb, the victims, the time constraints, etc., then the justification goes away.
Dick Cheney has repeatedly asserted that torturing prisoners saved lives, thwarted plots. However, he has never offered a single example. Why? If a plot was thwarted, wouldn't the terrorists know about it? It's not like he's revealing anything to our enemies if he says "here's a bomb we uncovered due to enhanced interrogation". They know their plot from two years ago hasn't happened. They know their agents have disappeared. The only thing showing the proverbial ticking time bomb we disarmed would do is justify the Administration's actions.
But he hasn't. He's essentially done the same thing as the hypothetical cop I described above: "It was totally justified. Trust me. If I was lying, I'd totally tell you, so my not telling you must mean I was right."
The reason the burden shifts to the defendant with an AD is because just about everybody thinks they're justified when they use violence (except sociopaths or psychotics). If we, as a society, just trusted people to only be violent when they thought was a good idea, then we're guaranteed lawlessness. That's why many jurisdictions have a "retreat rule" for AD, meaning you have to try and retreat before you can legitimately resort to violence (demonstrating it was your "last resort", not your first choice). You think you need to resort to violence as a last resort? Go for it . . . but you damn well better be able to back up why it was your only option after or you're in trouble.
I agree with Mr. M. in the sense that I don't think that the Admin was sitting around cackling about how they could be abusive. I'm sure, given the fear we all felt after 9-11, they honestly thought that another attack was seconds away. But that worry was based on emotion . . . not facts. And that's just not enough to excuse an Affirmative Defense.
Think about the Assault example I offered earlier. Imagine if your defense was "yeah, I hit him, but I totally thought he was going to hit me so I hit him first. No, he didn't swing at me this time, but he did hit me a few weeks ago, so I figured he was going to hit me when I saw him this time." Is that understandable? Sure. But you're also guilty of Assault, period.
The OLC memos are even worse than all of this. Like Mr. M. said, reading them makes it clear thay they were written specifically to justify torture in a "non-ticking bomb" scenario (since the justification for violence in that case is already allowed). Since the detainees are non-uniformed enemy combatants, we aren't bound by any rules like the Geneva Convention, the UMC, the Constitution, or any other rules. That's not explaining why something is legal -- it's explaining why the laws don't apply . . . and the only reason to do that is to excuse something that would be considered breaking the law (if there's no law, you can't break it).
@Chuck Tuscon:
Good for you working with the EFF -- they're what inspired me to study law in the first place.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 17.04.2009 @ 00:06
@lionheart:
I've got no problem with hating the stimulus and TARP spending. Personally, all things being equal, I'd let the companies fail.
Not being an economist though, I have to rely on the opinions of those that do have some training, and the overwhelming majority of those seem to agree that doing nothing would hurt the economy more, something that I think needs to be avoided (even many of those that disagre with the current plan seem to disagre because they think that the plans should be bigger, not smaller).
Tell me they're bad ideas, and I'll agree. But what should the country do instead? Tell me taxes suck, and I'll agree -- but unless I hear another way to pay the country's bills, I don't know what else to do.In regards to socialism (central government controlling the means of production), it seems to me the big difference between socialism and America today is that the government didn't sieze the (or some) means of productions -- the companies asked (begged) the government to buy a stake. The companies are free to buy that stake back, as many of them are apparently planning to do (the sooner the better). The government buy-in does give us (as part owners) a legit right to have our voice (through the government) heard in the buisness, in the same way as if a private citizen bought a huge chunk of stock in a company.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 16.04.2009 @ 17:40
No company is forced under the government yoke, and those that ask for the help are free to go fully private whenever they can pay us back. Its certainly more "socialist" than no government ownership at all, but to call it "socialism" is (respectfully) more than the facts warrant.
A TEA PARTY WALKBACK -- OF SORTS
retire05:
"you just saw conservatism alive and healthy in hundreds of cities all across the nation today."
God, I hope conservatism is more than that.
I saw protesters (good for them), I saw cosplayers (good for them), I saw Obamahaters (good for them). I heard demands to repeal all taxes (with no explanation about how the government was supposed to pay the bills), demands to repeal Democratic-encouraged taxes (a silly distinction . . . but okay), demands for the bailouts to stop (a fair position), and demands for incumbents of both parties to get loaded into a cannon and shot to the moon (you have my full support).
But mostly, I saw random Anti-Obama and Anti-Democrat hatred. The birthers, the facistfighters, the God-and-Man faithful, the Red Menace Watchful, and the pure wingnuttia.
All the legitimate good discourse that might have come from the rallies got hidden behind the whackadoodles and their signs IMHO.I still don't get the Tea Party symbolism. Dumping tea into rivers . . . why? If the protest was against taxes, why not refuse to pay them, like the draftcard-burners? In the Colonies, dumping the tea made perfect sense. Now, I just don't get it.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 15.04.2009 @ 22:14
@manning:
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 14.04.2009 @ 14:41
Who's concerned on the Left? I certainly don't speak for The Left, but I haven't seen or heard any "concern" from my leftie friends of from the Leftie media I view. Lots of chuckles at the "teabagging" references and bemused confusion as to exactly what the protest is actually about (beyond the leftie assumption that its simply an "Obama is the AntiChrist" party) . . . but no concern.
If the concern is embodied in the report referenced in the original post . . . then I echo the other people who want to read it for themselves. All due respect to Ms. Malkin, but she's hardly an objective reporter. Perhaps the report does say all those things, but I prefer to determine that for myself.
@ Retire05:
Seems like there have been a few lawsuits in the last couple of years specifically to determine "names of people whose civil rights have been violated by illegal wiretapping". The government has refused to reveal who has been tapped, what was collected, and what purposes it was used for -- and as a result the courts have blocked the suits because nobody can prove standing to act as a plaintiff. It's a fantastic legal circle: The government has admitted they violated citizen's rights, but can't be held accountable.
I would think as a "conservative" that would scare the hell out of you. Isn't that the very image of "Big Government Trampling John. Q. Citizen" that the movement is so obsessed with?
The whole "they can listen because I'm not doing anything" argument never made any sense to me. Do you care if police randomly walk into your home and rifle through your possessions? I assume you're not breaking any laws, so no big deal, right?
The whole reason the Framers created the BoR is specifically because they believed just trusting the government not to abuse its power was an unbelievably moronic and suicidal idea. Isn't that belief a founding tenet of Conservatism? And if it isn't . . . what the hell is Conservatism all about?p.s. -- it probably won't apply at most of the Tea Parties, but in certain circumstances giving law enforcement a fake name and address (like John Q. Public) is a crime (In Ohio it was called Obstructing Official Buisness, a 2nd degree misdemeanor). Heck, in some states refusing to give a name is a crime. And if they really wanted to get cute, whomever told you to break the law could theoratically get roped into a conspiracy charge. Just an FYI.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 14.04.2009 @ 10:38
