Comments Posted By mannning
Displaying 381 To 390 Of 475 Comments
ONLY A REPUBLICAN COULD BE SO STUPID...
retire05:
My boys will contact your boys and we'll all go out for a drink!
Even blacks know when boys is meant as a collective noun, but some will object just to make trouble. PC will drown us sooner or later, as will overdone sensitivity on both sides.
Of course, you don't use "boy" inappropriately. That is, in a demeaning sense. I just have to remember not to call a black hotel pageboy "boy" anymore.
I get the vision of our vocabulary shrinking day by day as other nouns become verboten out of misguided sensitivity. Maybe I should create a dictionary of verboten nouns to be sure not to use one in the wrong way. Bit of a bother to have to look up every noun, but that is what this nonsense is coming to. Someone can find a way to be offended by almost any noun, it seems.
Comment Posted By mannning On 16.04.2008 @ 21:01
Boy Howdy, it makes me mad!
I guess COWBOY will have to go!
Comment Posted By mannning On 16.04.2008 @ 00:42
ELITISM AND THE ELITIST ELITES WHO THINK THEY'RE THE ELITE
You may be an elite if you are not a redneck.
Comment Posted By mannning On 15.04.2008 @ 21:07
I find it exceedingly odd that everyone would focus on the damned terrorists and their torture, and no one even pauses to think about US citizens being tortured right here in America in our own jails. Seems we have two faces about this: ignore our own home problems and whine about the terrorists.
Comment Posted By mannning On 13.04.2008 @ 21:07
I have three points to offer:
Point 1: Has anyone ever surveyed or done a deep investigation of US police departments' treatment of captured offenders? We have seen isolated Vcam instances on TV, but I suspect such behavior is far more rampant.
As to publicity of such actions, we have shipped overseas many films that depict just such actions by our police every year, for the "enjoyment" of foreign audiences. Even in Holland, a number of Dutchmen have commented on the brutality seen over and over in flim after film, and have asked if such behavior was the norm in the US. The point being that if the films are a success at the box office in the US, what does that say about the public's thirst for brutality?
Yes, it is most often a fictional portrayal that they see, but to see these films year after year raises questions. Are we really this brutal? Does this happen often? Why does the film industry spew out ths sort of thing in volume every year? It sells.
The America haters seize on our penchant for brutality in films as evidence of a failed culture, and they are not at all surprised to see evidence coming from Iraq (and from the US, too!) that we do in fact practice forms of torture and brutality, though they have been shocked by it--for sure. This only confirms what they have suspected all along, I suggest.
We therefore have fostered a negative image in many places that has been nutured by our export of films showing lawlessness, brutality in jails, and violence on the streets, and then confirmed it all by published scenes from our overseas prisons in Iraq.
The bottom line is that we have a lot of cleaning up to do to reverse this image of brutality--and the fact of brutality-- in the US. However, I sincerely doubt that we can shift the film industry away from their current love of violent films.
Point 2: The next President should not only have the Justice Department investigate and prosecute US violators of the laws regarding real torture in the US and in overseas theaters. He should also have them perform deep investigations nation-wide into our police departments and their violations of the rights of citizens and others in their custody.
Point 3: Of course, I have left out the definition of "real torture," but it most certainly must include serious bodily harm. I reiterate my previous position, however, that regardless of the definitions, investigations, prosecutions, and the laws passed, some forms of torture will continue to be practiced as the situation warrants it--but now by using far more circumspect and secret measures.
Comment Posted By mannning On 10.04.2008 @ 12:53
I used the term "deep interrogation", which does not mean using torture, necessarily. It is obvious to me that we cannot spend countless hours, even months, going through a deep interrogation only to find that the foot soldier in front of us really doesn't know a thing of importance.
Some way has to be found to separate the wheat from the chaff. What way is that?
Comment Posted By mannning On 7.04.2008 @ 13:28
Caught in the act means just that. Handed over by others of dubious loyalty and honesty is just that. Circumstances alter cases.
Comment Posted By mannning On 6.04.2008 @ 21:19
"No, that’s NOT the question—that’s the question that makes torture look excusable. Let me ask you the same question with one addition:
“The question is if lives are NOT saved by torturing for information, should one refrain because of moral inhibitions?”
I hope you answered “of course.”Interrogators have a hard choice to make, and it is quite possible that they would pick the wrong man to undergo deep interrogation out of a gaggle of terrorist captives.
That they are condemned without trial as terrorists is a given--caught in the act, so to speak--so they must take their chances. Deep interrogation is one of those chances.
The interrogators pick another captive-- hopefully a better choice this time, or they are back to square one again. One bit of info they may acquire is the ID of the leader of the gaggle--possibly the most productive person of the bunch.
Someone said in the past that to forbid any form of torture is to condemn to death any torture victim after he has given up his all. This removes the victim from testifying against the interrogators later on. "He died trying to escape!" they report.
But then, I read too much fiction.
Comment Posted By mannning On 6.04.2008 @ 00:25
To get to the point, codifying torture in the law as an acceptable practice is wrong. The issue should be left alone, and we can declare our moral revulsion of it as much as we want, and make all of the declarations we can dream up against it, as Bush has done more than once.
Meanwhile, in certain situations, torture will be used to gain information not available in other ways. The practitioners will accept condemnation and any penalties forthcoming for using torture because of their conviction that they were doing the right thing to protect lives.
However, 99,999 out of 100,000 men will neither face this issue in real life nor even know that it has occurred. On that point, it is very easy to cry out against torture if it is safely abstract and a purely moral issue.
Comment Posted By mannning On 3.04.2008 @ 12:43
The question is if lives are saved by torturing for information, should one refrain because of moral inhibitions? What, pray tell, is moral about war and terrorism that should hold us back from saving those we can if we act?
There is only one scorekeeper, and He will sort the morality question out later on to His satisfaction. I, for one, would not want 1, 10 or 100, or many more dead people on my conscience because I would not apply the necessary means to one man to save them.
Niceness and delicacy in war is idiocy. You shoot to wound or kill. You shell cities and whole areas to kill or maim. You drop bombs to kill or maim. You use flame throwers to char men to death or worse. What is the difference?
The only real difference is your intent to save lives by torture, if you can.
Comment Posted By mannning On 2.04.2008 @ 21:28
