This is scary
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Oakman wrote:
Of course most neocons seem quite anxious to fight for their country - to the last drop of everyone else's blood.
I'm less interested in physical sacrifice than in emotional sacrifice. It's easy to pick up a gun to fight a battle (well - ok - easier to gut react than to slow down and think; fighting a war actually takes alot of courage); it's much, much harder to accept your limitations, accept that some problems have unpleasant solutions, and learn to deal with the world as it is. To give a concrete example, we're often told that the infringement on our rights during wartime is necessary; that removing the right of habeas corpus from accused prisoners is somehow necessary; that wiretapping American citizens is a freedom we have to give up for the greater good. I'd find it interesting to actually uphold our principles and the freedoms our forebears fought for, despite the fact that it makes our lives harder. Yeah, it makes law enforcement's job harder. Yes, it ties one hand behind our back while our enemies are free to use both to pummel us. But it also will always and forever give us the high moral ground. And IF and WHEN our enemies are actually willing to listen, they might actually believe the things we say and come to understand and agree with us, instead of planning to stab us in the back.
Oakman wrote:
Thinking about issues is still OK isn't it - even in your vision of America?
Apparently, thinking about issues is only for sissies and homosexuals. REAL Americans do whatever their government tells them to do. Or so the conservative right in America has recently seemed to believe. Sad part is, 10 years ago I would have said I was a conservative. Not anymore. I believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility, principals that have long since been abandoned by the conservative right. Now I don't know what the hell to call myself, because I sure as hell don't want a nanny state either.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein
Patrick Sears wrote:
I'd find it interesting to actually uphold our principles and the freedoms our forebears fought for,
Our forebears routinely suspended habeas corpus as necessary and wiretapped whenever possible. The only question is what the hell has happened to people such as yourself? No generation of Americans has ever so thoroughly over-intellectualized the need for national defense. Why are you so gullible and suscepible to propaganda? I got news for you, Patrick, there is no such thing as a right to use a telephone. Look in the constitution - it ain't there. And, again, if you are so concerned about your rights, and so concerned about our traditions, and so conservative, why do you not support the elimination of the 16th amendement, the IRS, why do you not understand the importance of defeating Roe V Wade? Why do you not understand the importance of returning schools to local control? Why do you not understand any of the vast array of rights we have lost long before Bush ever got any where near the white house. Bush has done nothing that is even in the same fucking ball park as the abuses of federal authority by the goddamned democrat party that have virtually overturned our constitutional rights as orginially envisioned. Why is it you only care about losing rights when the people actually losing them at not even your goddamned countrymen? When I lose my rights you don't give a shit, but let some fuck wad fur ball terrorist lose his and you go ballistic.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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Stan Shannon wrote:
I can't find my citation now
Shall I remind you a week from now? And the week after that?... :laugh:
Stan Shannon wrote:
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
I've never understood why Jefferson felt he was justifying the Louisiana Purchase with this construction. What danger was he saving the U.S. from? Of course all we have to do is compare his use of slaves as bed-warmers with his "all men are equal" pronouncements to realise how far from his practice was his preachment. A man so skilled in doublethink would have no problem believing he was saving the country by violating the constitution.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it.
Lincoln's claim that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, of which this is part, is on the face of it, true. On the other hand it is quite clear that the Declaration of Independence is a suicide pact in word and in deed: "Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact. And, finally, there is the New Jersey Signer, Abraham Clark. He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship "Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the
What horseshit. Clearly, national defense is a priority in its own right, as can be easily confirmed by even a cursory purusal of US history, and has consistently come before whatever rights needed to be suspended to in order to defend the country. Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well. He has managed the economy well, and even managed to give us a couple of good conservative judges. His mistakes have been giving in to too much congressional spending, and miscalculations in Iraq. The only thing different in our current situation is a form of political opposition that is determined to remake the country into something entirely different than it has ever before been. It is a movement which hates the traditions our civilization is founded upon and desires only to have a form of government dedicated exclusively to the advancement of its own agenda. It came of age in the Vietnam era and sees the current situation as an opportunity to regain momentum. It is vile and evil to its core, and badly needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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Patrick Sears wrote:
To give a concrete example, we're often told that the infringement on our rights during wartime is necessary; that removing the right of habeas corpus from accused prisoners is somehow necessary; that wiretapping American citizens is a freedom we have to give up for the greater good
My niece and her husband both lawyer for the DOJ. I asked them to justify not whether there might not be times when we needed to wiretap suspected terrorists (American or not) but rather, the claim that we just had to do it without the judicial oversite required by the law of the land. Neither could do so to their own satisfaction, let alone mine.
Patrick Sears wrote:
I believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility, principals that have long since been abandoned by the conservative right. Now I don't know what the hell to call myself
How about, "an American?" Seems to me that the Consies and the Libs have both forgotten what that used to stand for.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
My niece and her husband both lawyer for the DOJ. I asked them to justify not whether there might not be times when we needed to wiretap suspected terrorists (American or not) but rather, the claim that we just had to do it without the judicial oversite required by the law of the land. Neither could do so to their own satisfaction, let alone mine.
You mean like we have been doing for about the last forty years?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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What horseshit. Clearly, national defense is a priority in its own right, as can be easily confirmed by even a cursory purusal of US history, and has consistently come before whatever rights needed to be suspended to in order to defend the country. Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well. He has managed the economy well, and even managed to give us a couple of good conservative judges. His mistakes have been giving in to too much congressional spending, and miscalculations in Iraq. The only thing different in our current situation is a form of political opposition that is determined to remake the country into something entirely different than it has ever before been. It is a movement which hates the traditions our civilization is founded upon and desires only to have a form of government dedicated exclusively to the advancement of its own agenda. It came of age in the Vietnam era and sees the current situation as an opportunity to regain momentum. It is vile and evil to its core, and badly needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan, you are a hoot and a half. Give you a camera and you could end up being the Michael Moore of the right.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well.
You just keep repeating that real loud instead of reading about current events.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is vile and evil to its core, and badly needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity
You forgot to mention the Satanists and Vampires. . .
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is a movement which hates the traditions our civilization is founded upon and desires only to have a form of government dedicated exclusively to the advancement of its own agenda.
You feel that way about the neo-cons, too???
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Oakman wrote:
My niece and her husband both lawyer for the DOJ. I asked them to justify not whether there might not be times when we needed to wiretap suspected terrorists (American or not) but rather, the claim that we just had to do it without the judicial oversite required by the law of the land. Neither could do so to their own satisfaction, let alone mine.
You mean like we have been doing for about the last forty years?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
You mean like we have been doing for about the last forty years?
proof of this claim or just another fantasy? Did you find your Franklin citation yet? LOL
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Stan, you are a hoot and a half. Give you a camera and you could end up being the Michael Moore of the right.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well.
You just keep repeating that real loud instead of reading about current events.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is vile and evil to its core, and badly needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity
You forgot to mention the Satanists and Vampires. . .
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is a movement which hates the traditions our civilization is founded upon and desires only to have a form of government dedicated exclusively to the advancement of its own agenda.
You feel that way about the neo-cons, too???
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
Stan Shannon wrote: Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well. You just keep repeating that real loud instead of reading about current events.
I disagree with you both - Pesident Bush should have pointed multiwarhead thermonuclear devices at the entire region, after giving Israel a heads up, and pulled the trigger.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
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Oakman wrote:
Now we just call up the Guard and Reserves over and over and over.
isn't the the purpose of the Guard and Reserves?
Oakman wrote:
But by very cleverly timing their tours of duty we never have to provide them with the benefits due regular enlistees.
I'll wager you don't really care and would find a different twist if the benefit situation were different.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
Mike Gaskey wrote:
isn't the the purpose of the Guard and Reserves?
Nope - don't you know anything???
Mike Gaskey wrote:
I'll wager you don't really care and would find a different twist if the benefit situation were different.
And you are basing your wager on what? The way your thumb tastes? Your knowledge of what it's like to be in combat - oh wait, by '64 you were already safely hidden behind a computer. You're just a chicken hawk, with all the moral authority of any other kind of draft dodger.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Oakman wrote:
Stan Shannon wrote: Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well. You just keep repeating that real loud instead of reading about current events.
I disagree with you both - Pesident Bush should have pointed multiwarhead thermonuclear devices at the entire region, after giving Israel a heads up, and pulled the trigger.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
Mike Gaskey wrote:
I disagree with you both - Pesident Bush should have pointed multiwarhead thermonuclear devices at the entire region, after giving Israel a heads up, and pulled the trigger.
I call that scenario the "Instant Oil Independence" route. By the way, how big do you mean when you say region - we going after Afghanistan? Pakistan? You think maybe India and China will be unhappy when the fallout hits? What about Saudi Arabia? After all, Wahhabi is what Al Quaeda calls itself when it's inside a mosque. Aww fug it. In for a lamb, in for a sheep - let's start with Algeria and end up in Indonesia. . .wait, come to think of it, the Phillipines have Muslims, too. . . blow 'em all away, right?!
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Patrick Sears wrote:
I'd find it interesting to actually uphold our principles and the freedoms our forebears fought for,
Our forebears routinely suspended habeas corpus as necessary and wiretapped whenever possible. The only question is what the hell has happened to people such as yourself? No generation of Americans has ever so thoroughly over-intellectualized the need for national defense. Why are you so gullible and suscepible to propaganda? I got news for you, Patrick, there is no such thing as a right to use a telephone. Look in the constitution - it ain't there. And, again, if you are so concerned about your rights, and so concerned about our traditions, and so conservative, why do you not support the elimination of the 16th amendement, the IRS, why do you not understand the importance of defeating Roe V Wade? Why do you not understand the importance of returning schools to local control? Why do you not understand any of the vast array of rights we have lost long before Bush ever got any where near the white house. Bush has done nothing that is even in the same fucking ball park as the abuses of federal authority by the goddamned democrat party that have virtually overturned our constitutional rights as orginially envisioned. Why is it you only care about losing rights when the people actually losing them at not even your goddamned countrymen? When I lose my rights you don't give a shit, but let some fuck wad fur ball terrorist lose his and you go ballistic.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
there is no such thing as a right to use a telephone. Look in the constitution - it ain't there.
:zzz: strawman
Stan Shannon wrote:
And, again, if you are so concerned about your rights, and so concerned about our traditions, and so conservative, why do you not support the elimination of the 16th amendement, the IRS, why do you not understand the importance of defeating Roe V Wade? Why do you not understand the importance of returning schools to local control?
Incidentally, I support all of those things.
Stan Shannon wrote:
abuses of federal authority by the goddamned democrat party that have virtually overturned our constitutional rights as orginially envisioned.
I've said here before that FDR was one of the worst things to ever happen to this country. So, it seems we agree here.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Why is it you only care about losing rights when the people actually losing them at not even your goddamned countrymen?
Because somehow, I happen to think human rights are.. well... human rights, not American rights. Just because we were the first to Constitutionally enshrine those rights doesn't mean others don't deserve to be treated equally as humanely.
Stan Shannon wrote:
When I lose my rights you don't give a sh*t
I suppose you might look at this another way, given the foregoing. Editing to add: I am not one of the above 1-votes by the way. This is the first time in a long time I've had the sense I had a productive discourse with you.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein
modified on Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:26:02 PM
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Patrick Sears wrote:
To give a concrete example, we're often told that the infringement on our rights during wartime is necessary; that removing the right of habeas corpus from accused prisoners is somehow necessary; that wiretapping American citizens is a freedom we have to give up for the greater good
My niece and her husband both lawyer for the DOJ. I asked them to justify not whether there might not be times when we needed to wiretap suspected terrorists (American or not) but rather, the claim that we just had to do it without the judicial oversite required by the law of the land. Neither could do so to their own satisfaction, let alone mine.
Patrick Sears wrote:
I believe in limited government and fiscal responsibility, principals that have long since been abandoned by the conservative right. Now I don't know what the hell to call myself
How about, "an American?" Seems to me that the Consies and the Libs have both forgotten what that used to stand for.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
I asked them to justify not whether there might not be times when we needed to wiretap suspected terrorists (American or not) but rather, the claim that we just had to do it without the judicial oversite required by the law of the land. Neither could do so to their own satisfaction, let alone mine.
Ah, I like that distinction. I'll have to remember that. :)
Oakman wrote:
How about, "an American?"
Good point.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein
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Stan Shannon wrote:
You mean like we have been doing for about the last forty years?
proof of this claim or just another fantasy? Did you find your Franklin citation yet? LOL
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
proof of this claim or just another fantasy?
If you just want something to read.[^] But this country has performed wiretapping for as long as they had wires to tap. In fact, the very term 'wire tap' originates when a telegraph device was secretly spliced into a wire to tap out the messages bent sent across it. No earlier generation of AMericans were stupid enough to put a completely non-constitutional technology before the very explicite constitutional requirement to defend the nation.
Oakman wrote:
Did you find your Franklin citation yet? LOL
I found this...[^] "with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor"; but at the same time "there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent." "In short," Franklin concluded, the English aristocracy "offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and . . . we should not now wonder that it has had the effect of an increase in poverty." And this...[^] "Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." But that isn't the one I had. Somewhere out there is a PDF file that gives a detailed analysis of Franklin's welfare sentiments and relates a version of your quote to it. Franklin did see welfare as sacrifice of liberty for security.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization<
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Alex Jones is a conspiracy nut case. I wouldn't trust him that much...
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
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Oakman wrote:
proof of this claim or just another fantasy?
If you just want something to read.[^] But this country has performed wiretapping for as long as they had wires to tap. In fact, the very term 'wire tap' originates when a telegraph device was secretly spliced into a wire to tap out the messages bent sent across it. No earlier generation of AMericans were stupid enough to put a completely non-constitutional technology before the very explicite constitutional requirement to defend the nation.
Oakman wrote:
Did you find your Franklin citation yet? LOL
I found this...[^] "with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor"; but at the same time "there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent." "In short," Franklin concluded, the English aristocracy "offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and . . . we should not now wonder that it has had the effect of an increase in poverty." And this...[^] "Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." But that isn't the one I had. Somewhere out there is a PDF file that gives a detailed analysis of Franklin's welfare sentiments and relates a version of your quote to it. Franklin did see welfare as sacrifice of liberty for security.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization<
Stan Shannon wrote:
But this country has performed wiretapping for as long as they had wires to tap
Stan, you really have to learn to read. I type slowly so you can get it, but it doesn't seem to help. :laugh: I made if very clear that I was talking with my niece and her husband about non-judicially-approved wiretapping. Now it may have escaped your notice, but all those years of wiretapping that you refer to, were done with court warrants. The legal theory goes something along the lines of: Americans have a legal presumption of privacy when they talk on the phone. Recordings can be made of phone conversations only when at least one (in some states, both) parties know that the call is being taped OR when there is a court warrant to invade the callers' privacy on presumption of a criminal act being discussed. There has been a special court constituted to allow the FBI and other Federal agencies the granting of an immediate warrant. In some cases, the Feds are permitted by law to tap first and seek a warrant afterwards. What was illegal was the taping of conversations by American citizens without seeking a warrant either before or after the fact. All of the mental gymnastics your paranoia forces you to go through; all of the verbal circumlocutions your terrified world view helps you come up with, will not be able to get around the evidence that the Feds violated the law of the land during the Bush administration. You may want to say that they were 'right' to do it; that God gave them permission; that their oath to defend and protect forced them to break the law or any other b.s. you might want to offer up. The fact remains: what they did was illegal, without precedent, and probably a high crime or misdemeanor in the constitutional sense -- not the Bush will be held accountable (at least while he is in office.)
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Anyone with views outside of those expressed by the mass media is labelled as a nutcase. Better watch what he has to say and then decide.
I have listened to him. I have decided. He's almost in the same league as David Icke!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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Oakman wrote:
Stan Shannon wrote: Bush is doing pretty much precisely what a commander-in-chief is supposed to do, and doing it relatively well. You just keep repeating that real loud instead of reading about current events.
I disagree with you both - Pesident Bush should have pointed multiwarhead thermonuclear devices at the entire region, after giving Israel a heads up, and pulled the trigger.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
Mike Gaskey wrote:
I disagree with you both - Pesident Bush should have pointed multiwarhead thermonuclear devices at the entire region, after giving Israel a heads up, and pulled the trigger.
Y'know, Mike, I respect a lot of the things you say, and even agree with some, but this is absolute lunacy, or idiocy, or both. Of the roughly seven million inhabitants of metropolitan Baghdad, how many do you think are actively antagonistic towards the U.S.? Or rather, how many were antagonistic at the beginning of our little exercise in winning hearts and minds through demolition? One percent? Even if it were ten percent, would the deaths of the other 6,300,000 people have been justified?