Free Republic

Who's "we," kimosabe?

"We" refers to the members of this community. In this particular case, the ones who posted the Weekly Standard article last month. I didn't realize "we" could be twisted in the way you seem to be trying to twist it. Next time I will try to be more specific realizing that I'm either dealing with some liberals who are trying to sabotage my efforts to get at the truth or just some plain old crazy paranoids.

Those who read my old post without paranoia will see I was looking for a little guidance, didn't get it then and now all the sudden I'm the bad guy. Was the word "useless" too strong? Well, sorry it’s the truth. I guess its fine for generating a little excitement here where the word "We" becomes a Clark defending conspiracy.

Excuse me if I have to deal with people who pick up on these things and just laugh their asses off at how stupid conservatives are and how they twist things out of context and a whole bunch of other slanders. But, maybe they just are talking about people like you because I'm trying to get some facts and a good argument here and I keep getting people responding with the same old error of taking things out of context and now accusing me of being transparent.

Where oh where does a conservative go to get real logical arguments to convert the majority of independents and moderate liberals? And you got to face the facts, the guy appeals to the middle. I obviously picked the wrong place and I have the feeling that maybe there are just a bunch of DUers here putting down mindless comments and accusing those of us who would dig deeper and have all the facts at our disposal for real live arguments of being transparent.

Well, I guess I will end it here. I'm not getting anything I haven't already gotten and it just seems to breed more ad hominen attacks. I don't need to waste any more time. So you win -- you are so right and I'm so wrong and such a transparent Clark defender :->. Makes me wonder how anyone can ever ask serious and tough question here.

Adios Tonto. You shall never hear from the Lone Ranger again as he seeks greener pastures and deeper conservative minds.

I was saying listen to the entire interview. The quote you provide is completely and totally out of context.

Here is what you have done with your quote

You chopped out this

GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.

To which Russert responds with this question

MR. RUSSERT: By who? Who did that?

To which Clark replies

GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, "You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein." I said, "But--I'm willing to say it but what's your evidence?" And I never got any evidence. And these were people who had--Middle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didn't talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.

The part in bold is the only part you included in your last post and it sure does make it look like the call was from the White House. But he also talks about a Middle East think tank (why did you cut that?) and he seems to be referring back to the call when he says "And these were people".

I can tell people really want to read into this so I can see how it is convenient to take the call and place it on the White House and then come back and say hey he contradicted himself with this letter to the NYT. Most swing voters and moderates that we need to convince aren't going to buy that a guy who graduated first in his class from West Point is stupid enough to write such a letter when this transcript is easily available. Oh, yeah, I forgot he cheated in West Point and that is how he came out first. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Or that is at least the defense I would expect to hear coming from the tone laid out here. Sorry, but ad hominen attacks are just lame, especially when the ad hominen attack is about a person's honesty and consistency and we can't even determine what consistency is ourselves.

Twist it all you want, but just realize that you are leaving yourself open to liberals. So instead of attacking me why don't you figure out where he really contradicted himself (with context) so we can use it.

"We" refers to the members of this community. I guess the word was too general for those who see conspiracy everywhere.

And now that your distracting question is answered one has to ask themselves why does it matter? So pretend I'm the head of the DU because you probably do anyway. Get back to the message, not the messenger. Focus on the issue, not the person bringing it up.

By the way, the original post that I was referring to only has about 40 replies at this point in time. Where do you get 200+? Did you follow the hyperlink to the other Free Republic discussion that I posted here? Maybe that is the source of your confusion as to where I stand.

Yeah facts were certainly presented in the form of actual quotes. The Weekly Standard article was supposed to be fact. But when I was forced to dig deeper I realized all these facts were taken out of context. Its like reading the Bible and saying the whole thing is violent and horrible because of one chapter out of the book of Joshua.

And you still aren't addressing the issues. Its still all about me and distracting questions. Don't worry I will soon be gone as I cannot get what I need here and I grow tired of wasting my time completely off of the issue at hand, which is whether this guy essentially contradicted himself or not.

Mr Frenchname? Better check your etymology there if you are interested in getting your facts straight, which it appears you aren't. And the reason I say that is your post is exactly eight minutes after mine. How did you manage to read that entire post, check the broadcast of Meet The Press and Hannity & Colmes, and then write back to me in that short of a time period? Is the Free Republic date/time stamp lying? Sorry, I can just picture you saying that for some reason.

You don't like my message so you attack the messenger. I guess you just don't know who to trust anymore. It must be nice to live in a world where you are always correct and anyone who threatens your reality must be up to no good. How do I know you aren't some DUer just trying to make us conservatives look like a bunch of idiots by making claims that are clearly disproved by the actual broadcasts? The irony of it is amazing!

Here you are bashing the guy for being a liar or not knowing what he is talking about with such certainty and you aren't even concerned that there are real broadcasts out there on tape with Clark and Hannity and Tim Russert that don't support what you are saying. Who cares about the messenger when the message is clear! Go make yourself useful and review the shows or their transcripts and get me some real facts that actually support these claims. I would do it myself, but you see that's what I was asking about on the last post and no one could really help me out there either. So if you can great. You can keep everyone else here from looking like idiots who just go spouting off without doing any research.

And if you just want to go after me again then don't bother responding because it just gives ammo to all the liberals out there who are going to say - "hey look the conservatives are dodging the facts again and resorting to ad hominen attacks". And such a response will not reflect very highly on your dedication to truth or helping out with this debate.

Enjoy your petty ad hominen festival and if anyone can point me to a board where I can get some actual facts to counter the arguments that I presented I would appreciate it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/965068/posts

We've already covered this Weekly Standard article almost a month ago. It was useless then and its useless now. It doesn't hold up. If you like to use lies to smear the man then go ahead. George Will fell into this trap too in one of his Wash Post articles. He even claimed there wasn't a middle East think tank in Canada.

You can make anyone look bad by taking quotes out of context. I blame Hannity, after watching the show and seeing how he handled it, for dropping the ball when he had a chance to pin the general into a corner. And the Weekly Standard put Hannity's words out of context in that article too. These guys are just sloppy and take away our credibility.

Well I liked Bush I and don't consider him a liberal or closer to Clinton than Reagan or even along for the ride of conservatism. In fact, Reagan acted like more of a tax and spend liberal than Bush I. First off Reagan did raise our payroll taxes to support the most liberal of all government programs. Second, he cut other taxes through deficit spending increasing the debt 300% from the time he got in office to the time he left office. This is more than triple what any other President has done in the last 50 years. The way I see it, long term, is that Reagan got to make us very happy in the 80s with his tax cuts and Bush I had to be the bad conservative who had to raise taxes to cover for it. He didn't want to raise taxes, but he also wanted to make sure that we weren't going to bankrupt ourselves in debt. In fact, 20 cents of every stinking dollar of income tax that I pay now goes to paying off interest on debt and I'm going to have to lay a lot of that wasted expense on Reagan. Bush I also got nailed by a recession which should have never been if Reagan's supply side ideas worked correctly. So labeling Bush I as less of a conservative just doesn't seem right to me. One has to look at the situation he inherited. I'm judging conservatism in a more traditional fashion and that means smaller government with less financial burdens. Debt is one of the worse financial burdens our government puts on us because it has to be paid back in interest. And the way I hear things now is that the Chinese are beginning to have a large claim stake in that debt. I have no interest in my taxes being raised now or later to pay interest to the Chinese.

You are comparing Bush I, a Republican to Clinton? And Clark is being compared to Clinton? You end this by saying that you don't think Clinton is a moderate, but Bush I is closer to him than he was to Reagan? What does this make Bush I - a liberal?

Sorry if I sound a bit confused.

Straight capitalism doesn't work, any more than communism

What is the relationship of what you call straight capitalism to laissez-faire and ever greater free markets that we hear so much about today? The mantra today seems to be that the government should keep their hands out of everything because they just mess it up. When one moves away from straight capitalism do they necessarily become communist? How are these related to industry regulation and taxes?

Nothing in the Constitution establishes Capitalism. But the Constitution, of itself, is against communism. at the Federal level

Okay, I guess this goes back to the question is Capitalism the opposite of Communism? If the Constitution opposes communism (on the grounds of Liberty?), does it not automatically favor Capitalism? Sorry for the redundant question, but that is my understanding. The initial article on this post seems to support my thinking on this. Progressive taxation is non-capitalistic and anti-American and therefore communist. Did I read this wrong?

Nothing as to property rights or of contract law, of itself, establish or deny Capitalism

I don't mean to be argumentative on this point (just trying to clarify), but here is the definition of capitalism from the Merriam Webster dictionary:

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

It is contrasted to communism

a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed 2 capitalized a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R. b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably d : communist systems collectively

It specifically states that Communism denies private property. If the US allows private property, but engages in regulation and progressive taxation what type of state is it? As far as the definition of capitalism goes, it talks about private ownership of capital goods. Is this private property where capital goods = property?

Yet a state or commonwealth could charter up as a communist state. In Pennsylvania, we find "commons" -- common areas theoretically available to all to graze livestock on etc.

What about national parks and national reserves? Aren't these federal "common areas" too? I guess we could classify interestate highways as commons also?

But they break down. The economic models. What is good? Liberty! Respect for property, for marriage, for parents, care for the widows and orphans, the poor, the sick and the respectful burial of the dead. The rest is bosh and posh.

Not a simple subject to clarify by any means. Boortz should have elaborated more. This is the type of stuff I get nailed on. It looks like the word communism is just used as a derogatory adjective to insult any policy that the government uses to tax or regulate or establish common areas? I wonder how this relates to the idea of Corporations? Are these not entities that exist because they are recognized by government?

Thanks

Thanks for the quick response bvw -- I was afraid this thread was dead. I'm not sure what you mean by "There are far better choices than me on FR to explain the relationships." Is there another thread on this topic?

Can you point me in the direction of a good book regarding the convention. I was particularly interested in the property = liberty part. Liberty is indeed a much larger concept than property. In fact, the primary synonym for liberty is freedom. Within that we could talk about economic, political, physical, and social freedom. Property (particulary private) would fall into economic freedom. Such words are too big to be easily defined so I am curious to see some of the comments by the founders regarding their definition of liberty.

So what type of system do we have today in the United States? We have progressive taxation. We also have laws regarding an individuals right to own private property. And for the most part, it seems that our government has little say on marketplace supply and the means of production. Does adding more taxes make us more communist?

I have more questions, but will stop here as the more I write the more I realize how complicted these ideas really are. I think one of the things that is complicating the whole discussion in my mind is the tie in between political systems and economic systems. Communism seems opposed directly to capitalism and I believe that is how Marx wrote about it (please correct me if I'm wrong). Our constitution, on the other hand, seems to exist at some level beyond just economics, with the possible exception that one needs to fund a government somehow and liberty refers to property rights.

How was a "Republican lite"??? In other words, what part of his policies warranted being labeled as Republican?

And why the hell would the DNC support him?

You claim Clark is trustworthy?

Can you tell me where you know him from and in what capacity and the reasons why you think he is unsuitable to be President?

Thanks for the info in advance!

Hey watch your sources. These Counterpunch guys are about as far left as you can get. They hate all Generals and military it appears. Here is a sample of their leftist propagand from the first paragraph on their main page.

"Palestinian suicide bombings are vicious and grave abuses, clearly war crimes under international law for intentionally killing civilians. They have also been a strategic disaster for Palestinian national aspirations. They have driven the Israeli public to embrace the Israeli far right's expansionist agenda and have severely damaged the Palestinian cause in the court of world opinion. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to avoid concluding that the current Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has either deliberately provoked a number of them or at least undertaken actions that would clearly risk them. Either way, it is complicit in the deaths of scores of Israeli citizens."

I heard that a lot of DNC types are calling him a Republican-Lite. According to some of them he is too conservative for the liberal base and that is why they don't like him.

The people on this post seem pretty knowledgeable about history, the constitution, communism, and Marx. Can someone here help me answer some questions?

First off I'm curious about the relationship of communism to our constitution. The very first part of the constitution states: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Doesn’t communism have something to do with collectivism? Or is communism just an economic system like capitalism? Did Marx have any statements or declarations regarding our form of government or our constitution specifically?

The parts of the statement that I have included that seem to be collectivist in nature is “We the People” and then “promote the general Welfare”. What types of statements are these in relation to government, communism, and capitalism?

I’m also curious how taxation relates to communism. Was there taxation in the Soviet Union? I thought the government owned everything (no private property) and all the means of production so there was no need for taxation there?

I’ve also been curious about how socialism and communism are related. What are the similarities and differences?

Boortz also talked about public schools being communist in nature? Is this true? When did the government (state or federal governments) begin to pay for public schools? What percentage of the population has been trained by public schools?

I would appreciate all the help I can get as I often go head to head with some pretty tough and sharp liberal debaters. Thanks.

Does this answer PART of your question.

Part is a good way to put it, but it doesn't get to the essence of the debate I'm having. Thanks anyway baseballmom -- I agree with what you are saying. He was thinking out loud, he did imply that the White House was part of the 9/11-Saddam link and also I understand that there was a lot of speculation on the issue and don't blame anyone for speculating. Of course my sympathy doesn't really matter nor do the ad hominen attacks. Here is what I'm getting nailed on.

1) The Weekly Standard seems focused on Clark's inconsistency between the three sources
2) They use this inconsistency to question his credibility and say does he have an imaginary friend
3) They never prove their point

The Weekly Standard just seem to be debunking Krugman's credibility. Who needs more of that? In fact, my friends say this article just shows how unpartisan and honorable Clark is because he took away Krugman's spin on his Russert statement while maintaining consistency.

Clark can NOW write any letter he wants to try to clear up the "misinformation"

Clark's letter to the New York Times to correct Krugman says Subsequently, I learned that there was much discussion inside the administration in the days immediately after Sept. 11 trying to use 9/11 to go after Saddam Hussein.

He never backed down from his original claim that there was this idea to pin 9/11 on Saddam and that the idea was floating around in the White House. His letter is consistent with his statement on Russert's show. And he explicitly links the call he got on 9/11 to a mideast think tank. The call and the source are separate and according to my friends the reason he doesn't name the source is appropriate because the Bush administration has "apparently" shown their true colors and ability to play dirty by leaking the fact that Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent.

Of course, I could care less about naming the source. I'm just trying to uphold the Weekly Standard's credibility, gather some ammo for the future election, and show the inconsistency they claim exists.

Well thanks for the effort. No one else is really making an effort to help me with this. The article appears spinned and based on what Krugman has to say so its useless to me. The people I need to convince are going to be able to rip this article to shreds and end up discrediting the Weekly Standard in the process.

End of story

Maybe for you, but I don't have the luxury of arguing outside of the context of all three examples. Where is the contradiction in what he says? He has seperated the Canadian think tank caller from the white house source in all three cases. He is clarifying this seperation in his letter to the New York Times.

Am I missing the issue? Is it because he isn't going to go into the sources (what you are citing from Hannity & Colmes) that is the problem? The way the Weekly Standard story read to me is that he originally said that the White House called him. I never see where he says that starting from the Russert interview. So he has a White House source, so what? Maybe he should name him, maybe not. As far as that one call that he got on 9/11, he answers it in his letter and to Hannity.

You got to give me something stronger than that.

Guys,

We really need to read over this Weekly Standard article on Clark. I just don't think is going to hold. I'm going to play devil's advocate here so let me know if I missed anything. Its not a good idea that our arguments be made by taking what the guy said out of context. So please contribute and let me know where my devil's advocate argument is wrong:

First off look at the what Russert asks the guy and how he answers it:

Clark: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You've got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence. And these were people who had--Middle East think tanks and people like this

The first part of his answer is responding to the idea of hyping the link between 9/11 and Saddam and how that was being done by the White House. But then he transitions and says 'It came from all over'. He then tells about his personal call and what he was instructed to say. This is where Krugman links the call to the White House. However, Krugman misses the transition and he misses the part that immediately follows where he says 'And these were people who had-Middle East think tanks and people like this'.

The important 'call' that everyone is stuck on is linked to the middle east think tanks from the first interview with Russert.

In the second interview with Hannity, Sean is asking him about the call and 'who in the White House'. Hannity is linking the call to the White House and wants to know who made it. Clark is at fault for not correcting the misperception at this point, but when you see how he answers he talks about a White House source, not caller. A source is an insider who he is using to justify his claim that the White House is involved in the 9-11/Saddam link hype. However, he then goes on and specifically talks about the caller, who is from Canada and involved in a Midde East think tank.

And the third part is about Clark's correction of Krugman. Clark is actually consistent here if you really read what he says. Its Krugman who is off base (what's new), not Clark. The Weekly Standard (and Hannity) plays into Krugman's thinking and puts the same words in Clark's mouth that Krugman does. That’s kind of sad actually. We should expect better analysis.

Let me know what I'm missing. It just doesn't stick and if I'm going to be trying to convince people I need something with a little less holes in it.