Posted on 12/03/2003 3:53:44 PM PST by perfect stranger
No. And certainly, the obsession on this issue lies almost entirely on the side of those who believe our Republic will fall if we do not immediately embrace butt-pumping as a major factor underlying Truth, Justice and the American Way.
You say 'no', then show your obsession with "butt pumping" in the next line. Weird.
Oh, so if I mention homosexual activity i'm obsessed with it?
Taken in context, your own remarks say you are.
Why don't you try answering my real point, which was that the Freepers who are really obsessed with sodomy are the ones who believe any opposition to such behavior is tantamount to Iranian-style theocracy?
Ah yesss, your real point is to claim constitutionalist freepers are 'obsessed'.
If anti-sodomy and other such laws violate the sanctitiy of the home that the Founders placed in the Bill of Rights, why didn't they do away with such laws?
Many state laws violate our BOR's.
They are not done away with until changed by 'we the people', or until successfully challenged in the courts.
- IE, -- CA's gun prohibition was unsuccessfully challenged last week. The USSC refused to "do away" with it.
Does this refusal justify state gun bans, in your view?
--- you ignored my question completely. If you answer my question, I'll answer yours.
No, - I answered your question on 'doing away with laws', - directly.
I suspect you cannot answer my question because you approve of a 'states right' to enact prohibitive type 'laws', -- even anti-gun laws.
That's not what they claim at all. They, of all people, know better. They're just saying that we have no standard to which we hold our enemy unless we hold that standard ourselves.
Here is the passage I was referring to, which you must have known from my description was the one in question, and I've included it formatted the same way you first presented it:
The trio also worries that the Guantanamo precedent will make it easier for other countries, groups and warlords to hold Americans, keep them isolated and ignore the Geneva Conventions.
I said they worry that those who capture U.S. troops will treat them based on our treatment of Gitmo detainees. Unless the quote above is written in a language other than English, what I said they said was (surprise!) exactly what they said. Yet you call it "hyperbole and obtuseness" when I read what they wrote and repeat it accurately.
Now, let's go to the tape in post 56:
As anyone in the current administration will tell you ... we're waging a whole new method of war.
Yes, when we find a regime providing the exact same services to terrorists that Afghnistan provided to Al-Qaida, we will no longer stand around picking our noses until they kill a few thousand Americans. This is a "new method of war" in some senses, but it is hardly inconsistent with Just War Doctrine. What makes a war just is whether it is waged with proper authority, proper cause, reasonable chance of success, and a response proportional to the threat. If you disagree that the reasons for action meet that test, that’s one thing, but to claim that the administration has moved "beyond" Just War Doctrine is just plain goofy.
In addition to the domestic initiatives taken against our own in the name of "self-defense",
Please explain exactly what you’re talking about here. Of course, I fully expect it to be more of the “Better living through histrionics” rhetoric that we hear so much from critics of post-9/11 security.
as of August, 2002 the Executive Branch enjoys powers of summary execution
Where were they granted that power?
preparatory to the Battle of Iraq, consulted with theologians, even, interested in proselytizing to the Pope and others the new theory of "Pre-Emptive Just War."
Oh no! They consulted theologians!!!!!!!!! Run for your lives, the theologians are speaking!! Whatever shall we do now with such an eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil administration in power?!!!?!!!?!!!? As I noted above, the test of the Just War Doctrine does not rule out pre-emption. It does not do so in letter because the technology of the day made the need for a pre-emptive attack nearly unimaginable, and it does not do so in spirit because the whole point of Just War Doctrine is to make sure that Christians go to war to defend their nations, not for avaricious conquest. Also, I don’t get what’s so sinister about the White House wanting to convince the Pope that taking down a warmongering, terrorist-training torturocracy is not an evil act. The Religious Left (not the Pope, he's a good guy who was just wrong on this one)needs to explain why their historical support of evil regimes and the Iraqi torturocracy in particular is not "sinister" or unchristian.
What hasn't changed are the moral principles on which the protocols of Geneva were founded.
That’s correct. However, the treatment of the Gitmo detainees does not violate the Convention.Here’s a quote from anti-terrorism expert Cliff May which I agree with 100%:
We should start by understanding that terrorists are not legitimate soldiers. Why not? Because they make no attempt to abide by the laws and customs of war. On the contrary they intentionally target non-combatants, they use non-combatants as shields, they don't wear uniforms and they don't carry their weapons openly (all requirements under the Geneva Convention).By the same token, captured terrorists do not qualify to be POWs — they are merely enemy combatants who have violated the Geneva Convention and in so doing have forfeited their rights under the Geneva Convention. They should be treated humanely — but that's an expression of American values, rather than any recognition of terrorists' rights or entitlements.
In general, post-9/11 we need to consider to what extent we can afford to protect the liberties of the enemies of liberty, to what extent the Republic guarantees the rights of those who are willing to use violence in an attempt to overthrow the Republic. Our representatives in Congress need to begin to clarify and probably revise our laws, taking into take account the fact that, for the first time in American history, the American homeland has become a major international battle field.
All I'm asking is that Rumsfeld and others resist the urge to claim the full gamut of Geneva protections for our troops on the one hand and play fast and loose with technicalities on the other.
Yes, and you so fiercely believe this that when our troops were shot down like dogs by their captors, you asked why their captors should refrain from such acts when we have Gitmo. How very noble of you. Now, let’s talk about technicalities: As Ann Coulter has pointed out in another column, the detainees are part of a force of “soldiers” who “masquerade as civilians, stage sneak attacks, slaughter innocent civilians, pretend they are surrendering and then come out shooting, take hostages, hide arms in mosques, and generally do not abide by the laws or customs of war.” Those aren’t technical violations of Geneva, and denying these terrorists status as legal combatants is not a technicality, but a recognition of the laws of war. These men are no more POWs than a rapist is his victim’s steady boyfriend. If you think that detaining terrorists at Gitmo sends a bad message, try this one on for size: “Attention world: From now on, no matter how savage, brutal, criminal and genocidal you choose to be, we will reward you by extending to you rights that belong to honorable men. No need to worry about any consequences for your actions!”
If the rules of war have changed, it's curious in the extreme that our adminstration picks and chooses when it wishes to uphold allegedly static standards of Geneva.
As noted above, according to the static standards of Geneva, these men are not legal combatants, and classifying them as POWs would violate Geneva in spirit at least, and probably letter.
Technically, we could rout any thirdworld country we wished and deny all combatants captured anything like due process thanks to the fact that desperate, backward, primitive thirdworlders rarely get outfitted in uniforms.
Oh, sympathy for the Taliban, how noble of you. The other day I saw some photos from 2001 of Afghani militia (Northern Alliance types) being trained by Green Berets. All of them wore civilian-style clothes, but every single one had something olive green on him–a camo cap, a field jacket, a turban or sash made with olive green cloth, etc. Why? So they could be identified as separate from the civilian population. What a radical concept!
This isn’t a case of ticketing a guy for speeding when he’s driving one mile over the limit, it’s a case of about 70 miles over the limit (see short list of Taliban/Al-Qaida atrocities above). And by the way, Afghanistan had a GNP of $3.5 Billion when the Taliban took over, I think they could have found some money in there for uniforms.
I just want consistency, that's all. Anything less leaves our own troops open to being dragged through the dirt.
Oh, and I suppose those Somalis dragging that pilot through the streets of Mogadishu were thinking, “Yeah, this’ll show the Americans that they should extend the Geneva Convention to illegal combatants!! Yeah!!”
If we don't lead by example, regardless how egregious and savage are the standards of those we're fighting, there is no standard to which we can hold others.
How is it leading by example to reward savage criminals with protections designed to protect civilized, law-abiding men? How are we failing to hold up a standard when we say “those who act under the protocols will receive the benefits of the protocols, those who don’t, won’t, but will not be mistreated?” How is it right to extend Geneva to people who haven’t followed it, and indeed are dedicated to wiping out the very values that birthed the protocols?
But where our own actions are black and white violations of the protocols (such as targeting civilians in Serbia), we ignore the fine print.
Ah yes, blame America first. Sorry, Bill Clinton’s stupidity and cowardice do not apply to this administration, or this discussion. Also, there is a rather large difference between attacking a civilian facility that has an effect on the enemy war effort and attacking civilians just to attack them, such as on 9/11. Knocking out the power in Belgrade compares pretty well with driving a 767 into a skyscraper full of stockbrokers, and our treatment of the Gitmo detainees shines as an example of humanity compared to Milosevic’s treatment of the Kosovars.
I don't know what your background is but I have a lot of respect for these officers and believe strongly they know of what they speak. Coming from a military background and having both family and friends on active duty at present, I guess I'm just more inclined to side with the officers rather than the politicians/private businessmen who've never served active duty, put their own lives on the line or suffered the loss of a brother at arms either killed or disappeared as a POW who never came home.
Well, I opposed what these officers said because it is wrong, not because I’m enamored with the Bush cabinet. You must have a pretty big ego if you think the only way somebody could disagree with you is if they have little regard for the sacrifices of our military. Also, I think my background is irrelevant to this debate (either we are right to give the Geneva privileges to terrorist scum, or we’re not, who thinks so is not relevant) but I’ll share anyway. My paternal grandfather won a Bronze Star in the Solomons and later turned down a field commission. My maternal grandfather landed at Anzio. My father served (but was not in combat), my father-in-law was a Marine and served as a drill sergeant. Two brothers-in-law and a sister-in-law served, including one driving a tank in VII Corps in the first Gulf War. One nephew was a Navy Corpsman, another recently finished a tour on the Korean DMZ and is now in Iraq. My wife and I were both in the Air Force, and one of her tours included serving with the 10th Mountain Division. Needless to say, I know what service to this nation involves, but I still resent the implication that only certain people can have an informed opinion, especially when the issue is, “Do we treat murderous savages like honorable men?” One does not need to be career military to tell the difference between a soldier and a thug.
I do not believe in stooping to conquer.
Apparently you don’t stoop to liberate, either. Apparently you believe in stooping to grant a warrior's honor to the scum of the Earth, and apparently you believe the President is only doing his job if he stands around with his finger up his nose, waiting until the terrorists hit us again. I think you share far less with those officers in that article than you think-- They at least want America defended.
*Sigh*
ob·sess
v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es
To preoccupy the mind of excessively.
My mind isn't, and one post mentioning the subject (in any context) certainly doesn't even indicate that, nuch less prove it. If you really believe it does, you are operating on the bigoted assumption that "people who disagree with tpaine on this issue are homophobes" or some variation on that theme.
No, - I answered your question on 'doing away with laws', - directly.
No, you dodged it. Here it is again, and I'll even reword it and include some supplemental info so that you can't mistake my question:
If anti-sodomy and other such laws violate the sanctitiy of the home that the Founders placed in the Bill of Rights, why didn't the Founders do away with anti-sodomy laws when they established the new nation or when they wrote the Constitution? It wouldn't have been all that radical a change; they had gone from...
King decides who has guns to everybody has a right to own a gun
No protection against unreasonable search and seizure to full protection
Government can establish a church and infringe free exercise to government cannot do so
...you get the idea. So why not just say, "Under this new search and seizure thing, we don't care what you do in your home, even if it's that jigginess that dares not speak it's name."
Simple enough?
I suspect you cannot answer my question because you approve of a 'states right' to enact prohibitive type 'laws', -- even anti-gun laws.
BZZZZZZZZTTTTT!!! Wrong answer! Thanks for playing, now take your Lee Press-On Nails and have a nice trip home. You will notice that anti-gun provisions are specifically ruled out in Amendment Two, therefore I would never side with any entity that implements or upholds such a provision. You will also note that there is no similar prohibition against anti-sodomy laws, and I've asked you to explain why there isn't one if sodomy is one of the core American rights.
Also, please note that the reason I oppose the SCOTUS pro-sodomy decision is not because I supported the Texas law. If I was one of the Supremes, I would have voted to strike it down solely on the basis that it wasn't being enforced and hadn't been in many years, so the People had made a de facto decision to drop the matter. What the Court did was take a away a right that the Founders left in the People's hands by declaring that anything goes between two consenting adults. This will eventually lead to same-sex marriage, which the People did not choose. One approach would have implemented the will of the People, the other approach implemented the will of GLAAD, et al and a few black-robed oligarchs.
Nice shot!
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