Posted on 10/17/2011 6:38:46 PM PDT by smoothsailing
By JERI CLAUSING and PAUL DAVENPORT Associated Press
October 17,2011
"It was a joke," Cain said emphatically. "I apologize if I offended anyone. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa."
(Excerpt) Read more at kttc.com ...
You never addressed my question.
Cain in this case didn’t make an inarticulate argument for a position, he advanced a policy proposal, multiple times, that then turned out to be a stupid, ludicrous idea.
He figured out that he couldn’t really be calling for the death of people who were trespassing, and took it back, claiming he was joking.
You are saying that he is lying about joking. I don’t think Cain is lying when he apologizes, and I don’t think Perry is lying about his apology. Perry didn’t change his position on illegal immigrants getting in-state tuition. You can apologize for the use of words. You can even truthfully apologize for saying something truthful that hurts people.
But Cain didn’t just apologize for inartful words, he made a policy proposal, and then retracted it. And you are saying that his retraction is a lie, and that he really DOES want to kill illegals.
I’ll say that one more time: Perry might well think it shows a lack of heart to want to deny some 18-year-old their lifetime of opportunity simply because their parents snuck into our country. Said that way, I agree with him, it’s absurdly stupid to ruin someone’s life over something that trivial. But people don’t THINK about what their pronouncements actually mean, how it actuall effects people’s lives. That’s because they are not thinking with their hearts. They are not showing the compassion we are known for. They are “heartless”.
But he can still truthfully apologize for using that language, and truthfully retract his belief that you could only disagree with him if you are heartless; and still believe that in-state tuition is the right thing to do.
But Cain can’t still think killing illegals is a good idea, and truthfully say he was joking. That would be lying. You can’t truthfully WANT something, AND Deny that you want it. And that is what you are accusing your candidate of doing.
We want 999, .999 cal machine gun nests!! and an electric fence in the river that WILL KILL YOU!
The guy is out of control with the BS.
That’s a given! :)
Wow. That is a complete misinterpretation of the english language there.
He SAID he was joking. He was asked about taking “ownership” of what he said, and he said he was apologizing IF he offended anyone with his JOKE. He was taking responsibility for his joke offending people, not “owning the idea”.
He said that making a killer electrified fence was a JOKE, that he wasn’t pretending he didn’t say it, and he apologized if his joke offended anybody, but that we should learn to take a joke.
How you could get out of “it was a joke” that he is actually standing by his proposal is beyond logic.
Tiger Woods for potus is a joke
Next?
You forgot the moat with the gators, which Texas already has.
Perry has made it very apparent that Texas is doing their part and that we are being undermined by the Fed.
It is this reality that forces the Texas legislature to do things like deal with illegals here and look for ways to limit the fiscal burden on Tx residents.
Cain is just flapping his gums with the electric fence, what is he going to fund it with? He can’t even fund his campaign.
You just cannot answer the question can you? I asked it plainly. You ignore it. Why?
Do you believe deadly force in defense of the border is acceptable? Yes or no?
Three letters or two.
Then answer this one. Is a border something America should have?
Maybe you haven’t been paying attention to the argument, or maybe you are just unable to make a cogent argument.
We aren’t arguing over whether it is OK to kill someone specifically by electrocuting them on a fence that says it is an electric fence. The poster specifically claimed it was OK to kill anybody crossing our border, and nobody had explained to him why it wasn’t OK.
That was the question I was answering. And yes, it helps when you are talking about killing people to actually remember the humanity of those you are killing.
Dehumanizing is what liberals do to justify abortion. It is what Hitler did to the jews to justify the gas chambers. It is what some here are trying to do to mexicans in order to justify killing them.
Taking up the minor substance of your complaint, have you not SEEN the pictures of dozens of unarmed men, women, and children actually scaling the fence to get into America? What is a fence blocking your path compared to the chance of a real life for your family? Of course people will try to cross the fence.
There is no way we are going to build a fence that would kill people. The argument is absurd, and even considering it devalues human life. We do kill people — murderers who have taken life, and therefore have proven themselves to be worthy of death. We don’t kill purse snatchers, or vandals, or people who trespass.
As to your attempts at being personally offensive, you failed on that score as well. Although the notion of me trying to pick up girls in some college coffee shop was actually kind of funny, though not as funny as your attempt at an “argument”.
You know its a complicated issue and you know that the Feds wrote the rules.
I’m going to build a wall twenty feet high, cover it in barbed wire, and electrify it. I’m going to put a big sign on it that says if you touch this, it will kill you. Then I’m going to dig a big moat as long as a football field and I’m going to fill it with alligators.
If anyone can climb that wall, swim that moat, fight off the alligators and live to tell about it, I’m going to find them a job.
-- Herman Cain, 2010
Erick Erickson at Redstate says Herman Cain said that at the 2010 RedState conference in ATX. Full story here (opens in new window)
Does it matter? Is it OK to take a human life if they are less skilled?
Why do you think people risk crossing our border to come into our country and work illegally, because it is a fun diversion?
Do you believe that trespassing into another country should be a capital offense?
I cannot reconcile my strong pro-life beliefs with the concept of ending a human life because they are standing in the wrong place.
Heck, the more I argue with the purists, the more I am convincing myself that my stand on in-state tuition for illegals is wrong. Keep going, and I might actually support in-state tuition for illegals in my own state. No, just kidding, but I have a greater appreciation for those that do after arguing with the “other side”, who try to sound rational about why the oppose it, but then say they we should kill the illegals instead.
Do you think we should kill a person for being in this country illegally?
You just cannot answer the question can you? I asked it plainly. You ignore it. Why?
Do you believe deadly force in defense of the border is acceptable? Yes or no?
Three letters or two.
Then answer this one. Is a border something America should have?
Look at the complete horsecrap Obama spouted today because Perry is pushing back on the EPA regs that will kill us economically.
Obama claims The "Republicans" want us to drink dirty water and breath dirty air, we want people to go without healthcare.
He is aiming this squarely at Perry, and it is underhanded and dirty.
I see Cain getting the same kind of pass, and it started with the Naggerhead lie.
Toss a bomb, move on.
let the fray duke it out! Perry is a racist AND an illegal beaner lover.
I smell a rat.
I answered your Question and that’s all I have to say about that!
THE BORDER IS A FEDERAL ISSUE
Stop kicking us for their inaction.
Perry has plenty of grassroots. You just aren’t seeing it. We lie in deep in the weeds, weapons loaded, ready to stomp when needed. Case in point: Where is “The Herman Cain Report”?
You said it was complicated. I didn’t ask you on a date, I asked if you believe deadly force in defense of the border is acceptable? Yes or no?
And
Then answer this one. Is a border something America should have?
There is nothing complicated about either. It should be simple for an American who loves their country to answer. I am sick to death of self proclaimed conservatives on a conservative web forum acting like liberals and you ARE acting JUST like a liberal by ducking a serious and simple question about the national security of your country.
If you do not believe we should protect our border as the Constitution says, and that includes use of deadly force, then what does that say about you?
Sure, I “believe” in a border. And equating a peaceful border with a friendly country to the perimeter of a military base is stupid. We have armed guards at military bases in our own country, and you could get shot trying to break into them.
The term “invading” does not properly describe a person sneaking into a country to try to get a job. I know why you use it, because it allows you to dehumanize the people you want to kill, and to pretend they are some imminent threat.
I am all for shooting armed gunmen coming into our country. But until we declare war with Mexico, we can’t be shooting unarmed civilians who trespass. Trespass is the proper term for crossing into land you are not authorized to occupy.
There are a lot of things you can do that are illegal. Do you claim that all illegal acts should be punishable by death? If not, your argument that crossing the border is illegal is meaningless to the discussion. I haven’t said that crossing the border isn’t illegal — that’s what trespassing is, an illegal act. I’ve argued that it is not a capital offense. You argue that it is, but give no reason, or justification, or moral backing to your outlandish claim.
Do you support Iran killing American citizens who are caught illegally in their country?
I don’t understand how people can be so cavalier about ending a life. “do you know she is unarmed”? WHo really cares if she is armed, if she isn’t threatening to kill anybody, is carring a gun a capital offense now? I was just pointing out one example of the type of person you seemed to be saying should have their life ended because they crossed our border.
If you sailed into mexican waters, would you expect them to blow up your boat? Would it be OK for them to do so?
You haven’t seemed to be able to come out and say it, so I’ll ask again — are you saying that if I find an illegal immigrant at the 7-11, I should have the right to shoot them dead?
What exactly ARE you arguing for here? Are you arguing that people who don’t belong in our country deserve death, and we should kill them? Of only if we catch them AT the border?
I realize that Cain’s electric killer fence would require them to take a stupid act to get killed. But that’s not your argument — you have repeatedly challenged others to explain to you why we can’t just kill people for entering our country illegally.
My bet is that doing so violates international treaties, as well as basic morality and human decency, and the respect for human life.
No. In MY perfect world, the Mexican border would be like the Canadian border, enforced but not walled off, and where people cross all the time and are detained, questioned and sent back with a warning, not killed and strung up as examples.
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