Which would the average leftist choose to get the information that would save thousands of American lives...? Waterboarding would make them look bad in the eyes of the Europeans and we know that's the last thing they would want since how you appear is wayyyy more important than saving American lives...besides, Obama has already told the world his opinion of American citizens...so I guess waterboarding is out!
Beheading, being the #1 choice of the Islamic "Angry People" who the leftist haven't anything against their means of extracting information....well I suppose they are all for beheading as long as you don't slap the soon to be headless in the face or head (while still attached) or scare them with a bug in a box before you lop-off their noggin! Maybe the "misunderstood" (used to be called terrorist) will just spill the beans right before you spill his brains...just do it out of his will to change for the liberals since the liberals are more "in tune" with the "Angry" American haters...they, the liberals being American haters themselves!
The most important thing once again is what the world thinks of America...will they think more of America with dead bodies in the street??? Well DAMN! They sure will as long as no one was waterboarded or underwear placed on their heads to get information! They'll love America and those wonderful and brave leftist that saw to it that no one was scared by those evil caterpillers! Heads may have to roll....but no water will be dripping from those nostrils! They'll be as dry as Hilary Clinton's....got to go, phone's ringing! Back in a minute!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
so skippy you are saying that two wrongs make a right? Any two wrongs?
How about this moral calculus: There are too many people on the earth, most of them are Asian. We are running out of resources and polluting our environment while beginning to fight wars over scarce resources. We have a disease that attacks mostly people of Asian descent. Should we use it before they unleash a disease that mostly targets us?
Or to put it in wingnut terms. I have hidden a nuke in your home town. I won't talk and I have a very weak heart. Torture or even what you assholes pretend is not torture will kill me before I crack, but I will talk if you cut of Rush Limbaugh's head in front of me. Is that a moral trade. The lives of everyone in your home town for a washed up hate monger?
Take some personal responsibility and defend your views, son.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Both of you idiots avoid the obvious...and you know it! Spout your bullshit if that makes you feel better about avoiding the obvious because it'll conflict with your politics and your elitist masters' agenda(s)! We all know that and IF...or rather when it happens again you and your ilk will be responsible for it...but as usual you'll tuck your heads back in your shells or up your leftist asses and put the blame somewhere else! Your politics rule what common sense you have...if you ever had any to begin with! Wake-up! It's not about politics!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
Skippy what you espouse is neither American nor is it Christian. Two wrongs do not make a right, and you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. I have heard the testimony of Interogators in Iraq who did not need to torture (or fake torture) in order to get the information they needed.
You and the rest of your reprensible sort are more like the terrorists than you are like respectable human beings, you wish to engage in the worst sorts of conduct people are capable of while pretending you are a hero and patriot. No you are just another moral midget dirt bag, no better than Bin Laden. He thinks your conduct means its ok to blow you up or cut off your head. You think the same of him. He thinks you started it, you think he did.
You are the same scum.
I'll tell you a true story. Once, a long time ago a bunch of us were walking down the beach on Park Point. It was late spring, finals week was about to begin and everyone was in the sun instead of studying. Our bunch had two prior service, me and another canuck from Clouquet: Raoul. He had been a Marine corpsman and as you know I had done FDC for a tactical nuke rocket.
There were a couple of long hair kids, a couple of women and Charlie, a Military school reject. Well we walked past a group of Frat Rats who started harassing the long hairs. We keep going, Charlie stops, draws a line in the sand, spits across it and gives them all the finger. Now what do you suppose happened? That's right, lots of angry shouting, people milling around, Raoul starts jawing with some one who is trying to keep the Frats under control, I start rounding up and getting moving the kids and women who don't know what to do. All of a sudden Charlie shouts : "He hit me first No rules!" Tackles some guy and bites of a piece of his ear.
Now the shit has truly hit the fan, a lot of shouting and stray punches later Raoul has got every one but Charlie over the sand dune and headed toward the cars. I am hauling Charlie up the slope and kinda of keeping myself between him and the mob, which is losing interest and dropping off. Charlie suddenly spots a bottle in the sand. Grabs it, breaks it and tries to start a race riot. I push him at the guy and say go ahead, kill him. I'm done. The guy laughs, the last few Frats go back to their fire, I get Charlie to the car, where he is upset we did not let him defend our honor.
You skippy remind me of that psychotic Charlie. I did almost shoot him through my apartment door a couple of years later but that is another story.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
No you are just another moral midget dirt bag, no better than Bin Laden. He thinks your conduct means its ok to blow you up or cut off your head. You think the same of him. He thinks you started it, you think he did. You are the same scum.
Sorry, general, only in your world view where moral relatavism forms it's ever-shifting foundation. Even the most radical(and ignored) Christian whackos don't interpret the Bible as a mandate to slaughter all non-believers ASAP. I really don't care what Bin Laden thinks. He long ago forfeited that priviledge.
Gus you fail reading comprehension again. Do unto others as they have done unto you is not a Christian teaching. Go back and read it again. I admit its a bit more complex than an NRA puff piece but try hard gus. You can do it.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Do unto others as they have done unto you is not a Christian teaching.
So? My preference is actually do unto others before they have done unto you, but that is not always an available option. Agression constitutes a forfeit, general. Not a partial forefeit, or a forfeit with rules. Something you relativists/apologists will never understand.
So? My preference is actually do unto others before they have done unto you, but that is not always an available option. Agression constitutes a forfeit, general. Not a partial forefeit, or a forfeit with rules. Something you relativists/apologists will never understand.
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Actually, your post is a case in point. You represent the kind of moral relativism that you appear to condemn.
You base your moral stance, not on any absolute, but, on being "less worse" than the asshole who is attacking you at the moment.
that is "moral relativism"... equal to the Spanish Inquisition..
Politics is the problem....we could make that an "ism" if we wanted to couldn't we! Because it is about that...not you and I...me and you and others. We meet on this board as we have for years and make each other go at each other because of what...politics! We could be best friends that meet on afternoons at the local Pub and drink and talk of football...racing...the weather...work...love...family...or politics...and to a certain extent that's what we do here....but mainly politics and thus we miss the rest of you and me and everyone else that could be sitting at the table or bar don't we!
To me politics has become a poison and I have been political since the 60's...first as a very extremist leftist and as I grew my politics started to move to the right where I find myself now. I do know one thing that is the truth in a blender that is the tangled hodge-podge...mixed-up tangled-up...spinned spun..lied... out of context... that is the world of politics in the United States and that is "WE" are being played against each other by those that we all see and recognize it for what it is and the brighter bulbs realize that the powers that be want and need to have us at each other's throats so that we're not putting that energy and direction towards them and what they are doing and want to have done! We all need to wake-up and realize it's the politics that be that's the problem and they are scared as hell that we will wake-up as one and see them...see them all for just what they are and then make the changes they are so afraid of...starting with them!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
You base your moral stance, not on any absolute, but, on being "less worse" than the asshole who is attacking you at the moment.
Utter nonsense. I strive mightily to be *worse* than the asshole who is attacking me at the moment. Like I said, and which you will never understand, agression constitutes an *absolute* forfeiture, of rights, of considerations, of mercy. Any considerations of same are a *gift* to the perpetrator after the fact, solely at the descretion of the aggreived.
gus.
This message has been edited by gus-mccrea on Apr 23, 2009 11:43 PM
GUS: "Do unto others as they have done unto you is not a Christian teaching.
So? My preference is actually do unto others before they have done unto you, but that is not always an available option. Agression constitutes a forfeit, general. Not a partial forefeit, or a forfeit with rules. Something you relativists/apologists will never understand.
gus."
No the teaching is more than a simple statement, it is "Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you" then "Love thy Neighbor as you love thy Self" and I suppose you would turn the other cheek?
Gus, you display, again, your phoney belief system and thus I understand why your a Draft-dodger but most Republicans are Draft-Dodgers. So, what do you know about it... did one of your Vet buddies teach you all about. Get over it. No ground to stand, just hang from a branch and too fraid to let, go... hey they'll shoot you hang from the branch.
This whole topic is as rediculous as your REPUBLICANs.
Now. BULLSHIT, Gus.
Rachel M.
Daniel Vest
Châtelain Lindle d'Oic
" . . . there is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive."
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803
"Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" (Latin for "Entities should not be multiplied more than necessary")
William of Occam (c. 1285-1349)
"Are you really sure you really want what you see
Be careful of something that's just what you want it to be."
Waylon Jennings
"I've Always Been Crazy (But It's Kept Me From Going Insane)"
Skippy, you should vie for a head chop. You instantly will lose 10 pounds of ugly fat.
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"We are all equal, but we definitely are not the same"
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You play right into the terrorist's hands when you talk of American morals...we did not start this, they did! It's their war on us and their rules...if they stopped all aggression today we would not attack them nor would Israel...but that's not going to happen is it! It is their war and their hate towards us and they will not be defeated by American morals thus they will continue until they defeat us...one way or another if we're not defeated from with in by people that have no conception of what's going on! Wake-up idiots...this is for real and it's not going to be "talked" away and all the hand wringing in the world will not make it stop either...their war...their rules!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
You play right into their hands when you dispense with American morals.
Morals Schmorals. Those are only important when it is your ox being gored. Everyone has their own sense of morals. I won't push mine on you if you check your's at the door as well. Not going to do that, though...right?
~~life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain~~
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.
Japanese Proverb
Morals Schmorals. Those are only important when it is your ox being gored. Everyone has their own sense of morals. I won't push mine on you if you check your's at the door as well. Not going to do that, though...right?
Well, you are free to take the position that there are no moral bounds on the actions of the United States, but if you do you sacrifice all claim to us being better than any other nation.
I believe we are and have been better more often than not and I want to continue that tradition. For me, that's a crucial facet of patriotism.
Well, you are free to take the position that there are no moral bounds on the actions of the United States, but if you do you sacrifice all claim to us being better than any other nation.
I believe we are and have been better more often than not and I want to continue that tradition. For me, that's a crucial facet of patriotism.
A position on national morals can be a slippery slope. For example, on purely moral grounds, Japan earned themselves the atom bomb with the first bomb dropped at Pearl Harbor. Yet there are legions of loons who love to gnaw their own ankles over the "immorality" of the strikes on Japan. Our relations with our own indians are hardly one of our shining moments, yet the outcome was as inevitable as the seasons. The immorality of slavery is a history chapter unto itself, but do you think you and I owe reparations for it? I could go on, and bitter, angry malcontents like Phrog and J2 certainly do, to the point of psychosis. What's the point?
Because despite these examples, and however many more, *Including* "torture", we ARE better than any other nation, and have never been anything but! "More often than not" doesn't even begin to cover it! And *this* is why I am so skeptical of your motives here. There's no perspective, there's no historical context, there's no thoughtful consideration, not a lot different from the reparation loons, or those that throw red paint on historic aircraft. It's all too knee-jerk, and too convenient, considering the political dynamic of the last eight years. The Grant administration could certainly have all been tried for "torture", and most likely the Wilson, and the FDR as well! So maybe Sherman's most famous quote should add a little perspective yet again? After all, isn't *lynching* considered "torture"?
Because despite these examples, and however many more, Including "torture", we ARE better than any other nation, and have never been anything but! "More often than not" doesn't even begin to cover it!
Why are we better? Is it purely by definition, or is it because of what we stand for?
If you say the latter, how is your position (despite the ranting and imputing of my motives) different from mine?
"...Well, you are free to take the position that there are no moral bounds on the actions of the United States, but if you do you sacrifice all claim to us being better than any other nation..."
The most immoral thing I could do would be to abdicate responsibility for the security of my wife and children.
You kids need to remember that my generation's teachers and parents were the Greatest Generation. These were people who flew airplanes off of aircraft carriers without enough fuel to ensure their safe return. But they went anyway. National Guardsmen who were dentists and steel workers and who died bravely at Omaha Beach. B17 pilots who knew one-out-of-seven of them would not return that day. Every day.
I know exactly what my dad and all of his friends who went to war in 1941 would say about this so-called water boarding "torture." Their moral bounds were clear and simple, and they passed them on to us.
Caveate: Simple does not mean easy.
edit grammar
***** You can borrow from the Devil You can borrow from a friend But the Devil will give you twenty When your friend only got ten - Ramblin Jack Elliot
This message has been edited by moniker12 on Apr 24, 2009 8:26 PM
===The most immoral thing I could do would be to abdicate responsibility for the security of my wife and children.
You kids need to remember that my generation's teachers and parents were the Greatest Generation. These were people who flew airplanes off of aircraft carriers without enough fuel to ensure their safe return====
So you would shoot other people's wives and kids, just to make sure yours would have enough to eat? That's not civilized and that's not Christian. You just show yourself to be as much a primitive tribesman as Osama.
You need to remember that both my mother and my father were WWII combat vets and I learned my morality from them. They did not call for gas chambers for the monsters who gassed the Jews. They did not call for keeping the Japanese as a backward colony. They forgave and rebuilt the world. They had the courage to endure and to win because they knew they served a more noble and ethical cause than mere survival and mere revenge.
In England they despised the hoarder that monicur would have been and all slowly starved together.
I was just installing mother's e-mail on one of the computers I rebuilt and I had put the stock picture of Stonehenge on the desk top. It brought back a memory to her. "I had missed my bus back to the air base and so I was walking a path near Stonehenge when a couple of searchlights came one, one of our planes was battling one of theirs. You know the germans would drop their bombs when attacked so I put my tin hat on, I don't suppose it would have done much good."
How much calmer and braver than the hysterical rantings of skippy and the bushites is that?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
And so was my generation's teachers and parents. My dad was a pilot on a B-26 "Mitchell Marauder" medium bomber for 3 years out of England. 47 missions.
You clasp historical patriotism to your breast as if you owned it. My dad was a lifelong Dem, and a liberal.. And he, as well as millions of others, put the lie to your assertions.
You don't own that shit at all. You only have to look at the number of Dems who served in Congress compared to the Republicans who served, to understand who really took it upon themselves to defend the nation.
You people dissed Max Cleland and Tammy Duckworth beyond any rational comprehension.
You deserve not the slightest respect for your fucked up views.
You kids need to remember that my generation's teachers and parents were the Greatest Generation. These were people who flew airplanes off of aircraft carriers without enough fuel to ensure their safe return. But they went anyway. National Guardsmen who were dentists and steel workers and who died bravely at Omaha Beach. B17 pilots who knew one-out-of-seven of them would not return that day. Every day.
I know exactly what my dad and all of his friends who went to war in 1941 would say about this so-called water boarding "torture." Their moral bounds were clear and simple, and they passed them on to us.
Caveate: Simple does not mean easy
This message has been edited by Avalon99 on Apr 24, 2009 9:31 PM
Feh. Think you score some kind of point by calling me a "kid?" You're not that much older than me. And you claim to have derived some superior moral authority over me because your dad served in WW2? Bullshit. My dad was 17 when the war ended, but he spent the late 40's guarding the Swedish border with the Soviet Union. I don't claim that gives me any moral superiority over you.
Why are we better? Is it purely by definition, or is it because of what we stand for?
If you say the latter, how is your position (despite the ranting and imputing of my motives) different from mine?
It's both. What we stand for defines us. My position isn't all that different, it's your motives in need of a good impugning that I question. And that questioning is driven by your lack of perspective, and resulting hair-trigger.
That is exactly true. And it is exactly what Jan and I are saying.
It makes not one whit of difference what some brutal terrorist thinks of our policies, it is what WE think and believe about them that makes us different.
They had the courage to endure and to win because they knew they served a more noble and ethical cause than mere survival and mere revenge.
Oh horseshit, general, you sound like a buy-bonds poster. The combat soldier's *only* interest was his survival, and that of his mates. And because of that, vengeance was rather commonplace. Save it for your next promotional tour.
It makes not one whit of difference what some brutal terrorist thinks of our policies, it is what WE think and believe about them that makes us different.
And the exact same thing can be said about this oh-so-important "world opinion" that seems to drive all this genuflecting on the Left.
And the exact same thing can be said about this oh-so-important "world opinion" that seems to drive all this genuflecting on the Left.
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uh, wrong. You keep advancing straw-men for your arguments. Truth be told, it is far more important that we live up to our own moral code. Which does not include some moral relativist "torture" permission.
Once we make that clear, then, our status in "world opinion" (and in the "opinion" of our own citizens), will improve.
----The combat soldier's only interest was his survival, and that of his mates. And because of that, vengeance was rather commonplace.-----
Serve a term and then say that gus.
When my father was the "medical officer" for a waffen SS POW compound, one of the camp guards lost his brother in combat. He opened up with a 50cal. Other American guards stopped him at risk of their lives. My father was impressed with how professional the SS was taking cover.
You are talking entirely through your asshole on this one. The finest troops have the highest morale and the highest morale is not "kill them all God will surely know his own." In the first gulf war one solider was shown taking Iraqi's prisoner saying "you're safe now, we're Americans" Bush the lesser threw that away to try and live out a fantasy.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
And the exact same thing can be said about this oh-so-important "world opinion" that seems to drive all this genuflecting on the Left.
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uh, wrong. You keep advancing straw-men for your arguments. Truth be told, it is far more important that we live up to our own moral code. Which does not include some moral relativist "torture" permission.
Once we make that clear, then, our status in "world opinion" (and in the "opinion" of our own citizens), will improve.
We didn't achieve our status as the greatest social experiment in human history by *not* living up to our moral code. And whichever "globalists" have failed to see that clearly, are too stupid to have an opinion worth counting in the first place.
Oh, I think aside from the malcontented whining of the Left, we're doing just fine. They can't be happy anyway, even when they win.
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Actually, I'm pretty content. You are the one complaining and whining.
I suggest you grow up.
LOL! I'm hardly the one trying to pressure the President into approving a retro-lynch-mob while in the middle of a war, and a recession. Is that grown up?
LOL! I'm hardly the one trying to pressure the President into approving a retro-lynch-mob while in the middle of a war, and a recession. Is that grown up?
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I'm expecting my president to uphold the Constitution. I have full faith that if he does that, we shall survive quite admirably.
I have faith in the process. Apparently, you do not.
I'm expecting my president to uphold the Constitution. I have full faith that if he does that, we shall survive quite admirably.
We will survive quite admirably, even if he doesn't, or even if he does cave to whiney Leftist lynch-mobs. Apparently your full faith doesn't run very deep.
We will survive quite admirably, even if he doesn't, or even if he does cave to whiney Leftist lynch-mobs. Apparently your full faith doesn't run very deep.
waterboarding is not torture....well, only to leftist whackos that are desparate to get Bush and Cheney at any cost....
Waterboarding IS torture, why do you continue to deny it? You support torture, no big deal, but please stop with the silliness of .... waterboarding is not torture.
The issue is that you and me and others here and across America aren't the ones fighting the war....others are and they...not us are the ones that call the shots. That said...all we have to do as some have alluded is to go back to WWII...did we "torture" POW? I don't think we did...it was a war with armies with soldiers wearing uniforms that for the most part acted under the conventional rules of warfare..(and yes there were exceptions that can be made).
Is that the case with the terrorist...NO! Is this anything like any other war we have fought...yes and no, Viet Nam gave us the Viet Cong that didn't wear uniforms and did not abide by the normal rules of warfare...and ironically the same ones opposed to this war caused our loss in Viet Nam...but what's the difference? The difference is that the Viet Nam war did not have the religious zealots we find in the war on terrorist...nor did the war in Viet Nam bring the deaths of thousands of Americans on American soil as well as on other foreign soils other than Viet Nam! In Viet Nam there was a structured command with leaders based in Hanoi...the terrorist have secret cells located around the world in cities and towns where the terrorist intermingle with the locals...work with the locals and befriend the locals...until they are called upon to kill as many of those same locals as they can with whatever means at hand due to secretive planning!
Like I've said many times...these are the same people that strap bombs on their own children and send them out to blow-up as many people as they can....and you want to use American morals on these people! Do you not see that they are so far removed from our morals that to use them when dealing with these zealots is a joke! To get the information from these people that will prevent the taking of thousands of American lives is paramount...to tell them exactly the means we're going or not going to use to extract that information is treason!
The issue is somewhat like the issue of gun ownership...there are you that are against the ownership of guns by private citizens and there's the old saying that "criminals aren't breaking into your house because I and others own guns" and once all the guns are gone only the criminals will have guns...and they'll then come into whichever house they choose! Once the terrorist understand (like they do now thank you Obamaites) that when and if caught that nothing is going to happen to them when questioned...they'll not talk! Information will not get out that could stop another attack and Americans will die! This has other built in "bombs" so to speak...it will also cause the intensifying of terror cells in the United States and abroad...which will cause the deaths of how many?
The US hasn't cut off fingers...plucked out eyes...put people on the rack...or used white hot pokers on captives...they waterboarded them and that got the information that led to the capture of other terrorist and thus stopped the planning and actual doing of terrorist acts that would kill innocents...but not any more and people will die for this "moral" high ground you that base your objections on partisan politics have taken! It goes back to the gun issue...it's a shame the criminals "just" don't break into your houses since you despise the ownership of firearms like you do...but there again you don't advertise that do you? There's no sign in your yard telling people passing by that "This is a gun free house!" and there's also no sign saying "I'm for talking to the terrorist...NO waterboarding!" either is there! Maybe because you know after you get past your petty-pissy half-ass politics that you know you want the terrorist information found out and you for damn sure don't want you or your loved ones and friends killed because "you" were against getting the information...and you damn sure don't want to have to explain to those that do lose loved ones and friends just how it was better that their loved ones had to die rather than pouring water down the nostrils of terrorist!
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.....Aneurin Bevan
This message has been edited by skiptig4 on Apr 25, 2009 10:31 AM
I'm almost sure the Islamic terrorist looks at us and says "These Americans are morally superior to us because they don't want to use torture on enemy combatants"
Then they look again at America and see what they see as moral decadence
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