On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 11:54 PM, denstar <> wrote: > > What does McCain have to do with state sponsored torture? >
You sound like you think we're on par with North Korea or Iran. All I can say is that if you really believe that, you need to spend some time talking with people who have lived in countries that are actually state sponsors of torture, because your perspective borders on the delusional. > They're trying to change the definition to cover what has been done, > not what will be done. > What's done is done. Am I sorry that they waterboarded Khaleied Sheikh Muhammed? No way, [EMAIL PROTECTED] that guy, I'd put a bullet in his head without a second thought. > > > Speculation? The Secretary of Defense, and the President by > extension, if not outright, has hemmed and hawed about the definition > of torture. > Evidence. Hemming and hawing about definitions is not the same thing as evidence of actual practices. What you are implying is that there was a cabal inside the government to torture people at Abu Ghraib, and the evidence - given by the perpetrators of the crimes - simply does not support that conclusion. > Further, they've gone so far as to basically stipulate that the > president could torture someone if he wanted to, and is above the law, > so to speak. > The President will never actually do anything himself, and since he has the power to pardon others, yes, basically they can get away with almost anything in the case of real necessity, i.e. the ticking time bomb scenario. In that case, though, the person that takes the drastic measures (torture) is betting their own life that they are right, because the President isn't going to pardon a bunch of clowns who just want to play S & M domination with prisors. They're constantly trying to redefine the law, and, surprise surprise, > defining it in a way that gives 'em more power. > This is not just normal but expected behavior from the Executive branch. See my earlier comments about how the country actually works. > > I like to think that even as little as 10 years ago, had crap like > this gone down, people would have stood up, vs.actually trying to > justify it. > That is not justified by any actual historical evidence. > > We're busted torturing prisoners of war (depending on your definition > of war, and maybe, upon what it can be waged) and then we're actually > debating waterboarding and shit? What the hell kind of message do you > think that sends? > Prisoner of war is a term of art under international law and its definition is very, very clear. There is no gray area. Someone who is a uniformed member of the armed forces of a country fighting a war against another country and is captured is a prisoner of war. Someone who walks around in civilian clothes to blend into the local population while planting roadside bombs, firing rockets and mortars from civilian areas and sending suicide bombers to kill civilians is a terrorist, and if they get captured, they can rot in hell for all I care. Mere husks. > > People are trying to justify this crap, man. > What crap? Abu Ghraib? No one is justifying that kind of abuse. > > Working out quite well, eh? I had thought you were a conservative, as > in small government, fiscal responsibility and whatnot. > > Two steps forward, and three steps back, isn't give and take. > I'm not a conservative, though I do believe in small government. > I would have thought you'd rather personally choose what the money was > spent on, versus either of those choices. :-) > > You think it's o.k. to say "I'll get you that bike path, but you have > to vote yes on bill 365"? > No, personally I would rather keep the money out of the hands of government entirely and have local communities build things like bike paths with local funding, but if Congress is going to take my money, the least they can do is send a little bit of it back to my community. > > What do people who are willing to give up liberty for temporary safety > deserve? Again with the hyperbole. Here is what you need to do. Go have a conversation with someone that lived under Soviet rule in the days when you could be exiled or killed for expressing the wrong opinion. Or take a trip to Tibet. Oh yeah, you can't actually go to Tibet right now, because the Chinese government has sealed it off to all outsiders. Go to Iran and see if you get out alive or if they arrest and torture you as a suspected government agent or worse a journalist. We have not given up liberty at all, we have made small accommodations to the government to protect the core liberties that we value. We express all sorts of opinions and beliefs on this list, some in favor of the government, some opposed to the government. Have you been visited by the FBI for writing something on here? I haven't. I guarantee you if we lived in China or Iran or Syria or any other un-free place, most of the regular contributors to this list, including me, would be rotting in jail right now, without due process, without any recourse to the government. So when you talk about giving up liberty, I suggest you hear from someone who has actually lived in an un-free country and then re-consider what liberty really means. I hate the idea of the government nosing into my personal things, but I am willing to give up some of my jealously guarded privacy in exchange for the government's efforts to prevent people from killing me at random in a terrorist attack. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:257083 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
