President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country . . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House that insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the President. The “American way of life” is defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration. Even today reporters refuse to call waterboarding torture despite the long line of cases and experts defining waterboarding as torture for decades. On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The Administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the Constitution.
There are also those who continue the long-standing effort to excuse Obama’s horrific record on civil liberties by either blaming others or the times. One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens. The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality. THe Administration and Democratic members are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military. The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.
Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Sen. Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying Obama as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or as Obama maintains a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.
Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this unAmerican measure. Some Montana citizens are moving to force the removal of these members who they insist betrayed their oaths of office and their constituents. Most citizens however are continuing to treat the matter as a distraction from the holiday cheer.
For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment. 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.
So here is a resolution better than losing weight this year . . . make 2012 the year you regained your rights.
Here is the signing statement attached to the bill:
————-
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2011
Statement by the President on H.R. 1540
Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Source: ABC
“Women do not willy nilly have abortions. It is only those who are anti choice who like to frame it in that kind of picture.”
Carol,
That is an excellent point. Also the so-called late term abortions are exceedingly rare and I defy anyone to show evidence that they are performed
whimsically, rather than as a life or death of the mother issue. However, what really ticks me off is the idea of mostly men, that a woman shouldn’t have control over her body, due to certain religious beliefs. While Tony tries to frame the argument “scientifically”, such framing fails when balanced against
a woman’s personal choice.
The way anti-abortionists, Tony included based on his arguments, try to frame the picture is a emotional one, so let me offer an emotional counterbalance. I was born in the 1940’s to a mother who was told not to carry me to term because it would have serious health implications for her. After my birth, with my birth contributing to it, my mother had four heart attacks, three strokes, major depression and prescription drug addictions. She died 75% paralyzed from her final stroke at age 54. I am grateful to be alive and have led a productive life, but my mother had many extraordinary qualities as a person and was an intelligent, beautiful woman whose thinking was far ahead of her time. She made a choice for which I am grateful, but given the misery that followed her for a lifespan of only 17 years after my birth was my birth worth it for her? The effect her infirmities had on me as a child required ten years of psychotherapy for me to heal. The wild life I led, that could have seen me dead within years of her death, saved only from my recklessness by extraordinary luck, who is to say but her that her choice was correct? I look askance at males, who with smug certainty, would force a woman to abide by their decisions.
Tony C You say “Further, an intruder is a serious threat to your life, you do not know if the intruder has a weapon or can overpower you.” The same is true of an embryo. You do not know if its presence will potentially kill you or overpower you. You presume healthy. That is not necessarily the case, and not known, sometimes, for months.
“In the case where a pregnancy IS a threat to life, if a board of MDs agrees upon that, abortion is warranted. Abortion is not warranted because a mother decides in the last month she no longer wants to go through with it.”
Okay, the woman’s life and health is at stake, let’s wait a couple of days, sometimes even just hours is all that is necessary for a woman to be in jeopardy, while we can convene a board of doctors. (I guess in your scenario this group of docs would be kept in a room in a hospital so they would be immediately available. Let’s see, Tony, if you are having an MI or or other life threatening issue, you will happily await for a group of doctors to be brought together to decide if your life is worth saving. Don;t think so.
And Tony abortion is not done in the lst month just for the heck of it. If you have ever heard of such a case it is only because it is not the commonplace or even somewhat commonplace.Women do not willy nilly have abortions. It is only those who are anti choice who like to frame it in that kind of picture.
@1zb1: You picked a somewhat arbitrary point in development of a fetus (note the distinct term used to describe this potential) as a bright line not to be crossed at about 20 weeks. What is that based on? Why not 19.95 vs 20?
That is a lie, I stopped reading your post there. I explained this earlier. It is not an “arbitrary” point, it is a biologically informed point, it is the point in development when the cortex can be operational. The cortex is what distinguishes humans from other animals.
I also did not set a bright line; except in one direction: prior to 20 weeks, I see no biological reason to restrict abortion. Any resemblance to a human is strictly physical; there is not a human brain there.
As I said before, the line stops being bright at 20 weeks, and increasingly less bright as we approach 39 weeks, and it should be subject to a hearing. The fetus can survive on its own by week 34 or so, it is by then a human being, and should have human rights. The whole point is that there is no bright line between 20 and 34 or so. And the ENTIRE time it is a life, not a potential life, the only decision is whether it is the type of life we can legally and unilaterally choose to end (like we can with food animals or pets), or is it the type of life it should be illegal to end, like an infant’s?
And it is not an “intruder,” that is the most ridiculous analogy I have ever heard. When an Intruder leaves your house, do you become responsible for their life? Can you be prosecuted for failing to take care of them? It is idiotic. Further, an intruder is a serious threat to your life, you do not know if the intruder has a weapon or can overpower you. A healthy infant inside a healthy mother is not a threat to her life. In the case where a pregnancy IS a threat to life, if a board of MDs agrees upon that, abortion is warranted. Abortion is not warranted because a mother decides in the last month she no longer wants to go through with it.
That is also not the only case for which somebody must suffer to avoid harming somebody else. For example, say you need a heart transplant, and will die without one. A suitable donor exists, but he is in a coma, expected to die but stable without life support. If he dies, you get the heart. You still cannot kill him to get his heart, and if you die first, well tough luck. No matter how important to you his death might be, no matter how pointless his continued life may be, killing a person is not an option.
Just so you know, I won’t be reading your posts after the first lie. If that is all you know how to do, or you are so illiterate you cannot read or understand mine, I suggest you do not waste your time.
TC, you are what is commonly referred to as schmuck, but that is besides the point.
You said, regarding my post, “That is a lie, I stopped reading your post there. I explained this earlier. It is not an “arbitrary” point, it is a biologically informed point, it is the point in development when the cortex can be operational. The cortex is what distinguishes humans from other animals.”
No matter how you cut it you picked an arbitrary point for defining when an abortion is not okay and when it is okay in your world. You have also picked an arbitrary measure based on the development of the cortex.
By your arbitrary standard, why not use, for example, week 8 when all the parts are in place and there is electrical brain activity? Regardless, in either case the fetus is unable to survive outside the womb without artificial means.
By your simple minded arbitrary standard one could just as easily pick 8 weeks as a bright line and it would make just as much (or little) sense.
And yes you did pick a bright line. In your world before 20 weeks abortion is allowed and after 20 weeks it is not. And by your own comments what’s the difference between week 19.95 and week 20.00 other then your arbitrary measure based on your self selected but arbitrary standard. In any event, essentially 2 cells in womb after fertilization have as much (or nearly as much) potential to develop to birth as 8 weeks or 20 weeks and in either case they are incable of surviving outside of the womb except possibly by extreme artificial means.
But the issue is not about even about when the potential for human life begins but rather who gets to make the decision for a woman about what is happening within her body and her life. You? Some politician? Some religious view? I think not. I think it is a decision for the woman, herself to make as long as what is going on is taking place inside her body, and not some schmuck like you.
You can wiggle all you want but in the end you are fish on a hook.
I didn’t bother with the rest of your comments because, as I said you are schmuck.
@1zb1: Think of it this way: inside the house and outside the house. Get the difference.
No. Is your right to life different inside your house and outside your house?
When another person’s rights would be violated by your actions, it becomes a matter of law whether you can take those actions and cause that harm, or you are bound to restrain yourself.
That is the entire question: When the fetus becomes a human being? I contend it is irrational, magical thinking to assert a normal healthy infant that can survive on its own has ZERO human rights prior to delivery.
TC: Apparently I need to explain the metaphor. An “intruder” inside your house has different rights then one outside YOUR house. YOU have different rights in how you deal with the “intruder” depending on whether they are inside or outside.
Abortion is the taking of the POTENTIAL for life. You picked a somewhat arbitrary point in development of a fetus (note the distinct term used to describe this potential) as a bright line not to be crossed at about 20 weeks. What is that based on? Why not 19.95 vs 20?
As you say, “how you come to the conclusion that is okay for a woman to murder her infant five minutes before birth and not okay five minutes later…and what logic you employ to think that is the dividing line for granting a fetus personhood.”
While that is currently ABOUT the most premature live birth I have no doubt in time medical technology will make it feasible to keep a fetus alive from at or very near conception. On the other hand many fetus born premature much later do not survive.
Some anti-choice groups want to define life as beginning at conception. But then we get into the problem that EVERY egg is really the potential for life. So from your reasoning (and theirs not providing an egg with fertilization would be as much a taking of life (the POTENTIAL for life) as aborting the fetus at 20 weeks.
Until the fetus is born and leaves the womb it still depends on the mother for its survival. It draws essential sustenance from the mother.
What you did not address however, is the fact that society at large makes decisions that take lives, both effecting fetus as well as people of all ages. How much we allocate money on medical research and what areas of research; what we consider acceptable levels of pollution; who gets medical care and who doesn’t; what we call a crime; how much we spend on education; when we go to war; and the list is endless. Nearly every decision we make as a society causes some people to live and others to die. Many decisions we make as individuals may also effect the lives of others.
So for me, this is fairly simple choice for a complex issue. If society can make life and death decisions about the actually living, the notion that a woman can not make decisions about what happens inside her own body when it comes not to the actually living but to the POTENTIAL for life, that is a personal decision for a woman to make that no else, especially men, have any right to make for her.
Lets go back to the house. If a robber is on the outside you don’t typically get to shoot them, but if they are inside your house you have different rules by which you can act.
Apparently, when it comes to “rights” you don’t mind giving life and death decisions to others but you have a problem giving it to a woman when it comes to what is going on inside her own body and her own life.
@Mike: What more is there to say beyond that we disagree most strongly?
I suppose you could tell me how you come to the conclusion that is okay for a woman to murder her infant five minutes before birth and not okay five minutes later; that would be a start, explaining what magical biological transition occurred there, and what logic you employ to think that is the dividing line for granting a fetus personhood.
But I suppose you cannot, because it really is not logically supportable by science or reason and you know it, and you aren’t going to admit anything that might strip your label of misogynist from a pro-lifer, no matter how inaccurate it might be.
So what more is there to say? Nothing, you have been clear to the point of being dogmatic in your support for a man I believe to be a war criminal, a murderer, a liar, a corporatist, a torturer and a fraud, and you are clearly so invested in a Democrat being your champion that no number of crimes can dissuade you.
Unlike Grossman, I will leave you with the final insults on this topic.
Fire at will.
“I suppose you could tell me how you come to the conclusion that is okay for a woman to murder her infant five minutes before birth and not okay five minutes later; that would be a start,”
Tony,
No insults, just your quote to show how much you’ve twisted the abortion reality to justify your support for a misogynist, racist, bigot. The last words are yours since in every response here you’ve added to the indictment of your own position.
Think of it this way: inside the house and outside the house. Get the difference.
“Government” makes countless decisions about who lives and who dies, but in your world of rights a woman can not make the same decision even when it involes her own body. You are going to make it for her. And by your own reasoning any moment compared to the next moment is arbitrary so why do you give any right to a woman to chose what happens in her own body?
Tony,
You confuse me with S.Grossman. I have made my position abundantly clear and provided my reasoning. You are clear to the point of being dogmatic in your support of a man who I believe to be a racist, bigoted, misogynist. What more is there to say beyond that we disagree most strongly?
@Mike S: In case my earlier sarcasm fell flat (as it often does), my point was that all laws are essentially morally inspired, from murder on down. People do not want murder to be illegal because they buy into some arcane logic about property rights over their body, they want murder to be met with life ending punishment because being murdered frightens them at a visceral level and life ending punishment is a deterrent (life ending by execution or, for some, by lifelong incarceration).
Murder is morally wrong, theft is morally wrong, fraud is morally wrong, false testimony is morally wrong, usually coercion without any publicly granted authority to use it is morally wrong.
I believe explicitly, and virtually everybody I discuss it with agrees, that a primary function of government is to protect the weak from the strong that would exploit or abuse them. It is the police, and the courts, and the military that should hire the professionals that can stand and fight the predators, and the vast majority of America wants the government to do that.
So it is not surprising to me if pro-lifers want the government to prohibit what they believe to be a morally repulsive act equivalent to murder, they think that is the government’s job, to protect the weak (an infant unable to defend itself) against the strong.
That is no more misogyny or hatred of women than demanding actual murder be outlawed. What they have is a hatred of murder. I cannot stress enough that I disagree with them on whether it is murder, but I think it is a slur and a false equivalence to claim that a hatred of murder is a hatred of women, or even Patriarchal. You do not have to believe women are second class citizens to men in order to demand that women do not get some special privilege to commit a murder.
As for my own views, they are indeed scientific. Shall you now insist that a perfectly healthy full term infant is not a human being until it draws a breath? On what grounds? Ridiculous raw assertion? Superstitious religion? A belief in the magical properties of gas exchange? Or just a desire to be right that is so dominant you will say the fuck with facts?
An infant is independently viable for several weeks before it would be naturally born, and its location (in or out of the womb) should make no more difference in its human right to life than it makes to mine if I am in my kitchen or in my living room.
The infant is a human being well before it is born, and as such, decisions on abortion should not be determined unilaterally by the Mother and what affects her alone and how she happens to feel about it. They have become decisions about the continuance of two linked but independent lives; and the law should be involved to balance the rights of both. I do not think either life has an absolute claim on preeminence. And since I think abortion IS an absolute right for the first 20 weeks (and should be available as a free service to mothers paid for by taxpayers), I believe any normal, expected risk involved in childbirth was assumed by the Mother in carrying the fetus to half-term.
Many pro-lifers are undoubtedly misogynists and/or patriarchal and/or religious zealots that make them both, but the pro-life position is not inherently either misogynist or patriarchal, it is simply a mystical miscomprehension of biology.
Posted on Friday, January 13, 2012
Indefinite detention: Instrument of tyranny
By ALLEN S. KELLER AND YANG-YANG ZHOU
Excerpts:
When President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve, he codified policies of arbitrary and indefinite detention for terror suspects including possibly U.S. citizens. Alexander Hamilton referred to such policies as the “favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” Based on our experience in evaluating and caring for victims of torture and human rights abuses from all over the world, Hamilton was right.
Regardless of the law’s applicability to U.S. citizens, indefinite detention in a military facility without charge can be tantamount to torture, causing profound health consequences.
Omoyele Sowore, a Nigerian-born journalist and pro-democracy activist, is a former client of our program. When Mr. Sowore recently spoke at an event marking the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International, he poignantly noted that when a nation chooses national security over basic freedoms, it becomes a great danger to its own people. He was originally describing African dictatorial regimes.
For protesting government corruption in Nigeria, Mr. Sowore was abducted, detained, shackled and beaten on eight separate occasions – each time in an unknown location, uncertain when his imprisonment would end. However, rather than the physical abuse, he recalls the uncertainty and inability to challenge his arrest as what caused him the most suffering.
“Indefinite detention is absolutely torture. It breaks your body, your will and your dignity. Most people, who have never been tortured before, do not know that the worst part is the psychological rather than the physical.”
…
With the 2012 elections approaching, President Obama should reread and reaffirm his own inaugural words: “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. … Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake.”
In our work with torture survivors we are inspired by the lengths our clients take to flee tyrannies and gain legal status in this country because they believe so strongly in our American ideals. In defense of these ideals, we urge for not only the full repeal of the indefinite detention provisions under the NDAA but also a deeper assessment of how we ever allowed this to happen in the first place.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/13/135794/indefinite-detention-instrument.html#storylink=cpy
@Mike S: Ron Paul published a newsletter that contained racist diatribes. End of of story, though there is much more evidence.
Ron Paul lent his name to a publisher that produced 240 newsletters under Ron Paul’s banner, by various authors. The author that first wrote about these newsletters (which are unavailable for scrutiny) at the New Republic said there were nine of those 240 newsletters, in sequence, that contained racism-suggestive slurs, and the final one with most of the slurs was the only one with a byline: James Powell.
Ron Paul bears some responsibility for the racism under his banner, just as Ariana Huffington would bear some responsibility for any racial slurs under the banner of “The Huffington Post,” but in neither case would it be evidence of their personal racism. The short duration of the racism in the letters, if the New Republic author is believed (and since we cannot access the full 240 of them), indicates that somebody shut down James Powell (probably Lew Rockwell).
Ron Paul claims he did not read the letters that were going out; the editor and publisher and chief writer of the newsletters, Lew Rockwell (also Paul’s former chief of staff) has indicated he did not clear the content of newsletters with Ron Paul before sending them, and he was not the only ghostwriter, and that he did not write the nine racially charged letters.
In any case, perhaps I miscommunicated: Show me a racist law or policy which Ron Paul himself has publicly supported or demanded, as a Congressman. Show me this abuse of power you so vociferously insist he would exercise.
I do not believe you can. And I am not “throwing Obama at you,” I am simply stating that I can show you MANY things Obama has actually done to undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and you cannot find one single thing Ron Paul has done as a Congressman to do that, or even tried to do as a Congressman to do that, or even promised as a candidate to do that.
The closest I can even think of is his promise to use the Constitutionally granted powers of the President to minimize the impact on citizens of what he considers unconstitutional drug laws, via pardons for non-violent offenders. I do not consider than an abuse of power, he would not be pardoning his minions (like Bush did with Libby) or friends or campaign contributors (like Clinton apparently did). I consider it an exercise of power, and a constitutional check and balance against the excesses of past politicians.
Everything else he has proposed has been a perfectly Constitutional action of the President, or a legal bill that would have to be voted upon by the House and Senate and approved. I doubt that would happen, but if it does I still believe in Majority Rule, even if the Majority is an idiot.
You may prefer the Imperial Presidency, but sooner or later a Republican is going to hold the White House and we will rue the day we gave the Presidency such permanent unilateral and unconstitutional powers for a few years of expediency.
The topic here generally speaking is indeed Obama’s dismal record on civil rights. The item in question here is simply another example of that record. If you wish to base your contentions on specificity instead of the entirety of his record on the issue of civil liberties, then you are committing the logical fallacy of simple cause. Your contention in defense of your attempting to change the subject is the fallacies of semantic argument, ignoratio elenchi and the mind projection fallacy. Also, your “command”? Just goes to show you wish to manipulate the topic of conversation. Like a good lil’ distraction troll. However, if you think you have some control over me, you are simply delusional.
The topic is still Obama’s dismal record on civil rights. Generally speaking. And you’re still a troll trying to change the subject.
Do you realize how trollish you sound?
The topic here is still Obama’s dismal record on civil rights.
GH: wrong again. the subject, to be literal, is “Final Curtain: Obama Signs Indefinite Detention of Citizens Into Law As Final Act of 2011” . Its your opinion (and Mr. Turley’s) that it is dismal, largely because you are obviousely incapable of seeing the world or reality through anything other then a pinhole.
Your simple mind is clearly not capable of grasping beyond one simple idea at a time. In your view Obama has a “dismal record on civil rights”. According to you it his “record” at issue not a particular item. In considering a record a reasonably intelligent person (not applicable in your case) looks at the whole record and not just the items that support your biase. So for example his appoints to the Supreme Court in your simple mind have no bearings on Civil Liberties. Similarly his ending DODT has no bearing on that record. And of course fighting for SS and Medicare as part of people’s rights doesn’t fit into your bias either because you can’t grasp that its hard to worry about civil liberties when you are living in poverty or have no healthcare.
But you just keep looking through that pin hole thinking you know jack about Civil Liberties.
In the meantime you continue to demonstrate my command over you by NOT talking about SCOTUS. Thank you.
What you don’t get is that you keep insulting me because I won’t let you change the subject without pointing it out.
I know, I know, it must pain you to go off script, but do try to keep up.
The subject of this thread is Obama’s dismal performance on civil rights issues. If you want to talk SCOTUS there is a perfectly good thread directly about SCOTUS and their deficiencies here.
gh do you have any clue how really stupid you sound? (fyi: this a computer generated response)
Please continue to prove my point.
As for your “command”, you should really not do hallucinogens before lunch.
Let’s talk about the fact that you are trying desperately to change the topic of this thread to SCOTUS composition in the light of Obama potentially not being re-elected (a what? a . . . wait for it . . . scare tactic) versus the actual subject of this thread which is Obama pissing on the Bill of Rights by not vetoing the NDAA.
Let’s talk about that instead.
GH, you are joking, right. you really don’t get it do you? give me a ring when you get that brain transplant. maybe then you will be able to chew bubble gum and tie your laces at the same time.
In the mean time I get the BoR and CU are important to you but SCOTUS is not. The sign of a true idiot.
Keep following those commands. Cha Cha Cha.
That’s right, 1zb1. Go straight to insult when your methods are exposed. Trolls aren’t very bright, but you are predictable.
Oh, poor, poor Gene, he can dish out the insults (very poorly) but can’t take it. Lets feel sorry for him. Gene, you really are a joke. And thank you for NOT talking about SCOTUS as I commanded. (too bad you have no sense of humor at all)
I think it is time to have my religious belief, that all men who want to control women’s bodies should be tossed into Gitmo, presented and backed by the Koch Brothers and Ron Paul supporters everywhere. I don’t hate these men, I just believe that mysognist men deserve to be put in jail. I realize I am a minority in this belief, but with the right amount of monetary support, I can get my minority view entered into the law books.
@Mike: Oh, I see, so it is okay to be personally against murder, but having the state act on that belief is simply wrong. It is okay to be against fraud, or employee endangerment, or theft, but having the government act on those beliefs is simply wrong.
How is being pro-life any different? If people believe that all abortion is murder, of course they will try to get the government to act on that belief.
The only question left is whether they advocate for tyrannical enforcement of a minority over the majority, and that is something Ron Paul has specifically not done. His attempts at pro-life have all been entirely legal maneuvers, within the system defined by the majority, and entirely capable of being defeated by the majority.
So you are wrong, it is not misogyny or hatred of women, or sub-classing women. It is not even Patriarchal. It is simple, the fetus is a person for some time before birth, it is not some kind of inanimate property that is suddenly converted to personhood by drawing breath.
I am behind on office work at the moment, hopefully I will have more time later to respond more fully.
Tony, I am a scientist and am Board Certified in my field. I like to think I have a better than average grasp of the English language. Gene and Mike Spindell are absolutely on point with their comments just above.
To use the port in a storm analogy and make it more precise, don’t’ forget some harbors are mined.
Tony,
I’ve got to say that I find your reasoning for supporting Paul to be . . . interesting. Like I’ve said, I understand why parts of his platform sound attractive to reformers, but the rest of it really is horrendous. Even as a question of lesser evils, Paul’s negatives simply don’t get him out of triage. The duplicity of his cross-purposed message runs deep. He talks a lot about liberty but suggests policies that are anything but liberating in practice. I have to go back to my earlier analogy of a port in a storm. I just don’t think you’re adequately seeing that all ports are not created equal and the one you’ve chosen has hidden (and not so hidden) dangers.
1zb1,
Are you so stupid that you think COINTELPRO is software?
Apparently so.
Let me break this down for you.
COINTELPRO is an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program. COINTELPRO proper was (and probably still is in these days of the PATRIOT Act) a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. You know, disruptive, like you are with your passive-aggressive anti-left/left rhetoric. It’s not very original and here it’s not going to be effective. So instead of talking about what you want to talk about, let’s talk about your methodology as applied to your message instead.
It’ll be a hoot.
GH: gee, u r a rocket scientist. finally figured out how to search the web, cut and paste. do you wake up this stupid in the morning or do u work at it through the day. try reading some of your own posts some time. btw: you may need a port in a storm but most smart people know enough not to go out in the storm in the first place. but the smart part would let you out.
Meanwhile, I’m going for a run while you strain your brain to come up with something idiotic to say. don’t hurt yourself too badly in the process – you might have trouble sitting down. (oh, and this was written by a bot)
@Mike S: Supporting an objectivist, misogynist, racist bigot is not principle, it’s blindness.
I think it is blindness to assume somebody is a misogynist simply because they are pro-life; it is an explicitly religious viewpoint on when human life begins, and assuming it is driven by a hatred for women or a belief they are inferior in any way is simply wrong. It is not misogyny.
I have detailed my abortion views and the science behind those views elsewhere; essentially I have no problem with abortion in the first half of pregnancy, regardless of the health of the fetus or mother (i.e. even if both are perfectly healthy), and increasingly larger problems once the fetal brain has a working cortex. In the final four weeks of pregnancy, I too would prohibit the abortion of a healthy fetus in a healthy mother that was not raped. That fetus is a living human being that can survive on its own outside the womb. In my view, abortions between the 20th week and 35th week (a normal pregnancy is 39 weeks) is a matter for a medical board to review, there are no bright lines, and only a medical board can assess relative risk to the two people involved (the fetus and the mother).
I am not a misogynist for that belief, I am a scientist, and birth is not a magical event that turns a non-human into a human being. Neither is conception, or drawing a first breath. It is biological mechanics that put the burden of pregnancy on women, or equivalently, deny it to men.
I do not subscribe to the view that I or anybody can do whatever I want with my body to the point of endangering or killing another human being. I am not an objectivist that thinks of my body as some kind of property.
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As for racism, I think it is blindness to rank somebody’s personal biases as more important than their public policy. I do not think you can point to a single public policy of Ron Paul’s that is racist. The only evidence you have for Ron Paul being racist is newsletters written by James Powell. So please, rather than hearsay, please find me a quote somewhere, a public policy stance, that would be deemed “racist.”
@Mike S: It is quite another, in the face of all the evidence presented to support this man who stands for much you purport to abjure.
WHAT evidence? You have hearsay and conviction by association and nothing more. Was attending the sermons of the “God DAMN America” Reverend Wright “evidence” against Obama? No. Was serving on a board with a guy that tried to bomb a government office evidence of Obama’s terrorist leanings? NO.
Show me something Ron Paul did or said that is racist, or misogynist, and we can talk.
@Mike S: Where you come off though arrogating to yourself the ability to understand those who disagree with you is beyond appalling.
I see. Read your next sentence.
@Mike S: With your support for Paul you are revealing yourself as tunnel visioned in principle and strikingly naive in thought.
Gee Mike, have you arrogated to yourself the ability to understand me?
That aside, I do not compromise my principles, and I am not the one that is naive. Is it naive to believe a President can hold office and obey the Constitution and not break any laws? I do not think so.
Is it naive to believe the President should exercise the powers GRANTED to him by the Constitution, and challenge or ignore or veto the laws that are UNconstitutional, and stand firm on the principles of the Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law? I do not think so.
If your claim is that I am naive to think that rules and laws apply to politicians, or that the law is too complex to actually be followed in all circumstances, then I think it is YOU that are naive.
This is not that hard to figure out, ask any of the lawyers here. Read some arguments from the professionals, like Turley or Greenwald or even the Supreme Court. The language is clear and the arguments are frankly no more complex than high school chemistry or algebra.
I am not “tunnel visioned” in principle, that is derogatory. I believe there are principles we cannot compromise, I believe there are lines we cannot cross. Like the founders, and partially because I am convinced by their arguments and partially because of my own thinking, I believe in absolute prohibitions on some government actions.
That is not “tunnel vision” or “naivety,” that is how we avoid autocracy, a police state and the rule by intimidation into which we have fallen. That is how we ensure the government is our servant and not our master, which is how the world should be.
When I debate, even with a “D” student like Grossman, I at least try to find some factual or logical inconsistency in their thinking, and answer to it. I freely admit that in this forum, where I can comment freely without attribution, I do not restrain myself from answering vitriol with insult.
But I at least try for logic first. You (and others) are dismissing my charges against Obama, his actual crimes against the Constitution and treaties as baseless, without evidence. You (and others) are convicting Ron Paul of misogyny and racism and bigotry, without any evidence of anything he has done other than association, but of course the same rules do not apply to Obama’s associations. (To be clear, association is not proof of guilt in either case.)
If I am naive about how politics really works, I think Professor Turley must be just as naive, look at how many articles he writes about Obama violating the Constitution. Poor, dumb, Turley, doesn’t he know how the world works? I question why you even read him, Mike, the poor bastard seems to think a President can follow the law and the Constitution. How dumb can Turley be?
Let me note I am not appealing to Turley’s authority, I have no need, I have my own brain and can provide my own logic. What I am pointing out is that you and other posters defer to the authority of Turley, and ignore logic and facts and valid argument of others. You convict Paul of being evil without evidence, and believe in Obama despite the evidence of his evil doings.
I do not accept dogma and I do not defer to any intellectual authority, ever. (I may agree with them and their argument, but that is not deference.) I am capable of changing my mind, and I have grown out of the childish belief that I can get what I want without any cost, sometimes getting what you want demands pain and sacrifice of other things you want. I supported Obama largely because I mistakenly thought a Constitutional scholar was the man to undo the Constitutional damage done by Bush. I was wrong, he has escalated it, along with the corporatism and endless covert wars and surveillance state and corruption that I despise.
So I changed my mind. No amount of liberalism and the social programs I believe in is worth abandoning the Bill of Rights and rule of law. I don’t care how good the King treats us, I do not want a King. What I want is a military and an intelligence apparatus and a police force that is the SERVANT of the people, and a government that is the SERVANT of the people, not the MASTER of the people.
If you’d rather be a monarchist, that is up to you, but it is a principle I will not compromise.
“I think it is blindness to assume somebody is a misogynist simply because they are pro-life; it is an explicitly religious viewpoint on when human life begins, and assuming it is driven by a hatred for women or a belief they are inferior in any way is simply wrong.”
Tony,
A person is allowed to personally be against abortion. What is impermissible is to have the State act on enforcing your beliefs. If you do, the you are a misogynist in the true sense of the word.
“mi·sog·y·nis·tic (m-sj-nstk) also mi·sog·y·nous (-sj-ns) adj.
Of or characterized by a hatred of women”.
For the State to take control of a woman’s body, is not only misogynistic, but evinces a Patriarchal view of womanhood that is closely aligned with hatred, enough to be undifferentiated. Just because a male desires to have sex with a female does not connote his acceptance of her equality.
“I am not a misogynist for that belief, I am a scientist, and birth is not a magical event that turns a non-human into a human being.”
Well if you want to play the qualification game I’m a Institution Trained Psychotherapist, with a Ivy League Degree ad in my professional opinion based on your writing I see you as quite the misogynist. Don’t pull your “I’m a scientist” game on me Tony, I’m not biting.
“WHAT evidence? You have hearsay and conviction by association and nothing more. Was attending the sermons of the “God DAMN America” Reverend Wright “evidence” against Obama? No. Was serving on a board with a guy that tried to bomb a government office evidence of Obama’s terrorist leanings? NO.
Show me something Ron Paul did or said that is racist, or misogynist, and we can talk.”
Ron Paul published a newsletter that contained racist diatribes. End of of story,
though there is much more evidence.
“Gee Mike, have you arrogated to yourself the ability to understand me?”
Tony do you really think that no one is reading the thread will see where you have continually characterized me and others in a manner that would indicate you know our motivations. This is so childish on your part that I find it unexpected, I had thought better of your debating skills. I can only assume we have hit a nerve with your blind support of Paul, who it is clearly a racist, a bigot, the most conservative member of the house and finally a man who by his own words has shown your belief in his unwavering support of human rights is tempered by politics. Sadly, your blind support Tony for such a man indicates a dogmatism I had previously thought you were above.
Now seeing your pattern, no doubt you will try to throw back Obama at me. That would be facile on your part. My argument here is about your support for a potential Fascist(=KKK=WSC=JBS), not about your hatred for Obama. Gene
has been equally vociferously opposed to Obama for quite some time. The difference is that Gene hasn’t supported a racist/bigot/misogynist as an alternative.