Hans Blix, the United Nation’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq, in his March 7, 2003, address to the UN Security Council, said that as of that date, less than 3 weeks before Bush invaded Iraq, that Iraq had capitulated to all demands for professional, no-notice weapons inspections all over Iraq and agreed to increased aerial surveillance by the U.S. over the “no-fly” zones.Though bobn implicitly acknowledges that pre-invasion Iraq never allowed no-notice inspections, he otherwise forgets the timing of Blix's statement. It came after the coalition inserted about 150,000 ready-to-strike troops on the Iraqi border. Saddam--having never permitted no-notice inspections--suddenly vowed to do so in the future. Such a promise should be given little weight given Saddam's record of continuous commitment flouting. So, as I observed when "Fisking" Bugliosi, Blix said no more than "Saddam hadn't showed him any" WMDs.
More importantly, the sole reason for this 11th hour concession was the threat of force of the coalition's combined military personnel and weapons. And, by that point, the benefits of toppling Saddam--ending the killing of Iraqi people and reducing his support to regional terrorism--made invasion inevitable.
Neville Chamberlain believed surrendering part of Czechoslovakia would preserve the remainder. It didn’t. He thought Hitler could be trusted. The Fuhrer believed in "the big lie"--and couldn’t be. Appeasing a thug prolongs his reign--just ask the people of Zimbabwe, if any remain. Inaction can be more deadly than war.
A last-minute pledge from a desperate dictator isn't a smoking gun--it's evidence bobn is smoking something.
42 comments:
A last-minute pledge from a desperate dictator isn't a smoking gun--it's evidence bobn is smoking something.
Sorry, not since 1991 :) Nice Ad Hominem attack though.
I quoted that as one of several points Bugliosi makes. (And elsewhere I've quoted several other reasons from several other sources why the run-up to war was wrong.) I quoted it again when quoted something entirely different.
This was just one of numerous points I've brought up about the buildup to the war. And if you're trying for a tolerable peace rather than war, an offer that comes in during the buildup is a valid consideration. A good faith "ratcheting up" of rhetoric would be aimed at such concessions. If you've been determined to go to war come hell or high water, then you ignore it.
And, by that point, the benefits of toppling Saddam--ending the killing of Iraqi people and reducing his support to regional terrorism--made invasion inevitable.
Invasion was inevitable only in Bush's mind. See here:
"Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials...
Dearlove went on, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD...
"The case was thin," summarized the notes taken by a British national security aide at the meeting. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
But Sadam was a bad guy for decades - even when earlier Republicans were supporting him. So why not then and not now?
As noted above, there are many other despots who meet all the criteria and worse - why not them, instead?
Neville Chamberlain believed
Yes, always make that comparison, you're clearly into reflexive mode now.
While we're in WWII metaphors, Hitler opend a war on the 2nd front, without having finished his business on the first front - results were not good. George Bush is not Hitler and we are not Nazi Germany, but "first things first" and "one thing at a time" might have been pretty good ideas.
From the previously referenced blog entry. Seemed better to bring it forward.
bobn sez:
> This would not address current status until those no-notice inspections could be used. Which would seem to mean that the threat produced a result that made the actual war unneeded.
Except that it's assinine at that point to let him off the hook. You've just spent a huge mass of manpower and logistical effort to prepare for war (within three weeks? Come on.), and he waits until what is effectively the very last minute to capitulate.
What, so he (Saddam) backs off for a few months, until we've stood down, and then starts playing the DICK card again? And we have to spend all that money ramping up YET AGAIN?
Sorry, why waste the money -- when he'd already violated the terms that left him in power in the very first place over and over, thus abrogating that agreement in the first place numerous times.
The USA, nor the UN's member states, for that matter, has no obligation to leave him in power any longer, and did not from around 1995 or so, esp. from the point where he kicked out all the inspectors.
Further, and I say this most fervently -- There were other reasons for doing it -- not only humanitarian ones, but also removing a funding and training source for world terrorism.
The bill was up, and past due. At the last minute, had he agreed to step down and leave, that might have been accepted -- but to leave him in power?
That would have been utterly brain damaged.
So, bob, "what the hell are you smoking?", since your agreement with a brain-damaged notion doesn't strike you as wrong, isn't an ad-hominem attack -- it's a factually accurate assessment of your reasoning abilities.
Let's turn this into individual human terms --
1) You rent out an apartment you own to a tenant, with a prescribed set of rules.
2) Everything works ok for a while. Then he starts paying you erratically, a clear violation of the terms of lease.
3) He starts talking very rude to you all the time, telling the neighbors vile stories, and talking to them about how he was going to kick your ass.
4) When he hears that a neighborhood vandal has trashed your yard, he gives the guy money, and brags about it.
5) He gets seriously in arrears. You tell him that if he doesn't pay up, you're going to file suit to have him evicted. He tells you to F*** off.
6) You file suit, pay the fees, get whatever documents are required in your state, pay someone to file the notice, hire the sherrif to go with you to serve the notice, and arrange to do it on a specific date.
7) The night before he's going to be kicked out, he calls you and offers to pay you all that he owes you.
WHAT KIND OF MORON ARE YOU TO LET HIM STAY?
Q.E.D.
Saddam had a hundred chances to stay in power.
Giving him a hundred and one isn't smart.
> But Sadam was a bad guy for decades - even when earlier Republicans were supporting him. So why not then and not now?
a) He wasn't PotUS then.
b) There wasn't adequate support for the action prior to that point.
c) So you don't catch a murderer until he's killed his 157th victim. You figure he should be let go, because you didn't stop the first 156?
And with "c", we once more are called to the question, bob -- "what are you smokin'?"
Because that IS the essential rationale you are promoting here:
"We didn't take him down the first 567 times he thumbed his nose at us, or after the first 10,000 victims, why would we take issue with the 568th or the 300,000th?"
Answer: "Because SOME people wanted to look the other way. Because SOME people didn't want to be bothered. Because SOME people didn't care."
So you figure everyone else should follow suit with these self-serving dickheads?
Shame on you, bob.
Because, I agree, it should have been done LONG AGO.
But that doesn't make a justification for not doing it now.
=================
Not even close.
=================
.
My response to OBH:
I Do Not Feed The Trolls.
Attempting to demonstrate the illogic of bobn's assertion is sure to be an exercise in frustration.
That is because his logic is predicated upon a premise impossible to disprove; that Bush invaded Iraq out of sophomoric pique at Saddam's assassination attempt of his daddy...
I've taken the time to read his Post and his long interchange with OBH. His entire rationale s based upon this premise. He filters everything through this prism & arguably, gives inordinate weight to those 'facts' that 'prove' his 'conclusions'.
That other explanations offer far greater insights into Bush's strategy in the WoT are irrelevant.
He has found an 'explanation' he likes and is clearly unwilling to consider any other explanation that would force him to reconsider his evaluation of Bush.
Perhaps because doing that would also force him to reevaluate his entrenched views toward the right. Ironically, many of his views are actually rejected by the modern day democratic party, and philosophically his 'natural home' is conservative.
Evidently, the obvious is too painful to honestly contemplate.
On another note, OBH is NOT a troll. It IS clear that he does not suffer fools gladly. And he is not reluctant about accusing someone of stupidity.
In reading through the long litany of back and forth between OBH and bobn I noted numerous times when OBH conceded a point, and even once apologized. That is NOT the behavior of a troll.
It's true that OBH's blog was stillborn but my first one was as well, my second blog on townhall has languished. My third and present blog I post to infrequently when the urge strikes. So labeling OBH a troll based upon this as 'evidence' is problematic at best.
Finally, if you missed my apology to you OBH, please go back to the thread where you properly reprimanded me and do so.
> I Do Not Feed The Trolls.
We're feeding *you*, bob.
You just don't have any answers.
Let us know when you've studied reason enough that you can actually respond sufficiently intelligently that you DON'T come off as a less than fully functional person.
As far as "not feeding the trolls", as an excuse to avoid defending your faulty reasoning -- hey -- If you want to always give me the last word, that's your choice.
"ad hominem", bob, is a baseless claim against a person which is not supported by the evidence or argument.
Any claims made so far against you are supported by your failures to either defend your position properly or your taking a blatantly defective position in the first place. That's not ad hominem, it's the kind of verbal whack against the side of the head you've needed for a long time, but no one ever gives you because most people are "too polite" and too concerned with your self-esteem. You may or may not respond to such whacks by attempting to tighten up your reasoning and/or carefully examining your missives prior to posting for obvious holes. It has no effect on my life either way. But if you fail to do that you'll wind up with nothing but like-minded sycophants listening to you and agreeing 24/7.
==================
> Evidently, the obvious is too painful to honestly contemplate.
Actually, I suspect this is the case with most libtards (not *necesarily* to include bob in that, although his mental processes have a lot in common -- both lack rigor).
They've adopted a position which makes them "feel better" and is never subject to revision as knowledge changes or alters, rather than one which is hard-connected with known facts and an understanding of the nature of either the universe or human nature.
When the reality comes home to roost, they are generally faced with the full consequences of that -- an example is all the horrors inflicted on the black populace in the last 50 years: plummeting literacy and competency rates, absurd incarceration rates, substantial infections with AIDS as a result of the incarceration rates, overwhelmingly single-parent families, all feeding back into the screwed up system in a guaranteed positive feedback loop.
To admit the results of their own incompetence is unacceptable to them, so they project it onto eeeeevil "racists" who, of course, also happen to hold contrary positions on just about everything they want to do.
And thus, the positive feedback loop continues, cycling more and more out of control. The end is going to be more extreme racial tensions, and more and more aberrant anti-society movements trying to "fix" a problem created by past fixes.
Some people always forget the paving material on The Proverbial Road to Hell.
Good intentions are never sufficient. Required, sometimes, but never sufficient.
> It's true that OBH's blog was stillborn
Actually, I think that was either an inadvertent creation when I was attempting to do something with my profile, or it's possible blogger automatically created a blog back when I created the account. After discussing the idea of my own blog with the author of a blog I used to frequent (he changed subjects about a year later, and I don't find that topic as interesting), I decided that the world needs responders, too, and that fits better my own highly varied interests, since there are lots of competent bloggers out there. It seemed better to apply my abilities to fisk stuff where appropriate, rather than to try and be just another blogging head. And finally, it also allows me to be as inconsistent as I want to be -- if you want to run a blog you generally have to be particularly consistent (a few exceptions, like Bill Whittle's on-line essay collection Eject! Eject! Eject! exist, but most blogs worth reading include at the least 2-3x weekly postings, like Frank Martin's VariFrank)
> Finally, if you missed my apology to you OBH, please go back to the thread where you properly reprimanded me and do so.
I'd already seen it. ;o)
Wasn't so much a reprimand as a "WTF? Where did that come from?" I was mystified. NBD.
OhBloodyHell,
Your-take-no-prisoners, get-out-of the-kitchen-if-you-can't-take-the-heat-approach reminds me of Robert Heinlein. High praise indeed.
Glad you got the apology, almost got off on the wrong foot.
Bill Whittle's Eject-Eject-Eject essays are great, I recommend him as well. I do the same type of thing on my blog, though i don't flatter myself to be half the writer he is, I write as much to clarify my thoughts as to express a point of view.
I am not familiar with Varifrank, I'll check him out.
You are entirely correct in that intellectual rigor is in short supply in what passes for critical thought these days.
bobn appears to be a person who simply is unwilling to carefully examine his premises, I'm not sure he understands that logic's great inadequacy is its inability to examine its own originating premise.
His main stumbling block appears to be his deep animus toward capitalism and its main practitioners, businesses and large corporations.
As so many do, he confuses capitalism with morality by seeking to attach an overriding and altruistic moral premise to an essentially amoral system.
Then he confuses a representative republic with pure democracy.
Representative's seek to serve the special interests of the groups of which societies necessarily consist.
Pure democracy is the rule of the mob and as Adams so wittily observed, "A mob is still a mob whether they are for you or against you."
Perhaps in time he'll understand that in principle, conservatives support many of the same goals liberals claim to desire. They just differ greatly on how to get there.
Geoffrey Britain says:
Attempting to demonstrate the illogic of bobn's assertion is sure to be an exercise in frustration.
That is because his logic is predicated upon a premise impossible to disprove; that Bush invaded Iraq out of sophomoric pique at Saddam's assassination attempt of his daddy...
I've taken the time to read his Post and his long interchange with OBH. His entire rationale s based upon this premise. He filters everything through this prism & arguably, gives inordinate weight to those 'facts' that 'prove' his 'conclusions'.
I think there is a natural flow:
1) Multiple sources state that W was determined to go into Iraq from the get-go, at inauguration.
2) Multiple sources site pressure he placed on the CIA for the NIE and the White Paper.
2) The remarkably one-sidedness of the differences between said NIE and White Paper
4) Reports of the pressure on the FBI twice to find links between Sadam and Al-Qaeda, and - upon their failure to do so - the dis-invitation of the FBI to subsequent discussion
5) The Downing street memo, showing both pre-disposition to invade and a lack of concern for post-Sadam planning, despite W's glowing rhetoric of decocracy flourishing in the ME.
6) The spectacular screwup that was immediate post-Sadam Iraq. Please rent or buy the DVD "No End In Sight" - whther you agree with the title or not, it is valuable historic viewing.
It works for me. I like Occam's Razor.
Perhaps because doing that would also force him to reevaluate his entrenched views toward the right. Ironically, many of his views are actually rejected by the modern day democratic party, and philosophically his 'natural home' is conservative.
[Emphasis added.]
Holy Cow! Somebody noticed! My shameful secret is out!
Thank you Geoffrey. I was wondering if there was something wrong with my writing, that nobody noticed that except for my anti-big-business leanings, I am pretty concervative. And I believe my anti-big-business leanings stem from an essential conservative concept: that any concentration of power is bad.
My dislike for the right stems from the belief that they, more than the left, have enabled this unwarranted concenttration of power, and that they have and are enabling the Kleptocracy we see today, where profits stay private but losses are "socialized". But the Dems are vey complicit in this also. I was slow to see that, I will admit.
I will also admit this: the more I read about the Clinton administration, the more I realize that they were bought and paid for too. Both parties are mostly lost to us.
Evidently, the obvious is too painful to honestly contemplate.
Somewhat, but not too bad. Becming a gun owner was a surprisingly conservatizing experience, in that the gun-grabbers are some of the most dishonest liberals to be found anywhere.
I have in fact been teetering between McCain and Obama, after 24 years of voting straight Democratic tickets.
However I have decided I cannot vote for McCain, for many of the reasons laid out here by M_O_M, with the addition of the abomination known as the Military Commissions Act being an even more serious transgression (with which M_O_M might well disagree). My next blog post at Liberative will expand upon this, but it is strictly for Constitutional reasons. Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury are not to be tampered with. (Note that M_O_M dislikes Obama even more and has lately taken to saying she'll vote McCain, but will need a barf bag when she pulls the lever.)
That doesn't mean I'll vote *for* Obama - if I do I also will need a barf bag.
On another note, OBH is NOT a troll. ... And he is not reluctant about accusing someone of stupidity.
He brings more to the table than your typcial troll, I'll grant you. Not too many trolls can talk about the stability of triumvitrates in governments or world affairs.
But if you really read the long thread at the post on my blog, tell me this: wherever on earth did the talk of racial preferences and racism and the 1948 democratic schism and all that other crap come from? The original post never mentioned race in any way. The thread up to that point didn't mention race or racism. It was just a giant incendiary flaming red herring.
And then he has the gall to accuse me of racism for not speaking out on something that happened in late 2004, and there is still nothing to indicate the OBH ever said anything about it anywhere. (Hand waving, I say!) And even if he did and I didn't, so what? Hell, in 2004 I was obsessed with Free Software. I never saw the cartoons in question.
The marketplace of ideas is a bazaar - not a cage fight. If he can't be civil, I can ignore him - and will. And I'll be glad to let people know why, once in a while, to.
In reading through the long litany of back and forth between OBH and bobn I noted numerous times when OBH conceded a point, and even once apologized. That is NOT the behavior of a troll.
Well he tried to attribute to me views I don't hold - in fact he does that all the time: "this what people who think like you believe" - and apologized when I called him out on it, claining that wasn't he intended. But otherwise, what was the point of that whole "colloquy"?
And he apologized for missing a link on MCA - when that link was much of my point.
I believe my
characterization of him holds, but I concede it's a judgement call.
His main stumbling block appears to be his deep animus toward capitalism and its main practitioners, businesses and large corporations.
No I don't hate capitalism. But there are a lot of really slimey "capitalists" - look at Angelo Mozilo, Chuck Prince, and Stanley O'Neal. See here how Nestle was more interested in profits than babies lives. See here how Ford decided it wasn't worth $11 per Pinto to stop people from burning to death.
As so many do, he confuses capitalism with morality by seeking to attach an overriding and altruistic moral premise to an essentially amoral system.
I demand that companies be held to the same standards as individuals. Right now, corporations act out behaviors that would be diagnosed as psychopathic if seen in individuals.
Then he confuses a representative republic with pure democracy.
Representative's seek to serve the special interests of the groups of which societies necessarily consist.
OK, so it sounds like we should just make bribery of all government officials legal and the devil take the hind-most - is that what I hear you say?
That last question was over the top. But I still thought the original idea was that Congress would represent the people who elected them, (even back when the election was not direct).
bobn, You make a lot of points.
I like Occam's Razor too, in a limited way it can be quite useful. It is not however an infallible guide.
In my judgment, other premises offer a more complete explanation of Bush's actions.
I AM sure that he was quite delighted with the 'icing' on the cake that invasion of Iraq offered (as any loving son would) but I don't accept that juvenile revenge fantasies were Bush's primary motivation.
Since I have so much ground to cover I'll simply refer you to my past on the subject of the rationale for the Invasion of Iraq.
Yes, I see no reason to label you a liberal per se, though clearly on some issues your inclination is in that direction.
Concentration of power, which on principle you abhor is necessary. It is not the amount of power, but rather the moral and ethical 'quality' of the person(s) wielding it.
"Both parties are mostly lost to us."
Both parties are beholden to their constituencies and their operative premises.
Each party has a make up that reflects the country as a whole; from the highest ethical standards to the lowest. That 'reflection' is unavoidable in a representative republic employing democracy and free speech to elect its representatives.
"Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury are not to be tampered with"
In general, I would agree and most especially regarding US citizens.
Lincoln suspended the right to Habeas, do you disagree on principle with Lincoln's action or do you acknowledge the necessity?
If you do, then logically you must either deem the threat from Islamic terrorism to be inadequate for that 'remedy' or do you grant foreign combatants Habeas?
An apology is an apology and the link being in your favor makes the apology more meaningful, not less.
"But if you really read the long thread at the post on my blog, tell me this: wherever on earth did the talk of racial preferences and racism and the 1948 democratic schism and all that other crap come from? The original post never mentioned race in any way. The thread up to that point didn't mention race or racism. It was just a giant incendiary flaming red herring."
I really read the entire thing, though I must confess that at times my attention wandered a bit, it was late and there was a lot to read.
Without rereading that specific interchange, something I am not inclined to do at this moment, I can only say that I got the impression that initially OBH was speaking more generally about the implication of racism that liberal 'policies' produce...rather than a specific personal accusation.
When you protested without acknowledging or rebutting his point he became personally accusatory. Quite probably and somewhat understandably taking that to mean that you disputed his assertion but were unable to reply. Thus the assumption of silent agreement.
Personally, I cannot agree with his blanket assertion that silence is automatically prima facie evidence of agreement.
The circumstances can often be such that for any number of reasons we do not 'announce' our disagreement.
To paraphrase;"As a man thinketh in his heart is what he is guilty of" not what others may assume our silence means."
"As so many do, he confuses capitalism with morality by seeking to attach an overriding and altruistic moral premise to an essentially amoral system."
"I demand that companies be held to the same standards as individuals. Right now, corporations act out behaviors that would be diagnosed as psychopathic if seen in individuals."
You may 'demand' what you will but if you have not the power to compel, then 'demands' are merely empty posturing.
If you wish to promote that laws be formulated to compel managers of corporations to be held to moral standards rather than merely their fiduciary duties, fine but you may find that 'moral codes' are difficult to enforce and frequently have unintended consequences.
And it is still trying to impose an altruistic moral behavior upon an essentially amoral system.
Their simply is no substitute for inculcating moral standards within the young, such that when they reach adulthood their inner conscience prevents them from engaging in morally unacceptable behaviors. Perhaps that is what, ideally, is meant by family values?
"That last question was over the top. But I still thought the original idea was that Congress would represent the people who elected them, (even back when the election was not direct)."
No offense taken. Congress faces a dual responsibility, it's primary and it's secondary duty.
In times when national security is not threatened, a representative's primary duty is to their constituents specific needs. Often these are not the country's national priorities.
When national security issue's arise, every congressman's duty is to the country's larger needs. Thus the old adage, Politics stops at the water's edge...
Only the President is entrusted to always put the Nation's interests first. There is a reason why he is the only directly elected official by the entire country.
Finally, I believe it was you that asserted that it was Congress' duty to 'oversee' the President.
It is NOT Congress' responsibility to 'oversee' the President.
That way lies political chaos.
Only when the President's behavior undeniably reaches the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" is Congress charged with oversight.
Congress' job is to make laws and approve budgets, pure and simple. It's duties are legislative only, it may in the performance of those duties rightly require evidence and testimony from the administration concerning funding for programs both current and proposed.
'Forgetting' that fact has led to much of the 'gridlock' that we face.
Congress is NOT co-administrator of the nation.
oops I meant,"I'll simply refer you to my post on the subject of the rationale for the Invasion of Iraq."
http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/iraq-invasion-neocons-and-the-war-on-terror/
GB:
> I am not familiar with Varifrank, I'll check him out.
Frank is not as long-winded (in a positive sense) as Whittle -- what he writes is generally shorter. But when he gets off on a rant it's as good as rants get.
Try these posts, to get a feel for him:
1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7
I'm not sure any of those convey Frank at his best -- I scanned back, he hasn't really, really gone off on a rant for a while.
=================
bob:
> 1) Multiple sources state that W was determined to go into Iraq from the get-go, at inauguration.
...
6) The spectacular screwup that was immediate post-Sadam Iraq. Please rent or buy the DVD "No End In Sight" - whther you agree with the title or not, it is valuable historic viewing.
It works for me. I like Occam's Razor.
Really? Let's try this litany:
1) Saddam allowed/sponsored not less than three terrorist training camps in Iraq, out of six known in the world, as of 2001
2) One of those had an airframe for training in takeovers. (Note: There are claims this facility was for training "internal security goons", i.e., SS stormtroopers. Not buying it).
3) Saddam had chemical weapons at one point.
4) Saddam used those weapons on his own people.
5) The Weapons Inspectors themselves acked that, once sanctions were lifted, Saddam would have weaponized Anthrax/Botulin within 90 days, and weaponized Botulin/Anthrax within 180 days (I forget which was which).
6) By misusing the billions of "Oil for Food Money" (thus starving his own people), Saddam was rapidly using corruption and bribery of UN officials to whittle away at those sanctions. It was clear that there was only a short time until they were lifted.
7) Saddam rewarded the families of the 911 hijackers with lots and lots of money.
8) Saddam hated the USA for any number of reasons, some not unreasonable, others absurd. He also clearly wasn't about to give up his power short of main force (otherwise, he would have smartly stepped down at the final hour and gone off to spend his ill-gotten loot on his own pleasures)
So, Occam's Razor, which you apparently have taken to heart, leads one to the following:
a) Saddam would not hesitate to use bioweapons against the USA.
b) He could, and would, hand them off to terrorists to gain "plausible deniability".
c) He was within a year or so of gaining the ability to implement a & b, above.
Which leads us to:
Saddam was an eminent threat, absolutely regardless of whether the intel itself identified immediate issues.
Which leads us to the *possible* conclusion:
Bush gamed the system to get us to take him out, because he and his advisors grasped that Saddam needed to go BEFORE there was another, probably huge American loss of civilians in another 911-type terrorist attack.
Now, the question here is, is this wrong?
Sometimes a leader is in a position where he does need to do something to induce an action which might be hard to justify by totally honest rules
I cite to you a precursor case:
Pearl Harbor Advance-Knowledge Debate
Among these issues are:
1) The degree of codebreaking, actually quite extensive, of the Japanese codes used, and thus, just how much of the plan to attack Pearl was in evidence
2) The fact that Pearl was, in fact, an obvious target for attack. Multiple individuals, most especially Billy Mitchell, predicted the coming war with Japan, with Mitchell specifically predicting an air attack on Pearl.
3) There is no real doubt that FDR both foresaw the possibility and considered it important that the USA get into WWII.
4) Some cite FDR's actions in cutting off the Japanese from critically needed American resources in Asia as a clear incitement to war, and it was certainly recognized and percieved as so even back then that, after having done so, he should have ordered the military to a state of heightened alert.
5) The rather convenient absence from Pearl of ALL 4 of the Aircraft Carriers located there on PH Day.
In short -- Occam's Razor says that FDR felt it was essential that the USA get into the war for her own interests, knew Japan would attack at some point once he cut them off from needed resources, specifically looked the other way once he'd done so to encourage them to attack, and probably had foreknowledge of the expected attack given the arranged absence of the carriers - by then understood as the future of Naval combat - away from Pearl when it happened.
Ergo -- FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen. Not proof, but it sure looks a lot like that.
Y'know what? I don't have a major problem with either of those, especially as a matter of supposition as opposed to knowledge.
I concur with the rationale behind both, that the actions needed to be performed for the future wellbeing of the American people and American interests, and that there would have been an irrational level of resistance to the PotUS executing the needed steps to deal with that problem before it was far too late.
It's one of those things which fall into the area of "needed to be done, even if the rules got bent".
So, even given the suppositions you've made, and the conclusions you've arrived at, I believe it's a matter I'm not overly concerned with.
If Bush did this, he was no more "wrong" than FDR was. If you have a problem with one, you need to be sure you have a problem with the other.
I would not like to see it happen often, but the PotUS's putting given intel into the worst possible terms (*NOT* lying -- falsifying -- but simply applying the range at an extreme) in order to justify an action that a halfwit LOON would grasp was needed anyway, isn't something I consider particularly egregious.
We took out two out of four major international threats, one of which was clearly supporting attacks on the USA and another which was making similar noises, as well as responsible for training a large percentage of the world's terrorist groups... some percentage of which would always be aimed at the USA.
I got no problem with that.
Oh, and, btw:
6) The spectacular screwup that was immediate post-Saddam Iraq.
This doesn't MAKE your point, it suggests that the admin WAS NOT as prepared for war as you suggest.
Just thought I'd call attention to that.
=================
GB:
> In general, I would agree and most especially regarding US citizens.
Well, I waffle on this one. My biggest problem is the possible application of things like the Patriot Act against individuals in the USA who are acting in the role of freedom fighter, as opposed to foreign agents provocateur. I'd very much more like to see some recognition of the difference between the two applied.
And I really, really have major problems with the JD sending out extensive memos to various local and state Law Enforcement agencies advising them of how to use the PA in their own (local) cases. This is an example of how a law with a stated purpose, which allows exceptions in order to deal with a specific problem, then gets such exceptions applied to situations with nothing whatsoever to do with that specific problem. I'd love to see an Amendment that requires that all laws be passed with a 50-word plain-english interpretation of what problems they are supposed to attack and resolve, and then give the courts (or at least juries) some ability to nullify the law or its application if they feel the law is being misused or misapplied.
And yes, I'm very, very much a fan of Jury Nullification. We need to spread knowledge of the notion far and wide. It's going to be our last bullwark against the ever-increasing insanity of the legal system being mis-applied.
> the implication of racism that liberal 'policies' produce...rather than a specific personal accusation.
Correct, although his lack of defense of it suggests an attempt to look the other way, which itself is damning, and I seek to rub his nose in that implied assent.
It seems to me that those who support liberal policies are guilty of the inherent racism which they represent.
That few who support them have anything bad to say about the vast array of failures to act in a manner showing a real interest in equality shows the degree of blindness and ignorance about the behavior applicable to those who support them. They support them mindlessly, carelessly, and without any conviction of any kind.
When you remain silent in the presence of a racist/sexist action, you provide a measure of implicit support for that racism/sexism. I don't insist that you cut off your nose to spite your face over it (i.e., if your boss is racist, you don't need to start a fight over it) but when the cost is low, I damned sure DO expect one to express open dissent.
If you don't jump on anyone for whom Obama's race or Hillary's sex is a serious issue§ -- either FOR *or* AGAINST them... if it's an issue of relevance at all to their quality as a potential elected individual, then you are basically supporting that person in their racism/sexism.
It's damned well time we started making efforts to really, really get rid of racism in our culture -- the affirmative action kind, the "soft bigotry of low expectations", and just about every other form.
I really do believe it is possible to get us to the point where the educated masses (as opposed to random individuals) actually don't see skin color as relevant to a person's character. It might signify a cultural difference you don't like, but that's a different matter than that which I speak.
You are not, however, going to do that while liberal victimhood policies are acked as acceptable and "only right and just".
There is no Right in them.
There is no Justice in them.
The sins of the great grandfathers are not visited upon the sons of today, any more than being a slave's grandson then means you should be a slave today. Such lunacy can only destroy our society.
==================
§ With the caveat here that I will ack that there can be honest debate on issues regarding female hormonal variance which might apply to suitability in the political arena. That is not to suggest support for the idea in any way, I just agree it can be a legitimate topic of discussion. For the most part I tend to side with the "irrelevant" crowd, as I have some faith in the ability of women as a class to behave as professionals. Even so, one can pose a legitimate question about an individual candidate's abilities in this regard. That said, I'm sure some feminist somewhere just suffered an aneurism....
> Thank you Geoffrey. I was wondering if there was something wrong with my writing, that nobody noticed that except for my anti-big-business leanings, I am pretty concervative. And I believe my anti-big-business leanings stem from an essential conservative concept: that any concentration of power is bad.
And yet you consistently support left-leaning policies which only take the power and place it in the hands of mostly unelected bureaucrats, who have not only no checks on them placed by the market, but who are not beholden to you or your interests in any way. There is little you can do to remove them if they are observed acting in a malfeasant manner, or if they fail to do their job AT ALL.
Q: How many high-ranking NASA officials lost their jobs as a result of ignoring repeated warnings from Morton-Thiokol engineers about the o-rings and cold weather, as well as their own engineering staff?
A: Zero.
Bureacracies work like that. Especially governmental bureacracies.
The Post Office, nominally an independent entity, but still mainly a governmental bureaucracy, has spent literally billions of dollars on the holy grail of handwriting recognition, when a *business* spending its own money would have seen the effective solution to much higher efficiency which has been staring it in the face for more than 30 years now: Bar Codes.
*Two* people should touch most of the mail: The guy who pulls it out of the mailbox, and the guy who puts it into yours. All the rest could be mechanized, with the sorters reading bar codes identifying destinations, etc. right off the letter (anything which could not be read, or lacked a code, would be kicked out for human handling).
But they aren't responsible to anyone, and they don't even have to worry about competition, since handling "first class mail" is defacto illegal in this country.
Those incompetent idiots actually -- actually -- made the lame excuse some years ago that they needed to increase rates because of the increased mail volume!!
What the HELL business is it that needs to get MORE money for increased volume?
A: A government-operated one.
Public Schools
The DMV
The IRS
The FCC (Ask Carl about Sirius-XM)
The EPA
The FDA
THESE are the government solutions to our problems. And not a one of them doesn't suck sh** out the a**.
Q.E.D. governmental "solutions" are anything but.
So one has to wonder, how could this possibly be an improvement in your mind?
Are you incapable of reasoning such that you cannot see the end result of this?
You don't decrease the size of government by ADDING TO ITS POWER.
If your goal is to make business act in a certain manner, the solution, if you are concerned with "big government", too, cannot be to set government stewards over it directly
There are other mechanisms, mostly market related, which can and will do the job if commanded to, and, by being less centralized and monolithic, not bring down an entire industry requiring a bailout when one of them screws up.
And this is borne out even by recent history: Arthur Andersen was there to provide oversight of companies, including Enron. They screwed up -- royally. But did disaster result? No, because they were only one of five, and only represented a portion of the market. The others were not screwing up, so most things were still getting handled correctly.
Screwups occur. You only make it worse by investing the supervision into one big, monolithic operation for which no one is really accountable.
If that same activity that AA did had been handled by a government agency, no one "high up" would have lost their jobs, the organization would still exist mostly unchanged, and all that would have occurred to "correct" the situation would be that the companies being supervised would find an array of expensive new hoops on the obstacle course had to be jumped through in order to comply with this hypothetical "Federal Accounting Administration"'s rules.
bob:
The disconnect is just jarring -- You claim one thing, then support policies for which that claim is inherently the polar opposite.
And THAT, not personal animosity, is whence the sort of question "What are you smoking?" comes from.
THAT is what differentiates such questions from an ad homenem attack:
This makes no sense == What is wrong with you that you don't see it?
That's not ad hominem, it's a legitimate question:
You have an unresolved factual disconnect in your whole outlook --
"I want 'a', but I strive to make 'not a' happen."
Wake up.
Smell the coffee.
It's "Burnt Liberalism" brewing, and it's a bean that should have been on your stove months ago.
OBH,
Excellent posts and thank you for saving me a lot of time in responding to bobn :-)
RE: "My biggest problem is the possible application of things like the Patriot Act against individuals in the USA who are acting in the role of freedom fighter, as opposed to foreign agents provocateur."
I'm not sure what you mean by 'freedom fighter' especially as regards what one might be in the USA...please explain.
"I really, really have major problems with the JD sending out extensive memos to various local and state Law Enforcement agencies advising them of how to use the PA in their own (local) cases."
As should anyone...each party tends to go overboard at some point. liberals do it with the 'nanny state' and the favoring of totalitarianism in the marketplace of ideas and PC speech.
Conservatives in 'morality' and in fighting the bad guys...zealousness in protecting the citizenry can easily cross the line into the oppression of freedom.
"When you remain silent in the presence of a racist/sexist action, you provide a measure of implicit support for that racism/sexism."
In principle, that is true. Life however is more than mere principle. Circumstance can often dictate that speaking out against something is not the optimum path to take.
Then there's The Law of Unintended Consequences...
Members of PETA abhor the eating of animals, they view it as the moral equivalent of racism and sexism.
By your rationale they have an 'obligation' to 'speak out' against that behavior...wherever they may encounter it, such as in a restaurant where they may be eating.
How would you like to be harangued by an outraged member of PETA, every time you ate out? By your lights they would not only have a right to do so but an obligation.
But there are many 'principle's' that should be defended...Physical discipline of children is frowned upon by many, some view a swat on a child's tush as child abuse...
Some would view interference in their 'personal affairs' to be an affront.
So, where does it end?
A society where everyone 'speaks out' in no uncertain terms about any and all principle's they hold dear is a society that lacks civility and one in which violence will escalate and political correctness will reign supreme.
> I'm not sure what you mean by 'freedom fighter' especially as regards what one might be in the USA...please explain.
There aren't any, really, at this point. But one can certainly see a time when they might be called for -- native citizens in open rebellion against an overbearing state which has violated the contract we call the Constitution.
Granted, that would be one of the points for such fighters existing, but by not acknowleding the difference, there is a strong measure of legalistic justification which holds sway in that event, which the state and, more critically, its government individuals, can use to explain away its actions.
> Circumstance can often dictate that speaking out against something is not the optimum path to take.
I did specifically cite that I don't necessarily expect one to cut off one's nose to express such sentiments -- but I do expect the reaction to be strong and clear and the disapproval to be unequivocal when the cost is low... such as personal comments on a blog. I don't believe everyone needs to be heroic and stand up against evil, but I do think all of us are responsible for maintaining the overall societal meme that evil IS unacceptable.
> By your rationale they have an 'obligation' to 'speak out' against that behavior
I believe that it is exceedingly possible to have a different opinion and be right on that.
I grasp and ack that in the past, racism and sexism were acceptable (albeit for very different reasons which reders some of the earlier sexism "acceptable" under the conditions then extant, which arguments cannot be made for racism, which even under the conditions was just as wrong then as it is and should be now. [Nota Bene: This does not mean I consider people of the time to be as morally culpable as people today]).
I believe that in most cases it has become a matter of defacto faith that racism, however, is wrong -- period, end of question. By this I don't mean rational discernment of relevant facts (walking through a neighborhood and feeling greater concern when approached by blacks instead of whites, given that blacks have a higher than average proportion of crime stats), but by unwarranted extension of racial elements into arenas where such is uncalled for -- as when presuming a person less intelligent and/or less capable solely on the basis of their skin color during an employment interview.
In other words, I believe your analogy is specious. A person can have their PETA attitudes without having a reasonable expectation that society agrees with them. As a result, while you may feel that way, it is boorish to impose your opinions onto others.
At some point, this may change (I hope not. Pork Chops, Yummmmm.) but it does not currently reflect anything which is considered axiomatic. Smoking would be more apt, but even that is problematic depending on location. Smoking alone outside where someone has to go out of their way to be exposed to the smoke is not the same as smoking in a small room with limited ventilation.
> Physical discipline of children is frowned upon by many, some view a swat on a child's tush as child abuse...
Some would view interference in their 'personal affairs' to be an affront.
Again, not socially axiomatic, just by the fact that you can clearly delineate two classes, those who agree and those who don't, and both have a large number of adherents.
Even if you go back to the not that distant past, I believe that most people who really, really spent any time considering racism were capable of grasping that racism was both anathema to the American ideal of equal rights under the law, but also demeaning to both parties involved.
In short, at the very least, it's hard to find someone who actually would defend racism with good, sharp logic (or attempt to and come close)
Would you remain silent and ignore a murder? A rape? A child molestation? Hopefully, "of course not!" is the reply. Because the unacceptability of these behaviors is axiomatic.
And in there lies the distinction.
.
OBH,
Compelling arguments and I accept that as you've defined it, speaking out against actions and words that violate commonly accepted norms of behavior is obligatory.
Your 'freedom fighter' elucidation leaves me unswayed. If things ever got to that level, a Patriot Act, FISA, etc. would be moot.
As for PETA, mark my words, that day will come...and in regards to smoking, already has...the LA city council is considering a resolution that would outlaw smoking OUTSIDE... in ANY area within the city limits of LA...
There is almost no limit to the extent that the left will, in time, attempt to extend the nanny state.
I have not responded here lately as I have a day job, and was also working on my latest blog post.
I'm sure you folks will really like it ;-)
OBH and Geoffrey have it right. bobn seems never to reconsider his position after being alerted to factual errors and logical flaws (as a small example, to hold McCain as solely or even primarily responsible for the MCA is wacky--it was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President). Like M_O_M, I'm careful not to praise McCain where it's not warranted. But that's no reason to demonize him either.
> If things ever got to that level, a Patriot Act, FISA, etc. would be moot.
No, I think not -- because if someone can argue that The Law says 'x' -- and that it has said so for a long time, it lends credibility to an action. It gives the claimant a strong measure of validity in their argument, and the connected idea that people "on the other side" are just trying to "play with the rules"
I agree that at some point, those in power will say "the hell with the law, we're in charge, so STFU!" -- but the longer they can claim that the law is on their side, the harder it is going to be to get the kind of outrage going which is necessary to form a revolutionary opposition.
What you're basically saying is that increasing their ability to claim legitimacy doesn't matter past a certain point. I say that's not true. ANYTHING which increases a government's ability to claim legitimacy is an important thing.
> in regards to smoking, already has...the LA city council is
Yes, but those idiot boomers have only a limited time left on earth.
The Gen-Xers have far fewer compunctions about smoking. That is a pendulum close to its furthest arc endpoint.
> See here how Ford decided it wasn't worth $11 per Pinto to stop people from burning to death.
Oh, my. didn't spot that one until just now.
So really, bob. How much IS it worth? At what point per Pinto is it worth by your lights?
$75? $436? $1,201?
How many billions of dollars are you planning to put Ford on the hook for?
Because I'm sure YOU make that kind of choice each and every day.
What speed do you drive, bob?
Does it occur to you that, if you drove 10mph slower, you'd substantially decrease the chances of someone dying in an accident involving you?
For that matter, if you drove -- all the time -- at only 20mph, the chances of a fatal accident would be a tiny fraction of what they are with you driving at some ridiculously unnecessary speed like 65 mph...
Why, at those speeds, you're just LOOKING to kill someone!
You might as well start signing death warrants right now!
Instead, you callously and with complete disregard for the lives of others, continue to just ZIP around at these absurd speeds that you have not the slightest real need to travel at.
Yes, sure, it would take you longer to go from place to place, but... how much is someone else's life worth to you, bob?
I mean, are you saying it's not worth it to you to spend just a few extra minutes per trip, in order to to save a **life**???
Are ya starting to see the argument you're really making, bob? The one that is applicable to each and every one of us?
We ALL make decisions like that.
And when you take a decision completely out of context, you wind up without rational, common sense constraints on the "solutions" one chooses.
Decisions, choices, are not made in a vacuum.
Decisions have not just upsides but downsides. They have consequences and tradeoffs.
Stating "$11 per Pinto" makes it sound like pocket change.
Stating instead that Ford was reluctant to pay $137 million to correct the design flaw, compared to theoretical deaths which might or might not happen is a bit more accurate.
You can still find fault with the issue, but citing "$11 per Pinto" is both intellectually and morally dishonest.
Further, I quote the wiki article on the Pinto:
However, a 1991 law review paper by Gary Schwartz, argued that the case against the Pinto was less clear-cut than commonly supposed. Only 27 people ever died in Pinto fires.
So, in reality, actually, Ford was reluctant to spend $5 million to save one person.
Alternative figure: Depending on how you break it down, you could also argue the info and expense be based on Pintos alone -- in which puts the figure at more like $800,000 per person -- still a pretty damned hefty sum...
Are you personally insured for $800k, bob?
Why should Ford pay that much if even you don't think your life is worth that much?
Hmm?
:-/
"bob: what are ya smokin'?"
> bobn seems never to reconsider his position after being alerted to factual errors and logical flaws
That's the "Liberal Midnight Reset Button". I've seen it happen over and over. You can take a liberal, step by step, through an argument, holding their hand the entire way. You can demonstrate to them how their "position x" leads, invitably, to some highly undesirable result, or some blatant contradiction in results from what their purpose in supporting "position x" was -- you can actually get them to the point where they ADMIT that "position x" is wrong.
The next day, you start talking to them and it's like you never had the discussion in the first place.
At midnight, the "system reset" kicks in, examines all newly processed data, finds that some of the new data does not match Officially Defined Liberal Positions(TM) -- ODLP, for short -- and tosses them out, backing up from the previous data.
...And next day, they're parroting the same idiotically imbecilic crap you thought was "fixed" the day before, and no memory of any kind of the previous day's argument exists...
This is why it's pointless to attempt to use reason to banish BDS.
BDS has reached the status of hardwired ODLP now, so nothing short of trepaning can reset it -- and even at that, usually, the trepaning would have to involve an industrial blender.
====
Mind you, to be intellectually honest, many conservatives have a similar reset button working on certain "conservative" issues such as evolution, abortion, and/or euthanasia. This button is nowhere near as widespread and diverse in its topics of coverage, however.
"What you're basically saying is that increasing their ability to claim legitimacy doesn't matter past a certain point. I say that's not true. ANYTHING which increases a government's ability to claim legitimacy is an important thing."
Logically, i have to agree that you have a point. It isn't in the limitation of a government's inappropriate claiming of legitimacy beyond what is right and proper wherein you lose me, in that i am in agreement.
It is in talking about freedom fighters. I suppose i am a John Adams to your Samuel Adams.
John Adams came to reluctant acceptance of the necessity for revolution, once he did he was one of its strongest advocates but Samuel saw its necessity long before John.
Hope you're right about the Gen-xers.
BTW, I'm a boomer. As for the limited time...yes, but then 'limited time' applies to all of us.
OMG! T"he "Liberal Midnight Reset Button".
I so know what you're talking about.
(forgive the Gen-Y verbiage, it just seems appropriate)
Seriously, though I had never heard of it, nor framed of it in those terms before, the "Liberal Midnight Reset Button" rings such a bell.
It must be a psychological syndrome. I have a close friend who display's it and exactly in the manner you describe.
Logic, facts and persuasion are for naught beyond the moment.
When you call them on it, they completely deny it, it's so frustrating I've threatened to videotape our conversations to prove it to her.
She suffers from BDS as well. I have previously thought it was just exposure to the MSM but now I wonder...
OBH,
Do you ever sleep?
OBloodyHell, at 5:03 AM says:
So really, bob. How much IS it worth? At what point per Pinto is it worth by your lights?
$75? $436? $1,201?
Hard to put an exact number on it - but given that it was a problem recognized in advance, I think $11 is absolutely not too much to ask. And unlike all the increasingly large numbers you gave, it is the actual number. Nice try at another red herring, but no dice.
What speed do you drive, bob?
(followed by more frothing and invalid rant)
Correct answer: I drive at the speed of surrounding traffic. To drive significantly slower would be more dangerous to me and to others.
Are ya starting to see the argument you're really making, bob?
I'm seeing that I just demolished 2 of yours.
Are you personally insured for $800k, bob?
Life insurance is purchased for your dependents, not yourself. I have no dependents. So $800,000 would be silly as hell.
OBH - get some sleep. Your slipping up - this was too easy.
Carl says:
bobn seems never to reconsider his position after being alerted to factual errors and logical flaws
So when are you going to address, or even admit, the wide-spread looting of Baghdad just post-Sadam, instead repeatedly trying to pretend it was all about the museum? I've already advised of this flaw in your reasoning.
When are you going to stop pretending that the real issues in Padilla were addressed by the Supreme Court, when they dismissed the case for reasons of geographical jurisdiction? (And then the Bush admin finally tried Padilla in a (sort of) real court to avoid this case getting to SCOTUS.) I've already advised you of this flaw in your reasoning.
(as a small example, to hold McCain as solely or even primarily responsible for the MCA is wacky--it was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President).
Bad wording on my part, he does not have the only guilt, but McCain did vote for it and did speak in favor of it.
OBH says:
It seems to me that those who support liberal policies are guilty of the inherent racism which they represent.
This statement shows logical errors which seem to explain some of OBH's long, non-sequitor rants accusing me of racism.
"those who support liberal policies" is an unreasonably broad class. It assumes there is one immutable set of liberals who all subscribe to one single immutable set of policies which always include racially based preferences.
I don't think the content of my blog makes me a "typical" liberal, if there is such a thing. Certainly it should indicate that I am not in the far left wing. If there is a "typical" or "average" liberal, I don't think they are well represented by the "liberal elite". But I could be wrong on that.
In any case, this sometimes-liberal thinks that racially based preferences are logically and morally wrong. If you are going to help people who are economically disadvantaged, (and there are cases where I think we should, especially children), then their race should not be an issue. It should be just about economic status, when the people involved are not contributing to it (e.g. drugs/alcohol).
So when OBH goes off bashing liberal racism, I considered it a complete non-sequitor - instinctively. And now that I understand the flawed reason for it, I will still will consciously consider it a non-sequitor if it happens again.
Note that I have never said that those opposing Obama are all doing so for racist reasons. A few of such probably exist. I don't think anybody here is in that class.
Yes, just for the record, the cartoons showing Condi Rice as an illiterate flunky or a big-lipped parrot were vile. Yes, just for the record, I did not see or know of them at the time they came out. This surprises me since I watch a fair amount of cable news and c-span. But it is the truth.
If you continuously accuse me of racism, lying or stupidity, you open yourself to the accusation of being troll-ish.
Oh, and the Whittle blog is fascinating reading.
> Do you ever sleep?
LOL. Erratic schedule at the moment.
> I think $11 is absolutely not too much to ask. And unlike all the increasingly large numbers you gave, it is the actual number.
No, it's not. It's OUT OF CONTEXT bob. It's specifically designed to sound like it's a small amount when in fact we are talking about something in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- with gold at $32 an ounce (hint: that is about 1/20th of what it has been for much of the last two decades).
Stop ignoring context, dammit.
> (followed by more frothing and invalid rant)
Handwave. Bullshit. It's completely relevant and valid.
Answer the question, bob.
> Correct answer: I drive at the speed of surrounding traffic. To drive significantly slower would be more dangerous to me and to others.
So, if everyone around you is driving 65 mph through a school zone as the school is letting out, you're following suit, or are you going to actually drive at a "safe" speed, and take the risks upon yourself.
When the cop writes you a ticket, bob, you can tell him it was only because you were trying to drive "safely". When he laughs in your face, you can take it to the judge, and he can laugh in your face, too.
And this sidesteps the entire question, anyway. What if you're alone on a street late at night. Are you driving at 20mph then?
Because even if you can do it only PART of the time using your argument, you're still reducing the risk you place on others during those times when you can... or doesn't that really, really matter?
> I'm seeing that I just demolished 2 of yours.
You waved your hands at them, bob, and repeated your already made points.
Here:
Boooggidah!!! Booooogidah!!
I've just done the same thing, and refuted everything you've said.
You're gettin' close to earning some more supposedly "ad hominem" comments, bob.
> Life insurance is purchased for your dependents, not yourself. I have no dependents. So $800,000 would be silly as hell.
And we get another handwave. Are you saying that you WOULD pay to maintain such if you had dependents? And if not, then why should Ford do so?
At no point do you address the real issue:
The fact that you're claiming that Ford should have paid out more than $800,000 to save each person who died -- and it is clearly your position that they were somehow being a heartless and uncaring corporation solely because they chose not to.
Why are they on the hook for things when you won't make even give up vaguely similar equivalents to save a like number of people -- i.e., drive at 20mph whenever the conditions allow it?
Why are you such a cold, heartless, selfish, and uncaring bastard, bob?
Think of the children you *might* possibly save.
They die in auto accidents all the time.
.
> This statement shows logical errors which seem to explain some of OBH's long, non-sequitor rants accusing me of racism.
"those who support liberal policies" is an unreasonably broad class. It assumes there is one immutable set of liberals who all subscribe to one single immutable set of policies which always include racially based preferences.
bob, if you don't support the policies of which I speak then you aren't a liberal. And I know this is your claim, but your arguments consistently deny that fact. You cannot take the positions you do, which call for actions you support, and not also support the positions of which I speak, they are part and parcel of the whole package.
You cannot separate them out any more than you could set it as a goal to place three men on the moon, without also setting it as a goal putting three men into outer space.
> I considered it a complete non-sequitor - instinctively.
Interesting excuse. So if someone accuses you of being a pedophile in real life, regardless of it being a non-sequitor, you're going to ignore it and act like they never said it? Or are you going to call the claimant a lying sack of fecal matter?
> And now that I understand the flawed reason for it,
Notice how he never actually defines what makes it flawed reasoning. He just handwaves it off and says he doesn't need to worry about it any more:
> This statement shows logical errors
Handwave. Followed by one lame excuse that claims it is an overgeneralization, without ever challenging the issues themselves.
> one single immutable set of policies which always include racially based preferences.
It doesn't need explicit racially based preferences, bob.
It needs only to tie to granting victimhood status onto the recipient.
By the fact that some relatively large percentage of US Blacks are descendants of former slaves, that damned sure isn't going to slip past them.
Open-ended giveaways. "How many kids you got?" giveaways.
Anything which doesn't punish for long-term counterproductive behaviors (not only drugs/alcohol, but "having kids *you* can't pay for" and "choosing to remain illiterate") is socially counterproductive.
And inevitably it's going to hurt blacks the most because they've been taught for decades now that it's all whitey's fault -- never theirs.
When they don't teach their own kids to read, that's whitey's fault.
When they don't teach their kids to value education and hard work, like every other social group they compete with -- whitey's fault.
When they don't have too much pride in themselves and in their names, not to drag their families through the mud by drug dealing or gang activities -- whitey's fault.
It's never their own bad decisions screwing up their own lives. Instead, it's all whitey's fault.
That's the crap Jeremiah Wright and his ilk are selling in churches all across America.
And liberals -- across the board -- pander to it. Throw more money at it. Set up a government program to help deal with it.
And when those few individuals do anything to challenge this -- either by succeeding outside of it (Condi, Colin) or by speaking out on it (Bill Cosby) they are denegrated and spat on by the liberal establishment instead of respected and held up as shining examples of how blacks CAN succeed in our society.
Instead of being role models for black success, they are "stepinfetchits", "Uncle Toms", "Oreos" and "pickaninnies".
And when anyone doesn't see this and react with intense disgust and revulsion, shame on them.
> BTW, I'm a boomer. As for the limited time...yes, but then 'limited time' applies to all of us.
Technically, I class as a boomer, too, but trailing edge. Since I was arguing for conservative/libertarian policies in HS in 1975, I've never really thought of myself as a boomer, but as a Gen-Xer. I was Alex P. Keaton before anyone had conceived of such a show. No, never had the reverence for the GOP or Reagan that that char did, but I was usually arguing the "not liberal" side of arguments in my HS Humanities course.
> Yes, just for the record, I did not see or know of them at the time they came out. This surprises me since I watch a fair amount of cable news and c-span.
bob, what makes you think that this would EVER have been mentioned on CNN or c-span, given what comments I've ALREADY made about the topic.
And if you legitimately did not hear of such prior to this (and I don't doubt your word at this point) then, trust me, it says a LOT about how narrow your own exposure to alternate viewpoints and arguments are.
IF you give a damned about having a rational, honest perception of things, you need to spend a LOT more time around alternative viewpoint arenas -- conservative/libertarian blogs and/or talk radio. Not necessarily Rush or Hannity, but certainly Boortz.
The Dr. is out right now, but she's supposedly going to start back up soon. Until then, pick one: Neo-Neocon. Sigmund,Carl,Alfred.
Cassandra is a good, sensible military spouse.
And VariFrank and Bill Whittle are must-reads (at least, for the latter, when he publishes, which is erratic).
And for the free-market libertarian view, go Carpe Diem.
Green issues, GreenieWatch.
Then there's always, for the true conservatives, either LGF or Powerline.
And the essay-columnists at Townhall are a good source of what conservatives care about. Walter Williams, Mike Adams, John Stossel, and Thomas Sowell are good reads, as are many others.
Some others -- MOM, The Anchoress
Mind you, I don't begin to read ALL of the above regularly. I regularly read NOFP, GreenieWatch, CD, Frank, and Whittle. I try and stick my head into Cassandra's once a week or less. And touch on the others once a month or two (The Dr. was a regular daily visit until she took time off). You may find you like one of my monthlies more than you do my dailies. I offer them as places worth stopping, not commandments, although if you don't read Whittle's essays, long as they are, you're a fool...
> Note that I have never said that those opposing Obama are all doing so for racist reasons.
And I'm saying that most of the people supporting Obama are doing it for racist reasons, if it's not for the almost just as stupid Yellow Dog Democrat justification, because this statement is *utterly* true.
> It is in talking about freedom fighters. I suppose i am a John Adams to your Samuel Adams.
Well, I'm not saying that -- right now -- we have ANY justification for such. They would be criminals at this point, and Padilla is, at best, a criminal, if not a terrorist.
I'm simply concerned that, when the time pushes that it's time for direct confrontation (as/if/when they attempt to directly violate the right to bear arms in a widespread manner), that, by accepting certain conditions that currently define terrorists, we also give them legitimacy in claiming those US Citizens who resist -- both violently and non-violently -- are "enemy combatants", too, and thus those involved can fend off a portion of any resistance which results by claiming that "the law says 'x', and all we are doing is 'x'".
I believe there is a difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. But it's easy to fuzz the issue, esp. when you don't grasp that any FF almost must be a natural born citizen, or at least aligned with a majority of such.
I want things like the Patriot Act to identify, somehow, that difference, and specifically exclude their application to that class. After that, I am willing to consider their otherwise questionable nature in light of the Constitution's guarantees, since the Constitution is a contract between the citizens of the USA and their government, and has next-to-nothing to do with the "rights" of anyone outside that class.
> ...in a widespread manner),
Sorry, correction:
...in a widespread manner, for example),
"I want things like the Patriot Act to identify, somehow, that difference, and specifically exclude their application to that class. After that, I am willing to consider their otherwise questionable nature in light of the Constitution's guarantees, since the Constitution is a contract between the citizens of the USA and their government, and has next-to-nothing to do with the "rights" of anyone outside that class."
I am entirely in agreement.
"And I'm saying that most of the people supporting Obama are doing it for racist reasons, if it's not for the almost just as stupid Yellow Dog Democrat justification..."
I cannot fully agree, as personal experience compellingly proves otherwise.
I know many people who are inclined to vote for Obama who are not racist and who would vote for a republican. So neither of your 'categories' apply.
But they are uninformed, have been greatly mislead and inculcated through incessant repetition with the belief that capitalism, big business and the republican party are responsible for most of the world's ills.
This is not merely the result of the distortions by the MSM, the duplicity of democrats, nor even liberal activists.
All of these groups represent those who have been 'converted'.
This has been going on a very long time and the west is reaping the 'rewards' that the 'philosophy' of secular relativism brings.
When the very concept of objectivity is rejected, there are consequences.
When the entire educational system is skewed in favor of agenda and rejects the teaching of critical thinking...
When our colleges teach revisionist history whose fundamental premise is that the US and religion are the greatest forces for evil in the world...
When the suicidal insanity of "Just War Theory" is uncritically taught in our nations war colleges...
Then there will be consequences...
Pacifism run rampant, political correctness as dogma and a near-religious fanaticism regarding liberalism's feministic sacred cows; abortion-on-demand, women as inherently wiser and possessed of a superior intellect and altruistic nature, environmentalism as the highest value and accommodation as the only valid means of conflict resolution.
Then there will be consequences.
And thus you have an electorate that would endeavor to elect a man entirely unfit for the position he seeks.
I said:
> I think $11 is absolutely not too much to ask. And unlike all the increasingly large numbers you gave, it is the actual number.
A clearly sleep-deprived OBH says:
No, it's not. It's OUT OF CONTEXT bob. It's specifically designed to sound like it's a small amount when in fact we are talking about something in the hundreds of millions of dollars - with gold at $32 an ounce
I said $11 per car - that sure as hell looks like a context to me. You don't like that context because it makes the amount so small, emphasizing the evil of that decision.
So you provided a bigger number, but without the context of the much, much, larger number that was the total cost of producing all the cars your larger number was associated with. Of course, had you used context that way, once again, the safety investment would have been seen as trifling - becuase once again it would have been $11 per car.
As to which context is better (even though the "context" you provided lacked the honesty of the second number) I will just note that I've never seen a car advertisement that went: "great deal! Pay only 20 Billion for these 1 million cars we made!" The cars are sold to the public one at a time.
Your insistence on context while providing none is disngenuous.
Stop ignoring context, dammit.
Tell it to the mirror.
So, if everyone around you is driving 65 mph through a school zone as the school is letting out,
Having had the legs of the previous attempt shot out from under him, OBH comes up with something sillier. First, there are laws against that. I would be prosecuted. Thanks to the corporate veil, the fiends at Ford run free.
The whole issue of what speed I drive is another of your red herrings. That dog won't hunt. I'm done with it.
I said:
Life insurance is purchased for your dependents, not yourself. I have no dependents. So $800,000 would be silly as hell.
And OBH foams up:
And we get another handwave. Are you saying that you WOULD pay to maintain such if you had dependents? And if not, then why should Ford do so?
Yes, if I had a wife and young children, life insurance in that range is a precaution I would take. You use term insurance for most of it so that as the children approach self-sufficency, the amount you are paying for lessens. No handwaving involved.
At no point do you address the real issue:
The fact that you're claiming that Ford should have paid out more than $800,000 to save each person who died -- and it is clearly your position that they were somehow being a heartless and uncaring corporation solely because they chose not to.
$11/car. End of story.
Why are they on the hook for things when you won't make even give up vaguely similar equivalents to save a like number of people -- i.e., drive at 20mph whenever the conditions allow it?
Red Herring. Already dealt with.
You really are acting trollish here.
I say:
This statement shows logical errors which seem to explain some of OBH's long, non-sequitor rants accusing me of racism.
"those who support liberal policies" is an unreasonably broad class. It assumes there is one immutable set of liberals who all subscribe to one single immutable set of policies which always include racially based preferences.
And OBH responds:
bob, if you don't support the policies of which I speak then you aren't a liberal. And I know this is your claim, but your arguments consistently deny that fact.
In your first senctence you say my statements make me not a liberal. In your second sentence you say my statement make me a liberal.
Which is it? You can't figure it out, because the bobn peg doesn't fit the 2 or 3 holes in your toyset.
I created the name of my blog by duct-taping together parts of the the words Liberal and Conservative.
I am Liberative.
You are troll.
Welcome to the KillFile, moron.
bobn:
I said you don't seem to take account of new facts because you don't: I pointed out that Supreme Court cases squarely reject any requirement to treat citizen enemy combatants under the criminal law. Your rants presume that conclusion. How 'bout proving it first?
Carl says:
I said you don't seem to take account of new facts because you don't: I pointed out that Supreme Court cases squarely reject any requirement to treat citizen enemy combatants under the criminal law. Your rants presume that conclusion. How 'bout proving it first?
I am planning on looking at the link. But if it's true, then the ease with which people are declared enemy combatants becomes an enormous issue, and that is part of what I have tried to get across. I looked through the MCA and found only frighteningly vague definitions of those responsible for that declaration.
I still don't see you responding to issues I raised with you (wide-spread looting in immediately post-Sadam Baghdad/Iraq as one example).
bobn:
There is no equivalence between the two. You have repeatedly claimed we are violating the Constitution by not providing Habeas relief for U.S. citizens captured as enemy combatants. I've demonstrated that no such requirement exists (citing several posts which cite numerous cases), which undermines your entire argument.
By contrast, Baghdad looting--which was largely beyond our control and accomplished under Saddam--proves exactly what: that, sometimes, war is hell? that we didn't get everything exactly right? Think I'll wait for the movie on that one.
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