461–470 of 539 posts
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Nice! Gandhi also preached and practiced something called "Peaceful Protest" this guy is accused of "associating with"/guarding UBL.
If he is accused, then surely discovery and a trial are in order. Even nazis got trials.
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Nice! Gandhi also preached and practiced something called "Peaceful Protest" this guy is accused of "associating with"/guarding UBL.
Firstly, Osama (not Usama) Bil Laden. Secondly, 11 years without trial or even a concrete charge against "an accused terrorist" would be something USA and its citizens would be appalled about if Russia or China did so to their "terrorists". Thirdly, I am against hunger strikes when they can be avoided. Simply because they can turn political and in turn can be abused. Gandhi did abuse it a bit. Indian politicians and…
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In times of war it is guilty until proven innocent, did you take a look at the UN link? Two powers who are "at War" can take anyone into custody that they think is "aid and abetting the enemy" and they do not have to release them until the war ends. In times of war most civil liberties are suspended, we can discuss the fairness or "rightness" of that, but until we can all calm down and talk instead of hit that's the…
The USGov are not applying the POW rules to the Guantanamo prisoners otherwise they'd have more legal protections. That's why the Bushies had to dream up the "enemy combatant" legal limbo in order to be able to abuse the prisoners like this. Even under "war rules" these prisoners should be dealt with in a better way. And "Guilty until proven innocent?" Really? Idiot.
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Lincoln was not the man we make him out to be. The Emancipation Proclamation was purely political. Lincoln wanted to split the country and pick up the bigger half. I suspect that, if not for the Emancipation Proclamation, we might call Lincoln a bad president.
I suspect that you have no idea what you are talking about and like many others on the internet, like to marginalize good people with your 20/20 hindsight. What does that even mean? What would Lincoln gain by splitting the country in half? Do you even bother thinking about points before you make them?
Do you understand that this is the single most successful way to political success in a historically bipartisan political system? This is how American politics works (and always has worked). Political parties make a big deal out of what are small issues in other countries in order to try to polarize the American public. The emancipation proclamation was simply one of these polarizing tactics.
Here are a few Abraham Lincoln quotes you might enjoy:
>“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
>“Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a god, great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogue-ism as this?”
>"there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
>"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it"
>"In the course of his reply, Senator Douglas remarked, in substance, that he had always considered this government was made for the White people and not for the negroes. Why, in point of mere fact, I think so too."
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I never understood why people got mad at Obama for not closing Gitmo. The president is not the king. He/she still needs approval from Congress to get most shit done. In the case of Gitmo, his initiative got blocked by politicians who were too worried about what voting yes would mean for their own political careers. For anyone who actually understands politics, the failure to close Gitmo was not Obama's fault.
Actually he could have issued an executive order to release the prisoners unilaterally. That would have pissed off Congress of course but as the Commander in Chief the original rational for imprisonment came from the White House and thus could have been reversed. That he didn't do that in response to the Congressional back pressure proved to me that he didn't have the leadership to follow through.
I know for a fact that much of these claims are completely wrong and, being told by a detainee, are completely biased. Detainee's that refuse meals are required to receive their nutrients in liquid form. They have the option to drink this themselves. When they refuse, they are put in the feeding chair which restrains their arms, legs, and waist. It does not restrain a detainees head whatsoever. When a detainee refuse…
This starts with a false assumption. There is absolutely no justification for force feeding a non-consenting person who is aware of the consequences of their actions.
As for citations... Are people required to cite first hand accounts?
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Actually he could have issued an executive order to release the prisoners unilaterally. That would have pissed off Congress of course but as the Commander in Chief the original rational for imprisonment came from the White House and thus could have been reversed. That he didn't do that in response to the Congressional back pressure proved to me that he didn't have the leadership to follow through.
He doesn't want to release the prisoners, he wants to transfer them from military to civilian control so they can be tried in a public court. The later, as I understand it, is beyond the President's remit (but I stand to be shown otherwise).
In that stalemate, you negotiate. And the Congress certainly wants at least some of the prisoners to be tried in the US court system. So the President, in the absence of getting the funding to move them into the private court system, threatens to simply release them all back to their home countries.
The leadership here is that "we" as a nation don't deprive people of their liberty without due process on principle. And while we recognize the expedience of detaining people during war time, nearly everyone seems to be believe that the prisoner's at Guantanamo are not sanctioned "prisoners of war" per the Geneva Convention. Being neither duck nor fowl puts them in limbo.
The President promised to change that, he did not. He could have (not in a way that Congress approved) but the world in general would be much better off if you either shot these people in battle when they were shooting at you, or you charged them with a crime and tried them, or you let them go. When he left these people incarcerated, he removed another item where the US used to be 'different' from authoritarian regimes, and as a voter I've been working to change the regime through the institutions available to me to do so.
I know for a fact that much of these claims are completely wrong and, being told by a detainee, are completely biased. Detainee's that refuse meals are required to receive their nutrients in liquid form. They have the option to drink this themselves. When they refuse, they are put in the feeding chair which restrains their arms, legs, and waist. It does not restrain a detainees head whatsoever. When a detainee refuse…
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I don't believe this argument of impotence. If they wanted to throw him out, they would have. Tenure is not written down in the constitution. These 'we want to but we can't' arguments bother me more and more as i grow older. It's usually a pretty transparent excuse for not doing the right thing, by scared old men or ambitious young men.
Tenure doesn't work this way. The whole idea about tenure is to give academics the freedom to pursue things that are controversial to the public - i.e., you can research controversial things without being tossed out by the angry mob. You can afford to go full-bore on your research rather than play politics and PR with the public. Tossing one tenured professor out is a simple thing. After all like you said, it's not w…
We haven't invested much energy recently in creating institutions that have adequate defenses against this kind of threat model. Our assumption has been that the socialization structure either produces people who are pathologically criminal or are socially responsible. The emergence of a class of social behavior which is "respectable" and despicable at the same time is a threat we need to deal with.
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American Exceptionalism.
$MY_COUNTRY Exceptionalism
>But those other countries do not claim moral high ground in the same way the US does on so many other issues, or claim to lead the world with respect to values such as freedom and democracy
This is effectively the definition of America's brand of Exceptionalism and it is that to which I was referring.
It is a far cry from simple nationalism or "thinking one's country is the best".