PoopStain: Good for him. If you don't have pride in your work, what do you have?

This will be our generation's version of the Nixon scandal, only with more brown people.

PoopStain: Good for him. If you don't have pride in your work, what do you have?

A conscience?

There are still Americans who defend him, he's the public face of what's wrong but obviously not the root cause.

So....isn't this an admission that we torture? Am I missing something?

Diogenes: So....isn't this an admission that we torture? Am I missing something?



"It's not illegal when a [vice] president does it!"

Diogenes: So....isn't this an admission that we torture? Am I missing something?

I think they call it 'aggressive interrogation' now.

Weaver95: Diogenes: So....isn't this an admission that we torture? Am I missing something?

I think they call it 'aggressive interrogation' now.

I didn't think waterboarding, specifically, was covered by that semantic sleight of hand.

Diogenes: I didn't think waterboarding, specifically, was covered by that semantic sleight of hand.

Given all the bullshiat Cheney has been slinging, it might very well be part and parcel of that terminology.

I don't really understand how or why a group of people who claim to respect all human life (i.e. be pro-life) can advocate torture in the name of 'national security'. To my mind, if you respect all life then you respect all life equally. You can't be selective. Which means torture is out, and that you have no choice other than to treat even murderous scum sucking terrorists with a basic level of human dignity.

Now, if Cheney had said 'um, yeah - we lied and just wanted to fool you all into voting for us so that we could go off and be evil bastards' then he'd be making sense. Which actually does explain how Cheney and Bush can say one thing and do something completely opposite to their stated pro-life/pro-christian agenda. they're just amoral farktards. Despicable, but at least understandable.

What I find completely confusing is how the party rank and file can look at all the evidence and somehow conclude that it's ok to be pro-life/pro-christian AND still advocate torturing suspected terrorists for information. Not only do some of these people not see the paradox in their belief structure, but they defend their weird views in very aggressive manners.

I don't get it. I really don't.

Weaver95: What I find completely confusing is how the party rank and file can look at all the evidence and somehow conclude that it's ok to be pro-life/pro-christian AND still advocate torturing suspected terrorists for information. Not only do some of these people not see the paradox in their belief structure, but they defend their weird views in very aggressive manners.

I don't get it. I really don't.

You're not alone. It's stunning really.

Suffice it to say, that aggressive manner is behavior that results when all you have the certitude of your convictions, but no reason for them.

Diogenes: Suffice it to say, that aggressive manner is behavior that results when all you have the certitude of your convictions, but no reason for them.

I've tried confronting people about it. I remember a conversation with Dad over thanksgiving concerning torture and the war on terror. First he tried to deny that we'd ever tortured people. A notion of which I quickly disabused him of I might add. Then he said something about 'national security'....to which my reponse was 'would Jesus advocate torture?' He became somewhat irate and accused me of changing the topic. I pressed him on the point, reminding him of his life long devotion to pro-life politics. He kept trying to keep a 'mental firewall' between the concepts of 'national security' (which allowed him to excuse torture in defense of country) and 'pro-life' (which apparently only applied to unborn children with neither thought nor care to what happens after they're born). I think I did eventually get him to see that dedication to a pro-life ideology needs to be complete and not limited to just one limited aspect of life. I don't think he liked to hear that point of view tho, since it made him very uncomfortable.

Is anyone shocked that's the case?
Dick Cheney has been a disgrace!
Remember that night
When he wasn't contrite
That he shot his BEST FRIEND in the FACE?!?

Hopefully this will be used in his trial.

He is admitting to war crimes.

Hey, look who came out of his undisclosed location to spread some holiday cheer!

MaxxLarge: Is anyone shocked that's the case?
Dick Cheney has been a disgrace!
Remember that night
When he wasn't contrite
That he shot his BEST FRIEND in the FACE?!?

I just wanted to say you're on fire today.

Weaver95:

The other one I like is 'Pro-life' vs. Death Penalty.

Personally I'm pro death penalty in severe cases, and pro-choice given strict regulations regarding it's application.

I do not think we can have a blanket rule regarding either. Certain people, Ted Bundy etc, have no business being alive, and abortion shouldn't be used as an alternative to birth-control.

Hopefully he will suffer for his crimes.

Gah! Quit following me when I scroll down!!!

In case you missed the US Senate official report:

"The abuse of detainees in US custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own. The fact is that senior US officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

MaxxLarge: Is anyone shocked that's the case?
Dick Cheney has been a disgrace!
Remember that night
When he wasn't contrite
That he shot his BEST FRIEND in the FACE?!?

And the guy that got shot in the face apologized for it. As Cheney would probably say: "If I shoot you in the face in a dream, you better wake up and apologize."

What I find completely confusing is how the party rank and file can look at all the evidence and somehow conclude that it's ok to be pro-life/pro-christian AND still advocate torturing suspected terrorists for information. Not only do some of these people not see the paradox in their belief structure, but they defend their weird views in very aggressive manners.

I don't get it. I really don't.

Two words: boot straps.
Life is only important BEFORE birth. Anything that happens after that, you're on your own.

People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.

that old Dick once to shoot one more wad before his ass is out of office forever. enjoy your nut, Dick. oh, and enjoy your move into obscurity on Jan. 20. Luser.

Britney Spear's Speculum: Gah! Quit following me when I scroll down!!!

She can follow me down if she wants. All the way down, baby.

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.

Coincidentally we have not experienced attacks from aliens, meteors of planetary death, or killer whales growing legs and invading our shores.

Thank god for torturing people.

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.



Would like a word with you.

Semi-Sane 2008-12-16 05:51:33 PM
People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.

Yawn. Obvious troll is obvious.

Dick Cheney's problem is that he is a coward (he chickened-out of military service) and he knows he's a coward and can't deal with it. So in his efforts to rid himself of the shame of cowardice and to participate in the macho world he so wishes to be part of, he overcompensates and becomes a bully. However he only terrorizes those less powerful and he does it from positions of safety. So in spite of this he still knows that he's a coward and can't deal with that cowardice. He's a troubled individual.

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.

Trollin', trollin', trollin'
Keep those posts a rollin'
See if you can get some bites.... Troooolll-hiiiiiide!

Lord_Baull: Two words: boot straps.
Life is only important BEFORE birth. Anything that happens after that, you're on your own.

Yeah, but that's idiotic and invalid on it's face. Being pro-life is one of those all or nothing kind of deals. Either you respect the sanctity of life - ALL life - or you don't. And it's from cradle to grave too, regardless of race, creed or religious affiliation. Everyone from the kind old grandmotherly lady who plays the organ every sunday right down to the drug addicted hooker on the street corner. They're all God's Children and deserve respect and whatever help you can give them, without judgement and without reserve. And no matter what, you don't get to torture anyone ever for any reason. In fact, if you're a true follower of Christ you should happily give your life if/when someone shows up to kill you in the name of Allah. Because if someone kills you in the name of their god or because you're a follower of Christ, then you get a free pass to Heaven. All sins forgiven, you go right to the head of the line!

But I digress. I get the impression that almost nobody really grasps the implications of the term 'Christianity' anymore. And they certainly don't follow anything even remotely like a Christian lifestyle. in fact, I strongly suspect that quite a number of faux Christians would be just fine with living in an authoritarian government just so long as nobody could ever get an abortion and gays couldn't get married. They'd give up the entire bill of rights so long as everyone could call themselves 'Christian'.

Weaver95:

Now, if Cheney had said 'um, yeah - we lied and just wanted to fool you all into voting for us so that we could go off and be evil bastards' then he'd be making sense. Which actually does explain how Cheney and Bush can say one thing and do something completely opposite to their stated pro-life/pro-christian agenda. they're just amoral farktards. Despicable, but at least understandable.

What I find completely confusing is how the party rank and file can look at all the evidence and somehow conclude that it's ok to be pro-life/pro-christian AND still advocate torturing suspected terrorists for information. Not only do some of these people not see the paradox in their belief structure, but they defend their weird views in very aggressive manners.

I don't get it. I really don't.

That is because you are smart.

I'm not being snarky, it's true. One of the hardest things for intelligent people to understand is people with average intelligence. Like most smart people, you--and most people here--tend to think everyone is like us, and that even hardcore right-wingers at least understand what is going on and have considered all the alternatives. This is wrong.

Average-intelligence people truly see no disconnect between being "christian" or "american" on the one hand, and torturing non-combatants on the other. These are the same people who insist "torture works" despite all the evidence to the contrary, and who, for instance, think "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" but couldn't explain why or even how that might work.

You can't argue with average intelligence people, or try to make them understand the fallacy of their views, because, honestly, they're too average to understand.

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

I don't remember any terror attacks in the 20s either. Maybe we should bring back Prohibition.

I think he is lying, time to bust out the polygraph test. Ask em if he knew about 9/11 beforehand while he is on there too.

///A man can dream can't he?

InferiousX: I don't remember any terror attacks in the 20s either. Maybe we should bring back Prohibition.

MADD is working on that right now.

Semi Sane: The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.

Pol Pot, Stalin, and Saddam himself would agree wholeheartedly.

Sometimes to make your people safer, you need to kill other people with impunity. You need to invent enemies, demonize them, and then let your own population loose on them so that they tear them limb from limb.

Sometimes you need to do a BUNCH of evil, immoral, un-American, un-Christian, shockingly barbaric things in order to ensure that the voting public has the perception that they are safe, in order to ensure continued domestic political support.

Do I have that right, Semi Sane?

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

What do you mean by "We"? Our allies actually have. Unless of course you don't count allies as anything other than cannon fodder.

Not to mention the fact that the war in Iraq has given more impoverished fundamentalists a reason to hate us.

So yeah, we are safe until that generation hits puberty; then we're farked like a Russian porno.

I offer congrats to Weaver for turning a thread about Cheney that was derailed into abortion, into one about Christianity, and back to oppressive government. Nicely done.

And I don't think Cheney is proud. More Shameless. He'd be proud of something similar to a dicktatorship.

Darconix: Libs, please explain concisely and succinctly how this is "destroying" America. And bonus points if you can avoid the spittle that invariably flies from your lips when you're called on your Bush or Cheney derangement syndrome.

Dude, you'll have to get some credibility before you get anyone to write an essay for you.

Darconix: Libs, please explain concisely and succinctly how this is "destroying" America. And bonus points if you can avoid the spittle that invariably flies from your lips when you're called on your Bush or Cheney derangement syndrome.

Where did you get the number 3 from?

//wipes froth from lips

I personally believe that the credit for no new terrorist attacks should go to the legislature of the State of New York and they're unrelentingly raising the taxes on cigarettes. We haven't had any attacks on American soil since they did that.

Um, they're should be "their." Sorry.

Dick Cheney personifies the threat to this nation that Eisenhower percieved in his farewell address.

Darconix: I recall that was the answer given to Congress when they were investigating the practice.

Well I don't believe that number. Do I have any proof? No, but I still don't believe it, and there was a lot more going on than just waterboarding.

Rug Doctor: Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.

The best route is not always the easiest or most appealing route. Bush and crew have made many unpopular decisions, but I am confident when historians look back they will realize the right decisions were made.



Would like a word with you.

Oh, Snap!

Darconix: I don't understand why you folks get all antsy-pantsy over waterboarding.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Or, if you'd prefer another argument:

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Matthew 14-15.

either way, torture is wrong. don't do it.

PoopStain: Good for him. If you don't have pride in your work, what do you have?

A sense of reality?

Darconix: But I thought waterboarding was the worst thing condoned by the Bush administration, and the thing the article was singling out as being particularly heinous. What was worse than that?

I was particularly displeased at Bush's turn to socialism (well...corporate facism really) during our recent fiscal troubles. I don't know if that would count as worse that torturing people for information but it's definately up there in the 'worst moves ever' department.

Darconix: I don't understand why you folks get all antsy-pantsy over waterboarding. We've used it three times, on folks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (new window) for Christ's sake. We're not waterboarding everyone on their way into Gitmo like these asshats claim. Waterboard a known terrorist mastermind involved in the tactical planning of attacks on civilians? That's a no-brainer. And we've done it thrice in an 8-year administration.

Libs, please explain concisely and succinctly how this is "destroying" America. And bonus points if you can avoid the spittle that invariably flies from your lips when you're called on your Bush or Cheney derangement syndrome.

If you sign onto an international treaty agreeing not to torture captives taken during war, and then you torture them, then it makes it really tough to take the position that when Americans are taken hostage that they should not be tortured.

By the way, as you are obviously not aware, torture DOES NOT PRODUCE RELIABLE CONFESSIONS. If I hook up a car battery to your nutsack, you will confess to whatever the fark I tell you to confess to.

Feeding the troll...

...meant to say captive, not hostage. You get the point.

On second thought, you probably don't

Semi-Sane: People can disagree with the current administration's tactics, but the tactics have proven to be very effective. We have not had to experience another terrorist attack since 9/11 because of the choices Bush and Cheney have made.



Terror attacks in the United States since 9/11:
November, 2001: Anthrax attacks
December, 2001: Richard Reid shoe bomb foiled
May, 2002: Luke Helder pipe bombing in Midwest
July 2002: Fatal shooting at El Al counter at LAX
October, 2002: Beltway Snipers
March, 2006: SUV attack at U. North Carolina
July, 2006: Jewish Federation shooting, Seattle
August, 2006: SUV attack, San Francisco
October, 2007: Fake bombing at Mexican Consulate, NYC
December, 2008: Bank bombing, Oregon

You've got kind of a selective mental filter, don'tcha? And also, how does having terrorists attack US personnel and interests everywhere else in the world benefit us, as long as they're not "here"? That list is like 100 times longer.