@Debra Law,
Debra Law wrote:
okie wrote: And the leftist always want to sacrifice individual rights for the greater good, as they see it, which always ends up worse, with them in charge, and often leads to usually persecuting, imprisoning, taking from, or killing anyone that disagrees with them.
So your definition would make former Pres. Bush a LEFTIE?
Conversely, all those "liberals" who opposed Bush's policies on warrantless wiretapping, "coercive interrogation," and unreviewable detention of "enemy combatants" would be RIGHTIES?
I'm really having a difficult time in the PRACTICAL application of your definition of a leftist.
Yes, President Bush was a leftie in many of his points of view, policies, and initiatives. In most of those he came under heavy criticism from us MACs who recognized his folly and thought him either incompetent or RINO or CINO when he embraced it. That included many of his views on government programs/spending, immigration, global warming, and free trade. When he reverted to his conservative roots, it was often too little too late. But it is his leftist views or capitulating to the left that created most of his problems, not his conservatism.
As far as detaining known terrorists/enemy combatants and doing what had to be done to prevent those not yet killed or detained from doing us more serious harm, he did what he had to do. He deserves solid MACean kudos for most of his efforts there EXCEPT in the area of illegal immigration. The methodology is legitimately debatable, but the principles involved were based on MACean values that include the duty of government to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Quote:Quote:Extreme right wing, I would perhaps include the radical libertarian, that doesn't want hardly any government whatsoever. Perhaps there are a few holed up out there in the mountains somewhere, hoarding their guns and stashing their cash or gold in the mattress. There are not that many of them.
What about the extreme right wingers who eagerly abuse the power and the authority of the government to impose their views on everyone else in society? Practically speaking, do they fit into this category of persons who don't want hardly any government whatsoever?
You'll need to elaborate by what you mean by such 'abuse and power and authority of the government'. Do you mean forbidding smoking in public places? Do you mean forcing pharmacists to dispense medications against their conscience or forcing doctors to perform procedures against their conscience? Do you mean denying law enforcement personnel from doing their jobs out of some notion of political correctness? Do you mean seizing private property from a poor person and giving it to a developer so that the tax base would be increased? Do you mean denying a small community the right to celebrate Christmas in their customary manner or to have a historical religious symbol on a city sheild? What specifically did you have in mind re abuse of power?
Quote:Quote:Virtually all people on the right simply want the government to leave them alone, keep the criminals off the street, and allow them to succeed or fail. They also expect the government to maintain an orderly society, enforce the law, but believe strongly in the freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of the press, in short - they believe in the constitution and the bill of rights.
All people on the right want the government to leave THEM alone, but they eagerly use the power & authority of the government to impose THEIR views on others? What do we call those persons?
Hmmmm.
Perhaps we call them HYPOCRITES?
It is certainly hypocritical to accuse one side of unspecified 'crimes' of abuse of power while ignoring such 'crimes' within one's own political ideology. Wouldn't you say so?
@Debra Law,
Debra Law wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Okie is right that everything 'right' of center here is not something truly reasonable people would aspire to. People who bomb abortion clinics, for instance, or who would picket a funeral for some ideological cause are as much anathema to MACs as are far leftwing wackos who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us. Anarchy is also not the MACean way no matter how much the liberals want to misstate our position as anti-government.
LEFTWING WACKOS are defined as persons who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us?
Your definition has no applicability in practice.
Liberals and others who are identified as being on the "LEFT" are the persons who work for the greater good to throw off the oppressive shackles that were imposed on individuals by the RIGHTWING WACKOS who would presume to force their ideology on everyone else.
Again be specific. I agree some rightwing wackos do try to force their ideology on others and whenever they do, they are condemned for that effort by us MACs. Now will you agree that some leftwing wackos try to force their ideology on others and would you condemn them when they do?
@Foxfyre,
Let's see now; MACs condemn MACs for they know what they do. What percentage of MACs might that be? 50%? 80%? 95%? or maybe 99%. LOL
I thought Nixon was a notorious lawbreaker. However, he was an innocent babe compared to Bush. I wonder where are the law-and-order conservatives.
Lifting Bush's Shroud
During his confirmation hearings in January, Eric Holder promised that if he became attorney general, he would increase the Justice Department's transparency. Specifically, he pledged to make public controversial memos the Bush administration fought to keep secret. Earlier this week, Holder made good on his promise, releasing nine Bush-era memos that formed the basis for the previous administration's policies on issues such as torture, wiretapping, and the suppression of free speech. Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch said the memos "read like a how-to document on how to evade the rule of law." "Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness," read a statement by Holder, underscoring the clean break with the Bush administration. "It is my goal to make OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions available when possible while still protecting national security information and ensuring robust internal executive branch debate and decision-making." Also this week, the Obama administration revealed in court documents that the CIA destroyed 92 tapes showing interrogations of detainees -- far more than the Bush administration was willing to admit. In December 2007, the New York Times reported that the CIA had destroyed at least two videotapes documenting suspected al Qaeda operatives being subjected to "severe interrogation techniques."
WHAT THESE MEMOS REVEAL: Some of the memos were released in response to a lawsuit against former OLC attorney John Yoo, by Jose Padilla, whom the United States held for years as an enemy combatant. The Obama administration concluded that there was no classified information in these documents; this admission was a stunning contrast to the Bush era, when officials attempted to maximize government secrecy by increasing the classification of government documents. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) praised Holder's quick release of the memos, saying that they finally "provide details of some of the Bush administration's misguided national security policies." The picture they end up painting is of an administration that believed "the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights," as the Associated Press reported. Furthermore, several of the memos -- including ones on extraordinary rendition and First Amendment rights -- were eventually rescinded, reflecting the "major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies."
CREATING A DICTATORSHIP: A memo written by Yoo on Oct. 23, 2001, contained one of the most surprising revelations: the Bush administration considered suspending First Amendment rights. "Freedom of speech is integral to a free society," President Bush said in May 2008. However, seven years earlier, Yoo wrote, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully. ... The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically." After reading the memos, Harpers' Scott Horton wrote, "We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship." In fact, Yoo's memo was too much even for Steven Bradbury, the man who failed to gain Senate confirmation to head the OLC because of his extreme views on torture. On Oct. 6, 2008, Bradbury wrote a memo saying that Yoo's suggestions to ignore free speech were "overbroad" and "not sufficiently grounded."
A BLANK CHECK: Yoo's October 2001 memo also dismissed the Fourth Amendment, claiming that protections against unwarranted searches and seizures could be subordinated in the war on terrorism. Yoo similarly proposed invading Americans' privacy in a Sept. 25, 2001 memo, advocating "warrantless searches for national security reasons." The Associated Press noted that the document "did not specifically attempt to justify the government's warrantless wiretapping program, but it provided part of the foundation." In fact, one of the most controversial memos from the Bush era that many lawmakers have been asking to be released is one explicitly justifying the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping. Another major focus of the memos is the treatment of detainees. A March 13, 2002 memo written by then-assistant attorney general in the OLC Jay Bybee argued that the president had the authority to transfer detainees to other countries, whether or not they may be tortured there. Recognizing his controversial proposals, Bybee provided ways for the Bush administration to avoid being held legally liable. "So long as the United States doe[s] not intend for a detainee to be tortured post-transfer, however, no criminal liability will attach to a transfer even if the foreign country receiving the detainee does torture him," he wrote. "These memos were meant to provide the president with a blank check with respect to the rights of not only prisoners overseas but people in the United States as well," concluded the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer.
FINDING THE TRUTH: The release of these memos came as Congress determines how to investigate -- and perhaps even prosecute -- the Bush administration's misdeeds. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the creation of a "truth commission" to investigate these wrongdoings. Leahy initially hinted at providing "blanket immunity" to Bush officials willing to testify, but both Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have warned against this approach. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has also put together a report looking at whether Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury "knowingly signed off on an unreasonable interpretation of the law to provide legal cover for a program sought by Bush White House officials." Whitehouse and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) have called on the Justice Department to release this report.
--americanprogressaction.org
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
Debra Law wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Okie is right that everything 'right' of center here is not something truly reasonable people would aspire to. People who bomb abortion clinics, for instance, or who would picket a funeral for some ideological cause are as much anathema to MACs as are far leftwing wackos who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us. Anarchy is also not the MACean way no matter how much the liberals want to misstate our position as anti-government.
LEFTWING WACKOS are defined as persons who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us?
Your definition has no applicability in practice.
Liberals and others who are identified as being on the "LEFT" are the persons who work for the greater good to throw off the oppressive shackles that were imposed on individuals by the RIGHTWING WACKOS who would presume to force their ideology on everyone else.
Again be specific. I agree some rightwing wackos do try to force their ideology on others and whenever they do, they are condemned for that effort by us MACs. Now will you agree that some leftwing wackos try to force their ideology on others and would you condemn them when they do?
By your own definition, YOU are a WACKO (maybe one who leans to the left, maybe one who leans to the right) because YOU support abusing the power and authority of the state to impose YOUR views on others. One example of many: YOU support using the power & authority of the government to deprive other individuals of the right to marry the person of their choice even when their choice of partner does NO VIOLENCE at all to you or others.
You're a hypocrite because you say one thing, do the opposite. You're not the champion of individual rights that you allege to be. In practice, you're a destroyer of other people's liberty and happiness.
@Debra Law,
amen. ahmen. aman. ahman. oh, what the hell; you got that spot on!
@Debra Law,
I see. You can't give a single specific but it is so because you say it is so. Debra, my Dear, that is the quin·tes·sen·tial characteristic of the leftwing wacko--one who declares it so because he or she declares it so and absolutely no rationale of any kind is required to support it.
How can you honestly say something like that with a straight face and expect to be taken seriously? That is almost as dumb as the toadys who congratulate you for saying it when they don't have a clue what you said. But then you apparently don't either, so I guess two peas in a pod and all that. . .
I thought Genoves to be something of a numbnut with his unappealing style of ad hominem debate, but you make him look almost rational. If you continue in this irrational style of debate, however, I may start believing that he is on to something. . .
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
I see. You can't give a single specific but it is so because you say it is so. Debra, my Dear, that is the quin·tes·sen·tial characteristic of the leftwing wacko--one who declares it so because he or she declares it so and absolutely no rationale of any kind is required to support it.
How can you honestly say something like that with a straight face and expect to be taken seriously?
Not only are you a hypocrite, you're a
LIAR. I gave you specific example of your hypocrisy. Here it is again:
Quote:By your own definition, YOU are a WACKO (maybe one who leans to the left, maybe one who leans to the right) because YOU support abusing the power and authority of the state to impose YOUR views on others. One example of many: YOU support using the power & authority of the government to deprive other individuals of the right to marry the person of their choice even when their choice of partner does NO VIOLENCE at all to you or others.
You're a hypocrite because you say one thing, do the opposite. You're not the champion of individual rights that you allege to be. In practice, you're a destroyer of other people's liberty and happiness.
@Debra Law,
How do I do that? The law as it currently exists applies 100% equitably to every man, woman, and child in the U.S. without respect to race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender, national origin, sociopolitical status, or sexual orientation. We have few laws on the books that is as evenly and fairly applied. I cannot see how anybody is discriminated against or treated unfairly by that law.
The fact that YOU DO suggests that you want the government to change the law to suit YOU for your own purposes without regard to what socioeconomic harm might be done if you have your way or without regard to anybody else's opinions or feelings about that.
I took the view that there are ways to work it out so that everybody is protected and is provided and has their needs met without harming anybody and without destroying a time honored tradition that has served us very well. You won't even consider any other point of view than your own and you become increasing hostile and antagonistic and insulting and irrational, the more you talk about it.
So which of us is wanting government to impose your sense of morality on everybody and would deny the will of the people to prevail? You are. Which of us is defending the existing law which is a perfectly reasonable and practical and nondiscriminatory one that has served us well for more than 200 years and discriminates against nobody? I am.
When the majority of people want it to be like you want it, then it will be that way. It is as simple as that.
@Foxfyre,
To say that American marriage laws are non-discriminatory is the height of arrogance and idiocy.
Under your theory, laws preventing people from marrying those from other races were also non-discriminatory; after all, they treated everyone equally.
There is no evidence whatsoever of 'socioeconomic harm' from gay marriage. None. The burden lies upon your side to show that there is and you cannot do so after years of attempts.
Just more bullshit from our resident wingnut, Fauxfire!
Cycloptichorn
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote: I cannot see how anybody is discriminated against or treated unfairly by that law.
Yes you can see. You can see the people whom you're treating unfairly. You can see the people whom you're discriminating against. Your defense that you cannot see is willful blindness and hypocritical bullshit. Why don't you go bang your "I'm the champion of individual rights" drum a little louder. Those unfortunate people whom you cannot see are unable to hear how much you love them.
@Foxfyre,
What mitigated bull-****! She then tells us we don't understand what she's telling us. It's beyond blind and hypocrisy; somebody will have to invent a new word to describe Foxie and her ilk.
@Debra Law,
Okay Debra, I've humored you as much as even I can muster patience for. You have ignored every point I've made and continue your string of ill mannered ad hominem and directly insulting litany that has never been edifying and is no longer amusing. If you cannot see your hypocrisy in accusing me of the very thing that you are doing here, I doubt I can explain it to you. I shall not respond to you further until you can conduct yourself as a reasonable human being.
@Cycloptichorn,
Please list the specific provisons--stated in the LAW--that are discriminatory. Please list the proof that there will not be socioeconomic harm. Do not expect me to respond further to your insults until you have provided proof of both.
(I'll give you a hint though. THAT is the basis for not changing the law in every single state in which this has been debated and the people have chosen to keep the law the way it is. You see, I don't get to decide this matter. I am but one vote. You leftwingers who want to change it want the government to force it on the majority irregardless of anybody else's opinion and you call us names while refusing to address the arguments provided by the other side. THAT kind of thing is what MACs most fear from government.
Further you call US hypocrites while you would be screaming bloody murder if we were trying to get the government to force any kind of ideological law on you that you didn't want.)
@Foxfyre,
Here we go again: "....your string of ill mannered ad hominem..." Foxie just doesn't like to be challenged on anything she writes on a2k. She continues with "...I doubt I can explain it to you..." What a laugh! And unless Debra conducts herself "as a reasonable human being..." Foxie will not longer respond.
Another belly laugh.
LOL
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
Please list the specific provisons--stated in the LAW--that are discriminatory. Please list the proof that there will not be socioeconomic harm. Do not expect me to respond further to your insults until you have provided proof of both.
You, Foxfire, are not allowed to marry the person of your choice in this country. You are only allowed to marry certain people. Provisions which prevent members of the same sex from marrying one another are discriminatory.
As for the proof of socio-economic harm, you're asking me to make a Black Swan argument, which is a logical fallacy. YOU are the one alleging that there will be socioeconomic harm, YOU carry the burden of showing what that harm will be. You have not done so.
Quote:(I'll give you a hint though. THAT is the basis for not changing the law in every single state in which this has been debated and the people have chosen to keep the law the way it is. You see, I don't get to decide this matter. I am but one vote. You leftwingers who want to change it want the government to force it on the majority irregardless of anybody else's opinion and you call us names while refusing to address the arguments provided by the other side. THAT kind of thing is what MACs most fear from government.)
Yes, I don't care what your opinion is, because you are a bigot. We shouldn't let our society's laws be decided by history but instead by Justice and Equality. This is why you see JUDGES overturning bans on gay marriage left and right; there is no NON-DISCRIMINATORY legal basis for banning it and no evidence of harm done to others as well.
I understand that you do fear this, yes.
The basis for not overturning the law is religious fear and hate stoked by Christians, who are told they will go to hell for allowing others to have equal rights. And it's not as if this is the first time that this particular group has fought to hold us back.
Cyclotpichron
@cicerone imposter,
cicerone imposter wrote:
Here we go again: "....your string of ill mannered ad hominem..." Foxie just doesn't like to be challenged on anything she writes on a2k. She continues with "...I doubt I can explain it to you..." What a laugh! And unless Debra conducts herself "as a reasonable human being..." Foxie will not longer respond.
Another belly laugh. LOL
I join you! ROFL
So long as Foxfyre continues to flaunt the fairy tale that conservatives are the ones that respect individual rights, she can expect to have her arrogant nose rubbed in that big stinking pile of feces.
@Debra Law,
Debra Law wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Okie is right that everything 'right' of center here is not something truly reasonable people would aspire to. People who bomb abortion clinics, for instance, or who would picket a funeral for some ideological cause are as much anathema to MACs as are far leftwing wackos who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us. Anarchy is also not the MACean way no matter how much the liberals want to misstate our position as anti-government.
LEFTWING WACKOS are defined as persons who would presume to force their ideology on the rest of us?
Your definition has no applicability in practice.
In practice, Debra, collectivism requires force, usurping the rights of individuals, for the greater good. No getting around it.
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre, after reading the last few posts, I am discouraged. I realize the posters here are not many, compared to all citizens, but sadly I think alot of extremists as they are, are now in power in Washington. I look for all of our rights to suffer, and it is going to be a vicious battle over the next few years to try to defeat this leftist movement. It is dangerous, and it is devoted to changing what this country always stood for, taking from those that have worked and that have been responsible, and dividing the spoils. They are plotting as we speak, to accomplish all of their goals and to retain power, almost at any cost.
You may not think the situation is as grave as I do, but I am becoming increasingly concerned and pessimistic.
@okie,
okie, What "rights" will we suffer from the current administration? Please be specific.
