AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I believe they are dangerous because people who are in a position to know and who have the credentials and experience to know have told me they are dangerous.

Appealing to Authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can't explain why they are a danger so you defer to others. Inadequate and you know it.

Quote:

The people making those statements have been confirmed by people on all sides of the political spectrum. When somebody advises me the dog will bite, I generally believe them and don't choose to test the truth of the statement myself. I have met face to face very few truly dangerous people in my lifetime, but I know they're out there. Don't you?

I don't take others' words as gospel, especially when I cannot form a logical argument to back it up. It's mentally weak to do this, an abrogation of your responsibility as a debater. And we are quite rightly calling you out for doing so.

No, I don't know that there are 'truly dangerous' people out there; at least, not more dangerous than what our prisons deal with each and every day. I don't believe in a special class of people so dangerous we can't deal with them using our current system. This is what comes from believing the bullshit spouted by those who need you to be afraid, Fox. The Republican line doesn't work unless you are afraid, and you're just happy to comply, aren't you?

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

I believe you don't take anybody's word as Gospel except the 'messiah' and yourself Cyclop. You've informed us of that many many times. Nor do you ever feel the need to support your own vanity. I've at least provided a rationale for my position. You haven't even been able to do that.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote: I believe they are dangerous because people who are in a position to know and who have the credentials and experience to know have told me they are dangerous.

"In a position to know" is an oxymoron without explaining why. Foxie is loose with her so-called resources.

0 Replies

@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

Then put them in YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD if you are that comfortable with having them on US Soil.

Oh, I forgot, you Californians can't even afford to build a prison. Arnold has to sell Alcatraz because you voted not to increase your taxes. SHAME ON YOU!!!!

Alcatraz hasn't been an operating prison for what, 40 years now? I think you may be thinking of some other prison.

We don't need to build a new prison whatsoever, stick them in our existing ones, specially made to house sensitive and dangerous criminals.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I believe you don't take anybody's word as Gospel except the 'messiah' and yourself Cyclop. You've informed us of that many many times.

I don't believe in a Messiah; I am happily agnostic.

Now, I know you mean Obama, but I will point out that:

A) I have told you many times that he is not a 'messiah,' but merely a human, and

B) I've even pointed out areas I disagree with him on your request, in fact, every time you've requested this I have done it.

So it is highly erroneous for you to make such a specious charge.

Quote:

Nor do you ever feel the need to support your own vanity. I've at least provided a rationale for my position. You haven't even been able to do that.

Your rationale is a Logical Fallacy. That's a real problem with your position.

You are also incorrect that I have not pointed out a rationale for my own position; indeed, I have done so several times today, namely, that there is nothing so special about terrorists and those in Gitmo that they would present an undue danger to Americans if we housed them in our prisons here.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I'm surprised we haven't seen stories about how the 600 people released from Gitmo prisons are still wandering around the base there making trouble? If the argument is that releasing them will cause them to be released in US neighborhoods then those already released MUST be roaming around the base at Gitmo.

Oh.. that's right.. they were released back to other countries. Deportation is a funny thing, isn't it?

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

This does not answer why you think they would be dangerous if put in maximum security prisons. One can only assume (since you won't answer the objections to your statement) that you believe maximum security prisons would be unable to neutralize the danger you claim they represent. In effect, you are now appealing to authority, and you continue to ignore the reasonable assumption that they will pose no danger housed in maximum security prisons.

You have not, even with this pointless appeal to authority, made any argument to support a claim that they would represent a danger to American citizens in the continental United States which they don't represent now. Remarks about being housed in someone's home, or Woiyo's inane question about being in someone's neighborhood are distractions which don't answer the reason for your claim that they would endanger Americans. You haven't provided any support for your statement.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

The increasing percentage difference in income is irrelevant to what the individual can actually own and buy.

Ronald D. Pasquariello wrote:

This article appeared in the Christian Century, February 18, 1987.
...
The share of total income going to the bottom 60 per cent of American families has declined, and the share going to the next 20 per cent has increased negligibly, while the share going to the top 20 per cent has increased by 2.5 per cent.
...
The net worth of most Americans does not amount to much. Most families’ forms of wealth are limited to homes, automobiles, furnishings, appliances and checking and savings accounts.
...

The fact that most Americans possess homes, automobiles, furnishings, appliances and checking and savings accounts indicates that most Americans are financially better off than those in the bottom 60% in almost all other countries.

The fact that the income of the top 20% has increased does not matter at all to me in the bottom 20%. What matters to me is what I own, what I enjoy, and what more I can increase what I own and enjoy. The net result of limiting what the top 20% can own and enjoy is to decrease what I own and enjoy, because a lot of what I own and enjoy (e.g., airplane rental and internet rental that I can afford) exists because of what the top 20% did to stay in or enter the top 20%. In my lifetime in America, the more the top 20% prospers, the more we in the bottom 20% prosper.

Servicing one's envy is an income reducer and even a poverty producer. To hell with it!

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

Yeah, we should all work to keep our rich overlords as rich as possible, so that we may feed off of the crumbs - and be satisfied with what we get, instead of demanding that those who profit greatly from our society and it's setup return some of those profits. How dare we proles complain!

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Setanta,

Why should any one prefer to house foreign terrorists captured in war in maximum security domestic prisons housing domestic criminals, instead of in the Gitmo maximum security prison housing only foreign terrorists captured in war?

Answer, there is no rational reason to prefer that!

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

I'm surprised we haven't seen stories about how the 600 people released from Gitmo prisons are still wandering around the base there making trouble? If the argument is that releasing them will cause them to be released in US neighborhoods then those already released MUST be roaming around the base at Gitmo.

Oh.. that's right.. they were released back to other countries. Deportation is a funny thing, isn't it?

In case you've forgotten, Americans have been subjected to terrorist activities in other places too and are still in harm's way in some of them plus our own terrorist threat level is high here in the USA. It is interesting how conscious and militant Americans can be right after a 9/11, but how quickly we become complacent and apathetic after a bit of time goes by. It is the dedication of those committed to protecting us that we have the luxury of being complacent. Stupidity and ill conceived fuzzy notions of propriety and/or compassion, however, is not the way to maintain that.

Quote:

Ex-Gitmo inmates return to terrorism
Geoff Elliott and Paul Maley
January 15, 2009
Article from: The Australian

SIXTY-ONE former Guantanamo Bay detainees are at least suspected of having returned to terrorism, underscoring the difficulty US president-elect Barack Obama will have in making good on his promise to shut the military prison.

The Pentagon estimate is a big rise on previous numbers and comes amid a domestic and international push to solve a complex diplomatic hangover Mr Obama will inherit from the Bush administration.

The Rudd Government has rejected a second request made last month to resettle 17 Chinese Muslims, who have been held in Guantanamo for seven years and have been cleared for release by the Pentagon as not posing a threat to the US or allies such as Australia.

The Weekend Australian reported on Saturday that China lobbied the Rudd Government not to accept the Uyghurs, and The Australian has also learned that the Bush administration has shopped them to Pacific countries, so far with no success.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the Government had yet to receive a request from the incoming Obama administration to help resettle the stateless detainees.

Any such request would be considered on a case-by-case basis, she said.

This is despite a report in The New York Times on Tuesday that Mr Obama is set to sign an executive order on his first full day in office directing the controversial prison be closed.

The order will likely result in renewed pressure on Canberra to assist its ally and the new administration in Washington to deal with what has become a clear political priority for the new president.

In all there are about 190 detainees at Guantanamo whom the Bush administration regards as among the worst of the worst. They include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as well as others who remain in judicial limbo.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24914468-5013404,00.html

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Servicing one's envy is an income reducer and even a poverty producer. To hell with it!

Cycloptichorn wrote:

How dare we proles complain!

Complain all you want, prole, just don't violate the rule of law while you're doing it. Taking from others, prole, what they lawfully earned and you did not lawfully earn, is not lawfully earning what you have. That, prole, is theft! So complaining is ok! Just keep your damn thieving fingers, prole, out of other people's wallets.

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxie, Americans (as well as most others) are in harms way all over this world. We never know when terrorists or demonstrators will harm anybody who travels in the US as well as outside of the US. However, it's more likely to be killed driving in your own car in your own neighborhood than it is by terrorists.

The annual flu outbreaks kills over 35 thousand every year in the US.

You must learn to put things into its true perspective; fear mongering doesn't work much any more.

0 Replies

@ican711nm,

Certainly there is a rational reason to prefer that. The facilities in the continental United States already exist, and the Federal government can pay those state facilities, rather than bear the burden of providing guards and facilities on a military base not intended for this purpose, and at a cost which will not include supplying the needs of hundreds of prisoners on a foreign island. Everything those prisoners eat, drink and wear must be imported to a naval base at the southeast end of an island the government of which is hostile to the United States. None of those considerations apply to state prisons or to Federal prisons in the United States. Not only that, but the staff of state and Federal prisons have many years of experience dealing with dangerous inmates, while the guards on Cuba are military personnel never intended to perform such a function year after year.

By the way, all the tripe being peddled about prisoners in one's neighborhoods, and whether or not the prisons in California will want them is pretty damned silly. The Federal system has several efficient maximum security prisons, the one at Marion, Illinois being the equivalent of a "super-max." The budget for maintaining those prisons is already a major portion of the Federal budget, and the additional costs cannot fail to be much less than maintaining an ad hoc prison on an otherwise foreign island.

Those are all rational reasons.

2 Replies

@Setanta,

Not only do we have high risk prisons in the US, but over 300 terrorists are now serving time in them - according to Senator Carl Levin.

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

You mean housing people in Gitmo didn't protect US citizens Fox? So you are arguing we should keep them there because if they are released from there, they pose a danger? As has been pointed out repeatedly, you don't have much of an argument.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Gitmo has been a successful, not over crowded, maximum security prison for the non-resident terrorists captured in war! Domestic maximum security prisons are over crowded with domestic resident criminals. There's no rational reason to make domestic maximum security prisons even more overcrowded, just because Gitmo is off shore, located at "a naval base at the southeast end of an island the government of which is hostile to the United States. "

2 Replies

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

Gitmo has been a successful, not over crowded, maximum security prison for the terrorists captured in war! Domestic maximum security prisons are over crowded with domestic criminals. There's no rational reason to make domestic maximum security prisons even more overcrowded, just because Gitmo is off shore, located at "a naval base at the southeast end of an island the government of which is hostile to the United States. "

Turns out it's a great place to torture and abuse folks, too. Not that you have a problem with that.

Gitmo is a PR nightmare. Do you know what 'Public Relations' is? Or why it would be important that we would keep them up?

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@ican711nm,

The annual budget for GITMO is about $90 million I think which would be a cost of about $45,000 per prisoner which is about what it costs to house a prisoner in the USA. And GITMO as you pointed out is not crowded and the quality of life there I'm pretty sure is much less hazardous and more pleasant than the typical US prison.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

And GITMO as you pointed out is not crowded and the quality of life there I'm pretty sure is much less hazardous and more pleasant than the typical US prison.

It's virtually a tropical island vacation, interrupted only by short periods of torture.

0 Replies

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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