Congressional Oversight of Executive Disappears (or almost)

blatham wrote:

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Brandon, the city mayor, beats his wife to a bloody pulp once a week. Two neighbors, ex-convicts, beat their wives to bloody pulp every night.

Therefore: it is illogical and a clear instance of rabid anti-Brandonism to express moral outrage towards Brandon's act of wife-beating.

At what point on this scale would your definition of categorical evil be said to begin? At the first instance of wife beating? At the first angry word? With the first violent impulse? Thr first moment of anger? Are there no distinctions to be made on this progression? Are there no other factors in your moral equation?

Quote:

To focus attention on Brandon in this instance represents a greater moral failing than Brandon's wife-beating itself, which is excuseable or didn't really happen.

Now this is a quite unrelated and unsupportable point. No one here has suggested this or anything analogous to it. I agree that it adds weight to your counterpoint, but it is both outside the question and unrelated to anything written here.

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blatham wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
Or else it simply means that Abu Ghraib was the work of a few military personnel and not requiring so much testimony. One wonders where blatham's moral outrage is when almost everyone except the US treats prioners worse than the US does, e.g. using them for blackmail and then cutting off their heads.

This is a good question - and I haven't yet seen a meaningful answer. A few evasive rejoinders to be sure, but no answers.

Brandon, the city mayor, beats his wife to a bloody pulp once a week. Two neighbors, ex-convicts, beat their wives to bloody pulp every night.

Therefore: it is illogical and a clear instance of rabid anti-Brandonism to express moral outrage towards Brandon's act of wife-beating. To focus attention on Brandon in this instance represents a greater moral failing than Brandon's wife-beating itself, which is excuseable or didn't really happen.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that a clear pattern of selective outrage is suspicious. I never said that what you were criticizing wasn't wrong. If I always whine about how a certain country has minor imperfections in its freedom of religion, but utterly ignore the countries that arrest you for having the wrong religion, it is inconsistent and reveals a prejudice. Why do you persist in making these trivially obvious logical errors in characterizing my positions?

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Blatham is the type( since he is reflexively Anti-American) who does not believe that the US troops are human beings, therefore mortal and subject to making errors.

Blatham would, I am sure, use the bombing of Dresden( surely an act which had little justification) to show how the Allies were savage beasts while exculpating the Nazi holocaust and V-2 attacks.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

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Atrocious acts by US troops hurt the image of America as it had maintained itself as a champion of the oppressed and arbiter of international justice fighting colonialism, slavery, genocide, totalitarianism, poverty and other forms of injustice by setting up the United Nations. Every nation looked up to the United States as Uncle Sam, yes as their favorite uncle who did so many helpful and thankless jobs. It is with sorrow when this favorite uncle steps down and acts like a bully. It is unsettling and along with disillusionment comes anger. What has happened to America is a puzzlement to most of its allies and the atrocity by US soldiers has puzzled many who used cheer the soldiers but must now look at them with suspicion and fear. Indeed, now the United States looks like a Fallen Angel.

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talk72000 wrote:

Atrocious acts by US troops hurt the image of America as it had maintained itself as a champion of the oppressed and arbiter of international justice fighting colonialism, slavery, genocide, totalitarianism, poverty and other forms of injustice by setting up the United Nations. Every nation looked up to the United States as Uncle Sam, yes as their favorite uncle who did so many helpful and thankless jobs. It is with sorrow when this favorite uncle steps down and acts like a bully. It is unsettling and along with disillusionment comes anger. What has happened to America is a puzzlement to most of its allies and the atrocity by US soldiers has puzzled many who used cheer the soldiers but must now look at them with suspicion and fear. Indeed, now the United States looks like a Fallen Angel.

Name the large past war in which there were not interrogation abuses. When you have so many soldiers participating in a war, statistically there will always be some bad ones. How does this differ from any war in history?

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What's really sad about all this is the necessity to make excuses for what has been happening and what's happening and gradually being revealed.

The stretching to justify what we know already, let alone what is eventually going to be found out, is remarkable simply by its existence.

And just today I heard on the radio an assertion by the first Iraqi PM to be appointed after Saddam's fall that things were as bad if not worse in terms of breaches of human rights than when Saddam himself was in power. I have no idea if that comment is justified but the very fact it was made is of major concern.

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And what has been happening?

Some prisoner abuse at Abu Ghirab which was punished by court martials

and

Thousands of men, women and children being raped, blown up, tortured, by Saddam and his minions at first and now by Al Qaeda. It is not for nothing that Jordan's King has vowed an all out war on terrorists.

To try to make a moral equivalancy between the relatively few abuses on the part of the USA and the coalition and the massacre of thousands by Sadddam and AlQaeda shows what political partisanship will desend to.

Goodfielder posts the typical liberal generalized line--giving no specifics but suggesting untold horrors when he wrote--"What's sad about all this is the necessity for making excuses for what has been happening and what's happening and gradually being revealed"

Really? What about some specifics instead of generalized garbage?

Have the US Marines really set up ovens like the Nazis did in Germany to dispose of captured Al qaeda?

How ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Speaking of generalised garbage Mortkat - I think you do a wonderful turn of it yourself Very Happy

Asking me for specifics? What a stupid remark. A remark of someone bereft of the ability to think in concepts. You've been absorbing too many right wing talking points Mortkat. Do you receive them in PowerPoint? Got little bullet points have they?

Try to think in broader terms rather than the narrow little point-by-point bulletins you've been fed.

And you brought up the Nazis - not me Laughing

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brandon wrote:

Quote:

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that a clear pattern of selective outrage is suspicious. I never said that what you were criticizing wasn't wrong. If I always whine about how a certain country has minor imperfections in its freedom of religion, but utterly ignore the countries that arrest you for having the wrong religion, it is inconsistent and reveals a prejudice. Why do you persist in making these trivially obvious logical errors in characterizing my positions?

So long as the US demands that the world allow it unique and special status or priviledge (eg, as the only nation which might initiate war unilaterally) then it will gain unique focus on its operations and values.

So long as the US operates so as to hold down any other emerging power in the world which might threaten America's military and economic dominance then it will gain unique focus and criticism in the world by the other citizens of the world (not to mention by its own citizens).

Both of those policies are matters of record. So if you or another American citizen might get your feelings hurt when hearing criticism of the US by others, well, try to imagine just how little we care.

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georgeob1 wrote:

blatham wrote:
.

Brandon, the city mayor, beats his wife to a bloody pulp once a week. Two neighbors, ex-convicts, beat their wives to bloody pulp every night.

Therefore: it is illogical and a clear instance of rabid anti-Brandonism to express moral outrage towards Brandon's act of wife-beating.

At what point on this scale would your definition of categorical evil be said to begin? At the first instance of wife beating? At the first angry word? With the first violent impulse? Thr first moment of anger? Are there no distinctions to be made on this progression? Are there no other factors in your moral equation?

Quote:
To focus attention on Brandon in this instance represents a greater moral failing than Brandon's wife-beating itself, which is excuseable or didn't really happen.
Now this is a quite unrelated and unsupportable point. No one here has suggested this or anything analogous to it. I agree that it adds weight to your counterpoint, but it is both outside the question and unrelated to anything written here.

When this species of argument gets advanced (and you do it probably more than anyone, george) it always deserves a swift kick in the ass.

The form is, "We can be excused for what we have done because others have done it too, maybe worse." "Other people behead, so if we torture many innocent civilians caught up with bad guys, it is no big thing." Etc. As one can always find historical examples of uglier moral failures, pretty much any conceivable act or policy can be justified/minimized in this manner.

But if one actually takes the notion of citizen-engaged-democracy seriously, then you begin yelling when some arrogant and morally twisted government begins with crap like torture. You continue until they are gone, hopefully jailed.

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Damn, I'm getting old! It took me all this time to figure out why mortkat's foaming-at-the-mouth raving sounded familiar. So I was arguing as though I were talking to a normall person. How ya doin', Chickie? Or should I call you Parthian? Joined October 31st, huh? Wasn't that about the time you were banned on that Pacific Northwest site for a spell? Hahaha. You're a prize, you are.

Folks, mortkat -- Parthian, Massogato, Chiczaira, probably half a dozen other sobriquets I haven't caught on to yet -- has been banned from more cyber sites than any human in captivity. On SB he has two or three "friends." On this site, perhaps two. Let's stop responding to his vile bile. He'll be forced to leave eventually.

How do ya like baing outed, Chicky?

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blatham wrote:

When this species of argument gets advanced (and you do it probably more than anyone, george) it always deserves a swift kick in the ass.

The form is, "We can be excused for what we have done because others have done it too, maybe worse." "Other people behead, so if we torture many innocent civilians caught up with bad guys, it is no big thing." Etc. As one can always find historical examples of uglier moral failures, pretty much any conceivable act or policy can be justified/minimized in this manner.

You are correct that this a frequent point of dispute between us. I don't have problem with such relativist judgements when they are applied to the actions of governments or even individual people involved in the struggles that make up the world we live in. Indeed, I find your absolutist judgements more or less devoid of meaning.

For example, there is little doubt that, in the light of subsequent events, some of the bombing of German and (probably to a lesser extent) Japanese cities went beyond what was reasonably required to persuade the populations and governments involved to quit the war. The destructiuon of Dresden, for example, appears to have had no material or even psychological bearing on the outcome of the war. Tens of thousands of people,mostly quite innocent, were killed and many others injured. Despite this, I don't think historians will cite Roosevekt and Churchil as morally evil for their prosecution of the war against Nazi and Japanese aggression. History rightly credits their evident intentions in defeating a far more destructive and morally reprehensible foe, and refrains friom applying a categorical judgement on an act which, taken by itself, is indefensible.

Quote:

But if one actually takes the notion of citizen-engaged-democracy seriously, then you begin yelling when some arrogant and morally twisted government begins with crap like torture. You continue until they are gone, hopefully jailed.

I do take our democracy seriously, and I am interested in its continued existence in the face of some serious threats out there. I don't accept the notion that the Bush Administration is "morally twisted", and I don't see any rational utility or meaning in the categorical judgements you are making.

I hope you had a pleasant Thanksgiving and overall a great weekend. From what I read its cold and rainy in New York. Sunny and 65 deg, F. out here amidst the fruits and nuts. I'll be back east for a few days next week - hope the weather improves.

Andrew,

Interesting piece of detective work. I recall this character from earlier manifestations. We share some ideas in common, but very little in the way of behavior or attitudes towards others.

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george

So long as you understand that your moral philosophy arises not out of principle but rather out of nationalism.

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Lemmesee, Doesn't Mortkat mean Dead Cat??

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blatham wrote:

george

So long as you understand that your moral philosophy arises not out of principle but rather out of nationalism.

This proposition is no more true for me than it is for you.

I am merely making meaningful didtinctions between imperfect, bad, and awful in the real world. You are applying categorical standards that, in one breath, wipe out distinctions you effusively make in the next. Your position is illogical and inconsistent.

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The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Dresden was decried by many. So was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

John Keegan, in his book-"The Second World War" puts it very well without using any facile arguments concering moral superiority.

quote:

"Not a single German soldier, despite the Federal Republic's resumption of conscription of 1956, has been killed by enemy action since May 1945, and the likelihood of such a death grows more, not less remote. Japan, the most reckless of the warmakers of 1939-45, is today bound by a constitution which outlaws recourse to force as an instrument of national policy in any circumstances whatever. No statesman of the Second World War was foolish enougbht to claim, as those of the First had done, that it was being fought as the war to end all wars. That, nevertheless, may have been its abiding effect."

It could be, that under those circumstances, Dresden and Hiroshima were worth it,

But those who look for the Perfect like Blatham are the enemy of the good and would not agree.

Blatham does not realize that Utopia is derived from the Greek meaning

NO PLACE!!!

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Merry Andrew wrote:

Damn, I'm getting old! It took me all this time to figure out why mortkat's foaming-at-the-mouth raving sounded familiar.

You are definitely losing your touch, MA. I figured that out almost a month ago.

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georgeob1 wrote:

blatham wrote:
george

So long as you understand that your moral philosophy arises not out of principle but rather out of nationalism.

This proposition is no more true for me than it is for you.

?! Please locate for me any single instance anywhere wherein I have excused some act or policy of the Canadian government such as I take the Bush administration to task for. The proposition is not true for me, but it is demonstrated constantly by you, most particularly as regards US policy/acts while a Republican administration is/was in charge.

You will, george, merely if I were to make the invitation, proceed to justify the use of torture by American forces (or American agents) on individuals who have received no trials and of whom some significant percentage are innocent of anything other than being in area X.

You will further justify the operative legal conclusions of John Yoo and others in the Ashcroft justice department that "torture" isn't what we all thought after all. Torture is really what brings on "major organ failure", but not anything less.

Quote:

I am merely making meaningful didtinctions between imperfect, bad, and awful in the real world. You are applying categorical standards that, in one breath, wipe out distinctions you effusively make in the next. Your position is illogical and inconsistent.

You actually almost never make distinctions, george. You sweep up all such policies and acts as noted above and check them off as "unpleasant but morally justified". It becomes a real question as to whether anything at all falls outside of your capacious moral blessings for the acts of this administration particularly and the US military particularly and the US generally. Existing codes and treaties hold no or little intrinsic moral worth for you george. Their value or lack of it arises only out of whether they facilitate temporary/arbitrary American policy.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Merry Andrew wrote:
Damn, I'm getting old! It took me all this time to figure out why mortkat's foaming-at-the-mouth raving sounded familiar.

You are definitely losing your touch, MA. I figured that out almost a month ago.

Never looked at that thread, Joe. As I say, senility is fast enroaching.

I'll have to be put with a bowl to beg
Chickie, I hardly knew ya Crying or Very sad

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blatham wrote:

You actually almost never make distinctions, george. You sweep up all such policies and acts as noted above and check them off as "unpleasant but morally justified". It becomes a real question as to whether anything at all falls outside of your capacious moral blessings for the acts of this administration particularly and the US military particularly and the US generally. Existing codes and treaties hold no or little intrinsic moral worth for you george. Their value or lack of it arises only out of whether they facilitate temporary/arbitrary American policy.

That's not true. I just don't make the categorical distinctions you make. I'll leave open the questoion of torture at the hands of this administration until the facts emerge. However I reject utterly the notion that we should focus on the allegations that have been made about the treatment of captives held by the U.S. without also considering the corresponding beheadings that have been practiced by our opponents,

Your categorical distinctions, for example, would obviate any distinction between the U.S. (and its allies) in the Cold War and the horrors committed by our opponents in the former Soviet Empire and China as well. I assert that there are meaningful distinctions to be made here and any categorical approach that would wipethem out is itself meaningless.

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