Hypocrisy and Right vs. Left Wing

[Ridgerunner]

I think we would have, by now, seen some foundational basis for the conclusion that conservatives avoid information, are “pattern thinkers”, etc.; that southerners, evangelicals and fundamentalists are somehow inferior to liberals in intellectual functioning, if it was there to give. In truth, I don’t think SoCal despises Southerners, though I think he has some mistaken ideas about them.

So, and with all due respect, that one has to be “Objection sustained” for lack of foundation.

With regard to the 100 murdered detainees, I have reviewed the previous posts, and I see it asserted, but nothing more. Twenty pages of posts are a lot, so I could have missed the foundational information for that. But having reviewed the posts as well as time would allow, I don’t see it.

So, and again, with all due respect, and until the previous link for it is brought to my attention, that, too, has to be “Objection sustained”, for lack of foundation.

There are many, many assertions made in the last 20 posts, by both liberals and conservatives. It would take an extraordinarily long time to review them all. Much of the disagreement is actually based on interpretation. What is “torture”? Who really are “conservatives”. When it comes to the later-mentioned “non-negotiables” most are subject to interpretation. What are “inhuman working conditions”? I think we can all agree that Jurgis Rudkus worked in “inhuman working conditions”. But the average worker at Tyson Foods? Some would say so. Some would say not. So how do we define when society has met those “non-negotiables” that are, to a large degree, in the eye of the beholder? One could take a particular view of them and, like SoCal, decide that he could not vote for anyone. Perhaps he will never be able to do so.

In any event, the fact that 20 pages of posts that seem not to have resulted in the slightest agreement between the polar sides, may demonstrate that the thread is no longer a worthwhile endeavor.

Having said that, and mentioning that this might be my last post on this particular thread, I will restate my particular belief. Probably there are inhuman working conditions in the U.S., though I am not personally aware of them. Some would probably consider Vern’s horeshoeing “inhuman working conditions”. There are many who would think so. Probably there are and have been and will be violations of human rights; sometimes inadvertent, sometimes deliberate. We can’t cure everything. As I have said before, the gates of paradise are guarded by the angel with the flaming sword, and we’re unlikely to get past him.

I think there are serious, serious failures toward the truly poor; the ones who can’t help themselves. In that, neither party has a good record, and neither shows any present sign of a desire to remedy it.

But killing the unborn is something all its own. There is something about insoucience toward such things that coarsens, no, corrupts, a society. I strongly recommend the reading (and re-reading, and re-re-reading) of all three volumes of “Gulag Archipelago” in this regard. Solzhenitsyn very convincingly describes what happens to a society that adopts indifference to the destruction of innocent lives. It starts with the leaders, and is not a good picture. To me, there is not a more important real issue before us right now than abortion.

 

[BamaRider]

SoCalRC said-

As of last year, the death count was at 108. I linked to a report on it already above. I’ve given you specific cases (Hamadi, etc.), in the past. I linked to the Yoo torture memo, complete with crushing children’s testicles, above.

There is no link that will convince you that reality is real. It simply has a different place in your thinking.

You’re telling us, American soldiers, with the consent of the Chain of Command, all the way to Oval Office, torture children as a matter of policy?

Why do you dislike the military so much?

But I’m curiious, what would YOU do to extract information, from captured terroists who may or may not have knowledge of a plot to kill thousands of innocent Americans?

 

[estesbob]

SoCalRC said-

You’re telling us, American soldiers, with the consent of the Chain of Command, all the way to Oval Office, torture children as a matter of policy?

Why do you dislike the military so much?

But I’m curiious, what would YOU do to extract information, from captured terroists who may or may not have knowledge of a plot to kill thousands of innocent Americans?

Its a natural defense machanism/ Modern liberalism accpets the slaughter of children as a basic fundamental human right. Accordingly the only was they can attempt to take the high moral ground is to paint their oppostion in as evil terms as possible.

In most respects modern liberalism is a religion-a religion that practices human sacrifice and demands everyone tithe to support their church: whether one is a member or not.

 

[SoCalRC]

You’re telling us, American soldiers, with the consent of the Chain of Command, all the way to Oval Office, torture children as a matter of policy?

No. The US Government has claimed that the President has the right to torture innocent children, without oversight or any form of checks or balances. I linked the memo from the Justice Department.

They covered this on Fox News, so, even in your world it must be true.

108 detainees have died from induced trauma in US custody since '03. That is, we torture people to death. The government does not disptute this. It’s own investigations are where we get the information. The government also chooses not to prosecute or, in most cases, even discipline the interogators. We now know that this is because the torture itself was US policy (see the memo, and the other linked reports).

Why do you dislike the military so much?

This, again, is another example of significantly different mental activity. Much as you reasoned that living in California somehow had ideological implications, even though I live less than 30 miles from Ronald Reagan’s tomb and a similiar distance from 10 of the largest GOP donors in the nation, you seem to be making some sort of bizare leap from my reporting what the Bush Administration (which you support!) writes and confeses makes me a hater of the military.

However, as with most of your ‘reasoning’, your conclussions are pretty detached from measurable reality. I enlisted, in a time of war to serve my country. Because of my faith, I ended up serving two tours as a compat medic in Vietnam. Most of my time was spent with a bat. which suffered the highest KIA rate of any bat. in USMC history (well over 90% in 47 months). I was wounded multiple times, once seriously.

Since 2003 my wife and I have spent a significant amount of money providing helmet liners and body armor for US troops. However, I don’t have a yellow ribbon magnet on my car, so perhaps, by your standards, I am a troop hater.

But I’m curiious, what would YOU do to extract information, from captured terroists who may or may not have knowledge of a plot to kill thousands of innocent Americans?

Actually, this is one of your most interesting comments. I, personally, am a devout Catholic, so torture and mistreatment would never be an option for me. In my faith, evil, particularly grave evil, is never a path to good.

Fortunately, as is often (always?) the case, following Jesus in this instance is also more productive. This always seems to surprise people. But early Christians ‘defeated’ Rome without ever lifting a sword, which most folks ‘knew’ was impossible. The CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon have all studied interogation for many years, as have intelligence agencies from all over the world. The broad concensus is that torture is the least effective form of interogation.

The key can be found in your statement, “may or may not”. We have had two criminal convictions related the the misshandling of classified information from the Vice President’s office under this administration. That means that, in the administration, some people cannot be trusted with important state secrets. We are at war! On two fronts! So, should we torture everyone in the administration to find out who may be a grave security risk?

If we did, we would waste a lot of time and effort. That is, it would be a very inefficient use of our intelligence gathering resources. But, more importantly, it would almost certainly yield nothing. If we beat the **** out of a bunch of people, we are going to get a bunch of wholly bogus confessions. So everything will have to be investigated for veracity, which will waste even more resources…

But the most interesting thing to me about this comment is the seeming paradox. You profess that you would never believe that there is coordinated torture. How can I suggest it! I must hate the military for even saying such a thing! But, on the other hand, it seems a wholly reasonable and justified course of action to you.

Because we think differently, this is pretty incomprehensible to me (torture is horrible, so it is beyond belief, but it makes sense to me… just will not fit in my brain). But it does possibly explain how a person could proclaim themselves proudly pro life because they support people who claim they have the right to crush children’s testicles! Apparently, measurable reality is not the only thing that can be disregarded in the conservative mind, but even a semblence of consistancy as well.

 

[SoCalRC]

Its a natural defense machanism/ Modern liberalism accpets the slaughter of children as a basic fundamental human right.

It is ia defense mechanism. It is called changing the subject to avoid having to defend the indefensable. But who, exactly, is doing that?

I have never expressed anything remotely close to the red herring you’re flinging now. I have always condemned abortion as a grave evil and I have always stressed whole and complete acceptance of the Catholic Church’s position on life.

I know it is obvious, but with reality decoupled from your position, I have to keep repeating it - no one here is disputing the fetal right to life. The only question is rather or not it is reasonable to assert that politically supporting the sort of people who not only torture people to death, but assert their right to torture innocent children if they so choose, is, as you assert, rightous or effective.

The Church and measurable reality appear to say ‘no’. But you assert that, not only is the answer ‘Yes!’, anyone who disagrees is a morally inferior Catholic.

To be fair, you are not alone. Just a few posts ago Bamarider stated, as you have, that the GOP is the only possible source for good. I am not judging you, it is not my place to do so. But I am asking, at what point does it stopping being ‘reasonable compromise’ and start being idolatry? That is, at what point does loyalty inspite of attrocity indicate that a person has more faith in the GOP than God?

 

[BamaRider]

Ok lemme see what I can recoiter from the most recent weather report when asked a few questions.

You talk in so much gobble gook hard to know what you stand for. Relying on your previous posts of how much bad stuff the U.S. military does, it was fair conclusion to draw you didn’t care much for it, or its mission. That’s what happens when you talk in “nuances” as the Presdient pointed out.

I worked 26 years in the fire dept, and knew guys that worked the job and hated it. When they retired they wanted no part of it.

Still didnt tell us what YOU would do to extract info from terroists. The best I can figure out is nothing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’d do NOTHING to a whackjob terroists who just placed a nuke in Atlanta, to find out where he put it, and when it might go off?

I have a l1 year niece I love dearly living in Northern Virginia, and if some terroist has knowledge or they think he has knowledge, of a nuke on the beltway I don’t care what they gotta do to find out what they need to know to protect her.

And I don’t think that attitude is unChristian.

SoCal you leave folks no choice but to draw conclusions on their own, because you won’t answer simple questions with simple answers.

Now I asked ya 2 things, why ya dislike the miilitary and what your plan would be to extract info from a nut job with a nuke.

And what I got is that loonnnnnnnnng diatribe, and not a conclusive answer to either one.

What you left me to do is deduce from the fact you bought kevlar for troops, and served in Vietnam (thank you for your service) that you do support the military and their mission, that you want them to win this war, stablilize Iraq, no matter how long it may take. If that is not correct, let us know.

Don’t come in here with “I support the troops but not the mission.” Thats like telling me “well I hope no one gets hurt at this fire y’all are battling, but it ain’t worth it, so I hope it burns down on its accord, and what happens happens.” I can tell ya how those firefighters in the field would react to such reasoing.

And from you post I have no idea what you’d do when confronted with a terroist with vital info. You talked by the early Chritians and Rome, guys in the admistration with info on American torture factories, and a theory dripping water on a guys head is not gonna give ya any reliable intelligence.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

It is ia defense mechanism. It is called changing the subject to avoid having to defend the indefensable. But who, exactly, is doing that?

I have never expressed anything remotely close to the red herring you’re flinging now. I have always condemned abortion as a grave evil and I have always stressed whole and complete acceptance of the Catholic Church’s position on life.

I know it is obvious, but with reality decoupled from your position, I have to keep repeating it - no one here is disputing the fetal right to life. The only question is rather or not it is reasonable to assert that politically supporting the sort of people who not only torture people to death, but assert their right to torture innocent children if they so choose, is, as you assert, rightous or effective.

The Church and measurable reality appear to say ‘no’. But you assert that, not only is the answer ‘Yes!’, anyone who disagrees is a morally inferior Catholic.

To be fair, you are not alone. Just a few posts ago Bamarider stated, as you have, that the GOP is the only possible source for good. I am not judging you, it is not my place to do so. But I am asking, at what point does it stopping being ‘reasonable compromise’ and start being idolatry? That is, at what point does loyalty inspite of attrocity indicate that a person has more faith in the GOP than God?

Thanks for your usual concise, thoughtful, rational statements. It’s too sad that they fall on ears unable to understand what you are saying.

I find it hard to believe that “doing whatever needs to be done” to get the terrorist to break is considered Christian. A few too many saints have died for just the opposite conclusion. But I guess such an analysis works if you define your own forms of doctrine.

I just finished reading a piece on the Mariana Islands and the sweatshops down there and the GOP’s concerted efforts to deny them any protection. It’s slavery, sex trafficking, abortion, and anything else necessary to continue raking in the dough. yeah the GOP is really into family values.
!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Well, just finished the extremely long Yoo Memorandum. It’s a basic review of the law regarding what laws apply to what circumstances. (e.g., Some acts are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, rather than by other laws, and there are differences.) It reviews a great number of domestic statutes, cases and foreign treaty obligations, and points out the differences and similarities and applicability whether here or abroad. It’s not a “go out and torture” memo. It’s a review of the law. Pure and simple. It does not recommend torture of any kind whatever. It’s the kind of article that appears in law reviews, or are written by lawyers for their clients. It shouldn’t be considered ominous or strange that the Bush administration would have been interested in what the law is concerning terrorist prisoners.

Absolutely nowhere in its entire tedious 81 page length does it ever say that U.S. policy does or should include “crushing childrens’ testicles”. The word “testicles” does not even appear in the entire thing. On the contrary, the author points out, on page 47 that while there are no specifically applicable criminal statutes preventing “injury to sexual organs” of a prisoner, rulings in civil cases under another law would probably apply and ought to be considered applicable even though the criminal statutes do not specifically prohibit it.

Interestingly, an article is cited, written by the ultra-liberal Alan Dershowitz, in which Dershowitz apparently thinks it’s okay to kill a terrorist just for being one, even in custody. The Yoo memo does not buy into that proposition, however.

I encourage other posters to go back to the link (I think it’s 260, but might be 250. My memory isn’t what it used to be.) and read the Yoo memorandum. Never does it promote torture. It does attempt to define it under various laws that are, or might be, applicable. I would not claim that the law is as benign as the Church might be if, indeed, the Church took a position on all of the things mentioned in the memo. But the Yoo memorandum does not purport to be a moral discussion; merely a review of what the law actually is.

 

[vern_humphrey]

A clip cut and pasted from Ribo’s link-

I’d say that pretty much sums it up. I really liked it when he said my job isn’t to nuance, :clapping: I bet that Brit reporter didn’t understand* that. *

Now I know why ya can’t get a lib to give ya answer without a weather report. HIS BUSY READING THE UC BERKLEY NEWS!! You talk about a place with NO sense of reality, they don’t have a clue about the real world. Nobody on that campus has EVER had a JOB. LOL.

So why ya up so late?

The last time I read that paper, I picked it up as a piece of trash – and right on top was an ad for a homosexual partner.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The principle problem is that the terms themselves are not static. What is considered ‘conservative’ today is significantly different from what was considered ‘conservative’ in the past.
.

Ah, when the Left uses a term, “It means what I want it to mean, neither more nor less.”

Can you guess the book that comes from?

 

[Al_Masetti]

we all know how hypocritical the left are. but the right are too. a good example is how the government bails out the investment banks when they make poor investments out of greed. this goes against the globalist mantra that government should not interfere with the economy. but then they have no problem taking government money if it fills their pockets.

the republican party is hardly conservative. they basically want not only big buisness, but big government as well who they can use to get rich at the expense of the middle class.

Congress passed a law requiring that people who can’t make the payments be granted mortgage loans. THAT is what started us on that road to the sub-prime mortgage defaults.

Greed, if it is part of the equation, was on the part of the politicians that wanted to buy the votes of people who wanted to be able to borrow money without having to worry about paying it back. The banks didn’t want to make those loans but were given no alternative by our Congress.

The situation is the exact opposite of free markets.

 

[mark_a]

It is ia defense mechanism. It is called changing the subject to avoid having to defend the indefensable. But who, exactly, is doing that?

I have never expressed anything remotely close to the red herring you’re flinging now. I have always condemned abortion as a grave evil and I have always stressed whole and complete acceptance of the Catholic Church’s position on life.

I know it is obvious, but with reality decoupled from your position, I have to keep repeating it - no one here is disputing the fetal right to life. The only question is rather or not it is reasonable to assert that politically supporting the sort of people who not only torture people to death, but assert their right to torture innocent children if they so choose, is, as you assert, rightous or effective.

The Church and measurable reality appear to say ‘no’. But you assert that, not only is the answer ‘Yes!’, anyone who disagrees is a morally inferior Catholic.

To be fair, you are not alone. Just a few posts ago Bamarider stated, as you have, that the GOP is the only possible source for good. I am not judging you, it is not my place to do so. But I am asking, at what point does it stopping being ‘reasonable compromise’ and start being idolatry? That is, at what point does loyalty inspite of attrocity indicate that a person has more faith in the GOP than God?

Hang in there. Implying that anyone in the GOP could sin will get you in really hot water here.

The Republican party has hijacked the abortion issue and turned it into gold. Just like they’ve hijacked the (made in China) flag burning issue. And lets not forget the sanctity of marriage issue, many supporters are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th marriage.

I will vote Republican only because of the abortion issue. The left wingers have a better platform with most of the other social issues.

Hang in there.

And remember, just because President Bush is right about abortion doesn’t mean Iraq has WMD.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hang in there. Implying that anyone in the GOP could sin will get you in really hot water here.

The Republican party has hijacked the abortion issue and turned it into gold. Just like they’ve hijacked the (made in China) flag burning issue. And lets not forget the sanctity of marriage issue, many supporters are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th marriage.

I will vote Republican only because of the abortion issue. The left wingers have a better platform with most of the other social issues.

Hang in there.

And remember, just because President Bush is right about abortion doesn’t mean Iraq has WMD.

The GOP doesn’t sin any more than the Dem party sins. Sins are committed by people, not by organizations.

Platforms don’t necessarily mean action. I’m not a Repub, but I think I can say, without undue fear of being proved wrong, that neither party has done much of anything for the truly needy in this country since the Earned Income Credit, and that was Reagan’s.

Buying middle class votes with middle class welfare? Yes, there might be a difference that will prove to be real. Corporate welfare is a certainty, no matter which party is in power.

I personally doubt any more WMDs will be found in Iraq. But I also know that a chemical dumper dumped tons of dioxin not far from here; less than 100 yards from two houses, on a public road and near a stream governed by the Corps of Engineers. It was there for years and was only discovered because somebody ratted the dumper out. How many square miles of uninhabited desert are there in Iraq? You could bury New York City out there and nobody would know but the ones who did it, and they would undoubtedly have been killed by Saddam right after they did it.
I don’t think anybody now living knows one way or the other.

 

[ribozyme]

The GOP doesn’t sin any more than the Dem party sins. Sins are committed by people, not by organizations.

Platforms don’t necessarily mean action. I’m not a Repub, but I think I can say, without undue fear of being proved wrong, that neither party has done much of anything for the truly needy in this country since the Earned Income Credit, and that was Reagan’s.

Buying middle class votes with middle class welfare? Yes, there might be a difference that will prove to be real. Corporate welfare is a certainty, no matter which party is in power.

THe Democrats supported an increase in the EITC but the Clinton era Republicans did not.

 

[SoCalRC]

Well, just finished the extremely long Yoo Memorandum. It’s a basic review of the law regarding what laws apply to what circumstances.

Better check again, he specifically omits the case that, as a Berkley law professor, he considers “most critical” for the very question.

And, as I noted above, you can go to Youtube and hear him giving the innocent child torture example, complete with testicle crushing, for himself.

 

[SoCalRC]

Congress passed a law requiring that people who can’t make the payments be granted mortgage loans. THAT is what started us on that road to the sub-prime mortgage defaults.

Actually, that is demonstrably false. Those loans currently have a significantly lower foreclosure rate. The meltdown is principally focussed on uncontrolled lenders, who are not covered by the law you reference.

 

[SoCalRC]

Ah, when the Left uses a term, “It means what I want it to mean, neither more nor less.”

Can you guess the book that comes from?

Which? IE, what, if anything, are you asking.

Technically, we’ve already established that I am more conservative than you with regards to abortion, so, using your defination, you’re the liberal.

 

[ribozyme]

Actually, that is demonstrably false. Those loans currently have a significantly lower foreclosure rate. The meltdown is principally focussed on uncontrolled lenders, who are not covered by the law you reference.

We can trace the origins of Al Masetti’s statement:

The idea started on the outer precincts of the right. Thomas DiLorenzo, an economist who calls Ron Paul “the Jefferson of our time,” wrote in September that the housing crisis is “the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers.” The policy DiLorenzo decries is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend throughout the communities they serve.

The Blame-CRA theme bounced around the right-wing Freerepublic.com. In January it figured in a Washington Times column. In February, a Cato Institute affiliate named Stan Liebowitz picked up the critique in a New York Post op-ed headlined “The Real Scandal: How the Feds Invented the Mortgage Mess.” On The National Review’s blog, The Corner, John Derbyshire channeled Liebowitz: “The folk losing their homes? are victims not of ‘predatory lenders,’ but of government-sponsored – in fact government-mandated – political correctness.”

Last week, a more careful expression of the idea hit The Washington Post, in an article on former Sen. Phil Gramm’s influence over John McCain. While two progressive economists were quoted criticizing Gramm’s insistent opposition to government regulation, the Brookings Institution’s Robert Litan offered an opposing perspective. Litan suggested that the 1990s enhancement of CRA, which was achieved over Gramm’s fierce opposition, may have contributed to the current crisis. “If the CRA had not been so aggressively pushed,” Litan said, “it is conceivable things would not be quite as bad. People have to be honest about that.”

prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis

 

[BamaRider]

Mark put this out-

I will vote Republican only because of the abortion issue. The left wingers have a better platform with most of the other social issues.

Now here is a mostly liberal guy I can understand. No pages of gobble gook etc. Just tells ya what he’s gonna do, without a weather report.

You can also see abortion trumps his social agenda. If someone waved a majic wand and flip floped the parties abortion stance I’d vote dem figuring the social agenda I DIDN"T agree with would/could be fought on another front.

Basically he’s more pro life than liberal, not every Catholic can say that.

 

[SoCalRC]

Ok lemme see what I can recoiter from the most recent weather report when asked a few questions.

You talk in so much gobble gook hard to know what you stand for.

It is easy, I quote the Vatican, the Bible, and the Catechism. Look at my handle, when in doubt, I side with Rome. You’re the one supporting folks Rome is not pleased with, which, to me, means you are the one with the complicated ideology.

Relying on your previous posts of how much bad stuff the U.S. military does, it was fair conclusion to draw you didn’t care much for it, or its mission.

No, I actually never occused the rank and file military of anything. So the only “fair conclusion” is that you don’t really read my posts. But that is hardly controversial, you stated that yourself.

Still didnt tell us what YOU would do to extract info from terroists. The best I can figure out is nothing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’d do NOTHING to a whackjob terroists who just placed a nuke in Atlanta, to find out where he put it, and when it might go off?

OK, we’ll try again and I’ll type slower. First, I would point out that if you are living in an episode of “24” with the urgent need to beat the truth out of someone lest a nuke explode, you are already in a spot that demonstrates you are massively incompetent at protecting the US.

The best way to thwart these sorts of plots is the way we always have, early, with good investigations and human intelligence. You don’t want to wait until your entire gene pool is sitting on a live nuke, you want to catch it early. First, with the flow of money, second with the flow of information.

We have two problems on that front, we are too cozy and dependant with the Sauds to put real pressure on them about the flow of funds, but they have taken about $70B of what we pay to them in oil and funnelled it into terrorism. We have a problem with the second because of our mishandling of North Korea for so long (we finally went back to the policy we had under Clinton), and our dependance in Pakistan (where Bin Laden is believed to be). We need Pakistan for occupying Iraq, but helping us has pushed the country to the brink. So, we can’t do much to stop it from harboring the actual 9/11 terrorists, or from marketing in nuclear technology.

In addition, you have to take other steps. For example, you’ll want to thwart the availability of fissionable material. Creating such material from scratch is a massive undertaking, pretty much requiring the resources of a nation state, so you want to control what is in existance as best you again. Again, we’ve made a huge blunder, but woefully undercutting a program to help fund the protection and ellimination of such material in the ex soviet states. We also have real problems keeping the matieral and technology under control under this administration. Note that we’ve accidentally sent live nukes over US soil and shipped nuclear technology abroad by mistake (and have yet to understand either failure).

You’ll also want to better screen ports and all international shipments. Although it is now 2008, we have not yet acted on this particular 9/11 commission recommendation. Only the tinyist fraction of cargo moving through our parts is scanned, and the GOP keeps blocking attempts to fund the technology (having already tried to outsource the management of our ports to Dubai).

The biggest problem with your ‘beat it out of them’ mentality, is the incredible waste of assets in a war we have a heard time fighting. We are woefully short on arab speaking analysts (in part because we dumped so many of them in our ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ sweeps - aparently the GOP is more afraid of its homo-erotic tendancies than terrorists). So, if you have someone you suspect of being connected to a big plot, snatching them up and beating them is stupid. As noted, beating may not get you more information.

But, survellience will lead you to more terrorists. And, more importantly, it can lead you to opportunities to ‘turn’ a terrorist, much as we used to blackmail human informants during the cold war.

Oddly enough, we managed to muddle through more than two centuries without gulags, torture, and secret prisons, even when facing enemies who had same.

I have a l1 year niece I love dearly living in Northern Virginia… what they need to know to protect her.

Then reconsider how you vote. It seems to get lost that since Bush took over we have been subjected to terrorist attacks twice, 9/11, and then a subsequent anthrax attack (chemical weapon attack). That was '01, it is now '08 - the pledge of following Bin Laden to the ‘gates of hell’ has now reached the point that this administration won’t chase him to the gates of Pakistan.

As far as the second attack, we not only never caught the terrorists, the administration routinely pretends it never happened - claiming there has been no attack since 9/11.

In the mean time, the Pentagon just reported to congress that the US military is at its lowest state of readiness in the 20th century, although our military spending exceeds that of either the Vietnam war or the Korean war in constant dollars.

Think about it, we’ve been at this longer than WWII, and we are still taking American casualities in the fortified green zone. By this point we had starting rebuilding Europe, this gang has yet to secure the road from the green zone to the airport, even though it has resorted to bribing war lords.

As far as the rest, no, unlike you, I am tethered to reality. I don’t believe in spending blood or treasure for no purpose. Frankly, I see little evidence that you truly support it yourself. You don’t seem willing to pay for it (you’d rather stick my grandchildren with it), and seem to show little willingness to die for it.