U.S. Politics: Feelings Trump Facts

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

I think you're all missing Altherion's point though, which is actually about the unpredictability of history. To talk about a "wrong side" means assuming that some changes are irreversible and/or that there is a continuous process throughout time, both of which are hazardous propositions at best.
I'm sure pretty much everyone here would like to believe that some changes are indeed irreversible and that nothing can stop the slow processes of democratization and human progress... But recent events should make us cautious about assuming that our belief will in fact translate into reality. Let's also bear in mind that such belief is, all in all, rather recent.
In a nutshell, Altherion was, I think, making a purely intellectual argument, not a moral one.

 That's a reasonable point, but  Altherion brings it up in response to a usage of the term that is also quite reasonable. If voter right's suppression is the right side of history, I don't particularly care to see that future.

[Rippounet]

34 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well, I guess if the Whig Theory of History really annoys you, its good to get that off your chest, I suppose. But, I don't think that was really the point  of the article with regard to Sessions.

I should know better than to say this but...
The election of Obama bred huge hopes throughout the world ; I think that's why he got a Nobel Peace Prize that, in hindsight, seems undeserved. There was a belief that the West could move past many things like xenophobia, islamophobia or racial tensions... That the US would turn the page of voodoo economics and start pursuing social progress, thus encouraging other countries to do the same... I personally believed that Obama would have the opportunity to build a lasting liberal majority on the Supreme Court... Etc. With Obama there was finally a US president who seemed intent on changing things for the better and not offer any simplistic view of the world.
Eight years later, with the election of Trump and the rise of populism throughout Europe this all seems a bit naive and it's sometimes hard to know where history is going in the next decades and stay optimistic about social or economic progress in the near future.

Don't get me wrong, little do you know how much of a strong believer in the '"whig theory of history" I am. I'm sure eventually we'll move past the current paradigm(s). But man, these days I wonder just how many setbacks to progress we'll have to endure before we can be certain that some evolutions are indeed irreversible ; I'm not even certain some obviously necessary changes to our political and economic systems will happen in my lifetime anymore. It's quite depressing to see what's unraveling these days.

11 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 That's a reasonable point, but  Altherion brings it up in response to a usage of the term that is also quite reasonable. If voter right's suppression is the right side of history, I don't particularly care to see that future.

Neither do I, but we don't have much of a choice, do we? As the joke goes, those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it, but those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Rippounet said:

Don't get me wrong, little do you know how much of a strong believer in the '"whig theory of history" I am. I'm sure eventually we'll move past the current paradigm(s). But man, these days I wonder just how many setbacks to progress we'll have to endure before we can be certain that some evolutions are indeed irreversible ; I'm not even certain some obviously necessary changes to our political and economic systems will happen in my lifetime anymore. It's quite depressing to see what's unraveling these days.

Well I am nervous too about how its going to turn out. If not for our generation, then for future generations. Everyone buckle up and hold on to your ass, it looks like it's gonna be one hell of a ride.

[LongRider]

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I should know better than to say this but...
The election of Obama bred huge hopes throughout the world ; I think that's why he got a Nobel Peace Prize that, in hindsight, seems undeserved. There was a belief that the West could move past many things like xenophobia, islamophobia or racial tensions... That the US would turn the page of voodoo economics and start pursuing social progress, thus encouraging other countries to do the same... I personally believed that Obama would have the opportunity to build a lasting liberal majority on the Supreme Court... Etc. With Obama there was finally a US president who seemed intent on changing things for the better and not offer any simplistic view of the world.

I voted for Obama in '08 for much the same reasons and thought he would bring good things. He tried, but who knew the R congress and senate would be such assholes, 'eh?  Not me and they did much damage to Obama, the gov'mt and democracy itself. 

[OldGimletEye]

https://medium.com/@neelkashkari/taylor-rule-would-have-kept-millions-out-of-work-9ab31fd826bf#.tqf86etia

Quote

My staff at the Minneapolis Fed estimates that if the FOMC had followed the Taylor rule over the past five years, 2.5 million more Americans would be out of work today. That’s enough to fill the seats at all 31 NFL stadiums simultaneously, almost 6,000 more people out of work in every congressional district. (Click here for a visual depiction of what 2.5 million people looks like.)

And, who, oh who, wanted a mechanical application of the Taylor Rule to set the Federal Funds Rate?

Now, who could that have been? I wonder who?

Oh, yes, it was "The Party of Business", that's who.

But hey, 2.5 million extra unemployed people, would have been a lot more people on food stamps, under Obama, for the Republican Party to complain about. So, I guess the GOP would have seen that as a good thing.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Mark Hamill channels The Joker for Trump quotes...

 

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, LongRider said:

I voted for Obama in '08 for much the same reasons and thought he would bring good things. He tried, but who knew the R congress and senate would be such assholes, 'eh?  Not me and they did much damage to Obama, the gov'mt and democracy itself. 

The conflict between the Republicans and Democrats certainly did not help matters, but there were quite a few issues (mostly foreign policy) on which Obama acted independently and, for the most part, these went badly. For example, the Republicans had no input into the decision to bomb Libya.

Regarding Jeff Sessions: I don't think the nature of his appointment is as clear-cut as the article makes it sound. Various American institutions (the government, corporations, academia, law enforcement, etc.) have official and unofficial policies which result in a patchwork of advantages and disadvantages for people depending on their race, class and gender. This patchwork is not beneficial across the board for any given group except that, as one would expect, the highest classes tend to get more out of it than anyone else.

In the recent past, certain people (the ones who tend to misuse the word "privilege") have acted as if certain combinations of race and gender are uniformly better off and the others need more advantages to compensate. This might have been true half a century ago, but it is definitely not true today: some are and some aren't. Sessions is part of an attempt to push the system in the opposite direction. It is not clear whether this will be just or not on the whole. It will quite likely be unjust in the areas that it affects, but this is simply the nature of the patchwork: no given patch is likely to be just.

It's a lousy system and we'd probably be better off destroying it altogether and starting from scratch, but given that this is impossible, I find the outrage over Sessions to be rather absurd.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I think you're all missing Altherion's point though, which is actually about the unpredictability of history. To talk about a "wrong side" means assuming that some changes are irreversible and/or that there is a continuous process throughout time, both of which are hazardous propositions at best.
I'm sure pretty much everyone here would like to believe that some changes are indeed irreversible and that nothing can stop the slow processes of democratization and human progress... But recent events should make us cautious about assuming that our belief will in fact translate into reality. Let's also bear in mind that such belief is, all in all, rather recent.
In a nutshell, Altherion was, I think, making a purely intellectual argument, not a moral one.

Yup.  There is no "direction" to evolution.  There is only change and what happens to rise to the top.  We want it to be "good" things that make us all better.  That isn't always the way it works out.  Germany at the start of the 20th century was arguably a liberal intellectual nation that valued intellectuals.  It had autocratic tendancies in the background but that was focused in government and the military not in every walk of life.  Look at Germany in the 20s, 30s, and 40s and it is a nightmare.

[Commodore]

good interview with the man who developed and conducted the enhanced interrogations used on Abu Zubaydah, KSM, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, etc

https://www.c-span.org/video/?419633-2/james-mitchell-discusses-enhanced-interrogation

I read his book over the holidays. It's interesting, would make a good tv series. 

[Mexal]

This level of hypocrisy just gets tiresome.

 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

It's a lousy system and we'd probably be better off destroying it altogether and starting from scratch, but given that this is impossible, I find the outrage over Sessions to be rather absurd.

What do you mean by destroying it and starting from scratch? Giving up on liberal Democracy? Calling a constitutional convention? I'd agree both these things are impossible. But it sounds pretty nihilistic to never get outraged over political policies or appointments. If I was strongly advocating for Sessions as AG would you tell me similar? That my outrage about those opposing Sessions is absurd, since we should scrap the entire system anyway?

[TheKitttenGuard]

48 minutes ago, Commodore said:

good interview with the man who developed and conducted the enhanced interrogations used on Abu Zubaydah, KSM, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, etc

https://www.c-span.org/video/?419633-2/james-mitchell-discusses-enhanced-interrogation

I read his book over the holidays. It's interesting, would make a good tv series. 

It is called torture.

You want to Support it than own it.

[Commodore]

20 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

It is called torture.

You want to Support it than own it.

EIT is a technical term, but you can call it whatever you want

that we drone strike terrorists and kill their entire families but we can't pour water on KSM to stop future attacks is logically incoherent 

[LongRider]

5 minutes ago, Commodore said:

EIT is a technical term, but you can call it whatever you want

that we drone strike terrorists and kill their entire families but we can't pour water on KSM to stop future attacks is logically incoherent 

The false equivalency here is really breathtaking and not in a good way.

[Commodore]

2 minutes ago, LongRider said:

The false equivalency here is really breathtaking and not in a good way.

agree they aren't equivalent, the former is far worse

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Commodore said:

that we drone strike terrorists and kill their entire families but we can't pour water on KSM to stop future attacks is logically incoherent 

No it isn't. The fix may be to revisit the use of drones and not to okay torture.

Just because civilians may die in a military conflict, it doesn't follow that the use of torture is ethical. If you are going to try to justify torture, then I'd say at a minimum you have a very high hurdle to clearly show that torture works above and beyond information gathering techniques that doesn't involve it's use. And don't think you can get there.

And as far as I know, the United States military as traditionally prosecuted individuals doing water boarding, both are own soldiers and foreign soldiers. It has been traditionally considered torture.

But, go ahead, and try to defend its use.

[TheKitttenGuard]

35 minutes ago, Commodore said:

EIT is a technical term, but you can call it whatever you want

that we drone strike terrorists and kill their entire families but we can't pour water on KSM to stop future attacks is logically incoherent 

We should do neither.

We have develop several method that are not torture. There are laws involve that do allow latitudes.

The entire design and purpose of what Zubaydah's did and Gitmo was to work outside the law.

[OldGimletEye]

A little more on the history of waterboarding and military crimes:

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/12/cheneys-tortured-facts/

Quote

Perhaps not solely for waterboarding, but Japanese soldiers were prosecuted for torturing American prisoners, including committing acts akin to waterboarding.

In his 2007 essay “Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts,” Circuit Judge Evan J. Wallach, writing for the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, documented cases from 1947 in which Japanese defendants Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita were each charged by a U.S. Military Commission with violating the laws and customs of war for committing torture, including “water torture.”

“The so-called ‘water treatment’ was commonly applied” by the Japanese, according to an International Military Tribunal for the Far East report. “The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness.”

And such “water torture,” Wallach wrote, “loomed large in the evidence” presented in the cases against Asano, Hata and Kita.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/16/cheneys-claim-that-the-u-s-did-not-prosecute-japanese-soldiers-for-waterboarding/?utm_term=.0477faee649e

Quote

While Todd did not mention it, during the Vietnam War, an American soldier was court-martialed within a month after the following photograph appeared on the front page of The Washington Post on Jan. 21, 1968, according to the book “Torture and Democracy,” by Darius Rejali, which in turn cites “America in Vietnam,” by Guenter Lewy, who relied on military records. (A reader, Bryan W. White, pointed us to another published account that says disciplinary action was taken but “no court martial is recorded.”)

 

[OldGimletEye]

According to commodore's logic, we get the following:

French civilians died during the invasion of Normandy, ergo it was illogical for the United States to observe the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of Prisoners of War.

[LongRider]

21 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

According to commodore's logic, we get the following:

French civilians died during the invasion of Normandy, ergo it was illogical for the United States to observe the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of Prisoners of War.

So, the torture of the Abu Ghraib prisoners by the Bush administration is justified because years later Obama used drones.  Plus, torture was renamed 'enhanced interrogation' so as to make it acceptable to the rubes.  That logic is thornier than a blackberry bush.