In the rural areas of Northern California, in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Shasta, lies a sleepy small town. In that town, however, lurks a menace. The town itself elicits laughs from degenerate drug users all over the nation. In fact, the town itself is a literal advertisement for drug use.
At least […]
There’s a reason we have a Bill of Rights:
Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.– Dean Steacy, Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Freedom of Speech might be an American value, but Americans don’t particularly value the practice in this era. Americans might engage in the practice unthinkingly when neccessary, however if asked to evaluate its worth or its necessity as part of the American society, most citizens would fail to connect the practice with the vitality of the Constitutional republic. furthermore, if asked, many citizens would agree that Freedom of Speech needs to be curtailed or regulated in certain cases.
so bottom line, Americans’ declining and oblivious attitudes towards Freedom of Speech is only one aspect of why *our citizens are in fact becoming socialists through and through.* and it’s no wonder that foreigners don’t value our concepts. all they have to do is regard our own attitudes towards the concepts.
Comment by oilnwater — April 11, 2008 @ 8:43 am
So has anyone else noticed that the phrase “Human Rights Commission” is now almost exactly the same thing as “Ministry of Love” or “Ministry of Truth.” And not just in Canada but also here in the US.
Oddly, I always thought human rights were something you had vis a vis the state rather than a right to not be offended by someone you’ve never met.
[…] (h/t The Liberty Papers) […]
Pingback by Which exactly are they protecting? | It looks obvious — April 11, 2008 @ 9:46 am
[…] (source: Jonathan Kay: “A disaster for Canada’s Human Rights Commission”) (hat tip: The Liberty Papers) […]
Pingback by Free speech is too damn American « Blunt Object — April 11, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
An interesting case-in-point raised by this article in The New York Times:
When Xavier Alvarez was asked to say a few words about himself at a meeting of a California water board last summer, he decided on these: “I’m a retired marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was […]
Doug,
You know, honestly I don’t find his actions to be all that criminal. I’m no fan of people who fabricate military credentials, but unless those fabrications are directly related to whatever act of criminal fraud he perpetrated (like claiming military benefits) it seems to be more of an act of tastelessness and stupidity than anything else. Most of the people who do that sort of thing aren’t so much evil as just pathetic and possibly mentally ill. The public scorn and personal shame they face from their communities and the people who know them when they’re outed (and they very often are outed) are sufficient punishment in my opinion. Often the results of that are harsher than anything the criminal justice system could reasonably come up with.
Besides, it’s not like the awards system for the military is the ultimate judge of who a person is. While decorations and medals are appreciated and I think are worthy of respect, any soldier who’s been in for a significant period of time can probably recite to you multiple occasions where people were rewarded for instances when they didn’t deserve recognition and ignored in instances where they did. It’s often very arbitrary:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/06/eveningnews/main2335058.shtml
He wasn’t speaking under oath right? I don’t see how this isn’t covered by free speech. The guy is an ass but this shouldn’t be illegal.
Comment by Ben — March 20, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
I suppose if military service was somehow relevant to his qualifications on the job that would be a reason to prosecute…but that doesn’t appear to be the case here either. I think Ben’s probably right…the guy’s just an ass and I suspect that when time comes around again to vote he won’t be keeping his job.
I think UCrawford pretty much got it said. No reason to waste taxpayer money on this fellow; let his shame be his reward.
This isn’t the place for criminal justice, but rather the much overlooked “social justice”. It should be made clear by every concerned party that this man has no sense of honor or respect for our veterans. He would disgrace them while using the first amendment as a shield for his actions. I believe the first amendment would work equally in favor those who speak out against him. People in his community should paint the town with flyers that have his picture and name, as well as a brief description of his misdeeds. His employer should, for reasons of conscience, let him go. His family should disown him. He should be ostracized by the community and literally cast out. With any luck he would take his own life and his children would flush his ashes down the nearest toilet.
In this case above all others, the point is accountability. Without that there is no such thing as honor or disgrace. To let him go unpunished is more than an offense to those who hold medals, it’s an offense to the very principals of honor itself. A discredit to every honest choice you’ve ever made in your life, every sacrafice, every effort to better your self or the world. Everyone with a sense of civic duty, loyalty or patriotism is degraded by his actions.
I agree, this is not (nor should it ever be) the role of government, but as a people we have a responsibility to hold each other accountable for our misdeeds. We are doing ourselves, and especially Mr. Alvarez a great disservice by not exemplifying this shortcoming. How is he to ever become anything better than what he is if he can’t understand the most basic principals of respect. What kind of children would he raise? What would their values be if he did not himself ever realize his failings as a human being?
The stolen valor act is B.S.
We don’t need government to organize a good public beating.
Comment by vlatro — March 20, 2008 @ 7:45 pm
For anyone who’s interested, here’s an article about an FBI agent, Thomas Cottone, who actually hunts Medal of Honor fabricators. As of 1998 he said he hadn’t put any of them in prison…he thought exposing them was enough:
http://www.homeofheroes.com/a_homepage/community/imposters/cottone.html
Comment by UCrawford — March 20, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
I agree. Not all people we deal with would go with us. I mean, we can’t please everybody.
We must at least try.
That’s the issue that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is currently dealing with:
Avery Doninger, 17, claims officials at Lewis S. Mills High School violated her free speech rights when they barred her from serving on the student council because of what she wrote from her home computer.
In her Internet journal, Doninger said […]
Agree or disagree with the decision, and I disagree with it, that is the law of the land.”
No.
Alito’s controlling concurrence in Morse held unambiguously that the case was to be limited to: (a) speech advocating illegal drug use, and (b) exempting speech that could in any way be deemed “political.”
The Doninger fact pattern fails both tests. It would be plain error to apply Morse. That might not stop the judges from doing so, but it would be plain error nonetheless.
Comment by KipEsquire — March 6, 2008 @ 7:02 am
Kip,
You are correct, I probably should have said that Morse is the law of the land at least with respect to the limited fact issues that it dealt with.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — March 6, 2008 @ 7:04 am
If we got the state out of the business of education things like this would not be a problem.
Comment by Ben — March 6, 2008 @ 10:54 am
If all she said was douchebag that’s pretty mild in my book.
I see no justification for the school board to have this sort of power in the law or in ethics.
Of course, that doesn’t stop them from doing it, or things like it, such as leaking a kid’s educational records as retribution on his parents.
Tyranny comes in all levels of government, not just at the top. In fact, it often is more nasty at the local level because not enough people are paying attention to fight it.
Comment by Brad Warbiany — March 6, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
She was not punished. Extra curricular activities are a privilege not a right. She can’t expect to bad-mouth the school and then be on Student Coucil. Judge Preska something like, “If we let kids call teachers name then chaos will erupt.” If she had been suspended or expelled there would be a case - but running for class office is not a right.
Comment by Lisa — March 7, 2008 @ 3:47 am
Agree with Lisa. If she had been suspended, that’s one thing, but its like a football removing a “captain”. They can still participate, but just not as a leader. Is that REALLY such a bad message to send?
Or think of it this way, if the student had walked just off campus and built a billboard saying “D-Bags!”, would the school REALLY be unable to do anything about it?
Comment by Michael — March 7, 2008 @ 4:05 am
Judge Andrew Napolitano gave a speech for Reason Magazine in Washington D.C. in October of last year on the history of Constitutional infidelity. Virtually every president from George Washington to George W. Bush has broken his oath of office to defend the Constitution. President John Adams, the nation’s second president, was the first president who […]
Long clip but Napolitano is always worth listening to.
Comment by UCrawford — February 13, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
I wish his podcasts and books were as good as this.
Comment by Norm Nelson — February 13, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Well, I have a hard time, a very hard time, agreeing that Bush is worse than FDR. Incredibly hard. After all, he did not, by Presidential Order, put hundreds of thousands of Americans in concentration camps and allow their property to be taken for pennies on the dollar. Nor did he force the Supreme Court to behave unconstitutionally through threatening to use his congressional majority to pack the Court.
I agree he’s bad, but not like FDR bad. Sorry, that sort of false exaggeration is a real problem for me.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 13, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
In my view, Judge Napolitano hits the nail on the head.
Well, I have a hard time, a very hard time, agreeing that Bush is worse than FDR.
Degrees of separation. FDR had the concentration camps, Bush has Gitmo and the dismantling of legal protections and any meaningful path for redress.
In all the ways that matter, I have come to believe that the only real accomplishment that Bush has made is the war on terror. However, in conducting this war, he has willingly instituted law, policy and procedure which directly nullify individual freedoms. Freedoms whose very presence guarantees that terror cannot take root and thrive: as it most assuredly can in a police state.
Comment by Harry Rossman — February 13, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
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Comment by injusany — February 13, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Adam,
Yup, got to agree with Harry. I think that the damage Bush has done is far more horrific than what FDR did, although it’s close. Bush basically fought for the right for the government to torture detainees, including U.S. citizens. FDR didn’t do that. FDR didn’t actually start WWII as Bush started Iraq, and he didn’t try to fight it on the cheap by shafting soldiers on equipment and manpower as Bush did. Whatever your opinions may be about WWII (and I realize that not everyone will agree with my opinion that it was a just war) I think we can all agree that at least FDR at least fought it to win…Bush is only continuing the fight in Iraq because he refuses to accept blame for losing and he doesn’t seem to care how many people (U.S. and Iraqis) have to die just so he can save face either by not withdrawing or by trying to expand the war to Iran. It pains me to say it, but I’ll take FDR over Bush any day.
Comment by UCrawford — February 13, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
Oh please, you guys need to really look at FDR.
- Fought an undeclared, unpublicized war against Germany in the North Atlantic. American sailors and merchant marine were dying on presidential orders as early as January, 1940
- Created the OSS, a very secretive intelligence agency that later became the CIA. Torture, double dealing, secret detainment, etc. was common. The argument that they were fighting the Nazi’s was commonly used (sound similar to today?)
- The Nisei concentration camps were much worse on scale of magnitude than Gitmo
- Illegal bank holidays
- Private ownership of gold made illegal
- The New Deal, basically fascism brought to the USA, right down to demagoguery, rallies like Nuremberg, etc.
- Did you know that FDR pinned Iron Crosses on his congressional opponents as a means of silencing dissent?
- The “Switch in time that saved Nine” Supreme Court packing
I could go on and on, but you guys are so fixated on the current devil ……. who is bad, I agree. But not even close to our fascist president.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 7:10 am
Let’s not forget the propaganda and racism of the FDR administration. They very effectively, and brazenly, used fear of “the other” to mobilize the USA. And how about the terror bombing of Germany and Japan? What about the illegal suppression of free speech opposing US involvement in WWII prior to a declaration of war? What about the use of J Edgar and the FBI to spy on internal enemies and suppress dissent?
Bush is just incrementally continuing the tradition of American Fascism. FDR is the one that brought it to this country.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 8:05 am
Adam,
Fought an undeclared, unpublicized war against Germany in the North Atlantic. American sailors and merchant marine were dying on presidential orders as early as January, 1940
Against a nation with a military and industrial base actually capable of threatening the U.S., unlike Iraq. I can understand the difference in opinion but I side with Roosevelt on this one.
- Created the OSS, a very secretive intelligence agency that later became the CIA. Torture, double dealing, secret detainment, etc. was common. The argument that they were fighting the Nazi’s was commonly used (sound similar to today?)
First of all, cite specifics not rhetoric. I’ve heard this “OSS tortured people” argument before and I’ve yet to see anyone bring up actual data of widespread torture happening on the part of OSS agents during WWII. I’m not saying that no incident ever occured (because atrocities occasionally happen even in the best organizations) but from the actual evidence I’ve seen presented it was never an institutional practice on the part of the OSS. Cite specifics and then we’ll debate the morality of the OSS.
The Nisei concentration camps were much worse on scale of magnitude than Gitmo
In numbers of people, not in the treatment of those people. The Nisei camps (abhorrent though they were), unlike the Nazi concentration camps were not used to exterminate Japanese-Americans, and they were run in accordance with international law, unlike Gitmo. You’re cherry-picking your facts.
- Illegal bank holidays
Demonstrate the catastrophic harm.
- Private ownership of gold made illegal
Agreed, it was wrong and economically indefensible…and it’s no longer in place.
- The New Deal, basically fascism brought to the USA, right down to demagoguery, rallies like Nuremberg, etc.
The New Deal, comparable to Bush’s installment of McCain-Feingold, the MCA, the War on Terror, the PATRIOT Act, and Medicare Plan D. Had FDR lived to install his “new Bill of Rights” I’d say he was worse than Bush by a long-shot, but he didn’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about with the Nuremburg comment.
- Did you know that FDR pinned Iron Crosses on his congressional opponents as a means of silencing dissent?
Bush pins Presidential Medals of Freedom on those who suck up to him (or those who he wants to co-opt) and accuses those who oppose him of supporting terrorism, meaning nothing more than that Bush and FDR both demonized their political opponents to stifle debate. That’s pretty much a wash.
- The “Switch in time that saved Nine” Supreme Court packing
Agreed, this was worse than anything Bush did with regards to the Supreme Court. Of course, just because he appointed two new justices wouldn’t have meant those justices would automatically agree with him (as Ike found out with Earl Warren and William Brennan). Also, ultimately it was the Supreme Court who was responsible for craven cowardice by allowing their verdict to be influenced by coercion.
Let’s not forget the propaganda and racism of the FDR administration. They very effectively, and brazenly, used fear of “the other” to mobilize the USA.
“We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here” - President Bush, justifying continued involvement in Iraq with a logistically improbable threat of a Middle Eastern invasion of the United States.
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” -Bush’s description of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, none of whom happen to be led by white people, unlike Russia…whose leader (corrupt, murdering, authoritarian white guy Vladimir Putin), Bush said he understood because he “looked into his soul”.
And if you really want to quibble we could always mention Bush campaigning at a racist university in 2000, or his exclusion of local and foreign contractors in Iraq so he could give no-bids to preferred U.S. businesses, or his extremely patronizing attitude that Middle Eastern governments are incapable of democratic reform unless we go in and force them to reform. I don’t seem to recall FDR saying that it was our job to spread “democracy” by force to the unenlightened “suiciders” of the world.
“And the second way to defeat the terrorists is to spread freedom. You see, the best way to defeat a society that is — doesn’t have hope, a society where people become so angry they’re willing to become suiciders, is to spread freedom, is to spread democracy.” –George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005
UC Crawford,
The bank holiday thing was essentially a license for the banks to steal! It prevented people from recovering their funds from insolvent banks. Imagine if your bank arbitrarily announced it wouldn’t allow withdrawals for 14 days. You got enough cash on hand for groceries?
tarran,
I understand the argument and agree it was the wrong decision. But at the time the Emergency Banking Relief Act was passed Roosevelt considered it necessary to keep the country from falling into financial collapse. Was he wrong? Probably so…as Milton Friedman pointed out in “Free to Choose” banks were often able to deal with the circumstances on their own without requiring the government to intervene. But FDR also did it to stem the immediate consequences of a major panic at the time, it was reasonable considering the information he had available, so I don’t attribute maliciousness to it as I do to his actions towards the Supreme Court or most of Bush’s actions post-9/11 (which were generally based on Bush’s unwillingness to listen to any information that contradicted him).
tarran,
UC Crawford? :)
Silence! I never make mistakes!
You moved to Massachusetts, didn’t you? :)
Shrugs, as I said, FDR brought us the fascist state. Bush is just the incremental inheritor of it.
Sorry, an undeclared war without congressional approval is wrong, regardless of how much you do, or do not, like the enemy country. While Bush has fought a war in Iraq that I disagree with starting in the first place, at least he had congressional approval. Hindsight to decide that the North Atlantic naval war of 1940-41 was okay because the Nazi’s were bad is justifying a bad deed, not establishing a good deed.
You know, for all that Bush has used “the other” to gain power, neither he nor his administration have actually demonized them with racial epithets, racial stereotyping, etc. The Japanese and German fascists were threats, yes. However, they couldn’t actually threaten us substantially in the near term. And once our industry was engaged, the outcome of WWII was pretty much ordained.
I’m amazed, with the violation of the property rights of the Nisei, that you think that the “internment camps” were not major civil rights violations. They lost their freedom of movement and personal liberty, had their speech completely censored and had their property rights massively violated. It’s not just that they were interned. They posed no threat, had never acted in a criminal fashion and there is not one single case of established Nisei sabotage or spying to support the Japanese war effort, even though many movies have tried to implicate that.
At least at Gitmo the small number of people we are detaining have, for the most part, been in combat against us. The reality is, if they were called prisoners of war and this was a declared war there would be little to object to. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that I excuse some of the things that have happened there. I’m simply pointing out the difference between the WWII “internment camps” that housed American residents and citizens who had not committed any crime other than being Nisei Japanese-Americans and Gitmo.
I think you need to check your thinking on FDR in that area. There’s no excuse, none, for the massive violation of the personal rights of hundreds of thousands of American residents and citizens. Not to mention that I consider your scale comment to be aligned with Stalin’s “a million deaths is a statistic” comment. More violations is worse, not just a difference of scale.
Medicare Part D is not even comparable to Social Security. It’s completely incremental. Social Security tied EVERY SINGLE citizen and resident nearly irrevocably to the US federal government. Medicaid and Medicare would have been unthinkable without Social Security.
About using Iron Crosses vs. Medal of Freedom. Yeah, helping out the suck ups is bad. But silencing dissent is much worse. Come on now.
As for my “Nuremberg Rallies” comment, read this.
As far as the OSS goes, there’s a couple of different books I can recommend. I will dig ‘em out. Look into the OSS in Indochina, not Europe. Going along with the theme of the FDR administration as racist against Orientals, the OSS secret war in Asia was dramatically different than Europe AND something that no one ever talked about. The Pacific war was vastly different in terms of what was acceptable and the level of atrocities and so forth. The US war in Europe was very civilized, over all. Not so the war in the Pacific. Don’t buy into the glory that hollywood shows.
And seriously, about citing specifics, not rhetoric, how about you and Napolitano and so on not blowing the Bush administration all out of proportion. This administration has been bad, but less abusive of rights during wartime than Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ or Nixon. And less jingoistic, racist and propagandist than those administrations. To me this is more BDS, although not as bad as the far left. I can’t stomach Bush, but I can try to be objective about reality.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 11:26 am
And the banking holidays enabled significant theft of property by the banks, and the Federal Reserve. FDR was wrong and acting on bad advice. That was a back room deal made in the late of the night. You can find references to it in things Harry Hopkins wrote later. You can also find that FDR essentially made an emotional decision based on his paternalist, fascist approach to government.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 11:31 am
In my view, FDR was far and away the worst violator of the Constitution for the reasons Adam has expressed as well as others. FDR had no regard whatsoever for the Constitution if it got in the way of one of his policy ideas. All of his solutions were big government solutions. Most every big government problem we face today can be traced either directly or indirectly to FDR. Like Adam said, Bush is just the latest inheritor to FDR’s big government legacy. Whoever the next president is, s/he will add to it and we’ll probably be saying that the 44th President has “shown less fidelity to the Constitution than any president since Abraham Lincoln.”
I think Napolitano’s overall point is that we have to always remain vigilant with regard to our liberties no matter who is in the Oval Office, the congress, or the Supreme Court.
Comment by Stephen Littau — February 14, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Adam,
You know, for all that Bush has used “the other” to gain power, neither he nor his administration have actually demonized them with racial epithets, racial stereotyping, etc.
Not openly, since society now frowns on open stereotyping, they’re just sneakier about it by using euphemisms to define the “white man’s burden” they think it’s our job to shoulder.
I’m amazed, with the violation of the property rights of the Nisei, that you think that the “internment camps” were not major civil rights violations.
I never said that, nor do I believe that those camps were not violations of civil rights. They were inherently wrong and FDR’s decision was appalling. You called them “concentration camps”, which they were not. People were not executed on a mass scale in them as they were in Nazi Germany. The Nisei were also not tortured for information as detainees apparently have been in Guantanamo. I said that you were cherry-picking facts to bolster your argument, which you did.
They posed no threat, had never acted in a criminal fashion and there is not one single case of established Nisei sabotage or spying to support the Japanese war effort, even though many movies have tried to implicate that.
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci2/2ch2_a.htm
There was a Japanese intelligence presence in the United States on the West Coast and in Hawaii. The government’s response (interning the Nisei and Issei) was an unconstitutional and abhorrent overreaction but to insist that there was no threat at all is disingenuous.
At least at Gitmo the small number of people we are detaining have, for the most part, been in combat against us.
Really? And your conclusion is based on what? The government’s word that they’re guilty, which the detainees are unable to challenge in any court except a military tribunal where they have no meaningful legal representation, little to no ability to call witnesses on their behalf and where hearsay and evidence obtained by torture can be submitted as evidence by the prosecution? As someone who worked in a war zone I can clearly state that the military arrests the wrong people all the time, sometimes for offenses no more egregious than the detainee being related to a guy we’re looking for, or being in the area of a guy we’re looking for, or having a similar name. The military detainee and tribunal system is inherently flawed…even the military’s lawyers have been fairly jaundiced in their view of it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19375738/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/washington/16jags.html
The reality is, if they were called prisoners of war and this was a declared war there would be little to object to.
If they were called “prisoners of war” it’s highly unlikely that the President would be willing to advocate “aggressive interrogation” methods be used against them because that would be a clear violation of international law. Instead he set up the category of “enemy combatants”, the qualifications for which he alone has the authority to determine, and the implication of which is that said “enemy combatant” (U.S. citizen or not) has no human rights. I don’t seem to recall FDR claiming that Nazi and Japanese POWs had no human rights.
There’s no excuse, none, for the massive violation of the personal rights of hundreds of thousands of American residents and citizens.
You’re right, there isn’t. There’s also no excuse for most of what Bush has done in the “War on Terror” either in regards to human rights. Ultimately our dispute is a matter of opinion over who is worse…Bush is on the record as advocating the torture of prisoners, FDR isn’t. So as far as I’m concerned, Bush is worse because that’s about as clear a disregard for human rights as you’re going to get.
Not to mention that I consider your scale comment to be aligned with Stalin’s “a million deaths is a statistic” comment. More violations is worse, not just a difference of scale.
Actually, since I oppose both a few wrongful deaths at the government’s hands as much as I oppose a million wrongful deaths at the government’s hands I think you’re tossing a straw man out there. Bush conducted a poorly-planned invasion and occupation of a country (Iraq) unnecessarily that has to this date resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 U.S. soldiers and untold numbers of Iraqis, turned Iraq over the Iranians, and kicked off a religious war that threatens to destabilize the entire region. As far as I’m concerned, he’s more of a murderer than FDR ever was because every single death caused by the Iraq War is a direct result of Bush’s decision to go in…unprovoked.
Medicare Part D is not even comparable to Social Security. It’s completely incremental. Social Security tied EVERY SINGLE citizen and resident nearly irrevocably to the US federal government. Medicaid and Medicare would have been unthinkable without Social Security.
Give it a few years.
About using Iron Crosses vs. Medal of Freedom. Yeah, helping out the suck ups is bad. But silencing dissent is much worse. Come on now.
There is no difference between what FDR did and what Bush has done every time an Iraq supplemental funding bill has come up, or when the PATRIOT Act came up, or when Congress criticizes what Bush does. He basically claims that anyone who opposes him wishes harm on the troops.
As far as the OSS goes, there’s a couple of different books I can recommend. I will dig ‘em out. Look into the OSS in Indochina, not Europe. Going along with the theme of the FDR administration as racist against Orientals, the OSS secret war in Asia was dramatically different than Europe AND something that no one ever talked about. The Pacific war was vastly different in terms of what was acceptable and the level of atrocities and so forth. The US war in Europe was very civilized, over all. Not so the war in the Pacific. Don’t buy into the glory that hollywood shows.
Oh, I’m well aware of the differences between the two wars. Not to excuse human rights abuses on our part, but all battlefields tend towards reciprocity and the Japanese…well, let’s say that they weren’t overly gracious towards POWs or civilians. Toss out the names of the books and I’ll probably give them a read…I’ve got a long reading list right now, but I enjoy all books about military history so I’ll get to them eventually and be objective about it. I’m just not willing to debate the morality of the OSS based on vague accusations (because there are plenty who try to paint an inaccurate picture for the other side too).
And just to be clear, I think FDR was a horrific president and I despised most of his policy…not as much as my grandparents, of course. They’d go off on a rant if you said anything nice about him. Of course that side of the family was always a little extreme…on the day John Kennedy was assassinated my grandpa’s brother apparently went down to his local bar and bought rounds for the house.
=====
The US war in Europe was very civilized, over all. Not so the war in the Pacific.
=====
Hah! This is an extreme simplification, and generalizing the whole of Europe at the time.
The Western Allied powers - Britain, France, the US etc - in the European theatre were civilized in their conduct, and even the Nazis were fairly humane towards the Allied forces.
Things couldn’t be more different for the poor sods just East of Germany, who *weren’t* signees to the Geneva Convention. Poles, Serbs, Roma, Russians, Jews obviously, were not treated in a civilized manner. I don’t just mean the Holocaust, or the lesser known extermination of over 3 million Soviet POWs from ‘41 in concentration camps through complete neglect, but the attitude towards civilian welfare. Massacres of civilians in Poland were extremely common, not only by the infamous SS Dirlewanger Bridgade but by regular units as well. Over 150,000 civilian Poles were killed in the first month of the country’s invasion.
The Soviets were no better. After the conquering the Eastern realms of Germany, mass rape and slaughter of civilians was common place, and German civilian refugee columns were sometimes unfortunate enough to be gunned and mowed down by Red Army tanks.
I would’ve preferred to be an American in a Japanese internment camp than a Russian Soviet in a Nazi internment camp. A 1 in 3 chance of survival is better than actually being exterminated.
Comment by Y. Zaus — February 14, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Y. Zaus, did you see me say “The US war in Europe …”?
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
UCrawford, all I have to say is you are nitpicking the followers of the man who established fascist America. Stop and think about that for a minute. Who’s worse, the guy that made it institutional, or the people who incrementally evolved the institution?
Medicare, Medicaid, NCLB, all just evolution. Without Social Security, the NRA, the Switch in Time, WWII, etc. none of the rest would have been enabled institutionally.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
In essence, I believe your proximity to Bush is blinding you to the true horror of what FDR brought to this country in the 1930’s and 40’s.
Comment by Adam Selene — February 14, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
Adam,
In essence, I believe your proximity to Bush is blinding you to the true horror of what FDR brought to this country in the 1930’s and 40’s.
Perhaps, and my opinion on it may change down the road, but our entire argument here is really a subjective one based on personal opinion of who’s worse between two presidents who, when you get right down to it, are both pretty fucking horrific. You weight the despicable socialist policies that FDR installed higher than I rate higher the open lack of respect for human rights (by attempting to legalize torture) that Bush has pushed and neither of us are probably going to convince the other that they’re wrong. Ultimately we’d probably agree that they should both rot in Hell. The only bone of contention I’d have with your argument is that I disagree that without FDR none of these abuses would be possible, because (as Napolitano pointed out) abuse and subversion of the Constitution is a consistent practice by the executive branch all the way back to John Adams…if FDR hadn’t installed all of these policies, who knows what future presidents would have attempted? All governments eventually attempt to consolidate greater power for themselves, not just our own.
Comment by UCrawford — February 14, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
Honestly, most of Bush’s crimes pale in comparison to Abraham Lincoln’s. Remmber that ex-Democrat congressman he had deported? The hundreds of people held incommunicando despite Congress not having suspended habeas corpus? Not to mention the advocacy for total war, where the U.S. army attacked not only the confederate army but also the civilian population.
With that being said, I agree with Adam in that these arguments rapidly become pointless. It’s like getting angry in a debate over the question of who was more evil, Hitler or Stalin. Both were evil, and reasonable people can disagree.
tarran,
Ummm…actually I think you were agreeing with me. I was the one who said it’s kind of a pointless argument :)
Comment by UCrawford — February 14, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Or was that the poll tax?
Either way, I’m not a big fan of this new Texas law:
There is a new price to be paid for looking at naked women in Texas. On January 1st the state’s strip clubs began imposing a $5 surcharge for each visitor. The “pole tax,” as it is commonly called, is […]
Your swear jar comment reminds me of a Stallone/Bullock movie where if they said any swear word a computer would give them a ticket or something like that.
Comment by TerryP — January 17, 2008 @ 8:14 am
Ah, “Demolition Man”…of course having those slips around was better than using the seashells in the restroom.
The people who’ve taken a legislative axe to archaic concepts like free speech and made it almost impossible to find a cold medication that works now have a new cause celebre…cracking down on celebrity endorsements for consumer products.
The ads in question this time are for the top-selling Pfizer product, Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug that from all […]
The entire effort to ban drug companies from advertising to the public strikes me as elitist on two levels.
First, there’s the Nanny State elitism of the politicians who don’t believe that Americans are capable of learning about issues that impact their health on their own.
Second, there’s the protected-guild elitism of doctors who believe that only they are qualified to pass medical information along to the general public.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — January 10, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
Doug,
“Second, there’s the protected-guild elitism of doctors who believe that only they are qualified to pass medical information along to the general public.”
I don’t think that’s really the concern with Dingell…judging from his issues page he comes off more as one of those pro-socialized medicine types who thinks it’s a mortal sin for doctors or drug companies to make any profit off their work. Despite his lack of a residency, Jarvik is actually a doctor and I didn’t see anything about other doctors condemning the ads so I think it has more to do with the Nanny Statism than anything else (although sometimes economic protectionism or special privilege does play a role in these sort of things).
Crawford,
For Dingell it’s pure Nanny Statism, for the doctors who support it (and the AMA has lobbied against these ads for awhile now), it’s pure elitism from a protected guild.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — January 10, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Doug,
I didn’t see articles about that when I was searching but I’ll take your word for it. I agree that it’s a bad deal and I’m not really surprised. For most government regulation of this sort there usually appears to be a corruption/protectionism/privilege angle in there somewhere. Like with the methamphetamine act that made it impossible to find cold medications with pseudoephedrine…that was very likely done in part to give preference to domestic producers of phenylephrine (the ineffective replacement that drugmakers now use instead of pseudoephedrine).
Crawford,
What the doctor’s usually claim is that the television ads result in patients coming into the office demanding they be given a certain drug.
The way I look at it is there is nothing wrong with giving people information, and that’s what these ads do. I admit that it was creepy on some level back in the late 90s to see Bob Dole promoting Viagra, but if it caused someone to go to their doctor and talk about a medical problem that some people don’t talk about out of embaressment, then it’s all for the better.
To use the logic of the doctors and others who want to restrict the drug ads, we should also be talking about shutting down websites like WebMD because they allow people to look up their symptoms and come up with a diagnosis.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — January 10, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Doug,
“What the doctor’s usually claim is that the television ads result in patients coming into the office demanding they be given a certain drug.”
My uncle’s a doctor who’s shared horror stories about patients who attempt to be their own physicians or pharmacists so I can certainly understand the concern, but the idea that regulatory laws can prevent stupid people from doing stupid things is a pretty naive assumption. All they usually end up doing is infantilizing people who are capable of making smart, informed decisions by treating them like idiots.
I agree with you about sites like WebMD as well…an informed patient may sometimes be more difficult to deal with but it’s also a person who may be able to provide more information to a doctor than an ignorant patient can provide which can only help treatment. It’s also someone who may be tying up less of the doctor’s time with issues that may best be solved with home remedies.
And as much as the Flomax ads creep me out (there’s just something wrong with guys who are that chummy with each other and ecstatic about drinking water) you’re right about the fact that some of the stigma has been erased from sometimes embarassing medical conditions. You can’t always help it when your body breaks down or when you get a disease and a patient who knows what to do about it is a lot better than somebody who suffers in silence and misery because they’re ashamed. Having access to information usually improves your life instead of diminishing it.
I agree it is none of the government’s business unless the claims are fraudulent and the product harmful.
Clean Energy Act of 2007 is screwed up too. Goodbye incandescent light bulbs, hello higher costs for food.
Comment by uhm — January 10, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
uhm,
Yup, and even then the free market can usually sort those things out better than the government can.
UCrawford:
Like with the methamphetamine act that made it impossible to find cold medications with pseudoephedrine…that was very likely done in part to give preference to domestic producers of phenylephrine (the ineffective replacement that drugmakers now use instead of pseudoephedrine).
It is true that a couple of large drug manufacturers supported the various pseudo-ephedrine laws, both state and local. It seems as obvious why they would do that as why certain candy manufacturers supported moving the fall Daylight Savings Time date to after Halloween.
There was an interesting and unintended consequence of the various pseudo-ephedrine laws, both state and federal The production of meth domestically, especially in amateur meth labs in people’s homes, has fallen dramatically, just as the proponents of these laws said. However, the amount of much purer meth manufactured in Mexico and imported into the US has risen dramatically. The downstream consequence of this is that there is just as much meth being bought and sold and used in the US as always AND now we are buying imports and sending our drug money to Mexican drug cartels.
Many of the same people in favor of these laws are also opposed to free trade and think that the “trade deficit” is a bad thing. That’s fairly ironic.
Comment by Adam Selene — January 10, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
Adam,
Oh don’t I know it. My girlfriend is a therapist in a drug treatment program so I’m well aware that meth addiction hasn’t disappeared or abated, at all, as a result of this stupid law.
Although frankly my biggest annoyance with the entire issue is really just the fact that whenever I get sick in the wintertime it’s impossible for me to find a cold medication that works (like NyQuil used to). Although the 2005 law actually allows the production of cold medication with pseudoephedrine (with the stipulation that it must be moved behind the pharmacists counter so that customers are treated like potential drug dealers every time they buy it) that move negatively impacted sales of the effective cold medication that Vicks decided it wasn’t cost-effective to put out two types of NyQuil (one with pseudo-ephedrine, one with phenylephrine) and discontinued the less profitable one, which just so happened to be the type that worked. It may be somewhat petty, but honestly I think that the methamphetamine law is the piece of legislation I hate more than any other, mainly because I hate being sick and I hate the fact that I have to suffer every cold and bout of the flu now because a bunch of goddamned politicians made it impossible for me buy something that allows me to get a good night’s sleep when I get sick (which makes the recovery time even longer) so they could pander for votes and fill their campaign chests. I literally hate every single Congressman who voted for that piece of shit law and I honestly hope they all die of the fucking flu…slowly and painfully.
And yes, I realize that my position on that is more than a little extreme, but that’s also about how much I hate being sick when cold and flu season strikes :)
I just think about how much marketing adds to the cost of the drug when I am watching an ad of one I take. I don’t have the choice to shop for drugs in a place similar to a no frills supermarket. As for WalMart that only cover generics, and some drugs don’t have a generic substitute.
Comment by VRB — January 13, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
Today, an English teacher who went to Sudan to teach was sentenced to jail and deportation for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammed:
KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) — A Sudanese court found a British teacher guilty of inciting religious hatred and sentenced her to 15 days imprisonment Thursday for allowing a teddy bear to be […]
I have just named my left butt cheek Muhammad. All should now show their respect by kissing it.
Comment by Diggy Zazz — November 29, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
Has anybody spared a thought for those voiceless millions around the world that have suffered more than anybody? Us Teddy Bears are outraged that this teacher only received a prison term rather than a good whipping. How do you think it makes us cuddly, lovable comforters of children feel to have one of our own named after a genocidal, illiterate pedophile? She should be punished as harshly as possible and I demand we take to the streets and shout “death to America, Israel, England” until this travesty is righted.
Paddington Bear
Darkest Peru
Comment by Paddington Bear — November 29, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
I shall build a monument to this bullshit. I shall build a 30ft tall cock and balls of lead and inscribe Muhammad upon it and make is cum all over them.
Comment by Phillipe Farneti — November 29, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Surprise, surprise…there’s not really a difference between religious fanatics regardless of the religion. Color me shocked.
Comment by UCrawford — November 29, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
Do foreigners have to submit to Sharia law?? If it was only effective inside the community that recognizes it, it’d still be abhorrent at times, but Sharia would at least have “consent” of the governed.
Forcing all individuals to submit is awful. I guess that’s why lots of Muslims run away from their countries. We can denounce it intellectually, but what should we do about that?
BTW: Doug, what’s the point of this post?? Are you emphasizing the FCC more or Sharia Law more?? We can and should certainly try to get rid of the FCC.
I hate the fucking FCC. Fuck the FCC. Useless piece of shit bureaucracy. Hehe. I don’t understand why we can’t punish companies for their indiscretion on profanity and nudity through the market.
Comment by TanGeng — November 29, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
TanGeng,
In Sudan (and many other Middle Eastern countries) the government recognizes Sharia as their code of law so foreigners are required to submit to it in those countries. Same as foreigners here are required to follow the laws of our country. Sharia’s a horrible form of law, of course, but then again some of ours suck too, as Doug pointed out.
Comment by UCrawford — November 29, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Actually, the U.S. military used to make their female personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia wear abbayas (because the Saudi morality police there require women to have their heads covered) until a lieutenant colonel sued on the grounds that the military regulations imposed on her freedom of religion (by forcing her to follow another religion’s practices) which forced the military to do away with that regulation and back their people when they were harassed by the Saudis. After a stink was raised, the Saudis backed down a little later on…if enough heat is raised by outside parties occasionally foreigners are given some leeway to skirt the laws.
Comment by UCrawford — November 29, 2007 @ 11:46 pm
UCrawford,
Ahh thanks. I remembered knowing that Algiers and Casablanca would allow foreigners to purchase alcohol, which is illegal under Sharia. I knew that foreigners were granted some exceptions.
The funny thing is quite a few Muslims purchased the alcohol discreetly. The alcohol and subsequent revelry distracted the people from noticing and talking about how awful and corrupt the government was. The fundis hated the quiet defiance of Sharia, though.
Comment by TanGeng — November 29, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
Actually, when I was in Kuwait (which is Westernized but recognizes some aspects of Sharia) I found that there was a significant underground black market for alcohol among the Kuwaitis. We were there during Thanksgiving so our unit set up a deal where we’d spend the day with an American family living in-country (the one I went to worked for Conoco or Shell, can’t remember which one) and a lot of them were able to secure alcohol for us. The only thing they usually weren’t able to get were pork products, which they asked us to bring from the commissary. I was told that it was the same in Saudi. The authorities didn’t particularly care as long as the foreigners weren’t being visible about it. If it looked like they were flouting the law, however, or someone really raised a stink, there were crackdowns. A bunch of Brits got nailed in Saudi for consumption of liquor a few years ago…they’d been doing it for years but then one of the Brits were murdered by an apparent terrorist attack so the Saudis had to punish them all for possessing liquor after they found that in the investigation. Just that whole Middle Eastern thing about arbitrary law that I never could wrap my head around. Weird place in a lot of ways.
Comment by UCrawford — November 30, 2007 @ 7:04 am
Afghanistan also allowed drinking when I was there even though it was an Islamic republic. There were a few drinking clubs in town, but the deal was that they were allowed to operate freely as long as they didn’t have a sign out front advertising the place and as long as the patrons didn’t disturb the peace. People there drank, it all just stayed underground…comparable in a lot of ways to Prohibition here.
Comment by UCrawford — November 30, 2007 @ 7:06 am
I agee with your comments, UCrawford. Former co-workers of mine traveled regularly to Saudi Arabia. On the flights to Riyadh, the passengers would imbibe alcohol, purchase the mini bottles, and wear western clothing. As the flight approached its end, the Saudi citizens all headed towards the bathrooms and changed into the local garb, hid the bottles and western magazines, and transformed into the traditional muslim. It seemed to be routine to them; a charade designed to give the pretense that they followed their Sharia laws to a “T”, when in fact they were willfully disregarded when ‘out-of-country’.
Comment by David T — November 30, 2007 @ 7:13 am
When I was in college I had a fraternity brother from Jordan and he once told me that the unwritten rule is that the further you are from Mecca the less of a sin it is. Of course, he didn’t seem particularly devout to begin with since I never saw him pray and he regularly smoked and drank…I think he only claimed to be Muslim for his folks’ sake.
You’re right, David. People from the Middle East often behave very differently once they leave their countries. When they’re in-country, though, the laws are enforced pretty strictly on the locals unless, of course, they’ve got some pull in which case they can do what they want (that whole arbitrary thing again). Foreigners can get away with violating the rules in-country as long as they’re discreet (well, foreigners from Western countries anyway…if you’re a foreigner from the Philippines or Thailand or even Pakistan you’re little better than an indentured servant and the locals can do whatever they want to you whenever they want).
Welcome to the world folks. Is it really that surprising to you that other people live differently than we do?
UCrawford was absolutely correct when he talked about foreigners having to submit to the laws of the country that they are in. Having done five years in the Navy as well as having made many trips to foreign countries on my own time, I can’t remember the number of times that I went through briefings on foreign customs and laws or sat through short classes to become familiarized with the country that I was visiting. As an educator, I would have assumed (incorrectly as we are now finding out) that she would have had some kind of formal training on the customs and laws of Sudan. One thing that is true of many Islamic nations is that they do not tolerate insults to their pedophile prophet. Was she totally ignorant of this reality?
Comment by Justin Bowen — November 30, 2007 @ 10:42 am
Justin,
I hear you on the tutorials…had to sit through a lot of them while I was in the Army. Not that I minded, since the travel opportunities were worth it.
I’m sympathetic with the teacher in this case. She didn’t tell the kids to go name their teddy bear Mohammed…they asked her if they could and she said sure. So the blame over this stupid issue doesn’t really lie with the teacher for making a small, apparently unintentional gaffe, it lies with the kids’ parents for not thoroughly indoctrinating their kids with the rules of their fucked-up version of Islam…they’re simply shifting blame/refusing to accept responsibility (which, sadly, is a staple of Middle Eastern society). And this entire controversy only became an issue when some secretary at the school with an a
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Actually, saying that the Governemt (At all levels) has absolutely no sense of humor is slightly missing the mark. They do have a sense of humor.
As we has born witness to countless instances, Bad jokes are told in congress all the time. And they all have the same punchline: They get signed into law.
Comment by Jimmy Mac — May 4, 2008 @ 7:54 am