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bleeding heart

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Everything posted by bleeding heart

  1. Sorry, Newfoundlander, I don't get what you mean.
  2. "Rioters" is euphemistic (via your own implied formulation), since most of the protesters are not rioters.
  3. Sure, I didn't mean to overstate. But we both agree that the US reigns supreme militarily, in most ways, including conventional warfare. But this wasn't stupidity. They weren't altruists trying to save a people from a dictator, so the point is moot. Perhaps things could have been done better, yes, you're probbaly right. But it would still be an awful situaiton. I don't doubt things could have been better--they always can be better. But it was destined to have an insurgency, which after all began immediately. That's true, but I don't think they're comparable. The coalition were not opposed to dictatorships...they like dictatorships. They were not there to spread democracy; they despise democracy, unless it causes no problems for them. They were not there for humanitarian purposes. So without good intent, I don't see how one could ever do a job with humane outcomes, except maybe now and then by a fluke. In short, I don't think blaming the Bush administration, and solely them, is quite fair. It's an institutional issue of imperial overreach. The Democrats would have fared just as poorly, though they'd receive, perhaps, more international support from the coterie of international sycophants (which makes up every Eastern European ally in that war, without exception, all of whom went against their public's expressed wishes. Canada too, for that matter, though our leaders were smart enough not to trumpet it to us, and the Americans helped them by not shouting about it either.)
  4. Fixing it within the justice system, so that it's not a two-tiered system...and all it would involve is taking our stated principles of justice seriously. I'm saying we should stop pretending that a theft of something more valuable in dollar terms is automatically a more serious crime. It isn't. My point entirely. But that is not the way things work. Of course not. But one of them affects the victim's life more profoundly than does the other. And the way that the seriousness of much property crime is assessed, thanks to institutional factors (and a general worship of wealthy people and hatred of the poor), is to determine that the more the victim has, the more serious the crime. Of course. I'm not talking about lawyers, but about the unquestioning obedience to unjust aspects of the system within which the lawyers must operate. A huge bail amount means a wealthy person stays home before his trial, and a poor person sits in jail. We could say "life is unfair," but that's about free people who get a bum deal...not about our actual system of justice, in which different rules apply, supposedly. And an expensive lawyer is going to give you a better chance of acquittal, or a better chance at a milder sentence, than is a court-appointed lawyer. (There are exceptions, obviously, but this is generally the case.) That is not "justice." It really, really isn't. It's the opposite.
  5. Until you direct me to your more "balanced" approach, and show where you've posted about the brutal treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis, you are insisting, right here and now, that you are fanatically racist against the Arab people. It's not as if it's one-sided the other way, Signals. Why are you holding bud to such a higher standard than you are holding yourself????
  6. Sigh. You say any "dipper" (you know, of the party you voted for, but now claim they're a bunch of insane socialists) would "downplay" the horrible fact that many high-income earners support the NDP. I countered with an obvious and uncontroversial fact: that the NDP, exactly like the other major parties, attracts supporters from a wide range of economic backgrounds. I'm wondering why this critique of the NDP is not applied to the other parties, when it incontrovertibly applies to them as well?
  7. Completely divorced from my point, which you don't address at all. I wasn't comparing the POS car to life savings; I was comapring it to more expensive cars, notably status symbols people buy for the sake of bragging rights. The fellow with the little, rusty beater is generally hurt more by theft than the fellow with the "look at me!" piece of conspicuous consumption. But the law takes the latter's "loss" more seriously. If you're genuinely concerned about the rot of the justice system, you'd be concerned about the classist, elitist forms which favour the middle, upper-middle and wealthy classes over everybody else. Inherently. Built right in to the system. Unless you agree that moneyed folks should have access to "justice" more amenable to their wants and desires.
  8. Yes, so the professional Hate-the-Left Red-baiters, who are mostly dumb as rocks, mean as rattlesnakes, and as subservient to Power as anyone you could find, keep throwing tantrums about. So...these Latinos aren't part of the "real" population, and as their numbers rise, it connotes the fall of the West? Or the fall of Empire, surely a moment of great sadness for everybody? What the hell are you talking about? (At any rate, this particular "liberal leftist socialist" has had three children...have you been doing your part in Saving "Our" Culture, Manny?)
  9. As you know from our many discussions, I am not sympathetic to Nazis...much less pretending they never existed. (???) Neither do I deny this sordid chapter for the Palestinians....none of whom now have anything to do with Nazism, but have legitimate grievances. I'm pointing out two incontrovertible truths: 1. Criticism of Israel does not in any way connote, much less denote, anti-semitism. That is, even though a few anti-semites are going to use the situaition for their own rhetorical bile, that doesn't paint the critics wholesale...and those who say that it does, are lying, or are ignorant in the manner of the patently servile. Using political correctness to try to "win" a debate. 2. The lion's share of anti-semites reside, as they long have, on the political Right, and are mostly inhabited by people who think the Arabs are even worse, being subhuman, unlike the Jews who are human but "evil." They too will criticize Israel, but fall in what amounts to them as an intellectual conundrum: the Arabs are rotten to the core, too....so where to turn?
  10. Once again: a person should not be compelled to keep another person alive through enforced will of others upon her own body. The crucial point all along, and one which you seem unwilling to address. It is the entire point. That you think the hypothetical ridiculous doesn't matter in the face of this fact. I used the hypothetical only to explain something to you. But that's fine; never mind the analogy. Delete it from your sensibilities. If it's bad, or if you think it's bad, never mind it. It doesn't affect the matter to which it was meant to point, not one iota. The fact (with which you agree at least up to a point) remains what it is. Then you're quite hopeless, AW.
  11. He should have titled this thread "The French Suck," and be done with it. That's the primary point here, after all.
  12. The NDP, like the other major parties, has a broad-based appeal to people from different socio-economic classes. Obviously. Here in NB, although the party doesn't win much, it has long, long had support from a broad swath of low-income working class types, many of whom are fairly socially conservative. I don't know why you--who has spent some time saying how you voted for the NDP, and the rest of the time insulting the "socialists" who vote for them--are now implying that the NDP should be beholden to a single economic type of voter (for...some reason, unstated)....but the other parties need no such restrictions.
  13. I doubt that Canada or the US are more like any other country than they are like each other.
  14. I agree with some of this, but there are other injustices built into the system which don't bother you...that you even imply that you support. For example, the "POS" car: well, the fact is, if I stole my cousin's two thousand dollar car, the impact on a person's life is far, far greater than if I stole a wealthy fellow's hundred thousand dollar "look at me!" accessory. But the latter is a more serious crime...because the stolen good is worth more, not because of the impact upon the victim's life. There are in fact plenty of top-down class-warrior, elitist issues with the justice system. If you can afford an expensive lawyer, your outcome will likely be better. So, ok, you can buy your justice, to a degree, and this comes from the premise that those with money deserve better everything...including how they are treated for their crimes. Even exorbitant rates of bail are based explicitly on an elitist impulse in society. Mind you, none of this undermines what you've been saying; if anything, it adds to it.
  15. 20% is too high! Hell, any amount is too high!
  16. What can ignoring responses to one's own remarks (even as one quotes those responses) do but prove who is an honest debater or not? Why do you not support honest debating practices?
  17. On the other hand, bowel movements are necessary, and so can be justified on that basis......
  18. And who's going to be sued, exactly? Millions of women, millions of their men as enablers, massive numbers of health-care professionals, and scores of politicians and lawmakers? And who is going to receive the money? All the righteous souls who oppose abortion?
  19. Whether or not it could ever work--and I have my doubts like almost everybody else--you make a good point. The Soviet revolutionaries despised Lenin-Trotsky, worried about authoritarianism. Correctly, as we see. There were supposed to be Worker's Councils (quickly dismantled by the dictators, as it turned out), grass-roots democratic groups, the whole bit.
  20. Exactly. Since the correct answer can only be a direct repetition of the poster's own views, there's no actual desire for a discussion here.
  21. There is no such thing as "thwarting Darwin," much less "Darwin's desire." edit: Even so, Peter F.s response is an excellent rejoinder to the op. Good stuff.
  22. I don't think bud considers Hitler his "hero," and he has in fact regularly denounced Palestinian suicide bombings--expressly because they are a direct attack on civilians. Rather, his primary focus is on the party he considers to be more criminal. By your formulation, you are racist against the Arab people, and wish them all to be murdered. And yet somehow I sincerely doubt this is the way you feel. Y'all got to stop throwing around the anti-semite card so promiscuously. It adds zero to the debate...and in fact, is meant specifically to avoid having an intelligent debate at all. That's the purpose of using the term so brazenly and in such an all-encompassing way. It is an unprincipled way of appearing to take a moral high-ground. It's wanton political correctness, in other words. Extreme political correctness, to a degree rarely seen in any other debate issue. If you want to argue with people who are genuinely and uncontroversially anti-semites, you'll need to go head-to-head with the right-wingers at Stormfront and its sister-sites; that's where the real anti-semitism resides. Condemning Israel is not anti-semitic, in effect or in inclination; it's a nation-state, a geopolitical entity, and this overrides its ethnic/cultural/religious and political makeup, by definition. Whether the critiques are correct or not doesn't change that.
  23. Why, yes, American Woman. Without feeling like an ignoramus. You noticed I wrote "ut in this hypothetical," didn't you? Or in your rush to toss insults around, did you miss the first, and crucial, clause? There are lots of bad laws, and lots of poor debates.
  24. I'd say "zero" rather than "few." It was doomed either way. The intiial fight was won quickly and easily, and then Iraqis were immediately in the streets shouting "Fuck Saddam, Fuck the USA!" The insurgency was immediate also, and (despite the well-oiled propaganda) it was not mostly "terrorists" or "Ba'athist holdovers," but rather a nationalist movement against international aggressors. The coalition could have had ten times as many personel, and these issues would still have existed. The only difference is that the coalition would have ended up killing more Iraqis, and the terrorists maybe would have killed fewer. I don't know if it's 20/20 hindsight, because critics were making the case at the time...and were derisively ignored by the little aristocrats in power, and by the little wannabe-aristocrats who defended their every move.
  25. And what have you--you, personally, Tilter--accomplished?
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