This Was Fun, the Celebrate-Ignorance-Conservative

So, I'm on twitter. Just messin' around with the good old #tcot folks (if you don't know what that means, google "hashtags"). Anywho, I get into one discussion like so:



A simple question. If you claim that waterboarding saves lives, any rational person would assume that you have seen some type of evidence to lead you to that conclusion. But there you underestimate the power of the celebrate-ignorance-conservative. This is in no way directed at all conservatives, just the 21%'ers. The real whacko, neocon, gone crazy from losing to Obama, crowd. And the conversation continues:



Still yet to provide one piece of evidence to back up the claim. Just another claim that he or she "could" provide more evidence that torture saves lives than I could about abortion saving lives. Evidence #1. There. Me: 1. Jackass: 0 as of yet.




So classic. The celebrate-ignorance-conservative will be quick to straight out lie about what he just said. The statement was not, in any way, that interrogation saves lives. And then, this:




So nice. You would have thought that this person would walk away, conceding my point. But no. Alas, the celebrate-ignorance-conservative will just delve farther into nonsense when proven wrong.



And more nonsense:



And then, the explosion of nonsense.



So let's get this straight:

Water torture saves lives. No wait. I didn't say that. I said interrogation saves lives. Fine. Interrogation saves lives, water torture doesn't. Well wait. Water torture, is interrogation, so it does save lives. (sticks fingers in ears) BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

Spare Me Your Strict Interpretation of the Law

Nate Kennedy had some great commentary on a leaked memo of GOP talking points. Of course, this memo contained the most traditional GOP talking point, that they believe:

judges should interpret rather than make law...

Yes, yes. We all know, that Republicans think anyone who is progressive is completely incapable of interpreting the law. They even have the nerve to act as if this train of thought is common knowledge, mainstream.

And for some reason, we never seem to ask what a person's interpretation of the law actually is. Yes, judges should interpret the law not make it. That is what judges do, whether progressive or conservative. It is merely a distraction to discuss whether or not a person will interpret the law. We must discuss how that person will interpret law.

Frankly, I find it hilarious that Republicans have the balls to talk all high and mighty about interpreting the law.

On December 1, 2005, Yoo appeared in a debate in Chicago with University of Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel. During the debate Cassel asked Yoo, "If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?", to which Yoo replied "No treaty." Cassel followed up with "Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...", to which Yoo replied "I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that."

So the party of "Yes You Can (crush his testicles)" is going to talk down to me about interpreting the law? You have to wonder where these people learn so well to ignore fact and reason.

Water Torture, Not Water Boarding

I want to thank Devilstower (Mark Sumner) from DailyKos, for pointing something out to me today.

In 2004 the CIA first used the term "water boarding" as a joke on surf boarding. Before that it was called simply "water torture. "

And it is true, not sure about the joke on surf boarding, but the timing is accurate. Wikipedia has a somewhat extensive description of the etymology of the term "water boarding."

While the techniques involved in waterboarding have been used for centuries, the use of the phrase "waterboarding" to describe such techniques is a relatively recent phenomenon.

The first use of the term "water boarding" in the media was in a New York Times article of May 13, 2004:

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding', in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

The American attorney Alan Dershowitz is reported to have been responsible, two days later, for shortening the term to a single word – "waterboarding" – in a Boston Globe article where he stated: "After all, the administration did approve rough interrogation methods for some high valued detainees. These included waterboarding...

So, I have an idea. From now on, we refer to this technique as what it is, "Water Torture." This is not to make it sound worse, rather, we should make it sound exactly as bad as it is. Next time you hear someone use the term "water boarding," please be sure to to enlighten them.

Karl Rove Calls for an End to the Blago Investigation

Karl Rove, evil mastermind, is calling for an end to the investigation into the former Governor of Illinois, or Blago as well all call him. Apparently, Karl is absolutely fed up with the partisan investigations into "policy disagreements" going on in Chicago. And he is not going to stand for it anymore.

“What they've essentially said is if we have policy disagreements with our predecessors... we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses... It may be the way that they do things in Chicago, but that's not the way we do things here in America.”

Stupid Chicago and their stupid investigation into criminal acti.... I mean "policy disagreements." Ooops, I made one mistake. When he said "policy disagreements" he meant torture. Apparently torture is a simple philosophy that should be accepted, just like murder, rape, and genocide. Not crimes against humanity, "policy disagreements."

I have something to say to you Karl: Torture is not, never has been, nor can it ever be, simply a difference of policy. It is a war crime. And investigating a war crime is not a partisan act.

Lastly, if you want to know what it looks like to investigate, in a partisan manner, political opponents, simply for disagreements in policy, take a long look in your own fucking mirror.

Don't Torture, But Tell Them We Do

I guess I have to add my two cents to the torture topic, with the release of Bush admin memos. Talking point number 1 from the GOP is that the release of this information makes us less safe. They say, that telling our enemies about our tactics hurts us. That terrorist now know that if they are captured by the US they will not actually be hurt, therefore reducing our ability to trick them into thinking we will hurt them.

This is the single stupidest argument I have ever heard. Do we want terrorists thinking they will be tortured if caught? Did Japan not use that fear to train their soldiers to fight us until death because capture would be worse than death? I want the world to know, to be completely confident, that the US will not torture them. Have we not seen Al-Qaeda using torture, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo as a tool for recruitment? If we are going to say, as President Bush did (blatantly lying to the American people) that we absolutely do not torture, do we not want the world to know that?

It is simply idiotic, not wrong, idiotic to argue that America should not torture, but should make sure the world thinks we do so they are scared of us. Idiotic. Idiotic. Idiotic.

In the Wall Street Journal, Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey make this idiotic argument, as elegantly as they tried to frame it:

Public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.

Prove it. Actually give us proof of these claims, or shut the fuck up. We as an electorate, can only make accurate decisions about our Representatives if we are informed, so spare me the we have to lie (a lie of omission is still a lie) to you to protect you.

I guess we will call this the "Bluff technique" to anti-terrorism. Do not actually torture but tell the world we do torture. This is what we call speak hard but walk with a soft stick. Simply stupid.