We are alot of things. Nazis is not one of them.

[Lucifer_Carroll]

(they pm each other)

Um, hate to break your eternal belief of yourself as the victim once again, but there is one unmistakable fact that seems to escape you again and again. It's a forum. That means, surprise of surprise, your comments are public and are read by many. So as a new post goes up that tops the list, its pretty easy to see what it is simply by clicking a button. Considering the similar opinions of the people on this site (you know, writers of smut, people who tend to have well liberal views on smut, and (surprise of surprises) life as well), what may seem coordinated in your eternal quest for martyrdom, is in truth just the natural result of people clicking through and expressing their opinions. No PM is ever sent about it, no conspiracy is hatched to "out" the undesirables. Its all just people's opinions, people's reactions, and people's clicking throughs. No more coordinated or controllable than life itself as it proceeds naturally towards increased entropy.

I've been outnumbered on a belief before in this forum. Sure, it's frustrating, but it's in no way coordinated. It's just the result of more people believing in the opposite of what I believe than don't. To quote the Dire Straits's front man, "That's the way it is."

 

[TheEarl]

So, Jagged, sorry to have gone on so long....there is no easy way to thwart a concerted assault from several directions, simultaneously coordinated(they pm each other) as it is on this site.

Welcome to the fray, hit the books, pick an area, and rip a new asshole here and there....they pretend to ignore...but they really do sit with a little more caution than before...

amicus the irrascible....

I am depressed as hell. And yet Amicus can still put a smile on my face.

Jagged: He's not the best person to take advice from. The last time we had a debate he got crushed and resorted to surrealist arguments. Can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.

The Earl

 

[Pure]

Hi amicus,

You seem confused when you applaud the federal government, whose size and powers you are committed to reducing:

That a federal government would go to war to change the age old concept of slavery, is not acknowledged as a good thing, but rather that we now, 150 years later, should feel guilt...is where the brilliant minds of this forum come to rest.

You imply that the federal gov going to war was a 'good thing' (and that it was done to 'change... the concept of slavery'-- whatever that means).

Do you actually favor the federal armies invading the Southern States and destroying their republican governments and their voluntary confederacy?

Surely, as a believer in individual and states' right, and minimum gov consistent with national defence and a policing function, you know that the federal gov became immensely strengthened by the civil war; troops ended up in the 'sovereign state' of Mississippi as they would in the 60s. Further the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments immensely strengthened the federal gov., in particular the 14th:

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the US, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, libery, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection fo the laws."

From this flows decisions about birth control, e.g., Griswold, about women, including abortion rights, and is the basis [with the 15th] of Johnson's Civil Rights Laws of the 60s.

Whatever you think of the substance (though it's no secret), note that this amendment makes the federal government the supervisor of the states' alleged 'business' (sovereign matters, so called).

Further the federal government therefore has a right to *enforce* its views--ultimately the the troops and federal marshalls can be sent in, as they were in the 60s and 70s.

A consistent libertarian or even an inconsistent one with extreme moral crotchers, such as yourself can hardly applaud the 14 th amendment, and by implication, most extreme 'rightists' reject all amendments after the first 10 or after the Civil War.

I know you don't favor slavery of Black people, just of women (Black and White), but surely you don't want the federal soldiers being called in to end any form of slavery or abridgment of equal protection. Do you?

 

[KarenAM]

So, Jagged, sorry to have gone on so long....there is no easy way to thwart a concerted assault from several directions, simultaneously coordinated(they pm each other) as it is on this site.

Welcome to the fray, hit the books, pick an area, and rip a new asshole here and there....they pretend to ignore...but they really do sit with a little more caution than before...

amicus the irrascible....

Huh? No one ever PM's me! (Except sometimes to say they like my stories)

I feel so left out now....

 

[shereads]

Huh? No one ever PM's me! (Except sometimes to say they like my stories)

I feel so left out now....

Smoove A is just making a joke, Karen. He and I PM each other about you and Luc all the time, but only good things.

 

[KarenAM]

Smoove A is just making a joke, Karen. He and I PM each other about you and Luc all the time, but only good things.

Phew! That's good to know! Thanks!

 

[amicus]

Pure....it is election night...and I, like many, will be preoccupied, you do recall Fort Sumpter? I think...where Southern forces who had seceded from the Union fired the first shots?

The other amendments I will look at again and try to see your point...the protection of the rights of citizens of the United States derives from the obligation of the Federal Government to protect those rights.

Perhaps later....


amicus...

 

[Boxlicker101]

I was reading a book once by a Jewish historian, Katz** who was seeking to compare the holocaust to other exterminations. Both in numbers and % killed. For instance, wasn't about a third of European Jewry killed?

According to him, after examining several possible parallels, only the extermination of the North American Indians was equal or greater in scope. (As is known, some tribes were wiped out, so that no person remained--Beothuks in Canada.)

Well, on the thread topic. Who did this extermination. The North Americans.

Of course there is a problem comparing evils, esp. of different periods. In one period, people are herded into a church and it's burned; in another it might be a gas chamber. Transportation and its efficiency varies. There are a number of 'classical' exterminations that were rather complete, e.g., of Carthage; Ai, in the Bible; some of Genghiz Khan's conquests.

We also have to look at methods, say poison gas versus taking out a city's water supply. In Sher's column, we have a 'high' figure for excess 'dead' in Iraq. 100,000. The lower 'body count' is usually given as 10-20,000.

A common US method is the use of intermediaries, e.g., the secret police in, say El Salvador. Some of these fellows are *really* like Nazi's, though with lesser military power. They are funded by the US, and the police often trained by the US. So here the US is 'merely' funder and trainer of nazi-like groups.

According to the US, one must look at motives, primarily. The US ones are pure; others, like France and Russia, tainted with 'selfish' interests. Hence US killings have a better moral aroma.

Back to Bush. No, not a Hitler. A funder, supporter, and supplier, in the family tradition, of mini Hitlers like Saddam, Osama, and others, yes. (Where did Saddam get his poison gas and anthrax from?).

----
**
Title: The Holocaust in Historical Context: The Holocaust and Mass Death Before the Modern Age (Holocaust in Historical Context) (F)

Author: Steven T. Katz ISBN: 0195072200

Publisher: Oxford University Press Date published: May 1, 1994

Sorry to take so long to respond but I have to ask: What about the massacre in Cambodia? I believe about a third of the population was murdered by Pol Pot and his followers. As a percentage of the population, that was worse than anything Hitler did. Please don't take this as anything good about Hitler, I am just pointing out another monster. I believe also that the Celtic invasian of Ireland two thousand year ago may have been worse. I believe they exterminated the entire indigenous population. Of course, that could hardly be considered the modern age.

As for the Indians, I believe they were wiping themselves out long before the White man helped them along. Some of the tribes ceased to exist after warfare with others. Tht illini come to mind and there were probably others. Again I am not defending anybody, just adding my opinion to the thread.

 

[Pure]

ami said,

The other amendments I will look at again and try to see your point...the protection of the rights of citizens of the United States derives from the obligation of the Federal Government to protect those rights.

My point in three sentences:

The power of the federal gov grew immensely during and in the aftermath of the civil war. (see the amendments).

The kind of supreme ct decisions you don't like (labeled 'activist'), usually involve 'minority' rights, denied under some state law-- let's say, of women to purchase diaphragms; of protesters to burn a flag. The 14 amendment figures large in decisions of the supreme ct expanding a number of 'rights' over state objections.

Example:
http://www.quoteworld.org/docs/scroe716.php

Roe v. Wade,

A couple excerpts from the Supreme Court decision, illustrating the use of the 14th amendment

Summary of the case


The principal thrust of appellant's [Roe's]attack on the Texas statutes [outlawing abortion, except where the life of the mother is at stake]is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal "liberty" embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972);...



Part of the finding:


This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

...
A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment....

 

[Boxlicker101]

The Shah of Iran was run out of Iran but then reinstalled by a British and American coup over a democratically elected leader named Mossadeg. Iran was America's major ally in the Middle East after Israel throughout the Shah's reign, despite SAVAK and his blatant violations of human rights. Iran was equipped with the most modern American military hardware available as a deterrent against the Soviets getting a warm water port.

Saddam was supported by both the Reagan and senior Bush administrations, and as little as a week before Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 Bush Sr.'s administration was fighting for him against Congress, who were becoming concerned with his abuses of his people. The Americans turned a blind eye and impeded the UN from pursuing Saddam after he gassed Iraqi Kurds.

These are just two examples that sound like more than just recognition to me.

nd Pure added:

Ogg said,

During WWII Winston Churchill proposed thanks to the Soviet Union for joining the fight against Germany. Some Member of Parliament asked him "What would you say, Winston, if the devil was fighting against Nazism?"

Winston replied: "If he was on our side against Hitler the least I could do would be to make a complimentary remark about his Infernal Highness."

This WWII analogy applied to the US support of despots over the last 50 years is pretty laughable-- about the same as Bush's recent analogy of Japan in 1946 to Iraq now-- the US bringing freedom in both cases.

IF one is being attacked, and in mortal peril from greater Devil A (Hitler), and his deadly enemy lesser Devil B offers you a hand (and wants some help in return), of course you throw in with Devil B.

What the Brits and Americans did in Iraq is hardly comparable.
The Brit engineer, Gerald Bull was helping Saddam make a 'supergun.' The figures for British aid are cited in the article below. The US was supplying Saddam in the war against Iran (see below). That makes Iraq, devil B. So who is the greater devil A, and what danger was he to the Brits or the US?

Is it Iran? So are you saying that in the 1980s, Iran was to Britain and the US, like Hitler had been in the early 1940s? Utter nonsense.

Right now neither the US nor Britain are under attack by any state. There is no 'Devil A', in the form of a (neighboring) state. Hence propping up a despot and his state has no strong justification. To give an example, the US chooses to arm the Saudis and the Pakistanis, for various reasons, e.g., oil, in Saudi Arabia. But this doesn't make the Saudis like Stalin, for it's entirely unclear who the "Hitler" would be. Indeed, I hear the Saudis are now arming the insurgents in Iraq.

Hi, Karen and Pure. Sorry to take so long to respond but I do have other things that I must do.

From the end of WW2, the primary goal of the Anglo-American alliance was the containment of the USSR. This was done by forging a chain of alliances around the USSR and their allies or client states. When Mohammad Mossadeq was elected PM of Iran, he was seen as a threat to the stability of the area and to the supply of oil so we arranged to overthrow him and reinstall the shah. He already had substantial support so it didn't really take much. This was not recruiting, elevating to power or training but it was certainly supporting a return to power. It was done because it was seen to be in the best interest of the US, the UK and their allies. Out of curiosity, do you think the shah was worse than Khomeini?

Later, when the shah was overthrown, Khomeini was seen as a threat to the pro-Western nations of the Middle-East, with his potential for overthrowing their governments and replacing them with theocracies, possibly one large nation. In the war with Iraq, the US supported Saddam. Iraq had been a Soviet client and this was seen as possibly bringing him over to our side. Like it or not, he was seen as the Stalin against Hitler, who was the USSR and they would have beeen extremely happy to capitalize on Mideast disruption.

The war was a standoff, with heavy death and destruction on both sides but Khomeini was never able to achieve anything that we feared he might try to do. By the time this war ended, the Soviet Union had collapsed, meaning the Anglo-American strategy had been successful. Saddam was known to be a viscious brute so when he was no longer needed, and he invaded Kuwait, he had to be stopped. With his military might, he was a threat to the whole Arabian peninsula. He was expelled from Kuwait but I still think it was a mistake not to take out Saddam then, either by allied forces or by supporting and arming those Iraqis who were in opposition. Mostly, you have to blame Bush Senior and partly you have to blame Clinton, who could have taken action.

Saudis probably are supporting the insurgents in Iraq. I won't refer to them as "Iraqi insurgents" because most of them are from other countries, including Saudi Arabia. Most of the 9-11 terrorists were Saudis.

The United States has done some repugnant things over the last sixty years. However, when a mugger is going for your throat with a switchblade, the Marquis of Queensbury rules do not apply. I live in the state of California. Personally, I believe that if it hadn't been for those who are sometimes scornfully referred to as "Cold Warriors", it would be the California Soviet Socialist Republic. I'm glad it isn't and I thank these people for preventing that.