re: #1359 LudwigVanQuixote

NO I actually didn’t. I directed my comments to:

You failed to communicate that effectively.

Fenway was just now going on about how a real trial would be a bad thing because of things like right of discovery.

Which is a valid concern, especially coming from a soldier who’s worried about other soldiers being put in harms way.

Earlier there were a bunch of them still trying to claim that waterboarding is not torture, and a smaller set that said, yes it is, so what.

Waterboarding is torture. Not much to be said about that, really.

So to those… well, they are not so very American in their views at all. Certainly not the America I was taught to believe in, or that their other words about loving liberty and all the patriotic speechification about loving what America stands for would imply.

It’s entirely possible they are still standing up strongly for other parts of what you love about America, and failing on this. They can love liberty, and, because of being human, and having emotions, feel this way about this, and be wrong, and not be unAmerican or bad Americans in general. Being American is not like being a virgin.

No they are hypocrites for the reasons mentioned.

I absolutely guarantee you that I consider your stance on the first amendment way too restrictive and think that your position on it is unAmerican. Does that make you a hypocrite?

They tool real offence at pointing out that nations like Russia and China and North Korea also hold people without any fairness, openness or due process and they too torture. They really hate that the things they are proudly claiming America ought to do are what these other nations actually do.

That comparison was your biggest piece of idiocy, because when people think of those nations, they do not think of torture. They think of far, far worse crimes, committed regularly throughout their history, committed against their own citizens who were no physical threat to them whatsoever, during a time of no turmoil.

I do not forgive those who tortured. I think they have put a black stain on themselves that will never come off. But to pretend that we tortured like China has tortured is ludicrous. It’s like comparing us to the Nazis because we both had camps. It is an entirely false equivalence, based on the idea that if you do this evil thing one time, it is as bad as a million times. It is wrong. Scale does, in fact, matter.

So no, it was quite apt to address them as such. They are jingoistic hypocrites at best and those who would gleefully tear down all America stands for at worst.

And again, I have no idea who you mean by them. Are you still talking about only those who said they endorsed torture? Denied it was torture? Supported indefinite detention? Or are you painting with a broader brush?

Because I took offense to that comment, so it seems you’re talking to me, too.